I. Homecoming
I finished my Rowan Williams book, and am now inspired to go acquire and read more Rowan Williams books. With J gone (with the kids) in Pennsylvania for the past several days I've had an immediate and practical reflection on one of his points about the soul/self. The use of language presupposes connections, and a self is not fully realized until it's in connection with other selves. In recognizing and naming the "other" it also locates its own existence and history and importance. The philosophical, theological, and linguistic implications of this idea are much more fully spelled out by Dr. Williams, and they're very big and important. The point came home much more locally and personally for me with her gone.
Without her around, I'm less interesting, less defined, and certainly less myself. I enjoyed puttering through the empty house in my workout clothes, picking up messes that stayed picked up, practicing lip-slurs somewhere other than the basement, and reading books at the dinner table with my feet up on her chair. But two souls living together are more than the sum total of their capacities. This is the flip side of all the horrible and graceless advice that people give in trying to "fix up" their single friends. You really are almost always more yourself, for better or for worse, with someone else.
II. Lessons Learned
Another tax year is in the books! I've started, just a very little bit, to enjoy the process of preparing the taxes. For one thing, I'm no longer surprised (pleasantly) when I start entering W2s and see our "expected refund" number in the multiple thousands of dollars, nor am I quite so shockingly dismayed when I see the "expected amount owed" number creep higher and higher as I enter in our self-employment income, or to see it usually just about balance out as I finish putting in the various deductions and expenses.
Because I have a better handle on what to expect, I'm slowly keeping better and more useful records from year to year. I actually kept all of my business receipts in a single folder this year, and knew exactly where to look to find our property taxes and student loan interest paid.
Next year--and it's really already too late to start next year, but maybe for the 2018 taxes?--I should do a better job of tallying exact mileage numbers. Also, an additional dependent would be fine. Maybe we'll add one in July or thereabouts.
III. New Phone Resolutions
1. Take more/better pictures of the kids. I have (and this is the worst parental cliche) waaayyy more pictures of James at Owen's age than I do of Owen...
2. Text for pleasure more. I think J does this a lot already, but I usually don't strike up texting conversations just for the fun of it. It's not going to come as naturally to me as it does to her, but now that my Dad AND my Mom have iMessage, there's no excuse not to be more in contact. (Especially since I also don't ever make voice calls just for catching up...)
3. Actually use Twitter/Instagram
4. Record more video of myself practicing
5. Actually attempt to use some of the features of the Fitness app
6. Put it away at the end of the night before going to bed. Was doing better about this, then got out of the habit. I sleep better and longer if it stays downstairs when I go up.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Thursday, February 23, 2017
16/100
I. On Green Dolphin Street
If anyone in my immediate family isn't busy this Sunday (haha!) they should come and hear Jazz Sunday at my church. I'm doing a little bit of "research" by way of listening to Miles Davis and Bill Evans right now and feeling just slightly nostalgic about the way things were back when I was a jazz trumpeter first and a classical player second. I sort of wonder sometimes whether I shouldn't have my college students playing ballads out of the real book and learning how to play changes over bop tunes to teach tone color and quality, and how to see a transposition or an etude in its harmonic context.
II. Rowan Williams on School Choice
"For a decade and a half, we have been consistently told by government that the protection of 'parental choice' in educational matters is one of the most fundamental imperatives in a proper education policy. The appeal of this is genuinely powerful, because it has a ring of altruism--wanting what's best for a growing generation--at the same time as having a comforting ring of tribalism--wanting what's best for our own. The harder you look at these two sorts of appeal, however, the more difficult it is to hold them together in terms of choice. I want to be able to choose a 'better' education for my child, and so I must require educational institutions to furnish me with information about their relative success or failure; without this, there is not much sense in speaking at all about the right to choose, and it is quite logical that a policy stressing such a right should involve pressure on schools to provide a copious flow of information about their performance (test results, league tables, and so on). But who in such circumstances chooses a school identified as 'failing' (to use the current jargon)? Just possibly, a parent with a strong commitment to--say--education in a multi-ethnic setting might say that it's more important to equip a child to live acceptingly in a diverse society than to secure a particular cluster of qualifications, and might accordingly opt for a school with higher diversity and lower average examination results. But that is a consciously risky business, and it is a bold parent who is sure enough about this to jeopardise a child's possible vocational/professional future. Those doing so are obviously choosing, though on the basis of different criteria of excellence: they are not choosing what they see as failure. But more generally it should be self-evident that the notion of failure here already begins to limit the supposed availability of choice. To attract custom, a school must 'succeed'; and this almost invariably means selection by academic promise. Some will be rejected, and will end up in schools by definitition less 'successful'; and who wants to choose them? Yet they will be the only possibilities for some parents. The language of choice is beginning to look far from innocent.
