Not So Different

I.
I've been up reading for about the last hour and a half, mostly from texts that are over 2,000 years old. This morning I was reading about:

People resent having to pay taxes, but they'll do it anyway

The joy of having good, loyal dogs, with some history of their parentage and distinct appearances

The sort of trouble you have when you go unto in unfamiliar city and are trying to find your way around for the first time

Watching a parade go by on a holiday

Trying to back down gracefully from a contest that you've been put up for but you know you have no chance to win. (Without looking like a coward in public)

II.
Calvus-
Matt 18 runs like this:
1 In that hour the disciples came to Jesus saying Who then is greatest in the kingdom of the heavens? 2 And calling a paidion he stood him in their midst 3 And said Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become as ta paidia, in now way will you enter unto the kingdom of the heavens. 4 Consequently (oun) whoever would lower himself as to paidion, he is the greatest in the kingdom of the heavens. 5 And if any would receive one paidion such as this in my name, he receives me.

Do you think that slave might be a better translation than child for this passage? Is there supposed to be an ambiguity there? The LSJ entry for pais says 1) in relation to Descent child (with special reference to the father) 2) in relation to Age child, boy or girl, and 3) in relation to Condition, slave. The entry for the diminutive form (paidion) doesn't differentiate those usages, but has "young slave" as a possible translation.

It appears to me to make more sense to interpret Jesus' command as an injunction to become as servants/slaves more than to become "as children." What do you think?

III.
James is mostly very happy to have me back. He loves being outside at Grandma's house and in her various gardens. There are three tomato (tomayo) plants that he is busy harvesting whether red, orange, or green, and then throwing through their stands. (Ba-ball hoops.) He can't get into the netting around her blueberries, but he climbs under the blackberry nets and picks anything ripe. (This one's ready, Daddy. I'm'a eat it. This one is not ready.) But the best part of Grandma's garden is the grapevine, full of purple concord clusters. I think that short of my wife there's nothing more beautiful than a cluster of ripe grapes. James appears to agree.

I Samuel 8

But the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people in all which they are saying to thee, yet bear witness to them and foresay to them the law of owning a house which will be over them.

And thus Samuel said all the words of the Lord to the people which sought from him to buy a house, and he said:

This is the law of buying a house which shall be to you. They sons will take up drumsticks and beat them against thy walls, and it shall be up to thee to replace the wallpaper and the drywall, and they shall make markings of crayons and markers upon the same

And there will be established on you school taxes, even though you homeschool, and also shall you pay insurance and thine own utilities, not to mention closing costs and the fees of thy realtors

And thy daughters also, shouldst thou have any, will seek of thee to paint their rooms anew, though the paint be as precious as gold and thou would have no idea how to paint in any fashion

But thy money and thy credit will be given to repairs and to upgrades, and thy wife will demand of thee that the kitchen shouldst be upgraded and that thou madest pledge to her of fixing the bathroom although there is to thee no remembrance of such covenant

Thy books as well shall be in boxes in the basement, yet that basement will flood and thou will make effort to deliver them barefooted and in thy underwear, lo, even though it be midwinter will thy basement flood as the waters cover the sea

And when the wintertime cometh thou shalt shovel thine own snowy driveways, and surely in the spring thou shalt clean thine own gutters, and in all season will thou payest utilities, and the neighbor kids will steal thy trash cans.

And you will clamor in that day before the face of thy house which thou boughtest with the gold of the bank, and the Lord will not hear thee, for even at his heavenly house he must needs mow his own grass each week

But the people did not hear the voice of Samuel, but they said surely shall our own house be unto us, and we will be owners over it just as the gentiles, and our house will be our own, and it will be over us and keepest us warm in the winter

And Samuel heard all the words of the people and spoke them in the ears of the Lord. But the Lord said to Samuel, listen to their voice and establish over them a Realtor, and Samuel spoke to the men of Israel, and each departed unto his own city.

Close Calls

6:45
I've already been up since 5:30, first reading over at Bruegger's and then back home to take care of a few minor to-dos before rehearsal this morning. I have "one for the road" with me, a second large cup of morning coffee that costs me nothing since I have the Bottomless Mug card. (It's going to be really hard to give this up at the end of the year.)

I sit down at my desk with the laptop and print out an application form to the PSLF program, which would potentially forgive the balance of my student loans. Feeling cheerful about the prospect I sip my still mostly untouched coffee and stand up to get a stamp out of our mail box. I print the letter, address the envelope, and check on the other side of the desk to see if there's anything else that requires the laptop on my to-do list. One line says "Look up possible dates/activities with J for next week." I swivel back to my chair to do a google search, and as I move my hand, this happens.

The world stands still. I can see individual drops of coffee sloshing into the laptop keypad and a slow moving puddle spreading from the j-k-l cluster over towards asdf and down towards the arrow keys. In that paused moment in time I snap out of my shock and yank the coffee cup back upright with one hand while flipping the laptop on its side with the other and emptying the coffee onto the carpet.

