5 things I love about my wife
1) She doesn't ever keep score. We've been married for almost six years now, and in that time I've done and said plenty of stupid things. If she were the sort of person who held on to old hurts, she could make me feel pretty miserable. If she were the sort of person who needed a fair distribution of work and responsibilities for the house to function, I'd be in her constant debt. In fact, if J kept score at all, I think that our marriage would have started to look like that sad caricature of the couple who can't even enjoy being around each other because they have to keep up their leverage for the next fight. J forgives, never demands whats owed her, and pours herself out freely. There's a word for that, and it's grace.
2) She is really really talented. You get used to a person when you live for them long enough, so I'm not always conscious of the fact that J is the same girl who came into college playing jaw-dropping Brahms and Ginastera on the piano, and not only that, but was instantly the best flute player in school. It's easy to forget that she was a 4.0 student who wrote the best history papers in her class, edited everyone else's homework, and was also the captain of the all-star softball team. And tested out of theory and aural skills. And could sight sing anything put in front of her and recognize any harmonic progression immediately. And now she's my wife, and I'd almost forget all those things, except that she keeps on being talented and being offered jobs at Hochstein and revitalizing the church where she works.
3) She is a big picture person. She went for four years without any sort of clothing line in the budget. She loves new clothes. But she is incredibly patient, and she is much better about constantly minding the budget than I am. She knows when we need rules for the house, and when it's okay to splash in the mud puddles, even though that's against the rules. (More for James than me.)
4) She takes really good care of us. The most thrown together end-of-the-month leftovers we eat are so much better than anything I ever ate in grad school. She does laundry, she washes dishes, she packs meals, she remembers what I forget, and she stays awake when I come home late. All that would be amazing by itself, but it's even more special because she loves taking care of her men, and it's really obvious.
5) She is really, really, really good-looking. You just can't quite ever get used to it, either. You'd think that after living together for almost six years that it wouldn't be a big deal for your wife to walk inside the door, but when J comes inside it still feels like an event.
5 things I love about my son
1) He loves Steven Bear SO much. It warms my heart just to think about how much he cares for that grubby little bear. Whenever I put him to bed at night he holds him close to his face, and when I get him up in the morning he's usually sitting in his crib and snuggling him. He talks to him (they laugh a lot) takes him everywhere, and is the first thing he reaches for when he's scared or upset. When he eats, Steven has to sit next to him in the booster seat and have food on his tray. (J told me that today James wouldn't even open his mouth for food unless Steven "ate" it first.) The other night J said to me "I worry about that bear...I worry that he won't last as long as James is going to need him." I laid in bed and thought about how heartbroken James would be if (may it never happen) we lost Steven. It made me happy to see him nodding at Steven as they "chatted" when I got him up the next day.
2) Sometimes when I come home J will take James over to the window, and he'll watch me walk up the driveway and the front walk. He grins the whole way, and starts to bounce as I get closer. When I get to the door he'll start laughing and smush his nose up against the glass. It's really nice to know that someone is that happy to see you.
3) He climbs everything now. He isn't very good at it, but he's figured out that he can get on top of stuff if he gets his leg up. It's hysterical to watch him pit-patting over to the rubbermaid blockade in front of the stairs (he needs a running start) and then to lift his left leg up as high as it can go, trying so hard to get it up onto some sort of foothold. He can't get up more often than not, but when he does manage to get up on the blockade or the sofa, he'll just perch there for a few seconds with the most smug and pleased 15-month old grin you can imagine.
4) He loves bath time again. I don't know that he's quite as excited to be in the water as he used to be, or to play with his bath toys, but he loves to KICK. As soon as we lay him down he gets a big grin and looks at us, and then he flails his legs until he has so much water in his eyes that he has to stop. He loves it when we react with "indignation" and he's taken to shrieking as he goes. Occasionally he'll work up to a big "double-barreled" kick where he raises both legs up as high as they can go and then slams them down with a yell. Our bathroom floor is very wet in the evenings.
5) He is still little enough to hold comfortably, and he loves being held. Every once in a while when he comes running up with his arms lifted high, I'll think to myself "Again? James..." and then I think about how little time is left when he'll want to be held by his Daddy. And he's not that heavy yet. He is just the right size for holding.
5 things I love about playing the trumpet
1) I used to get genuinely scared of playing a part other than first trumpet. Did it mean that I wasn't good enough? That I wasn't the best trumpet player in the room? Now I love section playing. I love section playing of all kinds. It is deeply satisfying to play the low note of an octave with another trumpet player and to strike the note precisely in tune with just the right articulation and color. It's satisfying to zap the offbeats with a three or four man section at a pops concert, and it's satisfying to do a slow crescendo in a soft brass chorale that builds and builds until the power of the section is shaking the stage.
2) The stereotype of the average meathead trumpet player is that he only wants to play one color: bright-high-loud. But there are so many colors in the sound of the trumpet, and it really is a joy to practice well-written music and explore them all. There's a loneliness in Quiet City that's hard to capture, and some of the sweetest trumpet moments are in the big Strauss pieces. It's great to play loud and brassy, of course, but there's also a fascinating palette of low sounds for the Carmen prelude and Shostakovitch 5. Practicing for an hour or two really is like putting colors on canvas.
3) It's really nice to have new etudes to practice. I got a new etude book in the mail last week, and it's been a blast to work through it. Even the smell of the manuscript paper is exciting. And not only is it good to have new material to practice, it makes all the old etudes fresh again when you come back to them with new ideas.
4) The trumpet is not too big. Can you imagine having to lug a cello or a harp everywhere? To have to drag that thing out to your car every day, let alone traveling by airplane? Every door would be an ordeal, and forget about going up and down stairs. On the other hand, oboes and clarinets are too small. If I played the oboe I'd lose my instrument once a week. Plus, they're to delicate. If you accidentally drop a trumpet, you might have to get a dent removed. If you accidentally drop an oboe, you're out $7000. I'd much rather play the trumpet
5) You can never have it all figured out. It's always a challenge to play high, loud, soft, low, fast, beautiful, and whatever else is difficult to do on the trumpet. And, contrary to what anyone will tell you, not even the truly great ones have it all figured out. There is always a note that isn't quite secure or an interval that's a little difficult. And that's what makes it so satisfying to play the trumpet well.
5 things I love about living in Western New York
1) There's coffee everywhere. As someone who has personally lived in the South, I can attest to the fact that you have to go to a mall to find any sort of coffee shop, and even then it's usually a Starbucks. (I think there was one Dunkin Donuts about 6 miles away from where I worked.) Here, there's a Tim Horton's in every little hamlet, not to mention all of the local coffee shops. If you need coffee, you can find it. And living here, we need coffee.
2) Yes, the snow is no fun to drive in. But I do love the snow. When you're home for the day and it's snowing outside, it's hard to imagine anything more beautiful. And as much as snow can be ugly when it's all browned and salted, it's beautiful when it's laying all white in the backyard and nested in the trees. I might be an old man in Florida some winter, but for now I love the winters here.
3) The Buffalo Bills. Chris Kelsay retired yesterday, which anywhere else in the league would have been a two sentence blurb at the bottom of the paper. Who cares about a backup defensive end? But in Buffalo, if you've lived with the team and suffered with the team and really get what the city is about, you'll always be a hero. It's a very unique fraternity of suffering up here...but the team means more here than any glitzy big city with multiple championships in storage.
4) My family lives here. I have five siblings, and they are absolutely my favorite people and my best friends. Not one of them lives more than a half-hour away. I'm trying very hard not to take this season for granted.
5) The RPO is here. I loved living in Chicago and going downtown to watch the CSO. I love listening to the New York Phil on the radio and hearing the great orchestras play live. There will never be an orchestra for me like the RPO, though. I still can't believe that I get to sit under the great chandelier at Eastman and play with them sometimes. It's a privilege like nothing else I do.
5 things I'm loving reading
1) Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It's absurdly long. Gibbon made a lot of mistakes, and he brings some pretty ridiculous assumptions to the story from 17th century England. But it's an amazing book for anyone who's even remotely interested in Rome or Christianity, and I actually find myself wishing it was longer sometimes. I accidentally left it on the bench in the foyer at school today, so I'm hoping I still have my copy when I go in tomorrow!
