Come Play Wiv Me

One of the most common articles of parenting wisdom I see expounded on internet pseudo-news sites, Facebook, and by semi-acquaintances is to enjoy the stage at which your children desperately want to play with you, because it runs out all too soon. I don't remember when going outside to throw the football around with my Dad ceased to be the high point of my afternoon, but I am trying to savor James' constant requests to join him for playtime. Most often this involves standing up (if I'm sitting down), getting down on the floor (if I'm standing up), going upstairs (if I'm downstairs) or going downstairs (if I'm upstairs.) Here's what he likes to do:

The marble run is in the right order!
That actually means that the marble run is in the wrong order, and we need to take it apart and put it together again from scratch. Whenever we start he insists that we need to build the one that's on the box. (I threw the box away months ago, but he can still tell you exactly which color feet connect to which which chutes, and he gets deeply upset if you start with a different base.) He doesn't remember quite so well what happens above that, and he's willing to experiment, so long as he has creative input.

Let's do running!
This is exactly what it sounds like. He pushes his cart all throughout the downstairs at top speed while I hold Owen and jog behind him. (It's very important that Owen comes along. He needs to wake up if he happens to be sleeping at the moment.) He crashes into furniture and toys with reckless abandon and will occasionally stop at one end of the house long enough to point and shout "Catch that monkey!" before darting off again. He and Alexa are experts at this game, so I am, at the very best moments, a sort of substitute for his real running partner. But it isn't a bad game.

Coloring
We only really color two books together, and they are two copies of the exact same Curious George coloring book. Also, the only two colors we really need are yellow and brown. I color the Man with the Yellow Hat, and James colors Curious George. If it's an extra special picture I'm sometimes asked to help put some red, peach, and black color on George as well. But mostly James wants to handle the bronw.

Want to build a carwash?
Carwashes can be constructed out of just about anything, but our favorite media are waffle blocks, mega-blocks, duplos, and the wooden blocks that Grandpa Davis made for Christmas. We also occasionally make houses (complete with garage doors and scary vacuum cleaners) with the wooden blocks, but the basic domestic unit of James' imaginary world is the carwash. There might be structures for human habitation and sleep once every few blocks, but his imaginary world would definitely be mostly dedicated to keeping vehicles clean.

Want to play legos?
Just like the marble run, the most important part of playing legos is building EXACTLY what's on the box. That means that we must copy every detail precisely from the image on the front of the lego box, matching every color of every block correctly and proportioning the house to the correct dimensions. More than once I've had to make a trip out into the garage or the driveway to excavate missing pieces from a carseat so that we can complete a lego masterpiece.

Want to do a puzzle?
Puzzles are currently James' favorite naptime stall tactic. I think he knows that most of his puzzles have some sort of marginal educational value, so we're reluctant to put him down when he could be working on numbers or ABCs. He knows his numbers and his ABCs just fine of course, but he enjoys the process of sorting all the puzzle pieces by size, color, etc. He also has a bit of a performer in him, and puts on a good show of searching in great confusion for "the perfect piece" and then finding it with a flourish. This is why it's important that we do puzzles together.

Hopping
Hopping is the best game to include Owen. It's exactly what it sounds like. I hold Owen under his armpits and let him hop about. Sometimes he hops to toys on the floor ("Good job Owen, you found it!") and sometimes he hops over to James, and sometimes he hops up the stairs. This is the most surefire way to get both boys laughing at each other, and that's about the most beautiful sound in the world at the moment.

Baseball
Yes, we let James play baseball in the house. He hasn't broken anything yet. Most of the fun for him is running around the bases, which he sets up in the living room. He'll scoot around first, second, and third, and then it's very important for someone to tag him a split second after he slides (he always slides) into home plate and declare him safe. The baseball can be tossed underhand or rolled, but NOT thrown overhand.

Basketball
Okay, maybe J and I play this more than he does. His hoop is kind of small, and it's really hard to bank the ball in from a sitting position on the couch. James was on more of a basketball kick when he had just attended a game at RWC.