If the parent (on the child's behalf) is a consumer and the school a provider or producer, the school competes in a finite market, a market where one producer's gain is another's loss (there is not a lot that a rival producer can do in this context to 'diversify' to avoid failure). A school's excellence, measured in the apparently straightforward ways specified in present policy, is bound up with its capacity to attract customers away from competitors. Within a finite geographical area, this becomes a means of attracting not only 'custom' but resources--local enthusiasm, the support of parents with managerial and fundraising skills; and so a model such as this necessarily involves a spiral of failure for the less successful competitors, and the consequence diminution of real choice for some parents. And a parallel spiral is set up among consumers: the 'successful' school can, to some extent, negotiate conditions, intensify its selectivity, setting terms that only a certain percentage of applicants can satisfy--a necessary move, since the school itself is a finite system whose resources have to be economically deployed. Parents can become caught in anxiety about their ability to negotiate with the school to establish the viability of their choice. The end result is a situation in which certain schools and parents are effectively without choice, because resources are slanted in one direction by the imposition of uniform standards of excellence, and the experience of choice for the more fortunate is shadowed by anxieties about how to meet increasingly stringent conditions for the exercise of that choice.
In short, the language of choice applied to the educational system is deceptive. By concentrating our attention on parental freedom to choose the 'best' available provision, it distorts both our moral and our more narrowly educational perceptions. It encourages us to ignore the context and effects of such choice, nudging us insistently away from the awkward question of how everyone's supposed right to choose could be honored in a framework like this. It also encourages us to assume that there is a single and fairly easily measurable standard of success in education. In both respects, the language of choice helps us to postpone or set aside questions about educations as something that has to do with expressing and fostering a corporate responsibility--the shared responsibility of inducting children into a social environment with at least some common values, and the providing of what is needed to understand and question that environment in terms of its success in embodying values. Since we currently don't seem to know, as a society, what we want to 'induct' children into or what we consider to be the foundation of our society's moral legitimacy (that is, what makes this society worth belonging to or defending), it isn't surprising that we take refuge in treating education as the process of purchasing blocks of training material. When our consciences are particularly tender on all this, we consider adding a block called 'moral education'. This will inevitably have a somewhat abstract feel to it--as does the valiant but rather elusive document on 'Values and Education in the Community' produced in 1996 for the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. And it is a gloomy fact that left and right often mouth the same cliches here. By accepting the polarisation of 'academic' and 'vocational', by applying simplistic tests of relevance or accessibility, educationalists on both sides of the political divide can successfully bracket out the most fundamental issue: how are people to acquire a language in which they can think about the character of their society? For that requires fluency in the traditions, even the mythology of the society you're in, and a confidence sufficient to test and challenge its inconsistencies or deceptions. There was once a powerful socialist vision of education as learning tradition so as to make it a critical tool; but voices like those of Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, or E.P. Thompson are none too audible on the left these days.
'Choice' in education is a term that must be stripped of its false innocence. The prevailing use of the word conceals a deep scepticism about the whole idea of education as serving a common interest, providing a language for public debate and moral wrangling. Choice in this context looks remarkably like the successful assertion of will when you analyse it; and the supposed goodness of free choice in education is not very different from the desirability of my being able to defend and sustain my interest--albeit through another party, the child, whose interests are seen as an extension of mine...
Would be interested in any and all thoughts on the passage above. (And will post more of it if it's piqued anyone's interests.) Dr. Williams was formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, and as I'm discovering, wrote brilliantly on the subject of pretty much everything.
If anyone in my immediate family isn't busy this Sunday (haha!) they should come and hear Jazz Sunday at my church. I'm doing a little bit of "research" by way of listening to Miles Davis and Bill Evans right now and feeling just slightly nostalgic about the way things were back when I was a jazz trumpeter first and a classical player second. I sort of wonder sometimes whether I shouldn't have my college students playing ballads out of the real book and learning how to play changes over bop tunes to teach tone color and quality, and how to see a transposition or an etude in its harmonic context.
II. Rowan Williams on School Choice
"For a decade and a half, we have been consistently told by government that the protection of 'parental choice' in educational matters is one of the most fundamental imperatives in a proper education policy. The appeal of this is genuinely powerful, because it has a ring of altruism--wanting what's best for a growing generation--at the same time as having a comforting ring of tribalism--wanting what's best for our own. The harder you look at these two sorts of appeal, however, the more difficult it is to hold them together in terms of choice. I want to be able to choose a 'better' education for my child, and so I must require educational institutions to furnish me with information about their relative success or failure; without this, there is not much sense in speaking at all about the right to choose, and it is quite logical that a policy stressing such a right should involve pressure on schools to provide a copious flow of information about their performance (test results, league tables, and so on). But who in such circumstances chooses a school identified as 'failing' (to use the current jargon)? Just possibly, a parent with a strong commitment to--say--education in a multi-ethnic setting might say that it's more important to equip a child to live acceptingly in a diverse society than to secure a particular cluster of qualifications, and might accordingly opt for a school with higher diversity and lower average examination results. But that is a consciously risky business, and it is a bold parent who is sure enough about this to jeopardise a child's possible vocational/professional future. Those doing so are obviously choosing, though on the basis of different criteria of excellence: they are not choosing what they see as failure. But more generally it should be self-evident that the notion of failure here already begins to limit the supposed availability of choice. To attract custom, a school must 'succeed'; and this almost invariably means selection by academic promise. Some will be rejected, and will end up in schools by definitition less 'successful'; and who wants to choose them? Yet they will be the only possibilities for some parents. The language of choice is beginning to look far from innocent.