2) 1 Peter. Just when you think you have the Koine vocabulary pretty well figured out you read 1 Peter and find yourself in the lexicon twice a sentence. It's unlike anything else in the New Testament stylistically and theologically. I need some recommendations for Petrine criticism, if anyone has any, and I'm sure that I'm only scratching the surface with my current notes.
3) Iliad book 14. The battle beside the ships is at fever pitch, and just when you think it has to be settled one way or another the troops regroup and it starts again. It would collapse into boring repetition if it was anything else, but the clanging of bronze and the speeches of heroes are like an old fine wine.
4) Metamorphoses Book II, which I was reading from an old school primer that stopped after Phaethon's fall. I started reading it on my trip out to San Francisco, and once I got back I stayed up late several nights to scribble out a translation in my notebook. I may need to buy a real copy of this sometime soon.
5) Dickens. I finished Pickwick Papers a few days ago, and am in Dickens withdrawal. The world just isn't quite as rosy when you aren't looking through the windowpanes of Dingley Dell every evening. Plus, Dickens' endings are never quite right. I suspect this is because the stories ought to go on forever.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Vacation...
February break was all about cleaning.
We cleaned EVERYTHING in our house. Well, we never got around to wiping out the microwave, but Pax and Kylie actually gave us a new microwave, so we can just throw the old one out without wiping out the baked on food scuzz.
I decided that we were cleaning on Sunday afternoon. J's parents had just left to drive back to PA, and I informed J that tomorrow would be our spring cleaning day. She played along, and I made lists of projects to do for each room.
Monday came along, and I got up at 6 AM to get started. I put on some coffee, pulled on a grungy sweater, and began by sorting all of James' toys.
THINGS I FOUND IN JAMES' TOY BIN:
A racquetball, four measuring cups, a remote control, and fingernail clippers
James got up around 6:45 and promptly started pulling out and emptying all the bins and baggies of toys that I had neatly organized and put away. I have no idea how J even remotely keeps up with the house when I'm working a normal week.
We cleared counter space, threw away unused coffee mugs, cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, swept, dusted, emptied all the trash from the upstairs and the downstairs, ran five loads of laundry, folded five loads of laundry, put away five loads of laundry, took three bags of old clothes to the Goodwill, moved furniture from the downstairs to the upstairs, sorted books, moved furniture from the downstairs to the garage, moved furniture from the garage to the downstairs, put away towels and linens, cleaned under the beds, hung up dress clothes, sorted our storage boxes, sorted two filing cabinets worth of music, vacuumed the carpets, held James as he ran in terror from the vacuum, washed the dishes, broke a wine glass, cleaned up the wine glass, sorted tax information, paid old bills, organized the closet, cleaned out both cars, and even gave James a bath.
We slept well on Monday night.
The rest of the week was glorious in a less productive but much more restorative way. I got my suits dry cleaned for the first time ina month year several years, and I played a Gershwin show with Symphoria out in Syracuse. When I saw that there was a number on the program called "Slap That Bass" I told J "I guarantee you that whoever the trumpet player was before me has crossed out one letter of that title.
And just as surely as the title of "La Mer" is suffixed, the eraser marks were still visible.
I was bummed to go back to school today.
But it sure is nice to come back to a clean house.
We cleaned EVERYTHING in our house. Well, we never got around to wiping out the microwave, but Pax and Kylie actually gave us a new microwave, so we can just throw the old one out without wiping out the baked on food scuzz.
I decided that we were cleaning on Sunday afternoon. J's parents had just left to drive back to PA, and I informed J that tomorrow would be our spring cleaning day. She played along, and I made lists of projects to do for each room.
Monday came along, and I got up at 6 AM to get started. I put on some coffee, pulled on a grungy sweater, and began by sorting all of James' toys.
THINGS I FOUND IN JAMES' TOY BIN:
A racquetball, four measuring cups, a remote control, and fingernail clippers
James got up around 6:45 and promptly started pulling out and emptying all the bins and baggies of toys that I had neatly organized and put away. I have no idea how J even remotely keeps up with the house when I'm working a normal week.
We cleared counter space, threw away unused coffee mugs, cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, swept, dusted, emptied all the trash from the upstairs and the downstairs, ran five loads of laundry, folded five loads of laundry, put away five loads of laundry, took three bags of old clothes to the Goodwill, moved furniture from the downstairs to the upstairs, sorted books, moved furniture from the downstairs to the garage, moved furniture from the garage to the downstairs, put away towels and linens, cleaned under the beds, hung up dress clothes, sorted our storage boxes, sorted two filing cabinets worth of music, vacuumed the carpets, held James as he ran in terror from the vacuum, washed the dishes, broke a wine glass, cleaned up the wine glass, sorted tax information, paid old bills, organized the closet, cleaned out both cars, and even gave James a bath.
We slept well on Monday night.
The rest of the week was glorious in a less productive but much more restorative way. I got my suits dry cleaned for the first time in
And just as surely as the title of "La Mer" is suffixed, the eraser marks were still visible.
I was bummed to go back to school today.
But it sure is nice to come back to a clean house.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Bears in the Garbage
I sat in our old well-worn armchair this morning with a carafe of fresh hot coffee beside me and the Pickwick Papers open on my lap. I was in my oldest and most comfortable pair of slippers, warm socks, pajamas, and my flannel bathrobe. The sun was coming in through the east windows, and I could see big flakes of snow gently coming down outside. I had several hours before leaving for church, and I had nothing to do but keep an eye on James and work on my book and my coffee.
It was perfectly peaceful and relaxing. The house was quiet.
The house was quiet.
...something was wrong.
Sure enough, I stood up and walked into the kitchen.
The lid was off of the trash can, and James was sitting on the floor sucking on his fingers, which he was reaching into the plastic carton of blueberry yogurt I'd had for breakfast. (Again.)
After I cleaned him up and found some toys for him to play with, I went back to one of my favorite chapters in Dickens, chapter 28 of Pickwick Papers. Here are some of the highlights:
"Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness"
"As they turned into a lane they had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before they had even had time to form a guess as to whom they belonged, they walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their arrival--a fact which was first notified to the Pickwickians by the loud 'Hurrah' which burst from old Wardle's lips when they appeared in sight."
"No I ain't, sir," replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys--the immortal Horner--he had been devouring a Christmas pie, though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterized that young gentleman's proceedings.
Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn't be done by deputy; to which the young lady with the black eyes replied "Go away"--and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do--"if you can."
When they were all tired of blind-man's bluff, there was a great game at snapdragon; and when fingers enough were burnt with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a might bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look and a jolly sound that were perfectly irresistible.
The chapter following is the great story of Gabriel Glum and the goblin king, which is exactly the sort of thing that I would have been confused about and disliked (but what happened to the real story) before I was officially converted to Dickens. I could tell, even from the old Great Illustrated Classics versions of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, however that Dickens' characters simply had to stick. They are too memorable to be boring, even if you're nine years old and all the humor is going over your head.
Maybe it was the Christmas joy and merriment from Pickwick (along with some beautiful upstate snow) that made the afternoon so wonderful. I met J and her parents for lunch at an old restaurant that used to be a train depot in Leroy, and had the most wonderful half an hour waiting for the them to arrive. As I sat at our table with menu in hand looking out the windows and around the dining room, I couldn't help grinning to myself knowing that my wife would be arriving and lighting up the room, dressed up in a cute outfit for church, the youngest and the prettiest in the room, and toting a cute baby boy to boot. (He was fascinated by a model train that ran upside down on the ceiling, and he made a great game of dropping silverware on the floor on purpose.)
And NOW I'm off for a whole week to play at home snowed in with both of them and to sleep, clean, practice, relax, eat, drink, and be merry. And to finish Pickwick Papers. And, apparently, to keep a better eye on the trash.
It was perfectly peaceful and relaxing. The house was quiet.
The house was quiet.
...something was wrong.
Sure enough, I stood up and walked into the kitchen.
