I have been, for the past 12 years, the proud owner of a Sunbeam microwave oven.
J hates it.
Truth be told, I see her point. It isn't a great microwave oven. But it is, along with my hot-pot and black "jazz" coffee mug, one of the relics of my 16th birthday. I was a pretty happy 16 year old that day, because I was getting my own apartment and starting my undergraduate degree in less than two weeks instead of returning for my last two years of high school. The issue had still been in doubt for most of the spring semester, but the financial end of it was cleared up, and I had made arrangements to live the small upstairs studio of dilapidated colonial owned by a reclusive epileptic old man. (How did my parents ever let me do this?)
My 16th birthday party was important. My parents gave me two white plastic crates full of the necessities for independent living. Inside were four bowls, four small plates, and four knives, spoons, forks, and mugs. They were white with a green stripe around them, and have all long since been broken or disappeared. They packed a box of Folger's Instant Coffee teabags, because although I wasn't a coffee drinker, they thought I might discover the luxury of a morning cup in college. They gave me a pay-per-minute cellphone that was primitive by today's standards but might as well have been an iPad in 2001. (It had a little antenna at the top that you had to pull up to use.) They packed me with multiple cans of Chef Boyardee canned ravioli and Dinty Moore stew. (I still can't look either of these in the face) I think there was a skillet, a lone small pan, and the hot pot. I got my still-working black coffee mug with pictures of jazz musicians on the side. I think there might have been a jar of pickles. And last of all, there was a big box--a Sunbeam microwave.
The Sunbeam is appropriately named. If you leave a slice of refrigerated leftover pizza by an eastward facing window for two minutes, you get about the same result as when it goes in the microwave. It was never a great kitchen appliance, even at the height of its powers. But for me, it was a symbol of independence. When I could have been munching on cafeteria tacos with half-brown lettuce awaiting an impending 90 minute block of high school gym, I was instead heating up a bowl of Chef Boyardee ravioli using my very own microwave, before I walked a mile in the snow to practice in the music building for a few hours. The microwave carried great symbolic value.
J faced an interesting situation before we got married. Her Davis grandparents gave her a choice of wedding gifts. The first option was a sleek and high-powered fancy microwave similar to the nuclear model that her parents own. "But," they said "your parents told us that Roy already owns a microwave, so we were thinking you might want <this> instead." (I don't remember what the other option was, but we chose that. I'm sure that whatever it was, it's been very useful and we love it.) J wrestled with this decision.
"Your microwave is pretty pathetic." she said. "And really, it might not be worth saving at this point. I mean, have you ever cleaned that thing?"
"I clean it all the time!" I protested. "And besides, it works great for me. It heats things up eventually. Didn't it make you a great Valentine's day dinner?"
(Less than a month after we started dating I made dinner for J on Valentine's day and served it to her in the upstairs studio of the dilapidated colonial of the epileptic reclusive. Because I didn't own a table or chairs we ate off an old piece of wood laid out on the floor. Dinner was plain white rice, most of which I'd burned on the stove, with chicken and dumplings from a can, and hot chocolate, which I poured from a packet into the white and green mugs after heating up water in the hot pot. But she still married me eventually.)
Anyhow, J and I have always wondered whether we made the right decision about passing on the very nice microwave we were offered at our wedding. Still, the Sunbeam has survived 6 apartments and is still going "strong." We have learned a lot about how to get it working just right for us. At first the only two results we could get while reheating leftovers were "frigid" or "burnt to a crisp." Now we are able to consistently find a sweet spot in the timer knob (it doesn't have power settings, of course) where we can burn the outside of whatever it is we're serving to crisp while still leaving the center of the food freezing cold.
J has begun, as she did with our old Station Wagon, actively hoping for its death. A few months ago she tried to microwave something and nothing happened. There was no power at all. She told me that in the next few minutes she did a happy dance and clapped and sang for James. As it turned out the power cord was just slightly dislodged. She warmed her leftovers most sadly.