Idiot, don't spill it on the carpet!
Better the carpet than the laptop!
Turn the power off!
The power is off...it needs to dry.
How do I dry it?
Turn the fan on, blast the fan!
What about the carpet?
Worry about the carpet later, take care of the laptop!
Make sure it's upside down so that if anything is left in there it can drain out.
Where's my phone?
Look up what to do if you spill coffee on your laptop?
What about the carpet?
Where's the carpet cleaner?

An agonizing 30 minutes pass. With two fans cranked to their highest setting beside the laptop. I almost call J, then decide against it. This is no way to start your morning.

7:15
I put the laptop back on the desk and press the power button. It turns on. I open up a word document and press all the keys that might've been affected by the spill. They all work fine.

8:00
I can't find my wallet. I can't find it anywhere. It isn't on the desk. It isn't in my pocket. It isn't in the basket by the door. I didn't leave it on my dresser or my nightstand. Did I leave it at Bruegger's? I had it with me at Bruegger's, even though I didn't buy anything. It can't be in the car. It's not in my trumpet case. It's not in my jeans from yesterday. It isn't in my tux coat from yesterday. It isn't on the bed. It isn't on the ottoman. It isn't anywhere? It must be at Bruegger's. I have to get over there, but it's sort of cold, so I'd better....put on a jacket. It's in my jacket.

8:15
I'm leaving a little later than I want to, but I should still get to rehearsal in plenty of time. I grab my keys out of the basket by the door and stuff them in my pocket...at least I had no trouble finding my keys. I pick up my trumpet and my lunchbox, and step outside. I set down my lunchbox to close the door, and just as it's about to latch I realize that I heard a tiny "clink" sound as I put my keys in my pocket. I open the door again and look on the kitchen floor. There, somehow separated from everything else on my key ring, is my sole house key, which I was just about to lock inside the house.

11:45
I'm on my way back from rehearsal, which was fine. I'm just passing the Batavia exit on the thruway, and there's been some slow-up because of the construction. I have a podcast playing from the LSE, and after 15 minutes of brake-lights and a jogging pace I'm ready to go the speed limit again. Finally we reach a spot where there are two lanes of traffic, and everyone speeds up to 65 again. Ah, the open road. I see off to my right that someone was enjoying the open road a little too much...they got pulled over. I pull over to the left lane to avoid the pulled over vehicles. Something is happening in front of me, but I can't tell what. All of a sudden the car two ahead completely stops and pulls off hard to the left, trying to avoid hitting something in front of it. The car in front of that car slams on it's brakes, and I slam on mine, but we're still all too close together--I wrench back to my right, praying that there's nothing speeding behind me in the right lane and bracing to get rear-ended. Nothing happens. No one pulls off, but all three cars ahead of me accelerate again, and I shift to first, start from my dead stop, and feel my hands tremble with adrenaline. I still have no idea what made them all brake so suddenly.

12:45
I'm in downtown Pittsford waiting for a walk signal to cross the road. A middle-school aged girl with her elementary-school aged brother walk up and press the button to cross the adjacent street. They are chatting as the traffic glides by, and then they get a walk sign. The boy steps out, and a big pick-up truck turning right roars out of the red light without looking at all where he's going. The boy is still talking as his sister yanks him back onto the pavement so hard that he falls down. The truck is off onto Monroe Avenue without even seeing what happened.

Everybody take care out there today, okay?

The Plan, Completed

Well, mostly completed. The cleaning part is done, anyway.

That's right--I am sitting in a clean house. The rubbermaid container overflowing with copies of trumpet excerpts has been repacked in alphabetical order and stowed in a closet. The bathroom sink and the kitchen table have been scraped, sanitized, and wiped down. The books have been straightened. All the mail has been answered. The bed has been made. If James and J were to walk in at this very instant, this house would be completely ready for habitation.

But it isn't, quite yet. I'm still catching little things that have been broken or a little out of order for so long that I can't see them unless I force myself to, like the screen in the kitchen window. It's been slightly out of it's track since the Spring, but I got so used to it that I didn't even notice it was wrong. I suspect that there are still some out-of-place screens in this house, but I'll have to really look to track them down.

What I'd really like to do, though, is borrow M's brain for about 24 hours. I wish that I could have the house really looking special for when they get back. If M was here she'd have transformed the bathroom with Chinese lanterns and streamers and possibly a trap bookcase. So far I've put out a sheet of Thomas the Train stickers for James, and that's been about it.

The past few days have actually been quite a revelation for me. I used to make almost no effort to keep my room tidy in college, which actually wasn't as bad as you'd think--I had about a week's worth of clothes, a sleeping bag, and nothing else except books. The worst that could happen would be that the books would get into the sleeping bag and the laundry. (This happened regularly.)