Cars
He's also rediscovered Hot Wheels recently, and the little ramp/jump that we bought him over a year ago. We don't know where the jump part of it ended up, but he's enjoyed attaching the track to a chair, dragging that into the living room, and then racing his collection of cars down to terrific crashes at the bottom over and over again. (Especially the red car. Boys love red cars.) We did a lot of this today and my new iPhone made it more fun. Slow motion video makes Hot Wheels crashes pretty explosive.

Monday

James Quotations from yesterday:

Singing on a continuous loop for the past 48 hours:

"My delibery is coming, my delibery is standing by...."

On being told that we would get a snack out in the car once we reached Dillsburg, or perhaps Pugsleyville.

"No, Pugsleyville isn't real, it's only on TB!" <bursts into tears>

a few minutes later...

"Daddy, maybe we can get a snack...once we are in China."

On seeing Grandma come downstairs dressed up to teach students for a few hours

"Oh, Grandma! You sure look good wiv all your clothes on!"

Calling out from the privacy of the bathroom to all interested parties

"I made a caterpillar! It's wet!"

My Monday itinerary:

4:20 AM 

Wake up in Rochester, drive to airport, catch 5:30 flight to BWI.

6:30 AM

Fly BWI to CLT, flight delayed. Email personnel manager, request later audition time. None available. Read Animal Farm in one sitting on the plane

10 AM

Land in CLT, catch taxi to hall

10:45 AM

Arrive at symphony hall, check into audition, learn I need to play in 15 minutes

11:30 AM

Learn I've advanced out of prelims, semis starting immediately but won't need to play until 5 PM

Noon

Lunch, coffee, walk down to public library. Read Bridge to Terabithia in one sitting, end up sitting alone and weeping in children's section of library

5:30 PM

Play semi round. Go grab more coffee once finished

6:30 PM

Learn I did not advance to finals. Hail taxi, race to airport to try to catch 7:30 flight back to ROC that night instead of Tue night.

7:00 PM

Learn from gate agent that there would be $150 in fees to switch flights. On the phone with J, decide to fly into BWI that night if I can catch 7:30 flight (no cost for this) and drive back with them

7:20 PM

Sprint the length of CLT airport to make it to gate. Find out flight is delayed to 8:30

8:30 PM

Obtain last seat in completely full flight, still slightly sweaty from sprint. Off to BWI

10 PM

J picks me up outside baggage claim at BWI. Start hour long drive to Pennsylvania

11 PM

Stop for drinks at Applebees

11:45 PM 

At her parents' house, lay head on pillow

11:46 PM

Owen starts crying

Bachelor Weekend

J has taken the kids to Pennsylvania for the weekend, so I'm here at home alone.

Yes, I intend to take a shower as soon as I finish this blog.

I'm treating today as a mental health day. I intend to do some visiting and see people tomorrow, but today I'm going to stay in the house alone, read, write, clean, and take care of projects that are made exponentially more difficult when you have tiny humans underfoot. So that's what I've been doing all morning, except first I slept in. It was glorious.

I love getting up at 5:30 in the morning, except at 5:30 in the morning. At 5:30 in the morning I think it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of and I hate everyone and everybody, especially my alarm clock. I have an actual old-fashioned alarm clock now because I'm trying to economize the battery life of my new iPhone better than my old one. I bought the alarm clock at the Houghton bookstore (minus a ten percent faculty discount) and J hates it even more than I do.

But this morning, my alarm didn't wake me up. I drifted in and out of sleep around 7:00 for a bit, then finally got up and went downstairs for coffee around 8, thoroughly enjoying the silence of the house. I had an unmolested breakfast at my desk and drank coffee for an hour while reading books. I dropped the car off for an oil change and went for a three mile run.

One of the more startling signs of my advancing age, by the way, has been the realization that I find myself more in sympathy with Calvin's Dad than Calvin while reading Calvin and Hobbes. It actually IS invigorating to go for a run in the cold rain first thing in the morning. And do you know what's great when you get back home? Yes, a big bowl of oatmeal hot off the stove. (J makes it with almonds and cut-up dried apricots.) And sitting in a comfortable chair with something to read at the end of the day isn't so bad either.

