Recitals and Espresso

 This week we marked two events that were a long time in coming. The first was a live movie music recital, and the second was the brewing of our own espresso.

The recital was booked back in June, and I went back and forth wondering whether the hall would be packed or whether we would be playing to an audience of maybe ten people. It turned out that the hall was packed.

I also went back and forth wondering whether we were doing something that was incredibly self-indulgent and narcissistic (Here, everyone! Come listen to us play a bunch of music that we like) or incredibly generous. (We will pay to hire any accompanist and won't charge admission to this concert so that we can share music that you all apparently liked during the pandemic)

The lead-up to the recital was very different than any of our school recitals. Back when we were students we didn't have to change any diapers before the recital or teach James about the Assyrians. For me, playing a solo recital is a very different animal than playing an orchestra concert. Orchestra concerts happen every weekend, and in any given show there might be 45 seconds of total music when I'm playing something that is alone/exposed. At really big shows (playing principal on the Messiah with Trumpet Shall Sound) I might be exposed for a whole three minutes. A recital is an hour of exposure.

But this one was different...there was a sense throughout the whole process that it was just going to be fun and that we wouldn't take it too seriously because it was more about J and I getting to do something together than it was about the quality of the trumpet/flute playing. (Which was still, I think, pretty good)

We got to the hall about an hour early (after noticing that the van didn't start very easily) and asked the kids not to run laps in the empty performance hall. So we warmed up while the kids ran laps in the empty performance hall. A few people poked their heads in, and then Nama/Papa/Aunt Martha arrived to take the boys off of our hands.

It ended up being a packed hall. And it was a great audience. When you are performing you can sometimes tell if the audience is bored/losing focus, and it felt like ours was hanging with us through each tune. On the program were Princess Leia's Theme (because it was the original arrangement in the project, and is still one of the most equal duets in our folder), Wall Rat (because it is such a good flute showcase, and also because Paris), Little Women (because the film is so meaningful and beloved to J, and also because it shows off piccolo trumpet. We also found out once we started rehearsing that it was a childhood favorite of our pianist), and then the Escapades Suite, of which we'd recorded the first movement but none of the others. That suite was the most complete "concert piece" on the program, and we build everything else around that. We took a brief intermission, then did Far and Away (because it was far and away the most popular video that we posted), an arrangement of the Easter Hymn with For the Beauty of the Earth based on J.F.K. (because we thought that we should do some sacred music at Roberts), a suite from Harry Potter (Sirius' Escape, Family Portrait, Hagrid's Friendly Bird, and Quidditch), and then Married Life from Up! to close. (Because this recital was really as much about J and I getting to do something together as it was about flute and trumpet.

And then, when we had finally said goodbye to everyone, taken all the photos, and loaded up the van...it wouldn't start.

So we unloaded the van, called around to any friends in the area who we thought might still be conscious, called the insurance roadside assistance line, and tried to make the best of the situation. At some point (culprit and time still unknown) someone threw up on Felix's carseat, and it reeked the entire way back to our house, stinking up our friend Joy's van. I got a jump from roadside assistance, and was home by about 11. It was not the most elegant end to the evening.

Speaking of things that we've dabbled in but have never fully committed to until now and are henceforth likely to have in our life on a very regular basis, we are brewing our own espresso. This has been in the pipeline since Paris, although we did mess around with a beginner level machine that Oliver and Kylie gave us for a while (getting some decent results) and a moka pot on the stove. (Getting less than decent results.)

We ordered a proper grinder a few months ago, but it was an international order and didn't ship until just last week. With the grinder on the way we ordered the actual machine we'd been waiting on, and it beat the grinder by a week. We didn't want to wait, so we've been pulling shots of my homeroasted Yirgacheffe the last few days with our entry level conical grinder. It's way too much fun. And it's way too expensive of a hobby to get fully immersed in. But if you happen to be stopping by anyway, let us make you a cup of espresso sometime soon...we're getting better with each shot.

Mom is En Vacances

 I took the kids to the Memorial Art Gallery this week.

Owen was disappointed, because he thought it would be mostly suits of armor and swords and it turned out that it was just a bunch of pictures and stuff. That's boring.

