Double Day

I. 2015 Taxes
The 2015 taxes are done! The important news about the taxes for this year is that we will NOT owe a substantial sum of money. This is good news, and means that I don't need to make a hard decision between functional car tires, functional dress shoes, or paying the taxes next month. I just need to decide whether working tires or working shoes are more important. In other news, was there ever a worse year to buy snow tires in terms of overall use? On the other hand, they were really nice to have during the four days that the weather was gross.

II. Orchestra Story
A certain famous conductor, notorious for being picky and self-centered, was rehearsing an orchestra on Bloch's Schelomo, a rhapsody on Hebrew themes for cello and orchestra. His time with the orchestra hadn't been going particularly well, and when the group played the introduction to the Schelomo rather flatly he stopped the group and began to talk in impassioned tones about how this music represented 2,000 years, 2,000 YEARS of agony, persecution, aimless waiting...2,000 years of pain and suffering! The principal oboe looked at his watch and remarked that really it had only been an hour and a half.

III. Roland
Sweet little Roland, I know you too little. You are still just a baby, but already I feel like I'm missing out on your first year. To be honest, I'm a little jealous of the fact that you get to see your Uncle Pax and Aunt Kylie every week. Tomorrow you will be baptized. Since you are your Father's son, you'll probably be able to read and understand this within a few months. Know that I will be thinking of you tomorrow morning, and that I am sending Aunt J and your two cousins to make disruptive noises on my behalf. Also, your Mommy should blog more often, because that's how I stay informed on what you and your brother are up to. Love, Uncle Roy

Sad Shape

I. Sickness
We aren't doing great, as a family. I'm still healthy, but I'm the only one.

Owen is trotting around whining wherever he goes and demanding to be held whenever he sees an adult. (The adults might be hiding from him on purpose) His nose is chapped, red, and constantly leaking. His little voice his hoarse, and his croaks are punctuated by coughs. He's teething and still a little fevery, and he isn't sleeping well at night.

James has his voice back, but he's still coughing and sniffling every few minutes.

J's voice is completely gone. She can only whisper, and her swollen eyes (she was up a lot with Owen) are only half-open. She just got out of the shower, but she looks like she could head back to bed at any moment.

And the house doesn't look great. Because Owen isn't interested in eating he's been scattering food everywhere. Most of it is cleaned up, but as I look into the dining area I can see dried peas and pieces of cereal and bread under his high chair that I missed. There's a big marble run (James' creation) on the kitchen table and a stack of his library books as well. No one has the energy to stand up and clean them off.

Dinner has been a procession of soups. Our tea basket has been rediscovered. We're trying to get better.

II. The Basement
I finally paid for my mess in the basement. Between the high temperatures and the rain yesterday the basement flooded. By "flooded," I mean that there were a couple of puddles that drained to the appropriate place. But I had left out a trumpet case and a stack of music on the floor, even though I was dimly aware that I needed to be careful about such things. The case dried overnight, and I hope the music is salvageable. A lot of the ink ran, and there might be a funny odor. It's okay, I suppose, since it was mostly baroque music. We'll consider it performance practice.

III. Perfection
J has changed up her bread recipe and switched over to honey whole wheat bread instead of the simple white for the sandwich loaves she makes at the beginning of the week. It's amazing...it gets a butter brush once it comes out of the oven, and the inside is practically creamy. I've never been so excited to have peanut butter toast in the morning. (And to have lots of soup.)

A Mystery

I've been steadily reading my way through the big list of Unread Books that's taped up on my desk. I don't remember exactly when I made the list, but I've been making a renewed effort to finish reading every book that I own but haven't read. Yesterday I finished Huizinga's Decline of the Middle Ages, and this afternoon I finished a little booklet of lectures on Courtly Love that were read at SUNY Binghamton during some conference a number of years ago. Staying in New York State, I picked up the next book on my list this afternoon, a 200 page work called Res Cogitans published by Cornell University Press.

I opened up to the title page and saw that it had been stamped with a name and address:
T. Slater Raymond
319 West State St.
Albion, New York 14411
USA

I don't know who T. Slater Raymond is, but he took copious notes, and they are good ones. The book itself is "an essay in rational psychology." It's an analysis of speech and thought in the footsteps of the linguist J.L. Austin but re-framed in the context of Descartes. It's heady and abstruse writing--technical and (frankly) uninteresting. Whoever T. Slater Raymond was, he apparently had no trouble understanding it. And not only understanding, but agreeing, disagreeing and challenging it. I certainly wouldn't have picked this book up to read on my own--I'm only going forward with it because it somehow ended up in my library. (I probably saw the Latin title and assumed that it was something Medieval.)

But now I want to know who this T. Slater Raymond was. Was he a teacher? A student? When did he live in Albion? The copyright for the book is 1972, so he must have lived in Albion for at least some of the time that my parents did, and if he owned a rubber stamp with his address I assume that he was there on at least a semi-permanent basis. Now that I think of it, I don't have any better evidence to believe that T. Slater Raymond is a man than a woman. The T. could just as easily stand for Theresa or Tatiana.

I want to know...

Dinner at the Smiths

Owen's had this thing for a while where he throws his food on the floor at the end of dinner.
We don't love it.
But he thinks it's great. He always grins expectantly once the food is tossed.
So we're trying a new thing where we say "NO" and really mean it. We aren't really doing anything new afterwards. (We still have to clean up the food and he's still too little to help.) But we are speaking with deep authority, and so far it makes him cry every single time.

So tonight he was in tears because I had told him "no" (and meant it) when he tossed his broccoli overboard.

J: Owen, do you want more food? <makes sign for "more"> Or are you all done? <makes hand sign for "done">
Owen: <Shakes his head "no" at both options.>
J: More? <more sign> Or all done? <all done sign>
R: Or steal second? <taps chin twice, pats elbow, touches forehead>
Owen: <nods>
J: You are no help. You are a bad helper. This is why God didn't make Adam the helper.

TGI Monday

I. Games
Giving J a binder full of our old emails was a bit of a risky move. She pointed out as she was reading through some of them how I mentioned "I couldn't wait to play Phase 10" or was "looking forward to playing games this weekend."
Then she'll look at me with an expression of anger and betrayal and say "That was bold-faced LIE."
Yes it was.
I don't care for playing games.
I only played Phase 10 to get the girl. And it totally worked.
<fist bump to no one in particular>
Only now we've reproduced, and guess what? The oldest offspring has inherited the game-loving gene. And he wants to play them all the time.
This has led to a bit of a crisis for me, because I realize I can't put off Monopoly Junior with him forever.

"Daddy, wanna play Monopoly Junior?"
"I can't right now. First we need to get ready for dinner."
"Can we play Monopoly Junior after you get ready for dinner?"
"Well, once I have dinner ready then we're going to EAT dinner."
"Can we play Monopoly Junior after dinner?"
"Possibly, but after dinner I'm going to need to do the dishes. You could help, you know."
"Can we play Monopoly Junior after you do the dishes?"
"Maybe, but after I do the dishes we're going to need to maybe do something else."
"Hey, I have an idea--how about Monopoly Junior?"
"We'll see."

Most of the time I just hope that he'll find J and they can indulge their weird game-playing obsession just the two of them. But on the other hand, I don't want to be left out.
I poured myself a glass of wine and had a good think about this. (I've been off of work all week, if that isn't evident already.) I decided that anyone who declares about himself: "I don't like to play games" is like someone who says "I don't like to read books." It's a shallow, overhasty, close-minded statement. It reflects poorly on the one who makes the statement and probably indicates that they've judged an entire class of activity which the whole human race finds interesting and enriching based on one or two bad experiences. It's a myopic, provincial attitude.
I decided to play Monopoly Junior with some real effort and enthusiasm.
It drove me nuts. James constantly forgets whose turn it is, he sneezes on everything he touches (to be fair, this isn't the fault of the game or game-playing in general) and he insists on pointless and irrelevant details being arranged just-so every time he plays. (He has to line up his toy cars beside Park Place and Boardwalk, which has to be turned towards him, and they have to hold the decorative playing card that indicates that he is using the Car piece.)