The lid was off of the trash can, and James was sitting on the floor sucking on his fingers, which he was reaching into the plastic carton of blueberry yogurt I'd had for breakfast. (Again.)
 |
| Not the only type of bear who gets into garbage |
After I cleaned him up and found some toys for him to play with, I went back to one of my favorite chapters in Dickens, chapter 28 of Pickwick Papers. Here are some of the highlights:
"Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness"
"As they turned into a lane they had to cross, the sound of many voices burst upon their ears; and before they had even had time to form a guess as to whom they belonged, they walked into the very centre of the party who were expecting their arrival--a fact which was first notified to the Pickwickians by the loud 'Hurrah' which burst from old Wardle's lips when they appeared in sight."
"No I ain't, sir," replied the fat boy, starting up from a remote corner, where, like the patron saint of fat boys--the immortal Horner--he had been devouring a Christmas pie, though not with the coolness and deliberation which characterized that young gentleman's proceedings.
Whereupon Mr. Winkle gallantly inquired if it couldn't be done by deputy; to which the young lady with the black eyes replied "Go away"--and accompanied the request with a look which said as plainly as a look could do--"if you can."
When they were all tired of blind-man's bluff, there was a great game at snapdragon; and when fingers enough were burnt with that, and all the raisins were gone, they sat down by the huge fire of blazing logs to a substantial supper, and a might bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary wash-house copper, in which the hot apples were hissing and bubbling with a rich look and a jolly sound that were perfectly irresistible.
The chapter following is the great story of Gabriel Glum and the goblin king, which is exactly the sort of thing that I would have been confused about and disliked (but what happened to the real story) before I was officially converted to Dickens. I could tell, even from the old Great Illustrated Classics versions of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, however that Dickens' characters simply had to stick. They are too memorable to be boring, even if you're nine years old and all the humor is going over your head.
Maybe it was the Christmas joy and merriment from Pickwick (along with some beautiful upstate snow) that made the afternoon so wonderful. I met J and her parents for lunch at an old restaurant that used to be a train depot in Leroy, and had the most wonderful half an hour waiting for the them to arrive. As I sat at our table with menu in hand looking out the windows and around the dining room, I couldn't help grinning to myself knowing that my wife would be arriving and lighting up the room, dressed up in a cute outfit for church, the youngest and the prettiest in the room, and toting a cute baby boy to boot. (He was fascinated by a model train that ran upside down on the ceiling, and he made a great game of dropping silverware on the floor on purpose.)
And NOW I'm off for a whole week to play at home snowed in with both of them and to sleep, clean, practice, relax, eat, drink, and be merry. And to finish Pickwick Papers. And, apparently, to keep a better eye on the trash.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Confessions
1) I was driving 51 mph in the town of Clarendon yesterday, and I got pulled over, and it was no one's fault but my own. I thought through several different ways to write about the experience. I considered arguing that I wasn't actually going 51 mph, and that the cop might not have clocked me accurately since I was coming up a hill. I considered justifying my error by claiming that I was driving J's car, or complaining that I was going at the flow of traffic. I thought of complaining that the speed trap outside the fire station is a dirty trick and that the 35 mph zone is just a way to fleece out-of-towners. I even considered sidestepping the issue of fault altogether and writing about how angry and frustrated the whole experience made me feel. But no, all of those don't matter. I was speeding. And I was caught. And it was my fault.
2) Whether or not I have a "good" day or a "bad" day depends way too much on how well my practicing goes for that particular day. If I hit all the high notes and my lips feel good, I usually come home with a smile on my face. If my chops feel off and I keep on fizzing out or cracking notes, I come home with a scowl. Today was a good day. I practiced a bunch of really hard etudes, put in some good work on some orchestral excerpts, and had an effortless day on the piccolo trumpet. If everything else in my day had been exactly the same but I'd had lousy practicing, I would have come home a grumpus. This is not fair to James and J, and it's an immature way to approach practicing.
3) I watch the clock when I teach lessons. I try to be subtle, but I'm almost always thinking "okay, ten more minutes until this student leaves, and then I can check my email and read for a few minutes before my next student comes." It'd be one thing if I was teaching a whole class, but I see most of my students either one-on-one or in small groups. There's no reason why they shouldn't have my full attention. To be honest, the really good students get most of it. But for a lot of my students, I'm only paying three-quarters attention at best, and that's shameful. I would have been devastated if I'd found out any of my private teachers were watching the clock and waiting for me to leave.
4) My 12 days of Valentines project for J fell apart badly. I was supposed to have a video ready last Friday, and it didn't happen. We were going to have a movie night on Saturday, and I never got the movie. There were several other events that fell through as well, and the ones that I managed to get done on time weren't nearly as funny or romantic as I'd hoped. I sort of gave up towards the end. There wasn't really a good reason why, either. We're still going to do the date I had planned for the 14th, but even that's going to be scaled back from the original plans.
5) Sometimes when James and I are playing outside in the snow it will be time for him to go inside. (I can tell he's just as cold as I am.) But I know that if I pick him up and carry him inside, he'll scream bloody murder because he wants to stay out. Sometimes I'll let him fall over in the snow on purpose so that he gets upset and needs to be held, and wants to go in where its nice and warm.
2) Whether or not I have a "good" day or a "bad" day depends way too much on how well my practicing goes for that particular day. If I hit all the high notes and my lips feel good, I usually come home with a smile on my face. If my chops feel off and I keep on fizzing out or cracking notes, I come home with a scowl. Today was a good day. I practiced a bunch of really hard etudes, put in some good work on some orchestral excerpts, and had an effortless day on the piccolo trumpet. If everything else in my day had been exactly the same but I'd had lousy practicing, I would have come home a grumpus. This is not fair to James and J, and it's an immature way to approach practicing.
3) I watch the clock when I teach lessons. I try to be subtle, but I'm almost always thinking "okay, ten more minutes until this student leaves, and then I can check my email and read for a few minutes before my next student comes." It'd be one thing if I was teaching a whole class, but I see most of my students either one-on-one or in small groups. There's no reason why they shouldn't have my full attention. To be honest, the really good students get most of it. But for a lot of my students, I'm only paying three-quarters attention at best, and that's shameful. I would have been devastated if I'd found out any of my private teachers were watching the clock and waiting for me to leave.
4) My 12 days of Valentines project for J fell apart badly. I was supposed to have a video ready last Friday, and it didn't happen. We were going to have a movie night on Saturday, and I never got the movie. There were several other events that fell through as well, and the ones that I managed to get done on time weren't nearly as funny or romantic as I'd hoped. I sort of gave up towards the end. There wasn't really a good reason why, either. We're still going to do the date I had planned for the 14th, but even that's going to be scaled back from the original plans.
5) Sometimes when James and I are playing outside in the snow it will be time for him to go inside. (I can tell he's just as cold as I am.) But I know that if I pick him up and carry him inside, he'll scream bloody murder because he wants to stay out. Sometimes I'll let him fall over in the snow on purpose so that he gets upset and needs to be held, and wants to go in where its nice and warm.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
A Savory Supper
"How was your meeting this morning?"
J gave me only a weary look in reply.
"Didn't you go to Jitters?"
"Yes, we went, but James made sure that the meeting was very short."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Aren't there high chairs and toddler seats at Jitters?"
"Yes, but he was not cooperative."
I didn't press the issue any further. Any time I'd ever taken James to a coffee shop he'd done fine when he sat in a high chair. If you gave him food, he'd be happy. If the food failed, a bottle or sippy cup would do. And if he didn't even want a sippy cup, there was always Steven Bear. But, I reasoned, it must have been a particularly bad morning for James. Or maybe J had forgotten a bottle. Because why else would he be ill-behaved in a public place?
It turns out that James is officially big enough to be deliberately ill-behaved in public places. This, which J learned at Jitters, was confirmed for me last night. J and I had been planning for a week to go out to a Savory Supper at our old church. There were several reasons for this, which I list here in no particular order:
-We never go to church functions together, since we go to separate churches
-We don't go out to eat very often
-James and J don't get out of the house when it's cold out
-We don't spend time with people other than immediate family members and co-workers
-We're always washing dishes. It would be nice to have a night off from dishes
So a "Savory Supper" seemed like a good way to have a cheap meal out with church friends that we didn't have to prepare or clean up! And we could bring James, of course. He'd have a great time.