Anyhow, I practiced as loud as I pleased right in the middle of the living room once I got back, with a big stack of music and mutes all over the kitchen table.

Eating is a funny thing when you're in bachelor mode. I find that I usually don't do well remembering to prepare actual meals for myself, so I end up snacking on whatever requires the least amount of preparation throughout the day, usually nuts or crackers, and usually standing up or walking back and forth from my desk to the coffeepot. The kitchen table, meanwhile, becomes a catch-all for mail and papers and notebooks and scores and half-finished books. I have thus far resisted the temptation to just use one plate for all my food and one mug for all my coffee without ever giving it a proper washing, putting it away, and getting out a new plate.

As lazy as all that sounds, I've actually had a number of interesting projects for today. I'm working on archiving a lot of old electronic materials--saving photos that are only stored on a flash drive to a separate location, editing an unpublished book, and trying to retrieve some old documents from defunct laptops. I have lots of tabs up on the computer with titles like "How to batch-rename files" and "How to export your emails from Outlook." Probably none of it will work. I was exceedingly proud of myself for assigning my printer a static IP address (whatever that means) the other day, but it didn't stick. I'm also trying to figure out how to merge the two youtube channels with kid videos, since I didn't mean to create a second. (If anyone's wondering where all the videos have been going since the Thomides channel went dark, look here.)

So, it will be a quiet but productive day. If you are expecting to hear from me, I'll probably be emerging from my desk by early evening, a little lonely and ready for human company again. But in the meantime, I have a new novel to read, a fresh pot of coffee to drink, and lots of photos to upload.

Although I should probably get in the shower sooner rather than later.

Quick Hitters

I. Rotary Trumpets
It's time for a Beethoven festival in Buffalo, which means that we're all playing rotary trumpets. The rotary, just like the piston trumpet, plays horribly out of tune. Except that we're used to (mostly) correcting the pistons as they need to go, and it's like starting from scratch when we get out the rotors. The timbre on these instruments tends to be much more mellow and blend-friendly, so we fit into a small orchestra a lot better when we're playing them, except for the fact that the pitch is wildly inconsistent. The real reason we use them, however, is because of the great doubling money that we get for each service. I actually bought a rotary trumpet last year, some cheap Chinese knock-off version of a C trumpet that someone was selling for a couple hundred bucks on eBay. It never came. The FedEx driver showed me the electronic record of it being dropped off at our apartment complex, but no one could find it. I had to go through an eBay claim process to get my money back, and that was the end of my foray into rotary trumpet buying. (Except, of course, that my first piccolo had rotary valves.) Now the guys in the section are trying out new instruments, so there are seven different rotary instruments on the stage between the three of us. That's a lot of different combinations in which we can struggle to play our Ds and As out of tune.

II. iPhones
I knew that the only way J would get an iPhone would be if I just up and brought her one some day without even warning her about it. And that's exactly what I did. Her old phone was completely falling apart, and when I stopped at the Verizon store on the way back from teaching I didn't even ask her what she wanted. She got an iPhone 5c (Just in case she didn't like it and wanted to return it) and I got an iPhone 6. As one of my colleagues observed while I hunched over it in rehearsal the other day "You don't realize how clunky your old one was until you have the shiny new model."
It's so true. The new phone is fast, big, sleek, and fun. It counts how many times I go up and down the steps holding James or Owen. (Many times per day) It downloads Bills free agency news way quicker during tacet movements or extended passages of rests. It takes amazing pictures and is generally the most fun I've had with a shiny toy since I bought my C trumpet.
And J loves hers too. For the past week or two I've looked down at my phone periodically to see that she's sent me a message to the effect of "Have I told you how much I LOVE this phone?"
And I'll text her back, since it's free now (how did we ever get by when we weren't both on iMessage?) and ask her to send me a picture of herself in semi-undress.
But even better than that, the absolute best part of having both of us on iPhones--shared calendars. We still haven't quite sorted out all the bugs to get my phone to talk to her phone and to her iPad, but now we can both look at each other's schedules with the tap of an icon. And then we can both look away, because it's pretty gruesome.