I'm going to try to like games some more, but I may just end up going to back to being close-minded.

II. Sneezes
The kids are getting better, but it's still pretty gross here at the Smith house. Owen's nose is constantly dripping, so about once an hour we have to pin him down (he doesn't like this) and scrub all the dried snivel off of his face. James isn't doing much better about remembering to use a kleenex, but at least he remembers to cover his mouth when he coughs or sneezes. Well, most of the time, anyway. This morning when the boys got up I went and retrieved Owen first. He was pretty happy (despite being completely encrusted in what had been running out of his nose all night) and I carried him in one arm (with him carrying his George and Steven) as we went to get James up. James was awake and waiting for me, and I picked him up in the other arm (with him holding his George and Steven) as we made our way down the stairs. This is pretty much a daily tradition. The boys like to be carried down the stairs at the same time, and I kind of regard it like the story of the young man who put the calf on his shoulders and walked up the hill, growing stronger every day until the calf had grown into an enormous bull. I'm not sure that my back is going to make it to the time when the boys get to be as big as enormous bulls, but I can't carry both of them for now. Unless I guess sick, that is. Because this morning both of them had huge sneezing fits as I was carrying them down the stairs. Both of them were pointing at me. Neither of them covered their mouth. It was...slimy.

Ante Diem XI Kalendas Martias, Anno Domini MMXVI

I. Sick Day
We're all down for the count with something. Well, everyone except me. James was sacked out on the couch all day yesterday watching episodes of Curious George, and is doing slightly better as of this morning. He insists, however, that he's still so sick that he needs to watch George all day. If you propose something that he finds interesting (like Monopoly Junior) he suddenly gets better miraculously quickly. We'll see how the rest of his convalescence goes.
Owen picked up whatever he had, and the cough quickly turned into croup. (Again.) He was up all last night and I was thankful to be in the position of second-favorite parent. Only Mommy would do, and she spent most of the night camped out on a mattress in his room with, in her words, "a sick boy attempting to sleep on my face." I only have vague, sleepy memories of most of the night. I think at one point she told me that she was going to take him outside, but that must have been a dream, right?
Unsurprisingly, J has slowed down as the morning has gone on. She isn't yet running a fever, but an afternoon nap became an increasingly necessity.
We'll see how much of the family makes it to church tomorrow after another 18 hours of this.

II. Legumier
With the majority of the family lying about the living room in various states of invalidity, it's fallen to me to take care of meal preparation. Surprisingly, this has gone quite well. Pax and I made a Valentine's Day dinner for our wives a few nights ago, and I helped (still in an underling role) with the chickpea dressing for the chicken we were making that turned out to be my favorite part of the meal. Yesterday I made (and ate most of, since everyone else was sick) a shredded carrot and raisin salad, and today I replicated the matchstick fennel/celeriac/apple/cheese/leek salad that J made for February DNI. I doubt I can keep it up much longer, but I need to boast a little bit about exiting the kitchen three days in a row with edible food. (The trick, I think, is to avoid food that involves a heat source.)

III. Marginalia
I love reading books that someone else has written in. It's like reading the book along with another reader. Some co-readers are better than others, of course. Plenty of marginalia are too argumentative or only interested in one particular element of an argument. Others are tiny cursive hands too difficult to read or written in indecipherable abbreviations. Most of the time, though, I find that reading the book in the presence of another reader helps me to get more out of the experience. This afternoon I was doing a little score study (preparation for RPO Heldenleben in two weeks) and appreciating the wonderfully detailed analysis that the previous owner of my score had done. There's a full harmonic analysis, some helpful conductoresque notes (where to cue, etc.) and a detailed analysis of the "program" of the piece and what each motive meant. (Ein Heldenleben, which means "A Heroes' Life" is a 45 minute indulgence of Strauss admiring himself in the mirror.)

IV. Recently Reading
When J finished reading Bringing up Bebe I congratulated myself on having recommended such a good book to her without ever having read it myself. She tells me that I wasn't the one that recommended it to her, but I still think I did. Whether or not I recommended it in the first place, she proceeded to recommend it to me, and I enjoyed reading it over the past few days. I finished the political "node" of my reading project last week and am onto the Medieval "node" next. This morning I started Huizenga's Decline of the Middle Ages, and then there will be a survey of Courtly Love essays followed by Lewis' The Allegory of Love

V. The Anode Road
I hate failing at things. I'd already failed at inspecting the anode rod twice in the last year, and I had "Check Anode Rod" set as a reminder in my phone for endless months. The alert would go off, and I'd set it to Snooze for some future date. I was always out of the house when it went off, or in the middle of some important task like teaching a lesson or reading a book or sitting at the kitchen table teasing James in my pajamas.
The issue is getting the threads unfrozen. Well, it's an issue of turning the supply valve off, turning off the gas, draining an appropriate amount of water from the furnace, tinkering with the HVAC until I have access to the anode rod, and THEN getting the threads unfrozen. And then, after two failed attempts, managing to somehow get the vent back in place and the gas burner re-lit.
It wouldn't have been so bad except that J knew that I needed to do it. She would ask me on a Monday morning: "Anything you need to do today besides practice?"
"Well, today would be a good day to see if I can check the anode road in the hot water heater, I guess."
And then I wouldn't do it. Week after week I chickened out of trying to get that blasted anode rod check off my to-do list, and I knew that J knew that I was putting off.
This week Pax and Kylie's hot water heater went up. It was a massive stress and inconvenience to them. It was a huge expense to have it replaced. I resolved again to check our anode rod. I researched the process from start to finish again. I went down and measured and found that I wouldn't have enough overhead space to pull the rod out even if I did get it free. I gave up on the project. I stewed about it for a half an hour and then decided to go ahead and check anyway, to get a look at even the first 30 inches of the rod.
I shut off the supply, turned off the gas, drained the lines, ran off some excess water, and set up with a breaker bar to work on getting the rod loose.
I broke the breaker bar.
I don't know how sturdy old sillcocks are expected to be, but I cracked right through the metal on mine as I worked around it.

I'm pretty sure that thing is just in there for good.

At the very least, I'm taking it off my to-do list.

Quick Hitters

I. Apple Droppings
Every once the kids gross me out more than usual. I've become accustomed to wiping bottoms, sweeping cereal crumbs out from underneath the table, and stepping in tracked-in puddles of melted snow.
It's hard to handle Owen's apples, though.
He LOVES apples. The child is constantly cutting new teeth, and also growing about an inch a week. There isn't anything that feels better on his gums than a cold, crisp, red apple. If he sees one, he'll make the following reasoned argument with you until you wash it and hand it over:
"Unh! Unnnhh! Unh-unh-unh! Unhhh! UNNNNNNNNHHHHH!!!!!! UNH! UNH! UNH! unh-huhn uhn uhnuhnuhnuhn! UNNNNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
You take a single bite out of it to start it for him, and then he happily takes it in hand and walks off with it. And that's when the droppings start to fall.
He uses his six little teeth to gnaw off tiny shards of apple, and they fall out his mouth as he tracks about everywhere in the house. There are soggy apple shards in the living room, in the kitchen, up the stairs, in the bathroom. They are in the blankets on the couch. They are in his high chair. They are in the grown up chairs. They are at my desk and under the piano. They are too small to be seen, but large enough to be extraordinarily unpleasant when you step on them.
Occasionally he'll get a bigger chunk of apple off, and for a moment he has a pleased expression. He'll suck on it for a few seconds, then say "BLEH" and let it all dribble out of his mouth, still warm with spit, onto the floor, at which point he walks away and continues to manufacture the tiny shards. Because he is constantly running into things and attempting to steal his brother's toys, the apple doesn't always stay in his hands. He regularly drops it on the floor, and into the dust bunnies underneath the couch or the console table, or into the cold snow-puddles in the front foyer. This doesn't bother him in the slightest. He just gets down on his hands and knees, thrusts a little arm under the couch, then pulls it back off and starts eating it again. It's only slightly hairy.
This is why dirty diapers don't seem so gross any more.