James loves the microwave, of course. If we turn it on he wants to be as close to it as possible, pressing his nose up against the clear plastic front and watching the food spin around. I hope he isn't too radioactive by this point. We usually try to pry him away into the other room, but he'll fuss and cry, and then he runs back to watch it some more as soon as we put him down. He's also taken to twisting the timer knob while food is being cooked, but this often doesn't make a difference anyway.
I discovered last night that, although I know exactly how long I need to set the microwave to reheat pizza or leftover casserole, I have no idea how to use the microwave to get James' food ready. J was at church, so I was giving James supper on my own. I knew I needed to start with the bag of frozen vegetable medley. I put some in a bowl, covered them with water, and then put the bowl in the microwave.
"How long should I microwave your veggies, James?"
"Da DA da da. Da! Da! Hahaha!!"
I decided that meant one minute and thirty seconds. The veggies were so hot when I pulled them out of the microwave that I ran my fingers under cold water. James, knowing that it was time to eat NOW, promptly fussed at me.
"Okay, we're going to wait on the vegetables. Let's start on some leftover chili instead."
I put the bowl of hot vegetables in the freezer so they could cool down, and pulled the chili out of the fridge. Clearly a minute and thirty seconds was too long for vegetables. I decided to start at thirty seconds with the chili. The chili dinged, and it was also way to hot too eat. So I pulled the veggies out of the freezer, and put the bowl of chili in there. And then I pulled my pizza out of the fridge, and put that in the microwave.
I gave James some vegetables, and he spread them all around his tray, threw them on the floor, and put them down the front of his shirt. I think he might have even eaten a few of them. My pizza dinged, and I had two slices of delicious leftover homemade BBQ chicken pizza. It was wonderful. There were sweet onions and parsley, and I savored every last bite.
And then I remembered about the chili in the freezer. It had been about 20 minutes, and the chili was pretty much frozen. As it turns out, James likes frozen food. He asked for more chili once we'd finished the first dish, and I didn't even bother putting it in the microwave. He's a good sport.
This isn't his only difficulty with heating food of late, either. Two nights ago when J was cooking our delicious BBQ chicken pizza, she told me that I needed to hold James for a moment. We had been playing with his blue rubber ball, which I think was a racquetball ball before he started gnawing on it. It bounces very well in our kitchen, so we have fun with it. I scooped him up, and we walked over to watch Mommy take the pizza out of the oven.
I think veteran parents would be wiser than this. What do you think happens when you lean over a hot open oven holding a baby who is holding a bouncy rubber ball?
He threw the ball. It bounced once and bounced right into the oven. All three of us yelled "AHHH!!!" at the same time, and J managed to get it out in less than ten seconds using a wooden spoon, with no burns to herself and minimal scorching to the ball. Still, it was pretty traumatic. Fortunately, the pizza tasted great.
One final note: If you are attempting to hire musicians for your event, please model your request after the first of these two examples, which happened within five minutes of each other last Friday and which I am not in any way making up:
EXAMPLE 1:
"Hi, Mr. Smith?"
"Yes?"
"I was wondering if your jazz combo might be able to play at x event on x date. It would start at x o'clock and go to x o'clock."
"Let's see. I think I'm available. I'll check with the others. What would the pay be?"
"It would be x dollars, plus dinner."
"Great, I'll let you know."
EXAMPLE 2:
"Hi, Mr. Smith?"
"Yes?"
"We're having an event on x date, and The LORD told me that your group should play..."
No word from The LORD on whether we'd get paid, but things don't look good.
Showing posts with label Flock of Uncles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flock of Uncles. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Sunday, December 23, 2012
The Neon Goes Too
I think that the Mayan apocalypse actually happened two days ago, but its effects were limited to our driveway. If you're a regular reader of my blog--this would be my wife and maybe my Mom--you know that we've recently been having lots of trouble with our PT Cruiser, also known as "the Gaxmobile." My parents have been kind enough to lend us their pick-up truck to get through Christmas Eve, so Julie took that to her church job in Warsaw today. Because you aren't supposed to put carseats in pick-ups, I loaded James into our well-loved 2000 Dodge Neon and drove off to my church job in Gates.