I moved the Wednesday evening trumpet lesson I usually teach, and we drove into church for the Savory Supper. As we expected, the majority of the crowd there was in the 65 and older crowd. (After all, the supper started at 4:45.) We paid for our tickets and made our way into the big fellowship hall/gymnasium. James looked around warily. We found a booster seat for him, and looked for people we might know.
We didn't see anyone.
"Let's sit over at that table. That looks empty."
"No, said J "the whole point of this is to spend some time with other people. Let's at least sit near someone else, even if we don't know them."
So we sat near some friendly looking older folks, and J insisted that I go get some food while she set up James in the booster. He was very wiggly.
I loaded up my plastic cafeteria-style tray with beef au-jus, steamed carrots, a salad, yogurt, a dinner roll, and italian sausage. I was hungry and fairly excited to start eating. When I got back to our table James was fussing loudly.
"He's very hungry" said J "and he keeps on asking for food and trying to get down. Can you give him some of yours while I get in line?"
James loves carrots, so I tried to give him a bite of carrot. He shut his mouth tight and turned away, then tried to climb out of his seat. I held him down and offered him a bite of beef. He shook his head no, and tried to climb out again.
"James, are you hungry?"
He nodded yes and made his please sign.
"Would you like some yogurt?"
Another nod, another please sign.
I offered him some yogurt. He pushed away the spoon and tried to get down again. He ended up getting both legs out of the booster, and I was trying to wrestle him in when J arrived back. We decided that maybe a high chair would be a better restraint than a booster seat, and then he could at least touch and explore the food on the tray. I jogged back to the entrance and dragged over the one remaining high chair.
As soon as I put him in the high chair he began to shriek. Loudly.
"This is what my meeting was like the other morning."
I understood now why "Weren't there high chairs?" was a dumb question. He still wouldn't eat any of the food ("but James, it's savory!") and I eventually pulled him out of the high chair so he could get down and run around. So much for having a meal together.
I'd managed to get more gulps of my own food down than J, so I took the first shift with James. There was a big open space on one side of the gym, and I carried him over to set him down. He'd been attempting to twist out of my arms for the entire walk over, so I figured he must want to do some running and exploring.
I set him down, and he immediately gave a loud whine (sort of an rrrrmmmmm!!!!!! sound that isn't really a consonant or a vowel) and motioned to be picked up again. I picked him up, and he flailed in my arms trying to get down. I set him down, and he immediately clung to my knees and begged to be picked up. I looked at J, who was eating all alone at a deserted table, clearly eating as fast as she could so that she could get me back to my dinner.
We traded off for a few minutes, and I finished most of what was left on my tray. When I went back to James he'd discovered a small one foot wide ledge by the enormous 20-foot windows at the edge of the gym. It appeared to make him happy to walk the length of the ledge back and forth while keeping his balance and making little finger smudges on the glass. As I trailed behind him keeping a steady hand out to catch him in case he fell, I heard the sound of little footsteps behind me.
I turned to look and saw a little blonde boy about 4 years old running up to me, and his slightly older-looking brother right behind.
"Hi, what's his name?" he asked, pointing at James.
"This is James. What's your name?"
"I'm Jason."
"And I'm Myles!" piped his brother.
"Do you want to see how fast I am?"
Knowing how important it is to be fast when you're a four year old boy, I told him that I did, and when his brother asked I told him that I wanted to see how fast he was too.
They were very fast. They ran around the gym with such speed that they didn't even have time to see which older people they were crashing into, and when they came back they wanted to know all about James and if we would play with them.
I said that we would. I told them how old he was, and how long ago he was born. (These were separate questions. The younger brother, learning that he was 14 months old, wanted to know whether he was born this week or earlier.) I learned that Myles was born on June 2nd, and Jason was born March 15th. Or maybe May 15th, he couldn't remember which. They were not impressed that I was born in August. That is too far away for a birthday.
Their mother came over after awhile, and then J came. She said to James "I see that you've made a new friend!"
"Hey," interrupted the older brother defensively "he's made two new friends!"
J was very apologetic. The boys also showed her how fast they were, and we attempted to have some polite conversation with their mother while the boys showed James their window-ledge balancing tricks and he tried to touch the dinosaurs on Jason's shirt.
I would periodically rush over to catch James from falling off the ledge (It was only a few inches off of the carpet, but still.) and answer all manner of questions about which brother might be fastest. At one point I lost track of where they were, and then one of them grabbed my legs from behind and popped his head between them, twisting it up to tell me I wasn't playing with them enough.
They were very upset when we left, but I had to get back home to teach my trumpet lesson. James was fussy on the way back, because he was still very hungry. He kept his hunger at bay however, when we did a quick ten-minute clean of the downstairs before my student arrived. He toted around a spatula and walked behind us. When I put two teddy bears and started to straighten the couch blankets, he pulled the teddy bears out again. When I put books back on the shelves, he immediately pulled the same books out again and put them in their proper places on the floor. He even emptied the tupperware cabinet again as soon as J left the kitchen.
We're thinking of a new nickname for him...Control Z.
J gave me only a weary look in reply.
"Didn't you go to Jitters?"
"Yes, we went, but James made sure that the meeting was very short."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Aren't there high chairs and toddler seats at Jitters?"
"Yes, but he was not cooperative."
I didn't press the issue any further. Any time I'd ever taken James to a coffee shop he'd done fine when he sat in a high chair. If you gave him food, he'd be happy. If the food failed, a bottle or sippy cup would do. And if he didn't even want a sippy cup, there was always Steven Bear. But, I reasoned, it must have been a particularly bad morning for James. Or maybe J had forgotten a bottle. Because why else would he be ill-behaved in a public place?
It turns out that James is officially big enough to be deliberately ill-behaved in public places. This, which J learned at Jitters, was confirmed for me last night. J and I had been planning for a week to go out to a Savory Supper at our old church. There were several reasons for this, which I list here in no particular order:
-We never go to church functions together, since we go to separate churches
-We don't go out to eat very often
-James and J don't get out of the house when it's cold out
-We don't spend time with people other than immediate family members and co-workers
-We're always washing dishes. It would be nice to have a night off from dishes
So a "Savory Supper" seemed like a good way to have a cheap meal out with church friends that we didn't have to prepare or clean up! And we could bring James, of course. He'd have a great time.
I moved the Wednesday evening trumpet lesson I usually teach, and we drove into church for the Savory Supper. As we expected, the majority of the crowd there was in the 65 and older crowd. (After all, the supper started at 4:45.) We paid for our tickets and made our way into the big fellowship hall/gymnasium. James looked around warily. We found a booster seat for him, and looked for people we might know.
We didn't see anyone.
"Let's sit over at that table. That looks empty."
"No, said J "the whole point of this is to spend some time with other people. Let's at least sit near someone else, even if we don't know them."
So we sat near some friendly looking older folks, and J insisted that I go get some food while she set up James in the booster. He was very wiggly.
I loaded up my plastic cafeteria-style tray with beef au-jus, steamed carrots, a salad, yogurt, a dinner roll, and italian sausage. I was hungry and fairly excited to start eating. When I got back to our table James was fussing loudly.
"He's very hungry" said J "and he keeps on asking for food and trying to get down. Can you give him some of yours while I get in line?"
James loves carrots, so I tried to give him a bite of carrot. He shut his mouth tight and turned away, then tried to climb out of his seat. I held him down and offered him a bite of beef. He shook his head no, and tried to climb out again.
"James, are you hungry?"
He nodded yes and made his please sign.
"Would you like some yogurt?"
Another nod, another please sign.
I offered him some yogurt. He pushed away the spoon and tried to get down again. He ended up getting both legs out of the booster, and I was trying to wrestle him in when J arrived back. We decided that maybe a high chair would be a better restraint than a booster seat, and then he could at least touch and explore the food on the tray. I jogged back to the entrance and dragged over the one remaining high chair.