II. Sfingi
If you didn't already know, we live down the street from a great Italian bakery. The sidewalks are still covered in snow today, so I took my morning run at about 1:30 in the afternoon and went up to Culver Road by running on the side of the street. The street was pretty icy too, but I managed to stay upright all the way to the bakery. You start to smell the place about a block away, and today it smelled like fried dough and citrus. I didn't have either of the kids with me, so I took a good long look through the cakes. I ended up bringing back a Sfogiatelle, some biscotti, and a sfingi. Apparently the sfingi are only out during the Easter season, and it's kind of like a doughnut stuffed full of cannoli filling. It was incredible. I know that shoe pastry isn't J's favorite, but I could eat one of those with a cup of coffee anytime. For anyone who knows the Garrison Keillor sketch that I'm thinking of, be impressed that I interacted with a zeppole and a Cuisnart within the same hour.

III. Monopoly Junior
James is sick. He has some kind of cold and mild fever, and he spent the entire morning watching Curious George episodes in a daze on the couch. J must have felt bad for him (or perhaps really wanted to relive part of her childhood) so she picked him up a new board game when she arrived back from the grocery store at lunch. It's Monopoly Junior. James has been into regular Monopoly ever since he discovered it with the babysitter a few weeks ago, but it isn't very much fun to play with him. For one thing, you can't play with the real rules. For another, it takes forever even when you're playing with modified rules. But the biggest disincentive is his need to have every monopoly bill properly stacked and organized before the game can begin. I think that he secretly only wants to play the game to watch the money being sorted. I came up with the great idea after organizing the money for the the third or fourth time of paper-clipping it all together so that this wouldn't be a required ritual every time we got the game out. During the game I stepped into the kitchen for something, and when I came back into the living room all six stacks of bills had been unclipped and mixed into one another again.
"There was an accident." explained James.
Monopoly Junior is much more age appropriate. James still messes up the money (he insists on dropping it from the sky when he's paying the bank) but there are considerably fewer bills to deal with.

February Quick Hitters

I. Vacation
Whenever I worry about how our income patterns make for such a strange February (high expenses because of the biannual car insurance premium, low income because of the short month and the break week) I remember that the week at home is like a mandatory vacation. Theoretically we could be traveling somewhere for a "proper" vacation, but it's really more relaxing (albeit colder) to be snowed in at home for a week with nowhere to be and lots of wine and warm blankets. So you're welcome, everyone, for blogging on my vacation.

II. Owen's George and Steven
Owen is getting attached to his George. At first it was just an interesting novelty that he would occasionally remember when he happened across in his eternal quest to put the whole world in his mouth. Then he started to hold him more often, because it was the best way to get James' George away from him, and he was now quick enough to grab James' George when James wasn't looking. Then he started taking George to bed with him. Then he started insisting that George come with him when we got him up in the morning.
Today we heard that familiar sound of "No, no, Owen...that's MINE!" But it wasn't George that Owen was running off with...it was Steven Bear. James handled it pretty well. He offered Owen all sorts of objects for exchange, but Owen wanted to hold his George and James' Steven. J ran up the stairs, rummaged around, and then came down with the back-up Steven Bear. (If you're new to this blog, this isn't going to make any sense without some context, by the way.) She offered New Steven to Owen. He turned around to look at me with a "Ta-Da" expression on his face.
"Are you just like your big brother now?"
He grinned and nodded.

III. Trumpetsicles
We all continue to tolerate the practicing arrangement in our own way. I usually play for about an hour in the morning, and then do a shorter second session before dinner. This is enough to stay in shape, keep ahead of whatever music I'll be playing in the upcoming week, and keep working on some ongoing projects as well. J and the kids usually retreat to the furthest possible corner of the house, or they play VERY NOISY GAMES until someone falls over and begins to cry. (Usually not J.) This has worked okay through the mild winter, but now that it's properly February cold outside, it's getting harder for me to work up the willpower to go down to the basement every day. I have a little space heater that I can turn on, but even with the space heater cranked I usually can't feel my fingers or toes by the time I've been down there for an hour. There's also an additional complication of trying to switch instruments in my practicing. If I've warmed up on my C trumpet and then try to pick up the rotary to work on something, it will take at least a minute or two for the valves to thaw out to the point where they can go up and down again. Or if I start playing a passage on a horn that isn't in a two foot radius of the heater, I can count on the first phrase being about 25 cents flatter (because of the cold) than the second, once my blowing has warmed the instrument up. I haven't found any icicles hanging off my water keys yet, but I don't think we're too far from that point.

IV. Fine Wine
Part of me hoped that when I bought a bottle of really nice wine...a bottle of wine that cost way, way more than any bottle of wine I'd ever purchased, that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Or, if I could tell the difference, that I wouldn't care enough to venture out of our usual price point with any regularity.
This is the trouble with trying nice things. You find that you like them.

V. Valentine's Dinner
Mostly at Pax's prodding and planning, we are cooking Valentine's Dinner for our wives tonight. I just heard a small wail from upstairs, which means that it's time for me to go get little boys up and prepare them for the trip over to Hilltop. My suggestion is that the wives should record the experience and post it for posterity. Also, in case of food poisoning, is there anyone who would be able to watch James, Owen, Abby, and Jack tonight? But I'm sure we'll be fine...

Canada, Crying, Coincidence

I. Canada
We used our shiny new passports for the first time yesterday to cross the border into Canada and visit some college friends in Hamilton. As far as James is concerned, Canada is a magical land where we should live forever. His experience of Canada is that you get to watch Curious George, play with a bunch of new toys, eat chocolate covered granola bars, and play at a huge bounce house with incredibly polite Canadian people. Oh, and everyone is interested in hockey there too.
It was a lovely trip, and we made it through the border each way without having to wait any longer than to exchange pleasantries with the customs officials while they waved at the boys in the backseat. It's remarkable how close we live to Toronto, and yet I haven't been there in nearly 20 years!
It wasn't a great day for seeing much beauty in the Canadian landscape. The QEW was open and clean, but the wet, dirty road was the same color as the wet, dirty sky, which was the same color as the lake.
Didn't bother James, though. He says we need to go back soon.

II. Crying
James was withdrawn and quiet. I found him curled up on a chair and asked him what was wrong. He whispered his answers and wasn't making eye contact. I managed to get him up out of his seat and into a game of Trouble, and then when I was packing the game up I found out why.
Near the bookshelf where James always tries to "park" his toy cars (to keep them out of Owen's reach there was a picture frame that had tipped over and shattered. There was glass everywhere.
While I cleaned it up J came over and took him through the follow up.
"James, did you see this picture frame break?"
"Yes."
"Was it because you were trying to put your cars up on top of the cube, even though Mommy told you not to?"
"Yes."
"Are you allowed to do that."
<tears welling up>
"No."
"We're going to clean this up now and if you try to put your cars up on the cube again we're going to take them away. And if you ever see broken glass you need to come and get Mommy and Daddy right away, because if Owen got into this he could have been hurt very badly. Do you understand?"
<nods, tears welling in eyes>
We finished cleaning up the glass and James went over to his spot at the kitchen table. He sat in his chair and set down his toy cars on the table so that they were looking back at him. He was still red in the face and the eyes, and he put his face in his hands while he looked at his cars. I stepped towards him, but J held me back.
Then the tears started.
"Poor Mater! POOR Mater!"
He covered his head with his hands and looked at the goofy tow truck grinning back at him.
"Poor Mater. POOR MATER!"
The tears and sobs were coming thick now, and he wailed out his call.
"Poor Lightning...poor Mater...poor Mater!"

I don't know if we were witnessing the germination of higher-level guilt or shame or sadness or what, but the poor little boy was having some sort of trouble processing this new emotion that couldn't be placed on his normal spectrum of HUNGRY--ASLEEP.

"POOR MATER!"

This went on for about 10 minutes.
He was pretty quiet the rest of the morning.