III. Podcasts
Lots of commuting to Buffalo means lots of podcasts in the car. I haven't had much time for Dostoevsky, but I've been able to listen to all of Hamlet in the last few days, the first few chapters of George MacDonald's Phantastes, bits of Hillaire Belloc's book on the French Revolution, and my personal favorite, a large collection of English Fairy Tales collected by Joseph Jacobs. The English Fairy Tales would be excellent anyway, but they are all narrated by a single reader, and she's a great story teller. (I don't know where they get some of the readers for the Librivox recordings--they sound like they're trying to learn the English language by practicing on public domain podcasts.) If anyone has any recommendations for new podcasts, please let me know!

IV. The Boys
Owen stayed up way too late last night, but makes up for any of his faults by giggling adorably whenever J asks him if he is a cucumber. James and I have both tried to get him to laugh by the same method, but it has to be Mommy. Last night I discovered a fail-safe way to get him to fall asleep when he is tired or hungry, which will be both good and bad news to all of the relatives who watch him on a regular basis--if you run while holding him, he passes out within 90 seconds. Last night between 7:30 and 8:30 pm I basically ran one continuous loop in the downstairs, and he only made a peep when I stopped. How far did I run? Thanks to my sweet new iPhone I can tell you that I covered over 6 mile yesterday. (Although that was the total number of steps for the whole day.
James is slowly turning back into himself again after a weekend of strange beds, lots of birthday sugar, and Hayden. He was pretty much in tears for all of Monday and Tuesday morning, and then once he ate an enormous breakfast on Tuesday mid-morning (after refusing his previous night's supper and breakfast that morning) he started to come out of his funk. He's been checking every day to see whether it is Spring outside yet or not, and we even went to the playground yesterday for an hour or so. Just like last year, he finds it necessary to collect any and every stone, pinecone, and woodchip that catches his eye, and then to have me carry it around until I can find a place to discreetly drop it. He is also very concerned about the length of our grass.

Sleeping Next to James

I arrived in Albion after 11, and Dad and M were up waiting for me. I took off my bow tie and sat in the kitchen with them, catching up and having a beer and some cheese and crackers. It had been far too long since I'd actually sat in my parent's kitchen, and they both had to be up too early the next morning to stay up much later. I toured the opulent new bathroom, changed out of my tuxedo, brushed my teeth, and went over to the pull-out bed by the sofa.

James was asleep, stretched horizontally across the bed, his face planted on George and Steven under his right arm. He always looks big now, compared to Owen, and he looked especially big as he took up most of the bed. I put my glasses on the sofa arm and tried to climb under the covers quietly. It was a little past 11:30. I twisted into a sort of L-shape around him and sank into a pillow.

12:30
I hear him wake up and look around.
"Hey, it's me. You want to go back to sleep?"
"Okay."
"Should I sleep next to you tonight?"
"Okay."
He rotated slightly so that I could put an arm over him and we fell asleep again.

1:30
He is kicking me. He's facing the other way on the bed again now. J sometimes turns over in her sleep from back to front. James appears to be exploring every corner of the bed.

4:30
Now we're both facing the wrong way on the bed somehow.

5:30
I forgot to turn off the alarm on my phone. It's fallen behind the bed and I have to scramble around for it. He looks up, and I tell him to go back to sleep again.

6:00
I open my eyes to see James' nose touching mine, staring right at me and hardly breathing. He whispers:
"George is awake."
"Oh. Do you think George can go back to sleep for a little longer?"
"Do you think Hayden is awake?"
"I'm sure that if Hayden were awake we would all know. Let's sleep a little more, you've got a big day."