As soon as I put him in the high chair he began to shriek. Loudly.
"This is what my meeting was like the other morning."
I understood now why "Weren't there high chairs?" was a dumb question. He still wouldn't eat any of the food ("but James, it's savory!") and I eventually pulled him out of the high chair so he could get down and run around. So much for having a meal together.
I'd managed to get more gulps of my own food down than J, so I took the first shift with James. There was a big open space on one side of the gym, and I carried him over to set him down. He'd been attempting to twist out of my arms for the entire walk over, so I figured he must want to do some running and exploring.
I set him down, and he immediately gave a loud whine (sort of an rrrrmmmmm!!!!!! sound that isn't really a consonant or a vowel) and motioned to be picked up again. I picked him up, and he flailed in my arms trying to get down. I set him down, and he immediately clung to my knees and begged to be picked up. I looked at J, who was eating all alone at a deserted table, clearly eating as fast as she could so that she could get me back to my dinner.
We traded off for a few minutes, and I finished most of what was left on my tray. When I went back to James he'd discovered a small one foot wide ledge by the enormous 20-foot windows at the edge of the gym. It appeared to make him happy to walk the length of the ledge back and forth while keeping his balance and making little finger smudges on the glass. As I trailed behind him keeping a steady hand out to catch him in case he fell, I heard the sound of little footsteps behind me.
I turned to look and saw a little blonde boy about 4 years old running up to me, and his slightly older-looking brother right behind.
"Hi, what's his name?" he asked, pointing at James.
"This is James. What's your name?"
"I'm Jason."
"And I'm Myles!" piped his brother.
"Do you want to see how fast I am?"
Knowing how important it is to be fast when you're a four year old boy, I told him that I did, and when his brother asked I told him that I wanted to see how fast he was too.
They were very fast. They ran around the gym with such speed that they didn't even have time to see which older people they were crashing into, and when they came back they wanted to know all about James and if we would play with them.
I said that we would. I told them how old he was, and how long ago he was born. (These were separate questions. The younger brother, learning that he was 14 months old, wanted to know whether he was born this week or earlier.) I learned that Myles was born on June 2nd, and Jason was born March 15th. Or maybe May 15th, he couldn't remember which. They were not impressed that I was born in August. That is too far away for a birthday.
Their mother came over after awhile, and then J came. She said to James "I see that you've made a new friend!"
"Hey," interrupted the older brother defensively "he's made two new friends!"
J was very apologetic. The boys also showed her how fast they were, and we attempted to have some polite conversation with their mother while the boys showed James their window-ledge balancing tricks and he tried to touch the dinosaurs on Jason's shirt.
I would periodically rush over to catch James from falling off the ledge (It was only a few inches off of the carpet, but still.) and answer all manner of questions about which brother might be fastest. At one point I lost track of where they were, and then one of them grabbed my legs from behind and popped his head between them, twisting it up to tell me I wasn't playing with them enough.
They were very upset when we left, but I had to get back home to teach my trumpet lesson. James was fussy on the way back, because he was still very hungry. He kept his hunger at bay however, when we did a quick ten-minute clean of the downstairs before my student arrived. He toted around a spatula and walked behind us. When I put two teddy bears and started to straighten the couch blankets, he pulled the teddy bears out again. When I put books back on the shelves, he immediately pulled the same books out again and put them in their proper places on the floor. He even emptied the tupperware cabinet again as soon as J left the kitchen.
We're thinking of a new nickname for him...Control Z.
Monday, February 4, 2013
A Day in the Life of a Fool
6:00 AM
My alarm goes off, the "marimba" ringtone on my phone. I roll out of bed, find my slippers in the dark, and make my way downstairs
6:03 AM
Put on water for coffee, grind beans, wash out french press
6:07 AM
Bowl of frosted shredded wheat
6:10 AM
I sit on the couch with my cereal and the french press on the end table and the Iliad in my lap, translating Book 13
6:16 AM
Coffee is ready. I plunge it, pour a cup, and get out my Vulgate Bible to read the last part of Jeremiah chapter 5
6:28 AM
Metamorphoses Book 2
6:41 AM
The gospel of John, chapter 19
6:51 AM
I do a quick scan through the BBC news on my phone
6:52 AM
James starts to cry upstairs. I go up and turn on his light. He's sitting in his crib rubbing his eyes and looking grumpy. I pick him up (with Steven and binky) and we pick out a button-up shirt for me to wear from my closet in his room. He attempts to tip over the humidifier when I set him down. We go into the bathroom and he watches me brush my teeth, apply deodorant, and put in my contacts, all with great interest. I change his diaper, then bring him into our bedroom. He sits on J, who is a sleep, then immediately rolls of the bed and wants to be held again.
7:13 AM
I go out the front door to vehement protestations by James, scrape off the windshield of the Neon, and connect my phone to the tape adapter. I listen to my practice sessions from the day before on the drive to LCS
7:51 AM
I chat briefly with the vice principal in the parking lot, who was sick the week before.
7:57 AM
I sift through my desk for a piece of blank paper, make a handwritten copy of the week's lesson schedule, xerox it in the copy room, and leave copies in the relevant mailboxes.
8:03 AM
Homeroom for the senior class.
8:26 AM
Back at my desk, I turn on my laptop so that it can start it's glacial powering-on routine. I "straighten" my desk and begin to read Dickens' Pickwick Papers
8:45 AM
19 minutes later, my school laptop has finished logging in. I check my school email and respond to a few messages that came in overnight
9:00 AM
Time to practice. I carry my horns down to the chapel, warm up, pull out two etude books, and record miniature performances of four different endurance-intensive etudes
9:45 AM
I pack up my instruments and walk back to my room
9:47 AM
I put on a cup of Keurig coffee and do a google search for "Briticisms." (More on that later)
9:57 AM
Three high school flute players and an oboist come to my room for a lesson. We work on some of the technical passages from Barber of Seville
10:45 AM
The school bells are going off at odd times. My band eventually trickles in, and I rehearse them on the 20 bars of Barber of Seville they were supposed to have practiced at home. They do surprisingly well. They read Stars and Stripes Forever for the second time, and it goes very badly. With dismissal bells still sounding at the wrong times, I send them out for lunch my keeping track of the time with my phone
11:36 AM
Lunch. I have two slices of leftover pizza and a raspberry yogurt cup while looking through more Briticisms. The idea is to collect enough to write a letter to J using only British slang as part of an ongoing "12 days of Valentine" project. (Counting only days when we'll actually see each other in the evening. Today, for example, doesn't count.) Earlier days have included a Greek alphabetic acrostic set of adjectival index cards, and a parenting playbook with actual football playcards organized in a three ring binder. At some point the office makes a very flustered announcement apologizing for the confusion about the bell schedule.
12:04 PM
I finish writing the letter. It is not particularly romantic, but it might be a little funny. And it also might vindicate me from the oft-recurring charge of Anglophilia. (Let the record show that I just finished a book of American literary criticism.) I walk down to the staff room to wash out my mug and heat up water for a cup of cocoa.
12:10 PM
One of my two high school clarinets tells me that her stand partner is going home sick and asks if they can come together to the make-up lesson on Wednesday. I give permission and get out my trumpets to practice some more in my room.
12:50 PM
J and I text a little bit, and then FaceTime so that I can say hello to James. He is excited to see me and plays peek-a-boo a couple of times, but then gets down from J's lap and tries to see if he can find me behind her iPad. He doesn't have any luck.
1:01 PM
My music theory student comes down for me to review his homework. (Intervals) We talk about triads of all sorts and I help him through the first couple exercises. Another senior percussion student comes down attempting to drop band in order to get another study hall. He is profoundly unsuccessful in this endeavor.
1:38 PM
My theory student leaves and I answer several new emails that have come in
1:45 PM
More Pickwick Papers.
2:11 PM
I write a letter of recommendation for a student and take care of several emails for my church account.
2:19 PM
I find a cleaner copy of Mendelssohn's Lord Hear My Prayer than the scrawled version I originally handed out to them and print it to distribute on Wednesday.