III. Coincidence
My Valentine's Day present to J this year came out of an old, dead laptop buried in the basement. I managed to find a power supply that would give me access to the machine (which hadn't been turned on in years) and copied out of J's old inbox the entire archive of emails that we'd sent to each other when I was in grad school in Chicago. Most of the emails are simple retellings of how our days went. Sometimes, when I was working a long shift at the library, things got a little more interesting. There was a whole series of emails I wrote in 2006 (at this point I hadn't yet proposed, but J and I both knew it was going to happen soon) when I was dropping thick and barely concealed hints about how this was going to happen, alternating between legitimate teases and deliberate misinformation. One of the emails was set eight years in the future and took the form of a conversation between a married J and myself with two little children sitting up with us before bedtime, a little girl and her baby brother. The little daughter was my foil for my retelling of how my day went "Daddy, what were you doing EXACTLY eight years ago this very night?" and she also made for convenient commentary about how my pool audition went that day. "You played the Bach Christmas Oratorio on a D trumpet? You're the best Daddy EVER!" There were plenty of references to how the family story involved some surprising and well-known but never revealed marriage proposal.
The coincidence? The day in question was October 30th, 2006. The day eight years in the future where the email was set was October 30th, 2014.

For Owen

Quis advenit domum nostrum?

Aliquis, inquit Mus, aliquis!

Porcus dicit Da spatiam 

Plaustrum pellam aversim 

Tergebimus dicit Agnus 

Scopa trabes Aries dicit

Quis advenit domum nostrum?

Aliquis, inquit Mus, aliquis!

Verre terram Pullus dicit

Anser: Strue faenum, cite!

Fassiculos novos fac

Lana praesepium implebo 

Domum nostrum advenit quis?

Aliquis, inquit Mus, aliquis!

Procul aliquis appropinquit

Ianuam patefacit apertum 

Felis inquit Nonne nox?

Nusquam veniet inquit Ratus

Num veniet inquit Mus

Aliquis venit domum hunc

Ovum pariam Gallina inquit

Sternam meam caudam eis 

Quis advenit domum nostrum?

Mariam et Ioseph Mus sussurat 

Have, have ad domum nostrum!

Quick Hitters

I. Independent Play
J has been reading a parenting book that, so far, she is finding funny and insightful. I recommended it to her without having read it myself, so I look forward to reading it once she's finished to find out how thoughtful and appropriate my recommendation was. She turned to me on the couch yesterday and said "You know, I really like what this book has to say about letting kids figure out how to play on their own. It's better for the child and the parent if the parent just lets the kids go off into their room and be alone with their imagination instead of feeling pressure to butt in and be a part of whatever the kid is doing."

I agreed with her sentiment, so I was more than happy to write up my Pretentious Taco blog earlier this afternoon without feeling too concerned about where James was. If he was enjoying some play time on his own upstairs, that was just fine. Owen was mostly playing by himself next to me, and I had everything written up in about 20 minutes while I finished off a cup of coffee. Once I was done I scooped Owen up and headed towards the stairs.

"Daddy? Daddy?"

The bathroom door was shut and I could faintly hear James calling as I got to the base of the stairs. I bounded up and opened the door, finding him stranded on the toilet with his pants down and the lights off.

"Oh NO, James...have you been here long?"
"Yeah. I'm kind of cold. Where were you?"

II. Ash Wednesday
"Ash Wednesday is the moment each year when we touch and hold together both our baptism at the beginning of life and our funeral at the end of life. From dust you came, and to dust you will return."
It was a beautiful service last night at GPC, all the more beautiful because there were just a few of us there in that dark, empty sanctuary on a snowy February night.

III. Traumatizing the Babysitter
When I got back from the service last night I asked the babysitter how the boys did.
"Oh, they were both fine. James wanted to play Monopoly, so we got that down and he and I played that until bedtime."
"Monopoly, huh? He's never played that before. Did he understand the rules and everything?"
"Yes...we modified it so that we just put up hotels and passed around money, we didn't play the real way."
"Well thanks for doing that with him. I'm sure he enjoyed it."
"Yeah, he said he wanted to play it with you guys tomorrow morning."
...the next morning...
I went into James' room at 7:30 or so, and the first words out of his mouth were: "Hey Daddy, can we get the Monopoly game down? I want to be the race car, and you can be the battleship, and Mommy should be the hat."
I said good morning back to him, helped him out of bed, and then went over to the closet where our box of Monopoly had sat buried under a stack of other games ever since we moved in. I asked him if he'd had fun playing with the babysitter last night, and he assured me that Monopoly was his new favorite game.
I was interested in getting the game out again...our version of Monopoly was a custom board built by my brothers for us as a Christmas gift one year that was re-christened Smithopoly and featured properties where we had lived and Chance and Community Chest cards that had to do with our musical lives, hobbies, interests, etc. It was a great present and deserved to be opened again.
We went downstairs, and I opened up the box. I started sorting out the money and separating out the different types of Chance and Community Chest cards.

And then I remembered.

I remembered about the set of handwritten custom Chance and Community chest cards that were in the box. Cards that were not appropriate for ages 5 and up. Cards that were created sometime when we were living in Greensboro and were only ever supposed to be seen by J and I...

...and hence, for the second blog in a row, I'm concerned about our status with babysitters, because I'm not sure that we're ever getting that sitter back again.

Blogging For Books: Tacos--Recipes and Provocations

I'm just going to let this book speak for itself:

"Let's get this out of the way right up front. I'm a white boy from suburban Massachusetts where Old El Paso taco nights were mother's milk. I loved that stuff."

"I was clocking ninety hours a week in the pastry kitchen at Alinea in Chicago. I'd fallen hard for methylcellulose and xanthan gum--staples of the modernist cuisine tool belt--and I regarded Albert Adria's first pastry book, Los Postres de el Bulli, as sacred writ. The early days of Alinea were creatively grueling. And like a Dostoevsky student who offsets all the Slavic gloom with a smutty beach read, I spent my downtime chasing a deliverance from haute cuisine."

"I've had three defining moments as a cook: the first time I got to touch a black truffle; the first time I made a stable foam; and the first time I tasted a freshly made tortilla at La Parrilla. It was elastic and gently blistered. Earthy and supple with the flavor of toasted corn. It tasted ancient. That tortilla got under my skin."

"Journalists called me daily looking for word on the latest gastro-trickery coming out of my corner of the kitchen. Investors called, too. It would have been easy enough to peel off from wd--50 and open my own temple of progressive cooking. But I knew if I piggybacked on the work of my mentors--guys like Wylie, Grant Achatz, and Kent Oringer at Boston's Clio, where I began my career--I'd see it as a personal failure. I wouldn't have made a statement, wouldn't have ruffled any feathers. I needed to do something provocative."

"Jalapeno: The most commonly known chile outside of Mexico, spicy jalapenos are typically about 2 or 3 inches in length and have a bright green grassy flavor. They are named after Xalapa Veracruz, the region of Mexico where they were originally cultivated. When jalapenos are smoke dried, they are also known as chipotles, but they are also delicious raw, roasted, or pickled. Try charring them and stuffing them with cheese, breading them, and then deep frying them. I invented this. I call it a jalapeno popper."

"Just like sushi rice, a tortilla is so much more than its function of delivering food to mouth. It can offer some of the most stirring and intangible flavors in the culinary universe and is the single make-or-break factor that separates a forgettable taco from an epiphany. A tortilla is not a background player. It isn't godddamn Muzak."

"Note that some of these salsas call for use of a molcajete and tejolote, the traditional Mesoamerican basalt stone mortar and pestle. (You've probably seen this used to make tableside guacamole in the United States. Don't even get me started.)

"Nut-and seed-based Salsas and Moles. Here's where shit gets real."

"I'm a New England kid with modernist pastry credentials, so there are fried oysters, crab cakes, and foamy emulsions, too. I don't apologize for continuing to ask questions of an ancient cuisine--or for letting it evolve in my hands."

"I can't tell you how many times I've been accused of posturing as the white knight of Mexico. That I'm trying to save a coarse cuisine from itself with my magic Anglo fairy dust. Or that the food I cook is a rip-off because someone's roommate knows of a place in East Harlem that serves the same stuff for a song."