6:15
Something hits my head. I sit up and see that it is a paperback copy of Curious George Wins a Medal.
"Can you read this to George?"
"Did you get out of bed?"
"Nope."
"You just had this with you?"
"Yup."
He must have been keeping it in his shirt.
"It's still a little dark out to read a book. Let's try to sleep a little longer."

6:30
James is reciting the book to himself in a whisper at the end of the bed.

6:45
"Daddy, I think I heard Hayden. I think she is up. Wanna get up?"
"Do you need to go potty?"
"Nope."
"I don't think Hayden is up. We'll get up at 7, okay? But can you try to rest for me? You're going to be very tired today."

6:47
"I think it's 7."

The Quotable Three Year Old

On the coming of Spring
"Hey Daddy, the grass is coming out! Oh, what is wrong with the grass?"

On recovering from an illness
"Maybe I will be sick again after nap so I can eat more popsicles and watch a George."

On receiving a big box of duplos.
"We need to build a house and a spaceship. But not a space shuttle, a rocket."

Upon entering a Wal-Mart and seeing the letter W.
"It's okay George, Daddy just needs to buy some wine. Daddy, are we at the wine store yet?"

Upon seeing me taking my trumpet out of its case
"Maybe you will already be all done. Maybe you will play one song and be all done."

Upon seeing me trying on a pair of rimless frames
"Those look like ladies' glasses."

Family Update

George
George is sad that James is sick, but he likes to watch himself while he sits with James on the couch. George and James both think that George is very funny. George needed a bath even before James got sick, so he'll definitely be making a trip to the basement once James gets better. James says that George helps him feel better.

Steven
Steven is still in one piece, which for a bear of his advancing years is always remarkable. He also needs a bath, but trips through the washer and dryer are getting more perilous for Steven Bear. Yesterday he rode in Daddy's pocket all the way up to the donut shop on a long walk in the sunshine, and Daddy didn't even remember that he was there until they were very nearly home and there was a panicked moment of worrying that he'd been dropped somewhere along the route. Steven is also very sad that James is sick.

New Steven
New Steven still hasn't been fully accepted into James' tribe, and only maintains an auxiliary member status. Owen, however, LOVES New Steven. He reaches for him, grabs him, holds him, puts him in his mouth, attempts to roll from back to front for him, and generally makes happy faces whenever he sees the (mostly) fluffly (mostly) white little bear. We are hoping that New Steven isn't carrying any of whatever James has.

Wood Blocks
The wood blocks need to be used to make a house. The house needs to have a roof, and also it needs to have a garage door. In the house there needs to be a storage cube (9 cubes total), a microwave, and stairs. In the garage there needs to be overhead storage, and in the overhead storage we need to put a box that holds the scary clock and a box that holds the scary Nutcracker. We do not want to look at either of those things.

Sippy Cup
We have very little use for sippy cups any more, because big boy cups are far superior. Except if we must drink from a sippy cup, we would prefer to drink from the fire truck sippy and not the drump truck sippy.

Thomas Blanket
We are ever so excited about the Thomas blanket that Mommy is going to make using the fabric that she bought at JoAnn's. However, we are so excited that we are completely excited about the blanket that whenever Mommy gets it out to work on it we need to walk and dance on it, even though we are sick, and even though Mommy tells us to keep off.

Yesterday

Act 1
One day out of daylight savings time, a 5:30 AM run feels like a 4:30 AM run. On the other hand, I remember running on that morning we were supposed to have wind chill temperatures down to 35 below, and it's been almost too warm for my wool hat the last few days. Owen got up around 7:00 and was delightfully smiley, and James slept in past when I left as I went to Buffalo for the last time for four days. With a full Philharmonic week and two recording sessions, I'd been to Buffalo every day since Tuesday, and twice on Saturday. Buffalo used to be just over an hour from our place on Washington Street, but now to get there for a 10 AM rehearsal I need to weave my way down to the highway through side streets and stop signs, bypassing 590, and it can take up to an hour and a half.