Almost as soon as I pulled out of our driveway, I noticed something was wrong. The car was making a funny sound and felt very sluggish. I pulled off to the side and fiddled with the sometimes sticky parking brake. Nothing. After a few more minutes of trying to disengage the parking brake, I put my four-ways on, and (being sure to check for traffic) stepped outside to go through my usual auto-trouble ritual. My auto trouble-ritual consists of kneeling down, looking under the car, making a thoughtful face, and calling someone for help. There was no one else around except James, but I still feel better when I make my concerned face. One of these days I might actually see something under the car that I understand (currently I only see magical calculus problems) and then I'll be glad that I've practiced a facial expression that conveys to everyone around me "I see that something is wrong which has caused my car to stop working."
As it happened, I did recognize the source of my automotive woes for the morning. My driver-front tire had no air in it. I'm not a tire expert, but I understand that it's usually inadvisable to drive your car without air in your tires. I stood up, made sure that James was okay, then engaged the parking brake, secured the rear tires with props, jacked the car up, and replaced the flat tire with our spare.
I am, of course, totally kidding. I am a pathetic girly musician-man, and I wasn't about to change a tire in my only half-decent suit on a hill with my infant son in the back. So I called AAA and asked them for some help. It was probably a good thing I didn't attempt to change the tire anyway, because, as our AAA representative informed us, our spare tire currently doesn't have any air in it.
My pastor drove out to rescue James and I when she heard about our predicament, and drove us into church with enough time to make most of choir rehearsal. James was great through the whole mess, never fussed, and happily exclaimed "yeah!" to every question she asked him. I left the Neon unlocked with the key under the visor, cursing (not out loud--we were with our pastor) our simultaneously broken vehicles and very relieved that we have such a well-behaved son.
I fielded phone calls from AAA, the tow truck driver, and from a Firestone clerk throughout the church service by ducking out during the hymns. Firestone was the only local tire shop open today, and certainly the only place that would be open tomorrow on Christmas Eve. I knew that we were overdue for replacing the very bald tires on the back of the Neon, and we ended up agreeing to replace all 4. (It was buy 3, get 1 free.)
I picked up James from the nursery, where the nursery worker told me that he had been very well behaved and that "he sure does love that bear." Yes, we've noticed that too. I collected all of his snacks and diaper bag and Steven and binky and carried all of those things at once with him over to his car seat, and as I squatted down to put on his coat
RIIIPPP
...there is now a hole in the crotch of my "only half-decent suit."
Uncle Pax and Aunt Kylie came to rescue us from GPC and drove us home after stopping by Hilltop to pick up the finished copy of A Very Uncles Christmas on the way. (We did not remember to pick up James' missing bottles.) The Uncles sounded good. James makes his presence known on the last track. On the way back I got a call from the Firestone rep.
"Hey, did you guys have a tire-rod replaced recently?"
"Yes, we had one replaced about two weeks ago."
"Well, they didn't align it properly afterwards...that's probably what caused the flat. We'd recommend our standard alignment."
"Okay, how much?"
"That's another 79.99...which will bring your total to $420."
"...Okay, go ahead and do it."
Once we got back I gave James some peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. He was a great sport, and even insisted that he feed me some of his sandwich. (This is cute, but also a little gross. His food travels many miles before he eats it or offers it to anyone else.)
J got back around 12:30 and we waited for the call from Firestone that our car was done. Around 1:00 my phone lit up.
"Hello, Mr. Smith?"
"This is he. Is the car done?"
"I'm afraid not. We found significant rust under the car, and it looks like we're going to need to replace another tire rod."
The total came to $575.
I will say this about today and about all of our recent auto troubles: We are very thankful for cellphones. I can't imagine how we would have done this sort of day without them. We are thankful for Pax and Kylie, who rescued us again. We are thankful for Christmas gigs, which keep money coming into the bank account. We are thankful for neighbors who are willing to watch James while we run to the mechanic. And we are thankful for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and little boys willing to share them. That may be all we're eating for the next few months.