Quick Hitters

I. Spinoza
"I have thus shown I. That it is impossible to deprive men of the liberty of saying what they think. II. That such liberty can be conceded to every man without injury to the rights and authority of sovereign power, and that every man may retain it without injury to such rights, provided that he does not presume upon it to the extent of introducing any new rights into the state, or acting in any way contrary to the existing laws. III. That every man may enjoy this liberty without detriment to the public peace, and that no inconveniences arise therefrom which cannot easily be checked. IV. That every man may enjoy it without injury to his allegiance. V. That laws dealing with speculative problems are entirely useless. VI. Lastly, that not only may such liberty be granted without prejudice to the public peace, to loyalty, and to the rights of rulers, but that it is even necessary for their preservation."--Tractatus Theologico-politicus

I can't remember encountering a writer in recent memory who is so ORDERLY in his thinking, not to mention extraordinarily ahead of his time, for better and for worse. Next up the Tractatus-politicus, as I'm working through a "political node" of my reading project for the year.

II. Burr Grinder
We lost the burr grinder today. I waited for the longest time to buy an automatic burr grinder. (Which, for those of you who don't drink coffee, MARTHA, is a mill that grinds coffee to a uniform grit and can be adjusted from fine to coarse.) Eventually a friend gave me a used mill that was lacking a working grind chamber. The incomplete mill moved with us to Brighton, and then to Irondequoit, and then I finally persuaded J to spend the money on the necessary part by means of the following argument: "Would you say it would be worth $20 to never have any coffee ground mess on the kitchen counter ever again." Later that day, after the part had been ordered, we discussed the future of the old grinder. I wanted to save it in case of emergencies, and I was called a pack-rat. I did save it, until last month when I was cleaning out the basement. I decided that since my burr grinder was a high-quality Cuisinart appliance, it would be highly unlikely that I would ever have need of the cheap grinder again. I bewailed my decision to throw it out to J, who pointed out that we could use her Magic Bullet to get us through the gap. (The new mill arrives on the 16th.) That was a close one.

III. Babysitter?
Does anyone want to come over to our house and watch the boys on Tuesday the 23rd? I want to take J out to Geva that night and am planning a special blogging event (which involves food) for whichever sibling(s) would be willing to come to our house and attempt to brush the boys teeth and put them to bed.

IV. Mommy's Boy
James is having some issues with me. After repeatedly declaring that Mommy is his Valentine and that he loves Mommy the best, he is now insisting that J read him all bedtime/naptime stories and be the only parent that puts him to bed. Is it anger? Is it resentment? Is it a reaction against perceived neglect? Is it some weird Freudian thing? I would worry that that he's upset at a disproportionate number of blog posts featuring Owen, but I'm pretty sure he can't read yet. I'm not too worried yet, though. I think that the swing in parental preference could still be quickly cured by some bribery in the form of desserts.

Welp

Owen pooped in the tub. (Again)

James is upset that I won't give him the toys that were in the poop-water.

Owen is now sucking the remaining water out of the washcloth that was still in the tub from a few days ago.

Quick Hitters

I. Changing Clothes
Owen is at the age where he needs several changes of clothes per day. Old enough to walk around and get into all sorts of trouble, not old enough to realize that certain types of trouble will make you awfully upset immediately afterwards because it isn't terribly comfortable to be cold and wet. Old enough to be able to move a stool over and reach things he shouldn't, not old enough to get sent into timeout for the offense. (Really, it's our fault for leaving dirty dishes within his grasp.)
This morning he's already been through a set of pants, because he was ramming around the basement with James and I while I roasted coffee. He got into the husks, and very deliberately took individual handfuls over to the stairs and spread a fist of husks onto each individual step. By the time I finished whatever it was that I was occupied with (probably putting away something that was more dangerous/dirty) his pants were covered in basement grit and old coffee husks. It wasn't worth it to try to change him.
After lunch J made a "dessert" which is really just blended-up cherries, milk, and frozen bananas. I don't know how she does it, but it tastes just like ice cream. It's the best way to have fruit. Owen alternated between banging his fists insistently for more and then recoiling in shock at the cold headache and letting it dribble out of his mouth. And that was it for his sweatshirt.
Fortunately, I didn't have to reach far to find clean clothes for them. He and James had a 20 minute laundry battle this morning in which they dumped over the basket of clean whites and then threw garments at each other, laughing uproariously the entire time. I was just grateful that they weren't throwing the clean clothes I'd already folded.

II. Asking Nicely
The quality of a guest conductor can quickly make your week really good or really bad. After working on several operas with a certain conductor who was universally loathed by the orchestra, this week was a breath of fresh air. Here's the sort of feedback we'd get from Old Conductor: "No, no, no. It's mezzo-PIANO. It's too loud. It's just too loud." Or, "Orchestra, you're completely overpowering the singers. It's not a Beethoven symphony, it just has to be softer." Or, "NO!! Brass, what are you doing? I'm showing you light, you must play lighter!" Or, punctuating all of these comments, an angry expression and the open palm of his hand.
Here's what we got from New Conductor: "Orchestra, please make sure you listen to the stage at this moment for soprano line, and then it will be balanced." Or, "The choir may not be able to keep up with you, I regret that we'll need to accommodate them in this section." Or, "Don't worry about accompanying in this section, in this passage what the opera needs more than anything else in this section is a beautiful, full string sound!"
Guess which conductor got pats on the back and handshakes during the intermission?

III. DNI
The Monday Evening Wegmans run is becoming an institution. J teaches three students back-to-back, and the last one is an hour. The boys just can't quite make it through that last lesson without dropping a case of dominoes on the wood floor, asking to be held by the high school flute student, or holding a shouting contest. (Yes, all of those things have actually happened.) So for the last hour I load them up in the car and take them out to get whatever it is that we need from the grocery store for the week. This week it was mostly ingredients for Date Night In, which we're doing tonight. Except that I didn't really do particularly well. The Pittsford Wegmans, Mt. Wegmans itself, was out of pomegranate seeds, and they didn't have cocoa nibs either. (At least I don't think they did...I'm not sure that I'd recognize a cocoa nib if I saw one.) Highlight of the trip for the boys, though? The wine store was giving away free balloons, and they each got one to take home. (Owen hardly touched his dinner and was up way earlier than usual this morning because of balloon fascination.)

IV. Will I Get a 1099 For This?
True Story: I was offered a gig this morning that started at 4:30 this afternoon, and the compensation was a pancake dinner.
Turned out I was busy.

Super Bowl Live Blog

It's Super Bowl Sunday!

Time for my annual live blog, which actually has only been annual once. I will provide my reaction to the game, the commentary, and the commercials between sips of beer. This is all contingent on Owen not getting into the laptop, so we'll see how well this goes. Be prepared to be astounded by my defensive coverage and pop culture analysis.

6:10
I wish that Suzy Kolber was getting a reaction from Joe Namath on his MVP introduction.

6:12
Brady getting roundly booed. I LOVE it. James really wants to get into the popcorn.

6:13
Eli gets introduced. Every time they show Eli making a little boy face in the press box I'm going to do 20 bicycle pedals.

6:14
Joe Flacco...he's in elite company...is he elite? James still really wants popcorn.

6:15
James has a plate of food an Owen is immediately getting into it. James offers him a balloon to eat instead.

6:17 The last time I live-blogged the Super Bowl Peyton Manning had a bad, bad day. Here's hoping tonight goes better.

6:19
Panthers are taking the field. Having just read the Blind Side, J is rooting for Michael Oher tonight.

6:27
Armed Forces choir sounds amazing. Wouldn't want to be the next act.

6:31
J: "She looks like she belongs on Star Trek but she sings great."

6:32
J is censoring the commercials for the boys, so I can't give my scintillating commentary.

6:39
"The weather is 76, but there are breezes." J: "That's right...there are Drew Brees-es."

6:40
Kickoff. Finally.

6:43
You offer Owen a high five and he thinks you're offering to pick him up.

6:44
It should be noted that J is watching the Super Bowl wearing a Bills hoodie.