If the parent (on the child's behalf) is a consumer and the school a provider or producer, the school competes in a finite market, a market where one producer's gain is another's loss (there is not a lot that a rival producer can do in this context to 'diversify' to avoid failure). A school's excellence, measured in the apparently straightforward ways specified in present policy, is bound up with its capacity to attract customers away from competitors. Within a finite geographical area, this becomes a means of attracting not only 'custom' but resources--local enthusiasm, the support of parents with managerial and fundraising skills; and so a model such as this necessarily involves a spiral of failure for the less successful competitors, and the consequence diminution of real choice for some parents. And a parallel spiral is set up among consumers: the 'successful' school can, to some extent, negotiate conditions, intensify its selectivity, setting terms that only a certain percentage of applicants can satisfy--a necessary move, since the school itself is a finite system whose resources have to be economically deployed. Parents can become caught in anxiety about their ability to negotiate with the school to establish the viability of their choice. The end result is a situation in which certain schools and parents are effectively without choice, because resources are slanted in one direction by the imposition of uniform standards of excellence, and the experience of choice for the more fortunate is shadowed by anxieties about how to meet increasingly stringent conditions for the exercise of that choice.
In short, the language of choice applied to the educational system is deceptive. By concentrating our attention on parental freedom to choose the 'best' available provision, it distorts both our moral and our more narrowly educational perceptions. It encourages us to ignore the context and effects of such choice, nudging us insistently away from the awkward question of how everyone's supposed right to choose could be honored in a framework like this. It also encourages us to assume that there is a single and fairly easily measurable standard of success in education. In both respects, the language of choice helps us to postpone or set aside questions about educations as something that has to do with expressing and fostering a corporate responsibility--the shared responsibility of inducting children into a social environment with at least some common values, and the providing of what is needed to understand and question that environment in terms of its success in embodying values. Since we currently don't seem to know, as a society, what we want to 'induct' children into or what we consider to be the foundation of our society's moral legitimacy (that is, what makes this society worth belonging to or defending), it isn't surprising that we take refuge in treating education as the process of purchasing blocks of training material. When our consciences are particularly tender on all this, we consider adding a block called 'moral education'. This will inevitably have a somewhat abstract feel to it--as does the valiant but rather elusive document on 'Values and Education in the Community' produced in 1996 for the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority. And it is a gloomy fact that left and right often mouth the same cliches here. By accepting the polarisation of 'academic' and 'vocational', by applying simplistic tests of relevance or accessibility, educationalists on both sides of the political divide can successfully bracket out the most fundamental issue: how are people to acquire a language in which they can think about the character of their society? For that requires fluency in the traditions, even the mythology of the society you're in, and a confidence sufficient to test and challenge its inconsistencies or deceptions. There was once a powerful socialist vision of education as learning tradition so as to make it a critical tool; but voices like those of Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, or E.P. Thompson are none too audible on the left these days.
'Choice' in education is a term that must be stripped of its false innocence. The prevailing use of the word conceals a deep scepticism about the whole idea of education as serving a common interest, providing a language for public debate and moral wrangling. Choice in this context looks remarkably like the successful assertion of will when you analyse it; and the supposed goodness of free choice in education is not very different from the desirability of my being able to defend and sustain my interest--albeit through another party, the child, whose interests are seen as an extension of mine...
Would be interested in any and all thoughts on the passage above. (And will post more of it if it's piqued anyone's interests.) Dr. Williams was formerly Archbishop of Canterbury, and as I'm discovering, wrote brilliantly on the subject of pretty much everything.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
15/100
How I envisioned the conversation:
Me: "Boys, do you know what's special about tomorrow?"
James: "What is tomorrow? What is special about tomorrow?"
Me: "Tomorrow we get some very exciting news!"
Owen: "Ziding news?"
Me: "Yes, tomorrow is the day that Mommy and I will go to the doctor's office--"
James: "Will she get a shot?"
Me: "No, tomorrow we will go to the doctor's office and the doctor can tell us whether we are having a girl baby or a boy baby!"
James: "Yay!"
Owen: "Yay!"
James: "I think it will be a girl baby!"
Owen: "New baby!"
James: "Also, we intend to be fully cooperative with whoever is babysitting us while you're gone!"
How the conversation actually played out:
Me: "Boys, do you know what's special about tomorrow?"