James was disappointed because the other two ran out of gas before he could find all of the portraits in his scavenger hunt.

Felix thought that the mummy was scary. Everyone thought that tribal bird mask in the Folk Art collection was scary. 

Felix inherited his mother's response to art galleries. Interest and curiosity for ten minutes and then a sudden overwhelming need to lie down in a public place. (Felix's mother usually suppresses this reaction in herself until she gets back to her own vehicle. Felix, not so much)

"What's the number rule of being in the art gallery?" James: "DON'T. TOUCH. THE PAINTINGS." (Felix did not learn the number one rule.)

Owen has started prefacing things with sentences like: "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but..." or "I'm not trying to be mean to you, but..." And then, no matter how many times you attempt him to stop whatever he is about to say from coming out (once he starts one of these sentences, he must complete it, even if you are actively carrying him away from his victim) he goes on to say something like "I noticed that your bathtub is a really weird shape." "I remember that the last time we visited your house you had popsicles and I'm wondering if you have any more of them." "I noticed that you have a seashell collection and I really like seashells and I think you should give me some." "I went into the bathroom after you were in there and it smelled really bad." "I think that you aren't very good at cooking hamburgers and I could cook them better than you."

The good news is that he can tell that he's about to say something rude. The bad news is that he apparently has no compulsion about saying it anyway.

More questions from Owen:

"Do worms have eyes?"

"Do bacteria have eyes?"

"How do worms know which direction they are going?"

"I don't want you to die because you are old. Is there a way that if I died, you wouldn't have to die?" 

Overheard James to Owen: "Leave that cocoon to its own business."

Felix has been struggling. Four was hard for each of the kids, and so far Felix is taking it all out with his fists. He's suddenly punching us when he gets angry. He clearly isn't putting his heart into it, just trying to provoke a reaction out of whoever is forcing him to do something against his will. (Usually making him sit on the potty.) So you can tell him that this isn't a very good way to express the feelings that he's feeling, and that it would be better if--WHUMP!

Also, he's learned how to kick you in the balls. Hard.

Several Updates

 The boys have started school again, and James, who appeared to register no reaction to the news that he would be repeating Saxon 5/4 Math when I informed him of the fact back in July, is now embarrassed that he is doing last year's math (and grammar) over again. With that said, he's flying through the "easy" material at the beginning of the book and hopefully working up some good momentum for the sections with fractions, long division, and exponents.

Owen has been less truculent so far, although you never know when he's going to suddenly square down and refuse to do something reasonable (like put periods at the end of his sentences) for several hours because of something unreasonable and unrelated, like having the wrong color roof on our house or not being able to own his very own podracer from Star Wars.

Felix is also having a decent start to the school year. He reads Bob books or "Baby Monkey, Private Eye," or goes upstairs and gets into all of the toys that Owen would usually shout at him about when they are up in their room together. He's been getting better about keeping his glasses on, which at first could only be accomplished by letting him watch a movie or wear his oversized Bills jersey.

I am sifting through the schedules of 7.5 hours of students and trying to find a way to make them line up in a way that lets me take care of all of my teaching in one day, gets me to the right campus at the right time with an appropriate amount of travel time, and maybe even lets me eat a meal or two along the way.

We are rehearsing with our pianist for the movie music recital tonight and looking forward to working with a live human being instead of the Finale playback, which is prone to jerking into inappropriate tempos and either disappearing into inaudible softness (during piano dynamic playback) or nearly blowing out the cheap laptop speakers we have hooked up to the computer during loud playback. An additional frustration with the computer playback is that if you unplug the speakers or the computer Finale will crash, and that none of your other computer functions can make noise while Finale is controlling the sound. Finale is kind of the worst.

Kindle books always come in multiple groups. After remarking to J several times over the course of August that I didn't have anything new to read and that all of my holds were taking forever to come in, I all of a sudden have The Bomber Mafia, The Four Winds, The Daughters of Sparta, Homer's Daughter, Six Frigates, Next, and the newest Andy Weir novel.

I was sitting outside yesterday afternoon, reading in one of the lounge chairs with a glass of wine while the boys biked back and forth on the sidewalk. After fixing a leaking hose (because of course something would break) I had to go back inside...for a sweater. I think that fall is around the corner...