Almost as soon as I pulled out of our driveway, I noticed something was wrong. The car was making a funny sound and felt very sluggish. I pulled off to the side and fiddled with the sometimes sticky parking brake. Nothing. After a few more minutes of trying to disengage the parking brake, I put my four-ways on, and (being sure to check for traffic) stepped outside to go through my usual auto-trouble ritual. My auto trouble-ritual consists of kneeling down, looking under the car, making a thoughtful face, and calling someone for help. There was no one else around except James, but I still feel better when I make my concerned face. One of these days I might actually see something under the car that I understand (currently I only see magical calculus problems) and then I'll be glad that I've practiced a facial expression that conveys to everyone around me "I see that something is wrong which has caused my car to stop working."
As it happened, I did recognize the source of my automotive woes for the morning. My driver-front tire had no air in it. I'm not a tire expert, but I understand that it's usually inadvisable to drive your car without air in your tires. I stood up, made sure that James was okay, then engaged the parking brake, secured the rear tires with props, jacked the car up, and replaced the flat tire with our spare.
I am, of course, totally kidding. I am a pathetic girly musician-man, and I wasn't about to change a tire in my only half-decent suit on a hill with my infant son in the back. So I called AAA and asked them for some help. It was probably a good thing I didn't attempt to change the tire anyway, because, as our AAA representative informed us, our spare tire currently doesn't have any air in it.
My pastor drove out to rescue James and I when she heard about our predicament, and drove us into church with enough time to make most of choir rehearsal. James was great through the whole mess, never fussed, and happily exclaimed "yeah!" to every question she asked him. I left the Neon unlocked with the key under the visor, cursing (not out loud--we were with our pastor) our simultaneously broken vehicles and very relieved that we have such a well-behaved son.
I fielded phone calls from AAA, the tow truck driver, and from a Firestone clerk throughout the church service by ducking out during the hymns. Firestone was the only local tire shop open today, and certainly the only place that would be open tomorrow on Christmas Eve. I knew that we were overdue for replacing the very bald tires on the back of the Neon, and we ended up agreeing to replace all 4. (It was buy 3, get 1 free.)
I picked up James from the nursery, where the nursery worker told me that he had been very well behaved and that "he sure does love that bear." Yes, we've noticed that too. I collected all of his snacks and diaper bag and Steven and binky and carried all of those things at once with him over to his car seat, and as I squatted down to put on his coat
RIIIPPP
...there is now a hole in the crotch of my "only half-decent suit."
Uncle Pax and Aunt Kylie came to rescue us from GPC and drove us home after stopping by Hilltop to pick up the finished copy of A Very Uncles Christmas on the way. (We did not remember to pick up James' missing bottles.) The Uncles sounded good. James makes his presence known on the last track. On the way back I got a call from the Firestone rep.
"Hey, did you guys have a tire-rod replaced recently?"
"Yes, we had one replaced about two weeks ago."
"Well, they didn't align it properly afterwards...that's probably what caused the flat. We'd recommend our standard alignment."
"Okay, how much?"
"That's another 79.99...which will bring your total to $420."
"...Okay, go ahead and do it."
Once we got back I gave James some peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. He was a great sport, and even insisted that he feed me some of his sandwich. (This is cute, but also a little gross. His food travels many miles before he eats it or offers it to anyone else.)
J got back around 12:30 and we waited for the call from Firestone that our car was done. Around 1:00 my phone lit up.
"Hello, Mr. Smith?"
"This is he. Is the car done?"
"I'm afraid not. We found significant rust under the car, and it looks like we're going to need to replace another tire rod."
The total came to $575.
I will say this about today and about all of our recent auto troubles: We are very thankful for cellphones. I can't imagine how we would have done this sort of day without them. We are thankful for Pax and Kylie, who rescued us again. We are thankful for Christmas gigs, which keep money coming into the bank account. We are thankful for neighbors who are willing to watch James while we run to the mechanic. And we are thankful for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and little boys willing to share them. That may be all we're eating for the next few months.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
The Unexpected
If the ghost of Jacob Marley had appeared to me at this time yesterday evening and told me that within the next 24 hours I would be making 11 PM travel arrangements, coercing confidential information from a security company, and playing the drumset, I'd have been at least a bit skeptical.