Owen: <pukes out his dinner all over the table>
Me: "Okay, well I'll tell you once I get Owen cleaned--"
James: <gags up his mouthful of tomato after watching Owen get sick>
Me: "Boys, do you know what's special about tomorrow?"
James: "What is tomorrow? What is special about tomorrow?"
Me: "Tomorrow we get some very exciting news!"
Owen: "Ziding news?"
Me: "Yes, tomorrow is the day that Mommy and I will go to the doctor's office--"
James: "Will she get a shot?"
Me: "No, tomorrow we will go to the doctor's office and the doctor can tell us whether we are having a girl baby or a boy baby!"
James: "Yay!"
Owen: "Yay!"
James: "I think it will be a girl baby!"
Owen: "New baby!"
James: "Also, we intend to be fully cooperative with whoever is babysitting us while you're gone!"
How the conversation actually played out:
Me: "Boys, do you know what's special about tomorrow?"
Owen: <pukes out his dinner all over the table>
Me: "Okay, well I'll tell you once I get Owen cleaned--"
James: <gags up his mouthful of tomato after watching Owen get sick>
Friday, February 10, 2017
14/100
I'm glad I checked the Old Crow before hopping on here. I think that Lux and Melissa now have overtaken us in the categories of Most Pressing Reason to Upgrade a Vehicle, Most Recent Purchase of a Toyota in Hopes of Longevity, Most Fantastically Complicated Job Offer Situation, and Longest Soul-Crushing Commute. But, of course, it was Calvus and Beka that were the most recent placeholders of Most Urgent Search for New Lodgings. No longer, guys--hand that trophy over to Lux and Melissa!
I'm settling in to enjoy a rare Friday night at home. And by "settling in," I mean that I am still in my suit from the concert this morning, because I might wake up sleeping kids if I go upstairs to change into my pajamas. And by "enjoying," I mean picking up the mountain of toys that have come downstairs over the last two day, putting them back in the six cloth bins that they were transported in, and returning them to their rightful mess-heaps in the boys' rooms, along with the enormous stack of legal sized printer paper that James found in his closet and the half-shelf of books that they pushed down the stairs from his room. But again, not until they wake up.
But even though I'm sitting in the middle of an enormous mess in an uncomfortable suit, I feel relaxed. This sort of satisfaction is only possible for a person who knows that they do not have to, under any circumstances, shovel their driveway again for at least 24 hours. If we really need a grocery item THAT badly we can just go out in boots and sleds.
There will be some work to do this evening, for sure. James has some homeschool to do, and I need to attempt to persuade him yet again that the fingerings in his piano exercises aren't just optional suggestions. (Nama, the sins of my childhood are coming back upon my own head.) There are dishes to be done, and I should probably practice, too. Somebody's going to have to make dinner, and that dinner, whatever it is, can include eggs. That's right, Owen is no longer allergic! He passed the allergy challenge at the hospital today with flying colors.
Free items:
If anyone is interested in a filing cabinet, please let me know. If you come and pick it up, you can have it. It is very heavy, even without anything in it. This is a good thing, because no robbers will be able to steal it by carrying it off in the night.
Also, if anyone wants tickets to the BPO Valentine's Day show tomorrow evening or the Syracuse Masterworks show next Saturday, both are excellent.
And finally, if anyone wants a stack of very wrinkled and partially colored on legal-sized printer paper, it's yours for the taking. I don't think it would fit in our printer anymore with how crumpled and beaten up it's become.
I'm settling in to enjoy a rare Friday night at home. And by "settling in," I mean that I am still in my suit from the concert this morning, because I might wake up sleeping kids if I go upstairs to change into my pajamas. And by "enjoying," I mean picking up the mountain of toys that have come downstairs over the last two day, putting them back in the six cloth bins that they were transported in, and returning them to their rightful mess-heaps in the boys' rooms, along with the enormous stack of legal sized printer paper that James found in his closet and the half-shelf of books that they pushed down the stairs from his room. But again, not until they wake up.
But even though I'm sitting in the middle of an enormous mess in an uncomfortable suit, I feel relaxed. This sort of satisfaction is only possible for a person who knows that they do not have to, under any circumstances, shovel their driveway again for at least 24 hours. If we really need a grocery item THAT badly we can just go out in boots and sleds.
There will be some work to do this evening, for sure. James has some homeschool to do, and I need to attempt to persuade him yet again that the fingerings in his piano exercises aren't just optional suggestions. (Nama, the sins of my childhood are coming back upon my own head.) There are dishes to be done, and I should probably practice, too. Somebody's going to have to make dinner, and that dinner, whatever it is, can include eggs. That's right, Owen is no longer allergic! He passed the allergy challenge at the hospital today with flying colors.
Free items:
If anyone is interested in a filing cabinet, please let me know. If you come and pick it up, you can have it. It is very heavy, even without anything in it. This is a good thing, because no robbers will be able to steal it by carrying it off in the night.
Also, if anyone wants tickets to the BPO Valentine's Day show tomorrow evening or the Syracuse Masterworks show next Saturday, both are excellent.