Act 2
Recording session. I'll let you know if this one goes up for any awards, but I wouldn't expect it. Still, a recording session with that group is probably the biggest single payday I get all year. The experience is quite different than the regular rhythm of a rehearsal or concert. Everyone is on stage in the empty all, dressed down in comfortable clothes with the stage exits sealed shut with blockades of curtains. We blast through passages over and over again, waiting for a disembodied voice with a British accent to gargle over a loudspeaker something about intonation in the celli or adjustments to the percussion microphone. Then there will be a union-mandated 20 minute break while everyone gulps down sandwiches and chips in the break room, a buzzer sounds, and the orchestra is set again to play the same passage over and over, looking for a good take.

Act 3
Back home, free until the following afternoon. It's a glorious 40 degrees out, and I am taking Owen outside, for the first time in his life, for the purpose of being outside. Not just a quick dash to the car, not a hurried rush into a warm building, but (thoroughly bundled and hatted and wrapped in a baby carrier) out into the bright sunny world to look around. The snow is melting, James is gleefully padding up and down the driveway on a tricycle, and Owen mostly squinted and wrinkled his nose. We saw dogs, we made a pathetically small snowman from melting slush, and we walked over to the playground across the street. It felt like Spring was breaking in.

Act 4
I mentioned to J that my car was looking awfully dirty from all that highway time as we ate dinner. James didn't want to eat his tortellini. We bribed him into finishing the tortellini with the promise of a car wash and a trip to Wegmans. We all drive down to our old neighborhood at Clover and Monroe, reveling in the still bright evening. We went through the car wash line and a familiar looking attendant spotted James sitting on J's lap in the front seat and exclaimed to his co-workers, "Hey it's the kid that used to watch us through the window!" We were upgraded to the nicest wash for no extra charge. James was transfixed by the wash and immediately asked to do it again. Even though he'd been chatting excitedly about riding in a steering wheel cart at Wegmans the whole evening, he wanted to be held when we got there. He was cranky and said he was tired. He wanted to go home. We cajoled him inside, and he asked to go home again. He wanted me to hold him, he wanted Mommy to hold him. We began to load up the cart with produce. He started flailing out of J's arms, and I scolded him. He threw up half-digested tortellini in front of the bananas all over himself and J.

Act 5
I guarded the banana stand until the clean up crew could arrive, then hurried through the store to get the rest of our list while J wiped off herself and James in the bathroom. After a painfully long wait at the checkout line (an older cashier needed to dote on Owen, who was more than obliged to receive some of the attention usually shared with his brother) we drove home. James was quiet and tired, but didn't look to be sick anymore. He had a pedialyte popsicle when we got back, and I put him in the tub and read him a story. By the time he was in bed (with a bucket beside) it was almost 9:00. I still had to practice, and his clothes needed to be scrubbed out before they could be washed. And Owen's clothes from a diaper explosion the previous week were still waiting to be scrubbed out. I listened to Mahler 4 as I soaped and brushed and worked at the little shirts under the hot water.

Epilogue
Red wine

March Madness and March Sanity

Is it uncouth to start another entry about the agonies of writer's blog and to make excuses for having not written any time recently? It is hard to write about life, though, when life is gone mad. When I sit down to write about something that happened at rehearsal or something that happened with James or Owen, I want to be able to tie it off with a neat little ending or a clever joke showing how it's all sorted out now and what a laugh it all was.

March hasn't been a laugh so far. March Madness has been hard.