2:23 PM
I go out to the front entrance for bus duty. It is very very cold. The kids are too chilly to even think about throwing snowballs. They go straight to their buses.
2:40 PM
An emergency faculty meeting is convened about the clock crisis. Despite desperate fears, it appears the school will remain open. If all else fails, the staff may be asked to rely on individual time-keeping devices tomorrow. The mood is tense.
2:52 PM
I check my voicemail, and one of my HSM students has cancelled for the evening.
2:54 PM
I brew another cup of Keurig coffee and translate a few verses in Hebrew from Genesis.
3:06 PM
I submit my attendance for the day and begin to pack up my desk and my trumpets
3:18 PM
I leave the school lot, fill up at the gas station down the road, and listen to my practicing from earlier in the day while driving to HSM, where I park on the street
3:55 PM
I see several very stressed looking bassoon players who I've met at various gigs sitting on couches in the library. "RPO auditions?" I ask one of them. He nods. I wish him luck and head upstairs, where I meet a new student. His name is Steven, he is in the fourth grade, and he has a lisp. I do not tell him how I will remember his name, but I am pleased to meet him. His Mom wants him to start trumpet earlier than the rest of his class, because she wants to make sure he gets the trumpet when he picks instruments. (He has wanted to play the trumpet since he was five, and he likes to listen to the Canadian Brass.) I think Steven is a swell fellow.
4:30 PM
My second student comes in. We go searching in the library at the end of his lesson for a new duet book, but we can't find the one I'm looking for.
5:02 PM
A later student calls to confirm we are still on for a lesson. I practice more etudes.
5:35 PM
My little 5th grade Asian student comes in ten minutes early. She tells me that she practiced part A of the duet because A is for Anna. And B is for me. "Anna," I say "do you know what my name actually is?" She is quiet for a second, then says "No. You're in my phone as Mr. Trumpet." I do not tease her about this, because her mother is listed in my phone as "Anna's Mom."
6:05 PM
My last student is also early. He forgot his duet book, so I play (very badly) the accompaniment to "Theme from New World Symphony" and write out several bugle calls for him at the end of his lesson. He is also in 5th grade, and he came tonight with his shirt inside out. It was an Abercrombie shirt, and it had several lovely tags.
6:36 PM
I walk out to my car to drive to North Chili. On Monday evenings James spends a fifteen minute "handoff" period with our friend Joy while J goes to orchestra but before I can pick him up after my last lesson. She is very gracious about watching him, and he loves her pet songbird.
6:56 PM
I arrive at Joy's and as soon as James sees me he grins from ear to ear, yells "Dada!" and barrels into me. I give him a big hug, pick him up, and find out that I only missed J by two minutes or so--James just got his coat off. He is very eager to show me the bird, and we chat for a few minutes.
7:05 PM
James is bundled up and we are ready to drive home for the night. We flip through all three classical stations and nobody is playing anything but harpsichord music. I ask James what he thinks of this, and he laughs.
7:15 PM
We arrive home and James is deeply upset that I don't let him play outside. (It is dark out and he is not wearing anything on his feet except socks.) I suspect that he is overtired. We take his coat off and hang it up, and he wants to be held very badly. We heat up water for his bottle, and he fusses some more when I set him down to wash a bottle out.
7:18 PM
We change his diaper upstairs. He laughs a little bit and plays peek-a-boo, and when we walk out of the room he waves "good-bye" to the humidifier. When we go downstairs the bottle isn't quite ready, and he points and signs "please" repeatedly to play with the blender. Eventually he is mollified by listening to the recording of Grandma and Grandpa Davis reading "All the Ways I Love You."
7:26 PM
I take James, Steven, and the bottle upstairs. We snuggle in his rocking chair, and he covers his eyes with Steven while I give him the bottle. He drinks the whole thing nice and slowly, and then I lay him down in his crib for the night and turn on the humidifier.
7:37 PM
I straighten up stray toys in the living room and put away all of the books that James tore off the shelves over the course of the day. My Liddell and Scott Lexicon no longer has a cover.
7:45 PM
Dinner. I heat up some homemade beef stroganoff from the other night and have half of an orange with it.
7:51 PM
I wash some of the dishes that are left in the sink. There was a mountain when I left this morning. J must have spent at least an hour getting as many done as she apparently did.
8:01 PM
Upstairs for a shower, shave, and clean pajamas.
8:06 PM
I pour a glass of brandy and begin to write a narcissistic blog post...
My alarm goes off, the "marimba" ringtone on my phone. I roll out of bed, find my slippers in the dark, and make my way downstairs
6:03 AM
Put on water for coffee, grind beans, wash out french press
6:07 AM
Bowl of frosted shredded wheat
6:10 AM
I sit on the couch with my cereal and the french press on the end table and the Iliad in my lap, translating Book 13
6:16 AM
Coffee is ready. I plunge it, pour a cup, and get out my Vulgate Bible to read the last part of Jeremiah chapter 5
6:28 AM
Metamorphoses Book 2
6:41 AM
The gospel of John, chapter 19
6:51 AM
I do a quick scan through the BBC news on my phone
6:52 AM
James starts to cry upstairs. I go up and turn on his light. He's sitting in his crib rubbing his eyes and looking grumpy. I pick him up (with Steven and binky) and we pick out a button-up shirt for me to wear from my closet in his room. He attempts to tip over the humidifier when I set him down. We go into the bathroom and he watches me brush my teeth, apply deodorant, and put in my contacts, all with great interest. I change his diaper, then bring him into our bedroom. He sits on J, who is a sleep, then immediately rolls of the bed and wants to be held again.
7:13 AM
I go out the front door to vehement protestations by James, scrape off the windshield of the Neon, and connect my phone to the tape adapter. I listen to my practice sessions from the day before on the drive to LCS
7:51 AM
I chat briefly with the vice principal in the parking lot, who was sick the week before.
7:57 AM
I sift through my desk for a piece of blank paper, make a handwritten copy of the week's lesson schedule, xerox it in the copy room, and leave copies in the relevant mailboxes.
8:03 AM
Homeroom for the senior class.
8:26 AM
Back at my desk, I turn on my laptop so that it can start it's glacial powering-on routine. I "straighten" my desk and begin to read Dickens' Pickwick Papers
8:45 AM
19 minutes later, my school laptop has finished logging in. I check my school email and respond to a few messages that came in overnight
9:00 AM
Time to practice. I carry my horns down to the chapel, warm up, pull out two etude books, and record miniature performances of four different endurance-intensive etudes
9:45 AM
I pack up my instruments and walk back to my room
9:47 AM
I put on a cup of Keurig coffee and do a google search for "Briticisms." (More on that later)
9:57 AM
Three high school flute players and an oboist come to my room for a lesson. We work on some of the technical passages from Barber of Seville
10:45 AM
The school bells are going off at odd times. My band eventually trickles in, and I rehearse them on the 20 bars of Barber of Seville they were supposed to have practiced at home. They do surprisingly well. They read Stars and Stripes Forever for the second time, and it goes very badly. With dismissal bells still sounding at the wrong times, I send them out for lunch my keeping track of the time with my phone
11:36 AM
Lunch. I have two slices of leftover pizza and a raspberry yogurt cup while looking through more Briticisms. The idea is to collect enough to write a letter to J using only British slang as part of an ongoing "12 days of Valentine" project. (Counting only days when we'll actually see each other in the evening. Today, for example, doesn't count.) Earlier days have included a Greek alphabetic acrostic set of adjectival index cards, and a parenting playbook with actual football playcards organized in a three ring binder. At some point the office makes a very flustered announcement apologizing for the confusion about the bell schedule.
12:04 PM
I finish writing the letter. It is not particularly romantic, but it might be a little funny. And it also might vindicate me from the oft-recurring charge of Anglophilia. (Let the record show that I just finished a book of American literary criticism.) I walk down to the staff room to wash out my mug and heat up water for a cup of cocoa.
12:10 PM
One of my two high school clarinets tells me that her stand partner is going home sick and asks if they can come together to the make-up lesson on Wednesday. I give permission and get out my trumpets to practice some more in my room.