As it happened, J and I were turning the lights out around 10:30 PM, and she had just reminded me that I needed to pick up some of James' bottles and utensils that were left at Hilltop when I visited the next day. I was perfectly comfortable under the covers and quilts, knowing that my alarm wasn't going to go off early tomorrow and that my Christmas break had begun..
....
....
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
I started awake and looked at my phone without my glasses on. I couldn't see very clearly, but then I made out "Davis, Tim" as the caller ID. What did my brother-in-law want at 11:10 PM? Whatever it was, it could wait until tomorrow morning. I turned it off and rolled over, trying to fall back asleep.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
This wasn't my phone. It was J's, and it was Tim calling again. She picked up, and Tim very excitedly offered to drive up from PA first the next morning to fix our broken PT Cruiser. This information took awhile to penetrate my sleep-soaked brain...I still was trying to figure out what time it was. But when I came to and realized what was actually going on, and I was amazed at Tim's generosity. He'd already made arrangements to tow a dolly up with him and use a friend's garage and lift, doing all of the labor for free. We knew that there would be a storm coming in, so we left it until tomorrow to confirm.
The next morning was perfect until about 9:30 AM. James slept in, and then snuggled in bed with us for about 20-30 minutes with hardly any of his wonted 13-month-old wiggling fits. We had a leisurely breakfast, brewed coffee, and held him up to windows to watch the snow coming down and blanketing the fields around us. We lit a scented candle in the kitchen, put on Christmas music, and played with blocks. And we called our mechanic, telling him to please hold off on replacing the timing belt in our PT Cruiser, since J's brother was available to do that for us. We didn't hear back, so we called again and left another message. And we didn't hear back, so we called again. Nothing
It's a six hour trip from PA in good weather...we know we needed to make sure that the Gaxmobile was accessible if Tim was to make that substantial of a trip, so I drove over to the shop to confirm that the car was parked outside.
Alas, into the cold outside. The snow looked beautiful from inside our warm house with pajamas on, but stepping outside in it was unpleasant, and soon my shoes and socks were soaked from scraping off the car in our unplowed driveway. I slipped and skidded my way through the half-plowed roads into the village of Spencerport, and arrived at the mechanic's to find an empty lot. The cruiser was sitting in a bay with the hood propped open, locked away quite securely.
Now when I say "our mechanic," I really mean "the mechanic that AAA was willing to tow our car to." We have our own regular mechanic, and though we'd met the gentleman in Spencerport once before, we've had no regular contact with him. We don't know his name. We don't know his home phone number. We have no means of contacting him when he's not at the shop. I checked all around the dark office windows and even asked around at the fire station next door, but had no luck. (All they knew was that he didn't work on weekends.)
The only number I could find was the contact number for General Security, which had a decal on his front window. I called them, gave them my address, and explained the situation. I begged and pleaded for a home phone number.
"Sorry sir, but we aren't allowed to give out confidential information."
"What about a name? If you gave me his name I could try to find him in the white pages."
"No sir, we aren't allowed to do that."
I stretched the truth a little bit.
"This is the vehicle that we were going to use to get home for Christmas...is there any way that you could call him and let him know that we're trying to get in contact with him?"
As punishment for my slight prevarication about Christmas (we're perfectly capable of getting to Pennsylvania in the Neon) we never received any calls back, even though the kind but inflexible security rep did promise us to call his home number and pass along my message. We called Tim and let him know not to come. He may still travel up with us after Christmas to work on the Gaxmobile, which would save us lots and lots of money. I think that the last chapter in this story has not yet been written. It would all be very interesting if it was happening to someone else.
I arrived home cold and slightly put out to J, James, and lunch. Since J was doing the last of the Christmas shopping with her best friend in the afternoon, James came with me to the Flock of Uncles recording session scheduled at Hilltop. J helped us to bundle up and reminded me to pick up the missing bottles while I was there, and we drove off to meet Calvus, Pax, and Lux.