And finally, if anyone wants a stack of very wrinkled and partially colored on legal-sized printer paper, it's yours for the taking. I don't think it would fit in our printer anymore with how crumpled and beaten up it's become.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
13/100
I. More Profanity
James has apparently given up on the F-bomb, but Owen has discovered it in a rapid way. I think that James knew there was something different about that particular monosyllable for the entire time it passed into his awareness. Owen, who yammers away constantly and doesn't particularly bother with pronunciation or intelligibility, is just delivering his usual half-understood commentary on the world. It comes up when he says the word "look." He gets the K sound at the end very strongly. The U vowel is short. It's the L where he gets in trouble. Something about the way he moves his lips when he's talking fast makes the L come out, instead of a "Y" sound, as a Ph or hard V. When we were driving back from my concert the other day, he was yelling at the top of his lungs: "Look, Mommy, Look! Look that! Look that tree! Ah see it! Look, Mommy! Look! Look!"
His other problem word is "Percy." Percy, of course, is the green engine number 6, one of Thomas' best friends. I sort of think that Percy was James' favorite train when he was Owen's age and into Thomas. Owen isn't as interested in the colors and personalities of the trains. He just likes to say Choo-Choo Train! and find all the pictures in the Look-and-Find book. Or, as he calls it the...well, you get the idea. But he makes, instead of an "er" sound, an "uh" sound in the middle of Percy's name. So it sounds bad when he goes on like this: "Mommy, ah' see Percy! Look, Percy! Percy 's geen! On tack wiv Percy!"
II. Skipping Grades
The Pearce nursery care system splits kids into three or four different age levels, and of course James and Owen have always been in separate classes. James, this year, is in a four and five year old class, and he's one of the older kids in there. Owen graduated from the baby room, and was with a class of other two-year olds. Apparently Owen misses James. He told the nursery workers who were looking after him a few weeks ago that he really wanted to go see his brother. And he told them again and again, and eventually talked them into it. So, when J went down to the basement to pick up the kids, there was Owen in the four and five year old room, happily playing along with James. Last week he did the same thing. They were having story time in a circle, about a dozen four and five year olds sitting quietly and listening to the Bible lesson, and Owen, also sitting quietly in the circle, except that he was sucking his fingers and holding his ear. She asked James when Owen had talked his way over, and apparently it was pretty early. He thinks the older kids have better snacks.
III. At the Concert
The kids came to hear my Cirque show this weekend. I was excited to have familiar faces in the audience, and I was pretty sure that they would love the acrobatics and the music. I took them up to the balcony to help get them seated, then made my way down to the stage and warmed up. The program started with Festive Overture. It was greeted with warm applause, at the end of which I could hear a voice yelling "Yay, Daddy! Goo' job, Daddy!" James, who was still convalescing from the weekend, mostly stayed huddled up in his seat, and asked to go home. Owen, on the other hand, apparently clapped vigorously at the end of, and sometimes in the middle of, every piece. He told J about how he knew the music was from ROAD RUNNER very loudly and multiple times during the Smetana Dance of the Comedians, and bounced up and down with the acrobats during the Ride of the Valkyries. And of course, during the Waltz from Swan Lake, he was moved to the point of joining into the performance, contributing Jingle Bells at the top of his lungs.
He had a great time.
James has apparently given up on the F-bomb, but Owen has discovered it in a rapid way. I think that James knew there was something different about that particular monosyllable for the entire time it passed into his awareness. Owen, who yammers away constantly and doesn't particularly bother with pronunciation or intelligibility, is just delivering his usual half-understood commentary on the world. It comes up when he says the word "look." He gets the K sound at the end very strongly. The U vowel is short. It's the L where he gets in trouble. Something about the way he moves his lips when he's talking fast makes the L come out, instead of a "Y" sound, as a Ph or hard V. When we were driving back from my concert the other day, he was yelling at the top of his lungs: "Look, Mommy, Look! Look that! Look that tree! Ah see it! Look, Mommy! Look! Look!"
His other problem word is "Percy." Percy, of course, is the green engine number 6, one of Thomas' best friends. I sort of think that Percy was James' favorite train when he was Owen's age and into Thomas. Owen isn't as interested in the colors and personalities of the trains. He just likes to say Choo-Choo Train! and find all the pictures in the Look-and-Find book. Or, as he calls it the...well, you get the idea. But he makes, instead of an "er" sound, an "uh" sound in the middle of Percy's name. So it sounds bad when he goes on like this: "Mommy, ah' see Percy! Look, Percy! Percy 's geen! On tack wiv Percy!"