6:45
Only 3 points for the Broncos, but that's a +5 differential from their last Super Bowl opening drive.
True Story: The inspiration for Owen's name is now-Broncos tight end Owen Daniels. During a Texans game several years ago we saw him score a touchdown, looked each other and said "What do you think of the name 'Owen?'"

6:49
Owen's new life goal is to get the RV remote. Now he's screaming so loud that I can't hear anything because we're getting in the way of his life goals.

6:50
After Super Bowls, winning cities see a rise in births, which are called Super Bowl babies.
Buffalo's population was in decline in the 90s.

6:54
Panthers are three and out. Owen is successfully imitating a sheep, dog, cow, and cat.
Paypal isn't new money. It's old money plus a service fee.

6:59
The Dangerous Ted Ginn. Dangerous to the opposing team and to his own.
Having not seen Eli, J is proposing that we revisit the trigger for push-ups/pedals.

7:05
What is a catch, philosophically speaking? What is its essence? How is the quality of catchness different than non-catchness? Are the necessary conditions different than the sufficient conditions for a catch? We have time to talk all of these questions over while we wait for the replay to finish.

7:06
DENVER TOUCHDOWN!!!!
(push-ups)

7:10
Fozzy Whitaker is a nifty little player, but the game would be more interesting if they put in Fozzy Bear.

7:12
Denver is doing to Carolina what Seattle did to Denver the last time I was blogging. Another sack.
And the taunting penalty ruins it. Ridiculous.

7:15
James is enjoying the longest iPad turn of his life.
Taunting penalty turns out to come out to nothing in terms of getting the ball back, but what about field position?

7:17
I feel the same way about that Shock Top commercial as I do about their beer.
Also, no more Odell Beckham, Jr. He'll only be remembered as a footnote to Sammy Watkins.

7:20
Manning sacked. He's SO OOOLLLDDD.
Just saw the draft photos of Manning and Newton next to each other. I believe that Manning's is actually a daguerreotype.

7:22
END Q1
Jason Bourne is back?
Nasty, nasty razor commercial. But I guess it worked...I'm totally going to change my razor. And maybe my whole bathroom.
This Quicken Loans commercial is extraordinarily depressing.

7:28
The game is getting scrappy...Owen has fallen out of his chair twice in a row. Beautiful play to Greg Olsen.

7:29
Another personal foul on Talib. Under the new rule proposal he'd be ejected.

7:33
Time out to read Owen George Zoo a couple times.
J is showing me Force Awakens Calvin and Hobbes toons...they are wonderful.

7:36
10-7.
Carolina is out of challenges 4 minutes into the 2nd quarter...
4th and 17 from inside the 10. This isn't going great for Peyton.

7:44
Owen is the type of kid who doesn't complain when I lift my leg to keep him away from the computer. He just keeps on smiling and begins untying my shoe. And then eating my shoe.

7:45
Ted Ginn, Jr. is no Antwaan Randle El. Although that may be exactly who he is.

7:47
97 on the Panthers is the biggest guy in the history of breakaway punt returns to be the last guy who catches the returner. That's some hustle. Addison?
Also, that's the first time you've ever heard someone saying "Good job by Norwood" on a Super Bowl special teams play.

7:50
No go on third down. Bicycle pedals. Going for it on third down...made it but there's a flag.
Called back on a penalty...this will be three.
Owen is now insisting on being read the 10 Little Monkeys book. James is still loving the longest iPad turn ever.
Owen sympathizes with this awful OIC commercial.

7:54
Owen is attempting to make drawling, Phil Simms-style commentary about the game. Then looking to us to see if we approve.

7:57
The Panthers are fumbly-wumbly wittle kitty-witty-cats.

8:01
After the Anderson run, J: "They are playing for him. They are all playing for Peyton."
And then Peyton immediately thrown an ugly pick. (Bicycle pedals)

8:05
Denver defense holds again. Owen is hyper/tired. James is still on the longest iPad turn ever.
J says Owen sometimes looks like Dopey when his face and eyes get squinchy.

8:10
Independence Day 2? We watched that on our honeymoon.
Prius commercial was funny.

8:16
What a catch by Funchess.

8:19
And the sack means halftime/bedtime.

8:42
Kids down to bed. Can't say I missed the halftime show. Time for 2nd beer.
Denver needed to have a bigger lead going into the 2nd half..

8:49
Annual Mark's halftime commercial. I think the owner's family is getting bigger.
Annual City Mattress halftime commercial. I don't think that guy is aging at all.

8:53
Amazing speed/catch by Ginn...gives up and runs out of bounds.
Great play by Newton NOT taking a sack on the throwaway.

8:56
Evan Washburn--Panthers did not change their regular routine from halftime. Were they waiting around for an extra 18 minutes, then?
Aqib Talib ALMOST had the strip on Ginn. More semi-fumblies.

8:58
Von Miller dropping into coverage like a safety!
Good job picking up a flag that had nothing to do with the play.
Time for Graham Gounod, famous for his accuracy and his opera Faust.
Off the upright. Better stick to opera.

9:01
More commercials should have Anthony Hopkins in them.
Panthers thought Talib jumped early...but can't review it.

9:03
Manning to Sanders...that duck looked pretty good.
Manning to Sanders again. Can it be more than 3? (Or a pick?)
J: "He might not have any arm left, but he's got a great hard count."

9:06
Another field goal, and lucky that one wasn't picked too. Pedals.

9:12
HOW did Brown catch that? Wow...
Maybe Ward got into Talib's line of sight?
Along with the Ginn 4 yard/50 yard run, momentum to Carolina.

9:14
If Carolina can get a ground game going Denver ought to be worried.

9:16
PICK! And Danny Trevathan saves TJ Ward from being a goat.
Fitbit commercial...does anyone we know have one of these? We've thought about them.
Wiener dog commercial, and James is MISSING it. #wearethewienerdogs
J is having a beer. (Really a hard cider, but still.)

9:18
That was a pile-pushing run...impressive.

9:19
Ealy now has two sacks and an interception. He is personally wrecking Manning's fairy-tale ending.

9:22
Singing sheep=best commercial so far.

9:26
Cam needs an elite receiver.
And also to not take delay of game penalties.

9:33
Peyton can only throw downfield to Sanders, apparently. Another flag.
J: "Don't pull a Bengals."
Nantz: "You see with Peyton a sense of finality...but also, a man at peace."
J: "He's not DYING everybody!"
Nantz: "So he has these peaceful feelings..."
Ealy with ANOTHER sack, and the strip too.

9:40
Big third down...and flags are out.
Awesome coverage AGAIN by Denver secondary.

9:43
This time Gounod comes through. (Bicycles)

9:48
One of the neighbor kids is just yelling as loud as he can outdoors.
Classic war against the clock here...can the Broncos win by 6?

9:55
Survivor is still on TV?

9:58
This is setting up for a game-winning drive. Who's it going to be?

10:00
True point by J--this broadcast has been super football-centric. No celebrities in the stands, not even shots of the coaches.

10:01
FUMBLY-WUMBLIES!!!
Now they are four yards out and they need to get into the END ZONE.

10:03
The Sheriff draws the flag...and that's why you throw it every once in a while.

10:05
TOUCHDOWN. This is gonna be a fairy-tale ending...
...pending review

10:08
Eli has a jealous younger brother look...time for pedals.

10:11
So Von Miller is the MVP, right?
Not a safety, he was outside the tackle box and the ball crossed the line.
This is where I feel bad for Cam, though. He's talented enough, I'm sure he'll have more chances...but this is Peyton's night.

10:15
Last time out called by Carolina.
"I'm still a member of the band, I'm not always the lead singer anymore, but I can sing a few solos."
#nationwidejingle
"I'm going to have the most thrilling three minutes of my year trying to make it down there in time for the Super Bowl trophy."
Wait, what? Jim Nantz has a newborn son? How old is he?

10:17
Okay, that's it for Peyton. Time to sign off and just enjoy this. Congrats to #18.

James and Owen

JAMES
He walks by with a tennis ball and goes to his play kitchen. He makes some preparations, then opens up the oven and carefully sets the ball in. Sensing that an explanation is needed he looks over.
"I'm making roast ball. It should be ready just in time for when Emma [the babysitter] gets here."