Some people might think it's an unwise idea to bring a small child to a recording session, but they've never met James. It turns out that he's a very sensitive child who only wants to watch and listen to his Father and his Uncles play jazzy Christmas tunes. We had considerably more problems from the Uncles than from the baby. (Also, many thanks to Kylie and Nicole for their babysitting help.)
When J is asked to describe the Uncles sound, she calls us "improvisatory." By that she means that we do almost everything in a chaotic and unorganized fashion flying by the seat of our pants and reading music (if anyone remembered to bring music) from a single stand (if anyone remembered to bring a stand) and relying mostly on telepathy to arrange the finer details of a tune, such as when everyone is going to stop and start and what key we'll be playing in. I've done a couple of recording sessions this year, but today's was the only one in which the members of the group were recording music they had never seen on instruments that they had never played before. It turns out that the mandolin isn't that difficult.
Also, I played the drums for the first time. I've been getting to paid to teach other people how to play the drums for the past two years, so it's actually a bit of a relief that I can kind of play them. I played the drumset (read: a high-hat and a snare drum with one wire brush) on an up-tempo rendition of Joy to the World. James thought it was great. He danced with his eyes shut and one hand up in the air, which he usually only saves for his favorite Celine Dion recording. (Potential album title for the next Flock of Uncles recording: Almost as Good as Celine.)
I heard a little bit of my drumming afterwards, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I wouldn't want to do it very often, though. As I held the drumsticks and pumped the high-hat pedal, I could feel my attention span decreasing. The music seemed to blur in and out of focus, and all the dynamic markings seemed to look like "forte or fortissimo" to me. Drumming good. Drumming very good. Hit things with sticks. Hit things with sticks louder! Hunt meat! Hunt meat for food!
Sorry...got a little carried away there with my drumset playing.
We finished the project (A Very Uncles Christmas) and Pax is mixing it down right now. We intend to give it to our older relatives, especially those who are unlikely to listen to it or have developed significant hearing loss. Our "improvisatory" style of performing doesn't always carry over very well to the recording studio. We finished the whole thing in less than five hours, and when I bundled up James to go home he hadn't interrupted a single track.
Of course, we forgot the bottles.
As it happened, J and I were turning the lights out around 10:30 PM, and she had just reminded me that I needed to pick up some of James' bottles and utensils that were left at Hilltop when I visited the next day. I was perfectly comfortable under the covers and quilts, knowing that my alarm wasn't going to go off early tomorrow and that my Christmas break had begun..
....
....
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
I started awake and looked at my phone without my glasses on. I couldn't see very clearly, but then I made out "Davis, Tim" as the caller ID. What did my brother-in-law want at 11:10 PM? Whatever it was, it could wait until tomorrow morning. I turned it off and rolled over, trying to fall back asleep.
BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!
This wasn't my phone. It was J's, and it was Tim calling again. She picked up, and Tim very excitedly offered to drive up from PA first the next morning to fix our broken PT Cruiser. This information took awhile to penetrate my sleep-soaked brain...I still was trying to figure out what time it was. But when I came to and realized what was actually going on, and I was amazed at Tim's generosity. He'd already made arrangements to tow a dolly up with him and use a friend's garage and lift, doing all of the labor for free. We knew that there would be a storm coming in, so we left it until tomorrow to confirm.
The next morning was perfect until about 9:30 AM. James slept in, and then snuggled in bed with us for about 20-30 minutes with hardly any of his wonted 13-month-old wiggling fits. We had a leisurely breakfast, brewed coffee, and held him up to windows to watch the snow coming down and blanketing the fields around us. We lit a scented candle in the kitchen, put on Christmas music, and played with blocks. And we called our mechanic, telling him to please hold off on replacing the timing belt in our PT Cruiser, since J's brother was available to do that for us. We didn't hear back, so we called again and left another message. And we didn't hear back, so we called again. Nothing
It's a six hour trip from PA in good weather...we know we needed to make sure that the Gaxmobile was accessible if Tim was to make that substantial of a trip, so I drove over to the shop to confirm that the car was parked outside.