II. Skipping Grades
The Pearce nursery care system splits kids into three or four different age levels, and of course James and Owen have always been in separate classes. James, this year, is in a four and five year old class, and he's one of the older kids in there. Owen graduated from the baby room, and was with a class of other two-year olds. Apparently Owen misses James. He told the nursery workers who were looking after him a few weeks ago that he really wanted to go see his brother. And he told them again and again, and eventually talked them into it. So, when J went down to the basement to pick up the kids, there was Owen in the four and five year old room, happily playing along with James. Last week he did the same thing. They were having story time in a circle, about a dozen four and five year olds sitting quietly and listening to the Bible lesson, and Owen, also sitting quietly in the circle, except that he was sucking his fingers and holding his ear. She asked James when Owen had talked his way over, and apparently it was pretty early. He thinks the older kids have better snacks.
III. At the Concert
The kids came to hear my Cirque show this weekend. I was excited to have familiar faces in the audience, and I was pretty sure that they would love the acrobatics and the music. I took them up to the balcony to help get them seated, then made my way down to the stage and warmed up. The program started with Festive Overture. It was greeted with warm applause, at the end of which I could hear a voice yelling "Yay, Daddy! Goo' job, Daddy!" James, who was still convalescing from the weekend, mostly stayed huddled up in his seat, and asked to go home. Owen, on the other hand, apparently clapped vigorously at the end of, and sometimes in the middle of, every piece. He told J about how he knew the music was from ROAD RUNNER very loudly and multiple times during the Smetana Dance of the Comedians, and bounced up and down with the acrobats during the Ride of the Valkyries. And of course, during the Waltz from Swan Lake, he was moved to the point of joining into the performance, contributing Jingle Bells at the top of his lungs.
He had a great time.
Sunday, February 5, 2017
12/100
I wasn't going to do a Super Bowl blog, and then I definitely wasn't going to do a Super Bowl blog, because James was throwing up. But now we're sitting with Owen, and he's being too cute not to transcribe:
"Okay, Daddy? I watch Road Runner? Here comes football? BEEEEEEEP BEEP! Haha. I wanna taste ice."
J: You wanna try the spicy water?
"Yeah. Beep-beep."
<drinks>
"I wike that!"
"Touchdown! Go Falcons!"
"Tu-down! Go Fahkuns!!!!" <TD sign> "More spicy water. I WIKED IT!" (It's seltzer water.)
"I wiked it. I wiked it."
J: Here comes the kick...it's good!
"Whoa! Whoa. He umma grass. I wahn' bite. I wahn that please. More water..."
J: You're goofy.
"Yes."
"I wiked it."
"Airplane helicopter! Airplane helicopter!" <during Transformers commercial>
"I wahn' bite of water. I wahn' bite of water. PEEZ! Peez! Peeeeeeezzz!"
"Fuhball!"
"Whoa. Whoa. Dat makes me bouncy! Yes!"
<smacking lips>
"I wahn' sip. I wahn' dat. Go Fahkuns!"
"I DID do it. WOW! Wow. A good tackul." <after a 3rd down stop>
"NO fuhball."
J: You could go to bed?
"NO, no go to bed."
<Lies down and sucks on fingers>
"Mommy? Mommy? I wahn' go seep wi' DEE. Guh night."
J: Good night!
"You go seep TOO, Mommy? You go seep? You go seep? Mommy go seep. Mommy go seep too."
J: I'm not sleepy
"Why? Why? Why?"
"Be-go-be-go-be-go-be-go" (to the tune of Jingle Bells)
"Go Bubbo! Go Bubbo, Mommy! Go fuhball."
"Go Bubbo, Yightning! Oh, YES! Oh yes oh yes oh yes..."
"Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes" (to the tune of Jingle Bells)
J: Go Matty!
"Go Daddy!"
J: Holy cow!
"Holy cow! Holy cow!"
J: He has sticky feet!
"Stinky feet, stinky feet..."
"Wow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Go soup, Daddy. Go nice"
(Growling noises. Engine noises.)
"Ding ding! I up. My turn that!" <pointing to J's phone>
"I wahn' press buttons. I wahn push Nama-Papa."
"There's flag? They flag? TUHHDOWWNN!!!"
"Flag? F-ck. F-ck."
"I wahn' sippy cup. I wahn' tchetchup."
<squealing protests of NOOOO>
"Why, Mommy, why? Why, Mommy, why?"
J: It's gone, honey, we drank it all.
"I wahn' drink, Mommy. I wahn' drink. YEAHH!!! YEAHH!!!"
"I wahn' Yightning. Yightning?"
<nearly falls off couch>
"MORE MILK PWEEEZ!!!"
"Okay, Daddy? I watch Road Runner? Here comes football? BEEEEEEEP BEEP! Haha. I wanna taste ice."
J: You wanna try the spicy water?
"Yeah. Beep-beep."
<drinks>
"I wike that!"
"Touchdown! Go Falcons!"
"Tu-down! Go Fahkuns!!!!" <TD sign> "More spicy water. I WIKED IT!" (It's seltzer water.)
"I wiked it. I wiked it."
J: Here comes the kick...it's good!
"Whoa! Whoa. He umma grass. I wahn' bite. I wahn that please. More water..."
J: You're goofy.