OWEN
We're wrapping up lunch. I set Owen down and begin to sweep up all the food that was on the floor.
Owen walks off, toting around his Curious George.
I take James' plate and silverware, toss his last sandwich crust into the trash, then put the plate and silverware into the sink.
Owen walks by me into the kitchen, babbling to himself and still holding George.
I wipe down the mess on the table and collect my own dishes.
Owen walks by me munching on James' sandwich crust.

Memorial Art Gallery

A Thursday evening at the Memorial Art Gallery in downtown Rochester. An attractive young couple is out on a date. They walk slowly from exhibit to exhibit, murmuring softly to each other about about the pieces that they pass. The young woman brushes a strand of blonde hair out of her face and looks sideways at the man in a crisply pressed shirt beside her while he looks over a terracotta sculpture in the Asian room. The room is brightly lit and the only sounds are the quiet shuffling of other patron's feet and their own hushed murmurs--the jazz duo in the lobby can't be heard from here, nor the clinking of wineglasses outside the giftshop.

As the attractive young woman turns to say something to her date she suddenly discerns an unexpected sound--the sound of tiny feet pitter-pattering much more quickly than any of the heavy shuffles of well-made adult dress shoes all around. She looks back over her shoulder and a tiny blonde boy emerges from behind a piece of statuary wearing an unzipped yellow coat and grinning from ear to ear. He wobbles unsteadily, looks behind him, then pat-pat-pats over to an iron sculpture of a horse. He looks surprised, grins again, and waves to the horse.

The young woman gently nudges her date with an elbow, and points at the little boy, just barely more than a baby, and clearly still unstable on his little feet. He weaves in and out of surprised patrons at knee length, and makes several circles around the center of the room, not particularly caring to look where he's going and smiling all the while. Wondering if he's running through the museum unsupervised, the young woman looks back to the door and sees a man in a peacoat enter with a slightly older boy who is his father's image in duplicate, just several feet shorter. The father beholds the little blonde boy, who has run into a display case and tipped over, with a tired smile.

"Stay with us, Owen. James, in this room there is a boat, a fox, two horses, and a little girl. Can you see if you can find them?"
"I want to hold the map again, Daddy."

The blonde girl smiles at her date, who waves at the little blonde boy. His grin widens, and he halts, lifts up an arm, and waves back.

The couple make their way into the next room, and exhibition of European painters from 1800-1900. The museum's Monet is in here, along with several other of the most valuable paint works. She stands with her date and asks him for an opinion on something, when she suddenly feels something brush against her leg.

She looks down, and there is the little blonde boy grinning and looking up at her expectantly. She smiles in surprise, and he waves at her, then lifts his arms expectantly.

The father in the peacoat steps over quickly and retrieves his son with a hasty apology while the older son sizes up an elephant. The father brings the younger son over to the elephant statue. This leads to several seconds of surprised interest, more waving, an attempt to lick the glass display case, and then wiggling down and running off (pat-pat-pat-pat) into another room again.

"The last horse is over in that corner. Do you see it? Well, never mind, let's go catch up to Owen again."
"Hey, do you think that Owen would fit in the mummy case?"

The Will to Power

Power is a funny thing.

When you consider who's "in charge" in any given situation or relationship the world can look pretty backwards. I just finished reading some Nietzsche earlier in the month, encountered a couple paragraphs of Adler by way of criticism, and am now reading the big Rawls book on justice, so power and authority have been on my mind.

If I look in the mirror I ought to be well-pleased with what I see. I'm a reasonably attractive white landed male with education and disposable income in stable family relationships and secure employment. Demographically speaking, the world is my oyster. In countless ways that other people start from a position of disadvantage, I am thoroughly empowered. I can travel anywhere I want. (Or at least I will be able to when my passport arrives in the mail.) I can borrow money, set my own schedule, learn any new skill at leisure, and could even conceivably get elected to the most important political office in the world. If I'm worried about posterity, I have reasonable confidence that my sons will enjoy the same advantages.

Thinking about my boys is where the question of power gets interesting. That's a straightforward relationship, right? I'm their Father, their legal guardian, immediate moral authority, and the dispenser of justice and law in their tiny little worlds. I hold parental power, and as I push them along the aisles of Wegmans in a steering wheel cart (which they can only pretend to steer with their little wheels--really I'M steering it) they are completely in my charge.

Until James remembers about the free cookies. And then he asks. And then he asks again. And then he asks louder. And then Owen picks up on it because he recognizes the word "cookie" and knows what that means. And then they began to attract the attention of the other shoppers who look askance from their inspections of avocado-ripeness.

So who's really in charge in that moment? I mean, I could enact some sort of nuclear disciplinary measure like refusing the cookie dole or threatening time-outs or cancelling Christmas, but these sorts of measures just confirm what the boys already know: Even though I may be the nominal authority figure, our relationship is one of negotiated cooperating interests. They do, in fact, have some say in how I'm going to make decisions. Even if their little steering wheels won't turn the cart towards the bakery, their squeaky little voices can get the cart turned around.

Perhaps I ought to just march them straight out of the store and whisk them back home, but I don't have the authority to take that action either, because of the division of power in another family relationship--I'm under an obligation to pick up sour cream, mushrooms, and cream of mushroom soup for my wife. If only my own interests were at stake, I might forgo the pleasure of being at Wegmans, or at least delay it until a future date. (Like today, where I'm stuck at the Syracuse Wegmans for the next four hours waiting for the Opera dress rehearsal.) But J is waiting at home for the ingredients she needs to make beef stroganoff, and the power dynamic between the two of us is one of egalitarian cooperation. I owe her the completion of the Wegmans trip. We are bonded and vowed to submit to the interests of the other person, and that relationship is one of ongoing negotiation and redistribution.

A marriage relationship is a particularly fertile source of power negotiations. Take, for example, the division of housework. I've slowly taken over laundry duty in the course of our marriage, but the disadvantage to me is more than offset by the fact that I've been completely liberated from all kitchen responsibilities. (Except for scullion duty.) Sure, I fold a lot of shirts and unload the dishwasher quite a bit, but not having to eat my own cooking empowers me, quite literally. J's beef stroganoff, even without the cream of mushroom soup that I forgot, is way better than cereal for supper. This division of authority in domestic duties isn't a hard and formal system. Some duties are re-negotiated quite often. For example, J will say "I'll wash the pots and pans if you can put away the library books that James was dropping behind the couch." Within our system of shared authority it's perfectly acceptable for me to counter with "Why don't you hold Owen instead and see if you can pull the leaves out of his mouth so that I can vacuum up all the dirt that he just spread around the rug while he was eating the houseplants."

In our marriage I've inherited the disadvantage of total responsibility for all financial matters in our marriage, but that's come with the power to be the captain and pilot of our "financial ship." (J, on our "financial ship" is chained to a bench in the hold where she plies her oar and wonders how much money I'm spending on mouthpieces.) Yes, as far as the financial side of the marriage relationship goes, I'm in complete control. You could even say, like Orwell does, that money in the modern world is the only important measure of power. But if I look outside the marriage relationship and consider the actual pressures of money and its power, the real financial authority in my life is the partnership of the Franklin American Mortgage Company. There are a bunch of people in suits who I've never met who hold the real authority over our checkbook--they're the reason why I'm at work right now instead of sitting at my desk in my pajamas.

Lastly, the sexual relationship of a marriage is a deeply interesting study in power dynamics. For instance, will one partner withhold sex because the other writes about it and publishes their thoughts on the internet? How, in a marriage, does it work best for one partner to lovingly seek the satisfaction of their spouse and also meet their own needs? It's hard to imagine an experience that leaves one more vulnerable to their most deeply felt needs and insecurities. As much as it may be within my theoretical prerogative as a spouse to tell J, "put on this slinky underwear and be upstairs in five minutes," she will always have the right to say "you forgot that you have a student coming coming, and they just pulled into the driveway."