12:50 PM
J and I text a little bit, and then FaceTime so that I can say hello to James. He is excited to see me and plays peek-a-boo a couple of times, but then gets down from J's lap and tries to see if he can find me behind her iPad. He doesn't have any luck.
1:01 PM
My music theory student comes down for me to review his homework. (Intervals) We talk about triads of all sorts and I help him through the first couple exercises. Another senior percussion student comes down attempting to drop band in order to get another study hall. He is profoundly unsuccessful in this endeavor.
1:38 PM
My theory student leaves and I answer several new emails that have come in
1:45 PM
More Pickwick Papers.
2:11 PM
I write a letter of recommendation for a student and take care of several emails for my church account.
2:19 PM
I find a cleaner copy of Mendelssohn's Lord Hear My Prayer than the scrawled version I originally handed out to them and print it to distribute on Wednesday.
2:23 PM
I go out to the front entrance for bus duty. It is very very cold. The kids are too chilly to even think about throwing snowballs. They go straight to their buses.
2:40 PM
An emergency faculty meeting is convened about the clock crisis. Despite desperate fears, it appears the school will remain open. If all else fails, the staff may be asked to rely on individual time-keeping devices tomorrow. The mood is tense.
2:52 PM
I check my voicemail, and one of my HSM students has cancelled for the evening.
2:54 PM
I brew another cup of Keurig coffee and translate a few verses in Hebrew from Genesis.
3:06 PM
I submit my attendance for the day and begin to pack up my desk and my trumpets
3:18 PM
I leave the school lot, fill up at the gas station down the road, and listen to my practicing from earlier in the day while driving to HSM, where I park on the street
3:55 PM
I see several very stressed looking bassoon players who I've met at various gigs sitting on couches in the library. "RPO auditions?" I ask one of them. He nods. I wish him luck and head upstairs, where I meet a new student. His name is Steven, he is in the fourth grade, and he has a lisp. I do not tell him how I will remember his name, but I am pleased to meet him. His Mom wants him to start trumpet earlier than the rest of his class, because she wants to make sure he gets the trumpet when he picks instruments. (He has wanted to play the trumpet since he was five, and he likes to listen to the Canadian Brass.) I think Steven is a swell fellow.
4:30 PM
My second student comes in. We go searching in the library at the end of his lesson for a new duet book, but we can't find the one I'm looking for.
5:02 PM
A later student calls to confirm we are still on for a lesson. I practice more etudes.
5:35 PM
My little 5th grade Asian student comes in ten minutes early. She tells me that she practiced part A of the duet because A is for Anna. And B is for me. "Anna," I say "do you know what my name actually is?" She is quiet for a second, then says "No. You're in my phone as Mr. Trumpet." I do not tease her about this, because her mother is listed in my phone as "Anna's Mom."
6:05 PM
My last student is also early. He forgot his duet book, so I play (very badly) the accompaniment to "Theme from New World Symphony" and write out several bugle calls for him at the end of his lesson. He is also in 5th grade, and he came tonight with his shirt inside out. It was an Abercrombie shirt, and it had several lovely tags.
6:36 PM
I walk out to my car to drive to North Chili. On Monday evenings James spends a fifteen minute "handoff" period with our friend Joy while J goes to orchestra but before I can pick him up after my last lesson. She is very gracious about watching him, and he loves her pet songbird.
6:56 PM
I arrive at Joy's and as soon as James sees me he grins from ear to ear, yells "Dada!" and barrels into me. I give him a big hug, pick him up, and find out that I only missed J by two minutes or so--James just got his coat off. He is very eager to show me the bird, and we chat for a few minutes.
7:05 PM
James is bundled up and we are ready to drive home for the night. We flip through all three classical stations and nobody is playing anything but harpsichord music. I ask James what he thinks of this, and he laughs.
7:15 PM
We arrive home and James is deeply upset that I don't let him play outside. (It is dark out and he is not wearing anything on his feet except socks.) I suspect that he is overtired. We take his coat off and hang it up, and he wants to be held very badly. We heat up water for his bottle, and he fusses some more when I set him down to wash a bottle out.
7:18 PM
We change his diaper upstairs. He laughs a little bit and plays peek-a-boo, and when we walk out of the room he waves "good-bye" to the humidifier. When we go downstairs the bottle isn't quite ready, and he points and signs "please" repeatedly to play with the blender. Eventually he is mollified by listening to the recording of Grandma and Grandpa Davis reading "All the Ways I Love You."
7:26 PM
I take James, Steven, and the bottle upstairs. We snuggle in his rocking chair, and he covers his eyes with Steven while I give him the bottle. He drinks the whole thing nice and slowly, and then I lay him down in his crib for the night and turn on the humidifier.
7:37 PM
I straighten up stray toys in the living room and put away all of the books that James tore off the shelves over the course of the day. My Liddell and Scott Lexicon no longer has a cover.
7:45 PM
Dinner. I heat up some homemade beef stroganoff from the other night and have half of an orange with it.
7:51 PM
I wash some of the dishes that are left in the sink. There was a mountain when I left this morning. J must have spent at least an hour getting as many done as she apparently did.
8:01 PM
Upstairs for a shower, shave, and clean pajamas.
8:06 PM
I pour a glass of brandy and begin to write a narcissistic blog post...
Sunday, February 3, 2013
An Explanation
When J arrived back from church this evening I was holding James up to the spice cabinet in nothing but a diaper and his fall jacket with Christmas music blasting in the background.
Her exact words were: "I'm listening."
James and I have had, as you might have guessed, an awesome past two days. Yesterday he came to visit me at my school and stayed the whole afternoon. It was Spirit Day, so there was loud and obnoxious teenage music, there were loud and obnoxious teenage games in the gym all afternoon, and most of all there were loud and obnoxious teenagers. I don't have a lot of patience with loud and obnoxious teenagers yet. I'm hoping that as James grows up I find hitherto undiscovered reserves of patience and grace. Or maybe he could just skip teenagedom all together. That would be fine too.
So yesterday he stayed with me from lunch to dismissal, and he had a blast. He watched the kids play dodge ball and desperately wanted to join in, then toted around a stray blue foam ball and yelled at the top of his lungs while the big kids played knockout. (He would periodically set the ball down and applaud with wild enthusiasm when he heard other people clapping or was moved by the Holy Spirit.)
When the big surly seniors blasted mind-numbing hip-hop music (presumably Christian mind-numbing hip-hop music) through two amplifiers and I covered my ears in annoyance, James danced and grooved and shot flirty looks at the high school girls who were doting on him. Once we'd finished bus duty and gone back to my band room we decided not to stay for the basketball games. Well, I decided not to stay for the basketball games. James would have loved to stay, but I was teenaged out. I carried him, his diaper bag, Steven, his bottle, and five trumpets out to the car. He is getting heavy. And he loves school.
Today was another great day. We went outside twice to see the bunnies and spent most of the day coloring with crayons. (J and I discovered, to our dismay, that some of the coloring time was apparently spent on our bannister. Does anyone have any extra eggshell-white paint?) Things started to go downhill when J left for church, which was how he ended up half-naked in the spice cabinet.
The spice cabinet is actually fairly easy to explain. We need the spice containers to build towers, and sometimes for bowling. Well, mostly for towers. And as far as James is concerned, we only build the towers so that we can have something to knock down. So he and I built towers for awhile once J left, and then I smelled something very stinky. "James," I said "Do we need to change your diaper?"
He nodded and trundled over to the stairs. We climbed the stairs and went into his nursery, and as I changed his diaper I thought to myself: "Well, it's 6:00 now. Bedtime is at 7:30. He usually doesn't take his bath this early, but if I put him in now he could just wear this diaper to bed."
"James, would you like to take a bath?"
He nodded with great excitement.
I stripped him the rest of the way while singing his bath-time song (Bath-time for a James Bear, bath-time for a James Bear, bath-time for a James D. Bear, which nobody can deny) and then set him down naked on the carpet in his room. He watched me fill up the tub with his usual belly laughs and did laps in the nude between the bathroom and his nursery. But when I picked him up to put him in the tub, he fought against me and leaned away.