"Yes."
"I wiked it."
"Airplane helicopter! Airplane helicopter!" <during Transformers commercial>
"I wahn' bite of water. I wahn' bite of water. PEEZ! Peez! Peeeeeeezzz!"
"Fuhball!"
"Whoa. Whoa. Dat makes me bouncy! Yes!"
<smacking lips>
"I wahn' sip. I wahn' dat. Go Fahkuns!"
"I DID do it. WOW! Wow. A good tackul." <after a 3rd down stop>
"NO fuhball."
J: You could go to bed?
"NO, no go to bed."
<Lies down and sucks on fingers>
"Mommy? Mommy? I wahn' go seep wi' DEE. Guh night."
J: Good night!
"You go seep TOO, Mommy? You go seep? You go seep? Mommy go seep. Mommy go seep too."
J: I'm not sleepy
"Why? Why? Why?"
"Be-go-be-go-be-go-be-go" (to the tune of Jingle Bells)
"Go Bubbo! Go Bubbo, Mommy! Go fuhball."
"Go Bubbo, Yightning! Oh, YES! Oh yes oh yes oh yes..."
"Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes" (to the tune of Jingle Bells)
J: Go Matty!
"Go Daddy!"
J: Holy cow!
"Holy cow! Holy cow!"
J: He has sticky feet!
"Stinky feet, stinky feet..."
"Wow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Go soup, Daddy. Go nice"
(Growling noises. Engine noises.)
"Ding ding! I up. My turn that!" <pointing to J's phone>
"I wahn' press buttons. I wahn push Nama-Papa."
"There's flag? They flag? TUHHDOWWNN!!!"
"Flag? F-ck. F-ck."
"I wahn' sippy cup. I wahn' tchetchup."
<squealing protests of NOOOO>
"Why, Mommy, why? Why, Mommy, why?"
J: It's gone, honey, we drank it all.
"I wahn' drink, Mommy. I wahn' drink. YEAHH!!! YEAHH!!!"
"I wahn' Yightning. Yightning?"
<nearly falls off couch>
"MORE MILK PWEEEZ!!!"
Saturday, February 4, 2017
11/100
Clarifications:
Wegman's Coffee isn't "simply the best." It's just pretty good for generic store coffee. I could really go for a cup of my own coffee.
Schumann didn't really want his 2nd Symphony to be played at quarter=76. Everyone plays it at 72 or ever slower.
Staples, which is a store I think about maybe once every six months at most, makes a high-quality wireless mouse and reasonably well-made garment bag, both of which are in front of me right now.
My last blog was supposed to be deliberately unclear as to which marriage partner wasn't putting their clothes away.
It was actually J, but it wasn't really bothering me. The anecdote was only worth retelling because of how well she set me up for the line about leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Haha.
There is a provision in the Constitution for the President to suspend immigration, so arguing that his executive order is unconstitutional on those grounds isn't really warranted. (There might be grounds to argue that it's unconstitutional on the grounds of religious discrimination, but that would be harder to prove.) Either way, it's an asshole sort of thing to do.
The Yemen raid that killed somewhere between 10-23 civilians (initially denied, then admitted), including children, was (very unfortunately) not at a departure tactically from drone policy under President Obama. Either way, it's an asshole sort of thing to do.
As horrifying and upsetting as the raid was, Yemen's much bigger problem, which isn't being covered at all, is a massive famine in the southern part of the country. Also pressing are the food shortages in the DRC, South Sudan, Nigeria, Iraq, and Syria.
I really like it when people come to my concerts. I probably play about 100 concerts a year, give or take. And I don't remember most of them, just by the sheer volume. But I definitely remember the ones which friends and family attend.
That isn't supposed to be a guilt trip for anyone, I just really enjoyed seeing Calvus, Beka, and family today.
Wegman's Coffee isn't "simply the best." It's just pretty good for generic store coffee. I could really go for a cup of my own coffee.
Schumann didn't really want his 2nd Symphony to be played at quarter=76. Everyone plays it at 72 or ever slower.
Staples, which is a store I think about maybe once every six months at most, makes a high-quality wireless mouse and reasonably well-made garment bag, both of which are in front of me right now.
My last blog was supposed to be deliberately unclear as to which marriage partner wasn't putting their clothes away.
It was actually J, but it wasn't really bothering me. The anecdote was only worth retelling because of how well she set me up for the line about leaving dirty dishes in the sink. Haha.
There is a provision in the Constitution for the President to suspend immigration, so arguing that his executive order is unconstitutional on those grounds isn't really warranted. (There might be grounds to argue that it's unconstitutional on the grounds of religious discrimination, but that would be harder to prove.) Either way, it's an asshole sort of thing to do.
The Yemen raid that killed somewhere between 10-23 civilians (initially denied, then admitted), including children, was (very unfortunately) not at a departure tactically from drone policy under President Obama. Either way, it's an asshole sort of thing to do.