Thinking about the people who used to hold parental power over me, it still surprises me sometimes to think that they don't (and hopefully don't often have a wish to) regularly exercise that authority over me. In fact, I had a moment of psychological dissonance last week when I found out my Mom an Dad would be leaving for Florida within a few days and hadn't told me. I suppose it surprised me that they wouldn't have taken any precautions to make sure that I didn't need the number of anyone to call in case something happened at the house. There is an interesting new power dynamic that comes up between a launched and independent and child and their parents--mutual demonstration of interest in one another's lives and voluntary re-kindling of the family hearth. It would be hurtful (and disadvantage me) if I didn't think that my parents were interested in what was happening in my now independent life. I assume it would be harmful to them if I showed no interest in theirs, or in respecting and seeking out their advice. It's still a family relationship, but it's one that's been dramatically changed from when they were pushing me around in a shopping cart. (Or, to put it more accurately, insisting that I walk quickly enough to keep up with the shopping cart that was full of groceries and smaller, higher-pitched boys.)

My place of employment also provides an interesting field of studies in the division of authority. The average symphony-going patron probably assumes that the conductor is exercising control over the orchestra and "playing them" according to his or her own vision for the music. This is hardly the truth. Even though some conductors remain convinced that they are in charge of the performance, they do not make a single sound. The musicians cooperate with the conductor out of grudging necessity, but the rehearsal and performance process is a secret resistance that often turns into downright civil war.

Likewise, it's my responsibility as a 2nd trumpet player to cede artistic authority to the principal player in my section. On the one hand, I'm glad to do this. I trust his musical judgment and am usually quite happy in the role of matching, blending, and supporting.

The ultimate power body in a musical setting, however, is the audition panel. Each audition committee holds it within their authority to bestow a position that will pay out millions of dollars over the course of the post. Well, some of the positions would pay millions over a career, anyway. You'd have to do my job for a LONG time to hit the million mark. But even these committees lack power in a certain paralyzing ways. No committee, no matter how much they may want to give a job to a deserving colleague, can go back into a candidate's practice room and force them to turn on a metronome or a tuner. Ultimately, as badly as they may want to give a job to somebody or anybody, they can't control what sounds come from the other side of the screen--only the candidates can.

I have very little real power to anything, when I think about it. I was protected on the drive into work this morning by a comfortable modern automobile, but if we'd had a flat or an accident I'd have been stuck beside the highway in whipping winds and freezing rains--the same rains that were somehow penetrating the windowsill in the house I bought to protect my family from the elements. I have no protection from the advance of day after day and year after year from old age, and though I've enjoyed extraordinary good health to this point in my life, my 160 lb white little body is an extraordinarily fragile system.

Multiple cups of coffee and many hours of Wegmans' reflection have confirmed exactly what my wise parents instilled--the will to love is far greater and more important than the will to power. Authority matters, of course, and the wise exercise of authority cannot be done without. But as I drive home to my children and wife with my friend and colleague after sharing a stage with a conductor I don't know and a bassoon player who resents the sound of my instrument, the most important and the greatest of these is love.

Groundhog Day

If you had to be stuck in an endlessly repeating day, this one wouldn't be a bad one to do over and over. It was clear and not too cold on my run this morning, and I'll be home until tonight, when I'll get to go play Puccini for two and a half hours. It shouldn't be a bad day at all.

There's a rocket ship in my library, currently. We built it last night using Discovery Kids construction something-or-others. They're kind of like really big tinkertoys, and I think you're supposed to use them to make forts. They were a Christmas present (I don't remember who from) and we enforced J's hard to sell but wise policy of storing them until the middle of the bleak midwinter so that they would be fully appreciated and also break up the monotony of stuck-inside life. So far we've built an igloo, a schoolhouse, and now the rocket. At James' direction we put a snowshaker (your guess is as good as mine) inside the rocket, and also a needle with an antenna ball at the top. You know, so the rocket can receive FM radio signals in space.

Every night when James goes to bed he asks that you put his cars up on his high shelf. He isn't allowed to take the cars to bed with him because he'll play with them (and talk to them) all night instead of sleeping. So Mater, Sally, and Lightning go up on his high shelf. Next to his piggy bank. Facing out. So he can see them. With Lightning next to Mater. But Lightning can't be next to Sally.

He's a little particular.

Last night I put a toy pterodactyl on top of Mater's roof. It started as a low note, and then ever so gradually rose to a broken wail. J went in.
"That dinosaur does NOT belong on Mater."
"Oh, he must have flown up there and sat on Mater's roof. I bet he likes it there."
"No, someone put him there. Take him OFF!"

The child doesn't take a joke very well.

Jung:
Because of my views I am accused of mysticism. I do not, however, hold myself responsible for the fact that man has, everywhere and always, spontaneously developed religious forms of expression, and that the human psyche from time immemorial has been shot through with religious feelings and ideas. Whoever cannot see this aspect of the human psyche is blind, and whoever chooses to explain it away, or to "enlighten" it away, has no sense of reality. Or should we see in the father-complex which shows itself in all the members of the Freudian school, and in its founder as well, convincing evidence of any release worth mentioning from the inexorable family situation? This father-complex, fantastically defended with such stubbornness and over-sensitivity, is a cloak for religiosity misunderstood; it is a mysticism expressed in terms of biology and the family relation. As for Freud's idea of the "super-ego," it is a furtive attempt to smuggle in his time-honoured image of Jehovah in the dress of psychological theory. When one does things like that, it is better to say so openly. For my part, I prefer to call things by the names under which they have always been known.

Completely trivial point from this paragraph: "stubbornness" is now a word I have realized has three pairs of duplicated letters. The only other word I knew like that off the top of my head was "bookkeeper." And that was from reading Encyclopedia Brown books twenty years ago.

57

I.
It was 57 degrees Fareneheit yesterday. In Rochester, NY. On January 31st. I doubt it will happen again in my lifetime, and I made sure to take advantage of the day. As soon as we got back from church I changed the boys into mudding clothes and we tromped over to the playground. They didn't even know that they were hungry until I dragged them back home and started putting food in their mouths. Then they slept the sleep of the played-out, and went outside again immediately after naps. It was glorious.

II. Serious Business
"Daddy, make Owen stop!"
"You don't want him to sweep off those woodchip piles you're making on the steps?"
"No, he should not do that."
"He probably thinks it's a game."
"Owen, it's not a game!"
"Gah!"
"Now I'm going to have to build these all over again." <huffy sigh>

III. Pastoral Prayer 1/31
<unison singing> "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. A-men."
"Gracious God, we thank you for these gifts and entrust them to your care, knowing that as you have provided for us out of your rich bounty...as you have provided for us so will you also...yes. Yes, Owen, that is a piece of candy. Your Daddy is coming now, buddy. As you have provided out of your rich bounty..."

IV. Dewey
I should have known that I wouldn't enjoy a work by one of America's most influential educationists. I just finished Dewey's Reconstruction in Philosophy, and it was awful. I mean, it was the worst book I've read in quite some time. I wish I could recommend anything about the book, but it was just terrible from start to finish. I have no problem reading philosophical theory that I don't personally subscribe to. I have no problem reading philosophical theory that challenges my own views. I have no problem reading badly written English. In arrogant and poorly constructed language, Dewey invents a philosophical past that in no way resembles the actual world or ideas of Plato, Aristotle, or Thomas Aquinas, and then proceeds to contrast the "servile bondage" and "noxious oppression" in which they held the "unwilling and ignorant human race" with the Scientism of a post-Baconian world that also bears little resemblance to the actual human experience of the 20th century. The book is full of absurd statements like "we now know" and "freed from the ignorant past", and my personal favorite "experience now being different." In total contrast, The Origin of Species was an engaging and well-thought out work. Granted, a little dry for the non-specialist, but thoroughly thought-out, respectful of its predecessors in Natural Philosophy, and masterfully constructed. I was going to read another Dewey book, started it this morning, and gave up after the first page. I need some time off.

V. Jung
"Our world is so exceedingly rich in delusions that a truth is priceless, and no one will let it slip because of a few exceptions with which it cannot be brought into accord."