James loves bath-time. Aside from possibly seeing the bunnies, it is his favorite part of the day. It's never a problem to get him in the bath. He's used to getting them from me, so I know that wasn't the problem. I'm also fairly certain that the water temperature was well within the safe range either way, so that shouldn't have been a problem either. When I picked him up and put his feet in the water he freaked out at me. He hollered in absolute terror, and when I picked him up again he clung to me as hard as he could.
Glancing at the clock again, I saw that it was about 6:10. J would be home in less than fifteen minutes. Perhaps bath-time with Mommy would be better? But what to do in the meantime...I didn't want to put him back in his grimy playclothes, but I also didn't want to get his pajamas all dirty either. So I put a diaper on him and covered him up with his fall jacket. Once we were downstairs he was perfectly happy again. But if I asked him "James, what about your bath?" he would come running in fright and bury his head against me, then shake it "no" back and forth.
Oh, and the Christmas music. Both of our iPods docks have broken, so the stereo system on top of our TV cabinet is the only means by which we are currently able to amplify music. It has a five CD changer, but we don't keep any CDs downstairs anymore. The only disc currently in the stereo is A Very Uncles Christmas, which James has decided he loves even more than Celine Dion. (He particularly likes We Three Kings and Joy to the World.) So if either J or I found the energy to go upstairs and dig through our CD box for new music, we could probably listen to something other than our homemade Christmas CD. But James is really active recently, and climbing the stairs just to come right back down again seems like a lot of work.
Anyhow, J got home, and I explained why James was dressed the way he was. We took him upstairs and practically held him down in the bathtub. He sobbed the whole time, and then fell asleep almost immediately when we took him out. Any veteran parents have any ideas about why this might be? It would be a real shame if bath-time suddenly became a nightly battle.
To unwind after the long day, J and I made ourselves a fancy supper that did not feature peanut butter or jelly as an ingredient at all. We made beef stroganoff, and I was the sous chef. Whenever we cook together it's my job to measure out all the ingredients into their correct amounts and keep them ready for Julie in the cute little dishes we have. This makes us feel very important and professional. We cut up and floured the beef, cooked it with mushrooms and onions, put on the noodles, and thickened the sauce to a gravy like consistency. We added sour cream, and last of all, half a cup of cooking sherry.
"Are you sure it called for half a cup of sherry?" J asked.
I looked at the recipe card.
"No. No, it didn't."
At the very last step of the process, I had added 1/2 cup of strong alcohol instead of 2 tablespoons.
J actually managed to salvage the sauce from becoming a runny mess. She added some more flour, and it thickened right up again. But I think it would be more appropriate to refer to the leftovers in "shots" rather than "servings."
Her exact words were: "I'm listening."
James and I have had, as you might have guessed, an awesome past two days. Yesterday he came to visit me at my school and stayed the whole afternoon. It was Spirit Day, so there was loud and obnoxious teenage music, there were loud and obnoxious teenage games in the gym all afternoon, and most of all there were loud and obnoxious teenagers. I don't have a lot of patience with loud and obnoxious teenagers yet. I'm hoping that as James grows up I find hitherto undiscovered reserves of patience and grace. Or maybe he could just skip teenagedom all together. That would be fine too.
So yesterday he stayed with me from lunch to dismissal, and he had a blast. He watched the kids play dodge ball and desperately wanted to join in, then toted around a stray blue foam ball and yelled at the top of his lungs while the big kids played knockout. (He would periodically set the ball down and applaud with wild enthusiasm when he heard other people clapping or was moved by the Holy Spirit.)
When the big surly seniors blasted mind-numbing hip-hop music (presumably Christian mind-numbing hip-hop music) through two amplifiers and I covered my ears in annoyance, James danced and grooved and shot flirty looks at the high school girls who were doting on him. Once we'd finished bus duty and gone back to my band room we decided not to stay for the basketball games. Well, I decided not to stay for the basketball games. James would have loved to stay, but I was teenaged out. I carried him, his diaper bag, Steven, his bottle, and five trumpets out to the car. He is getting heavy. And he loves school.
Today was another great day. We went outside twice to see the bunnies and spent most of the day coloring with crayons. (J and I discovered, to our dismay, that some of the coloring time was apparently spent on our bannister. Does anyone have any extra eggshell-white paint?) Things started to go downhill when J left for church, which was how he ended up half-naked in the spice cabinet.
The spice cabinet is actually fairly easy to explain. We need the spice containers to build towers, and sometimes for bowling. Well, mostly for towers. And as far as James is concerned, we only build the towers so that we can have something to knock down. So he and I built towers for awhile once J left, and then I smelled something very stinky. "James," I said "Do we need to change your diaper?"
He nodded and trundled over to the stairs. We climbed the stairs and went into his nursery, and as I changed his diaper I thought to myself: "Well, it's 6:00 now. Bedtime is at 7:30. He usually doesn't take his bath this early, but if I put him in now he could just wear this diaper to bed."
"James, would you like to take a bath?"
He nodded with great excitement.
I stripped him the rest of the way while singing his bath-time song (Bath-time for a James Bear, bath-time for a James Bear, bath-time for a James D. Bear, which nobody can deny) and then set him down naked on the carpet in his room. He watched me fill up the tub with his usual belly laughs and did laps in the nude between the bathroom and his nursery. But when I picked him up to put him in the tub, he fought against me and leaned away.
James loves bath-time. Aside from possibly seeing the bunnies, it is his favorite part of the day. It's never a problem to get him in the bath. He's used to getting them from me, so I know that wasn't the problem. I'm also fairly certain that the water temperature was well within the safe range either way, so that shouldn't have been a problem either. When I picked him up and put his feet in the water he freaked out at me. He hollered in absolute terror, and when I picked him up again he clung to me as hard as he could.
Glancing at the clock again, I saw that it was about 6:10. J would be home in less than fifteen minutes. Perhaps bath-time with Mommy would be better? But what to do in the meantime...I didn't want to put him back in his grimy playclothes, but I also didn't want to get his pajamas all dirty either. So I put a diaper on him and covered him up with his fall jacket. Once we were downstairs he was perfectly happy again. But if I asked him "James, what about your bath?" he would come running in fright and bury his head against me, then shake it "no" back and forth.
Oh, and the Christmas music. Both of our iPods docks have broken, so the stereo system on top of our TV cabinet is the only means by which we are currently able to amplify music. It has a five CD changer, but we don't keep any CDs downstairs anymore. The only disc currently in the stereo is A Very Uncles Christmas, which James has decided he loves even more than Celine Dion. (He particularly likes We Three Kings and Joy to the World.) So if either J or I found the energy to go upstairs and dig through our CD box for new music, we could probably listen to something other than our homemade Christmas CD. But James is really active recently, and climbing the stairs just to come right back down again seems like a lot of work.
Anyhow, J got home, and I explained why James was dressed the way he was. We took him upstairs and practically held him down in the bathtub. He sobbed the whole time, and then fell asleep almost immediately when we took him out. Any veteran parents have any ideas about why this might be? It would be a real shame if bath-time suddenly became a nightly battle.
To unwind after the long day, J and I made ourselves a fancy supper that did not feature peanut butter or jelly as an ingredient at all. We made beef stroganoff, and I was the sous chef. Whenever we cook together it's my job to measure out all the ingredients into their correct amounts and keep them ready for Julie in the cute little dishes we have. This makes us feel very important and professional. We cut up and floured the beef, cooked it with mushrooms and onions, put on the noodles, and thickened the sauce to a gravy like consistency. We added sour cream, and last of all, half a cup of cooking sherry.
"Are you sure it called for half a cup of sherry?" J asked.
I looked at the recipe card.
"No. No, it didn't."
At the very last step of the process, I had added 1/2 cup of strong alcohol instead of 2 tablespoons.
J actually managed to salvage the sauce from becoming a runny mess. She added some more flour, and it thickened right up again. But I think it would be more appropriate to refer to the leftovers in "shots" rather than "servings."
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