As horrifying and upsetting as the raid was, Yemen's much bigger problem, which isn't being covered at all, is a massive famine in the southern part of the country. Also pressing are the food shortages in the DRC, South Sudan, Nigeria, Iraq, and Syria.
I really like it when people come to my concerts. I probably play about 100 concerts a year, give or take. And I don't remember most of them, just by the sheer volume. But I definitely remember the ones which friends and family attend.
That isn't supposed to be a guilt trip for anyone, I just really enjoyed seeing Calvus, Beka, and family today.
Friday, February 3, 2017
10/100
I. Your Spouse Is Also Your Roommate
"What...happened to the floor in here?"
"I took all of the clothes out of your dresser."
"I see that."
"So you can sort which things you want to be in the dresser and which things you want to go in a bin down in the basement, and they won't just be lying around in laundry baskets all over the floor."
"Yeah, they're definitely not in baskets anymore."
"Hey, I'll carry them down. Just tell me which ones you want to keep and which ones you want put away."
"Not tonight, I think. You were busy while I was gone."
"Yeah, I put your lamp in the pantry too since it was just sitting out in the living room."
"I see. Any of my stuff that you didn't move somewhere else?"
"You left a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink, I didn't move any of those."
II. Sick Kid(s?)
James was sick this week. He had an exact copy of whatever bug I had in December. J was taking them to the Strong Museum and he threw up in the car (but in a bag, and not all over the car, for which I am very proud of him) as soon as they pulled in the parking lot. Owen was not pleased that they came within sight of the Neighs (the horses on the Carousel) and then turned right around and headed home. He had a rough day and rough night after that. His stomach was certainly, CERTAINLY empty after that night. I'm not sure he ever really fell all the way asleep, so I got him up with me at 6 and we sat on the couch together, me sipping coffee and reading, and him just huddled under a blanket shivering, and looking into space. I was torn between wanting to hold his head in my lap and hug him and wanting to make sure that there was definitely enough space between us that I couldn't possibly get contaminated with what he had.
His day yesterday was slow and mellow, and he went to bed early, but he ate two meals and looked better as the day went on. Owen, I'm pretty sure, threw up in his mouth and swallowed it again at one point. I waited all day for the other shoe to drop with him, and it never did. Maybe we dodged a bullet. Or maybe his will hit on Sunday afternoon when they're at my concert. Probably that.
III. En Francais
L'ete prochain, nous irons en France. Pas l'ete prochain, mais l'ete apres celui-ci. Par consequent, je pratique mon francais tous les jours. Je remercie tous mes lecteurs de tolerer cet exercice de composition. Owen pense que le pratique francaise semble drole et imite ce qu'il entend. James est fascine par le panneaux routiers francais dans mon livre et les a copies avec des crayons et les a accroches dans notre maison.
"What...happened to the floor in here?"
"I took all of the clothes out of your dresser."
"I see that."
"So you can sort which things you want to be in the dresser and which things you want to go in a bin down in the basement, and they won't just be lying around in laundry baskets all over the floor."
"Yeah, they're definitely not in baskets anymore."
"Hey, I'll carry them down. Just tell me which ones you want to keep and which ones you want put away."
"Not tonight, I think. You were busy while I was gone."
"Yeah, I put your lamp in the pantry too since it was just sitting out in the living room."
"I see. Any of my stuff that you didn't move somewhere else?"
"You left a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink, I didn't move any of those."
II. Sick Kid(s?)
James was sick this week. He had an exact copy of whatever bug I had in December. J was taking them to the Strong Museum and he threw up in the car (but in a bag, and not all over the car, for which I am very proud of him) as soon as they pulled in the parking lot. Owen was not pleased that they came within sight of the Neighs (the horses on the Carousel) and then turned right around and headed home. He had a rough day and rough night after that. His stomach was certainly, CERTAINLY empty after that night. I'm not sure he ever really fell all the way asleep, so I got him up with me at 6 and we sat on the couch together, me sipping coffee and reading, and him just huddled under a blanket shivering, and looking into space. I was torn between wanting to hold his head in my lap and hug him and wanting to make sure that there was definitely enough space between us that I couldn't possibly get contaminated with what he had.
His day yesterday was slow and mellow, and he went to bed early, but he ate two meals and looked better as the day went on. Owen, I'm pretty sure, threw up in his mouth and swallowed it again at one point. I waited all day for the other shoe to drop with him, and it never did. Maybe we dodged a bullet. Or maybe his will hit on Sunday afternoon when they're at my concert. Probably that.
III. En Francais
L'ete prochain, nous irons en France. Pas l'ete prochain, mais l'ete apres celui-ci. Par consequent, je pratique mon francais tous les jours. Je remercie tous mes lecteurs de tolerer cet exercice de composition. Owen pense que le pratique francaise semble drole et imite ce qu'il entend. James est fascine par le panneaux routiers francais dans mon livre et les a copies avec des crayons et les a accroches dans notre maison.
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