Alas, into the cold outside. The snow looked beautiful from inside our warm house with pajamas on, but stepping outside in it was unpleasant, and soon my shoes and socks were soaked from scraping off the car in our unplowed driveway. I slipped and skidded my way through the half-plowed roads into the village of Spencerport, and arrived at the mechanic's to find an empty lot. The cruiser was sitting in a bay with the hood propped open, locked away quite securely.
Now when I say "our mechanic," I really mean "the mechanic that AAA was willing to tow our car to." We have our own regular mechanic, and though we'd met the gentleman in Spencerport once before, we've had no regular contact with him. We don't know his name. We don't know his home phone number. We have no means of contacting him when he's not at the shop. I checked all around the dark office windows and even asked around at the fire station next door, but had no luck. (All they knew was that he didn't work on weekends.)
The only number I could find was the contact number for General Security, which had a decal on his front window. I called them, gave them my address, and explained the situation. I begged and pleaded for a home phone number.
"Sorry sir, but we aren't allowed to give out confidential information."
"What about a name? If you gave me his name I could try to find him in the white pages."
"No sir, we aren't allowed to do that."
I stretched the truth a little bit.
"This is the vehicle that we were going to use to get home for Christmas...is there any way that you could call him and let him know that we're trying to get in contact with him?"
As punishment for my slight prevarication about Christmas (we're perfectly capable of getting to Pennsylvania in the Neon) we never received any calls back, even though the kind but inflexible security rep did promise us to call his home number and pass along my message. We called Tim and let him know not to come. He may still travel up with us after Christmas to work on the Gaxmobile, which would save us lots and lots of money. I think that the last chapter in this story has not yet been written. It would all be very interesting if it was happening to someone else.
I arrived home cold and slightly put out to J, James, and lunch. Since J was doing the last of the Christmas shopping with her best friend in the afternoon, James came with me to the Flock of Uncles recording session scheduled at Hilltop. J helped us to bundle up and reminded me to pick up the missing bottles while I was there, and we drove off to meet Calvus, Pax, and Lux.
Some people might think it's an unwise idea to bring a small child to a recording session, but they've never met James. It turns out that he's a very sensitive child who only wants to watch and listen to his Father and his Uncles play jazzy Christmas tunes. We had considerably more problems from the Uncles than from the baby. (Also, many thanks to Kylie and Nicole for their babysitting help.)
When J is asked to describe the Uncles sound, she calls us "improvisatory." By that she means that we do almost everything in a chaotic and unorganized fashion flying by the seat of our pants and reading music (if anyone remembered to bring music) from a single stand (if anyone remembered to bring a stand) and relying mostly on telepathy to arrange the finer details of a tune, such as when everyone is going to stop and start and what key we'll be playing in. I've done a couple of recording sessions this year, but today's was the only one in which the members of the group were recording music they had never seen on instruments that they had never played before. It turns out that the mandolin isn't that difficult.
Also, I played the drums for the first time. I've been getting to paid to teach other people how to play the drums for the past two years, so it's actually a bit of a relief that I can kind of play them. I played the drumset (read: a high-hat and a snare drum with one wire brush) on an up-tempo rendition of Joy to the World. James thought it was great. He danced with his eyes shut and one hand up in the air, which he usually only saves for his favorite Celine Dion recording. (Potential album title for the next Flock of Uncles recording: Almost as Good as Celine.)
I heard a little bit of my drumming afterwards, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I wouldn't want to do it very often, though. As I held the drumsticks and pumped the high-hat pedal, I could feel my attention span decreasing. The music seemed to blur in and out of focus, and all the dynamic markings seemed to look like "forte or fortissimo" to me. Drumming good. Drumming very good. Hit things with sticks. Hit things with sticks louder! Hunt meat! Hunt meat for food!
Sorry...got a little carried away there with my drumset playing.
We finished the project (A Very Uncles Christmas) and Pax is mixing it down right now. We intend to give it to our older relatives, especially those who are unlikely to listen to it or have developed significant hearing loss. Our "improvisatory" style of performing doesn't always carry over very well to the recording studio. We finished the whole thing in less than five hours, and when I bundled up James to go home he hadn't interrupted a single track.
Of course, we forgot the bottles.
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