We have a newborn niece in need of wise prayers and all sorts of extra love. Her situation is going to change anytime soon.
A friend from church (my sister-in-law's father) just passed away after a battle with cancer. It's impossible to imagine breaking away from everything up here to go down and grieve with them, but how could we not try to travel down? And what will they do now?
I have five different shows to learn in the next fourteen days. My gig bag is so full of music and binders that it's getting hard to lift, and all that's on top of the audition folder I've been trying to prep. Even if I do get it all learned, there's no guarantee that after the screech Sinatra show and the six services honking low notes on rotary trumpet I'll be able to get anything to speak in the middle register.
Recording sessions this week, playing assistant principal and trying not to be the reason the whole orchestra has to go back for multiple takes of some high note.
I haven't taught my actual printed schedule at LCS in weeks and weeks. I've made arrangements to get everything covered again, but there are lessons that need to be made up.
Missing too much time from church to play all these gigs.
No idea when I'll get down to teach my college students for the lessons I need to make up with them, knowing I'll be out more Mondays in the coming weeks.
I saw the boys for a half hour in the morning and a half hour in the evening yesterday. Today I saw them for a half hour in the morning. Tomorrow I'll be home for part of the afternoon, but they'll probably be sleeping. They've either been shuttled off to sitters or J has watched them alone.
My favorite chapter in the Brothers Karamazov, possibly my favorite chapter in any novel ever, is the next chapter. It's been marked with a bookmark in my coat pocket since Wednesday, and I still haven't read it.
The car needs an oil change. I've filled the gas tank three times this week already. Is this much driving worth it?
I need to finish the taxes. Which mileage expenses do I log under a schedule C, how do I log the other ones?
The heating bill for January was absurd. February was even colder. What's it going to be?

March Sanity
James is excited to play every time he sees me. He still wants to read stories together before bed.
Getting up early and running
A glass of wine with J at the end of the day
Coming into a house that I own at the end of the day
Paying off debts
Hot coffee
Hearing from brothers

In two weeks time pretty much none of this will be neatly tied up and all taken care of. But I'll still have all the stuff that keeps me sane to hang on to as well.

Yesterday (A Hibernal Pity Party)

Yesterday I got up at 5:30 in the morning, having stayed up nearly to midnight the previous night putting away a great mess of books

Yesterday I pulled on my sneakers and went running in the semi-darkness out in the snow and frozen slush

Yesterday I scraped off my car and drove over icy, salty roads sipping coffee from a thermos

Yesterday I learned that my perpetually disastrous office and rehearsal space would need to be cleaned before I left for the day (for the prospective students)

Yesterday I taught 5 flutes, rehearsed a 20 piece elementary band, taught a horn, a saxophone, rehearsed a 30 piece high school band, taught 3 trumpets and 3 drummers

Yesterday I drove for miles and miles over a lonely snow-covered country road to teach my college students

Yesterday I taught my 3 college students

Yesterday I drove back for miles and miles over lonely snow-covered roads on my way home

Yesterday as I pulled onto our street I noticed that some sort of electric line was trapped under the snow on our roof

Yesterday as I, a weary traveler, pulled into our driveway, I got stuck on the mound of refrozen snow left by the snowplows

Yesterday I told the toddler who was waiting for me at the door and the wife who was waiting for me with supper that I couldn't come in yet because I needed to put on boots and get my car out of the road

Yesterday I dug around my car with a snow shovel, then a metal garden shovel, then the heel of my boot, then the metal garden shovel some more until the metal shovel broke in two

Yesterday I said a very bad word

Yesterday I finished digging out my car lying on my icy driveway with just my gloved hands

Yesterday I got back in the car, called RG&E about the lines down on my roof, and drove to Lowe's

Yesterday I almost hit a jogger who came out from behind a snowbank that was taller than he was

Yesterday I bought a ladder, a reflective safety vest to jog in, a new shovel, and a bright orange traffic cone

Yesterday I got back to my driveway in darkness and pounded away with shovel and hammer at the pile of ice at our driveway apron until I'd taken most of it off

Yesterday I found out that the two lines closest to our addition are, in fact, telephone lines

Yesterday I climbed up on the roof with the snow shovel and pulled off as much snow as I could reach from the ladder

Yesterday I came into the house completely soaked and chilled to the bone, made my way upstairs, and after giving my toddler a good night hug in his darkened room showed him the orange traffic cone. He asked if he could sleep with it in his bed

Yesterday I had a bowl of hot chili, took a shower, and got into a dry bed with a warm wife and a glass of wine

Yesterday was supposedly March 2nd. I'm ready for winter to be over.