Then I became married to a woman, and all of a sudden there were fantastic luxuries like proper dishes in my life. This made my living quarters much more elegant, but also much more prone to degradation and mess. J, who was not particularly fastidious about keeping her college dorm clean either, did a good job of making sure that we kept up with our apartment, which was much too small to accommodate a Protestant wedding's worth of gifts. (Thank you to everyone, by the way. I appreciate eating my food off of real dishes and other lovely gifts.)

This is all to say that I have learned the immense value of keeping house. I have learned that how you present your home is part of how you present yourself in adult life, and that the state of your life is often reflected by the state of your living space...and that putting things back together or letting them fall apart is a whole life phenomenon.

With that said, it is also painfully obvious that a perfectly clean apartment without a wife or a two-year old lincoln-log-hurling, baseball-playing, tricycle-riding, mud-tracking, pillow-throwing menace is no home at all. It's an empty room that's only remotely interesting because of the possibility that they might come back.

So how do you say welcome back to your wife and your little monster? M, how would you do it? (I've actually already copied your Chinese lanterns idea.) If anyone has an idea text or message me...I'll just be waiting here in a clean house.

Alternate Universe

"And tonight in our sports segment we bring you live to the campus of St. John Fisher College, where the RPO is conducting their training camp and excitement for the new year has reached a fever pitch. Here's our sports and orchestra correspondent."

"Thanks, Jim. The players arrived here yesterday to crowds and cheering as they moved into the dorms. Everyone was excited to see the players taking the field for the first practice this afternoon, and many eyes were on the newest high profile member of the orchestra, their talented young bassoonist. Now the players haven't put on their tuxedos yet, but you can see most of the orchestra members wearing suits and ties as they practice scales and arpeggios on the sidelines. There are a few musicians, like the second trombone, who are nursing some minor injuries and will be held out of drills and exercises until they are cleared by a medical staff that fusses over them and then reports to the press. In the meantime, we're expecting big crowds for the night practices. There are rumors that we'll be seeing some chamber music and perhaps even a reading of a small symphony as early as next week, and as always, the players will be signing autographs afterwards. RPO merchandise can be purchased in the big tent, and we'll be providing hourly updates on the radio."

"Thanks Steve, that's the RPO at St. John Fisher all this week. If you'd like to attend a rehearsal, you'll need a free ticket from Tops or Sunoco, and the bus from one of the satellite locations costs one dollar. And now to weather..."

The Plan, Updated

Well, the house is a lot cleaner.

I was up at 5:30, and I worked like a man possessed by the knowledge that this would be the only the week all year when he could clean, email, and errandize without a two year old actively making new messes in his wake. ("Ooh Daddy, I knocked that over!")

This is the sort of stuff I did today--we had a crock pot that was given to us as a wedding present, and it sat in J's closet for seven years. (We had another, lesser crock pot.) When we became a three-person-solid food-family we decided to get the nice wedding crock pot out of storage. We used it once and enjoyed a delicious roast. Then J washed it, dried it, and put it away in the pantry. (Or, the "pankry" as James calls it. As in "the yakum cleaner needs to go back in the pankry, Daddy.")

Anyway, the next time J went into the pankry she found that the glass cover to the once-used crock pot had shattered. We guessed that there must have been enough moisture left that it created a seal with the temperature fluctuation, and the pressure burst the glass. Either that or a wizard put a curse on it. Either explanation would be perfectly valid. J, being pregnant, left the dangerous glassy mess for me to pick up. I did not clean up the mess, because my interactions with the pankry are limited to 1) getting crackers out 2) getting beer out, or 3) taking the recycling down to the garage doors. (Actually I take it down to the recycling bin, but that's not why James comes with me.)

So the crock pot sat with a burst glass lid inside of it for about a month while neither of us cleaned it up. But today, since James wasn't here, I could clean up the glass mess. I was very careful and didn't cut myself at all. I got all the glass into the trash can, cleaned the ceramic crock out in the sink, dug through our file box and found the owner's manual, found the warranty, looked up the model number, and emailed the company. (They emailed back an hour later saying that our model had been discontinued and they no longer provided replacement parts.)

But the point is that I got that job done. That sort of thing would be impossible with James around. He would need to read a George, or to go outside and mow, or to tell me about how George wanted to watch the tractor mow, or about how the tractor thought George was funny. I worked with no interruptions. I had Beethoven on in the background. It was glorious.

I sorted through the rest of the pankry and tossed out old Halloween candy and bags of cereal that had been left 90% finished for months. I washed all of the dirty dishes. I sorted the tupperware cabinet. I sorted the mail tray and paid all the bills. I dusted the tops of the cabinets. I wiped out the microwave and the top of the stove. (There was a lot of grease, and I have no idea where it all came from.) I cleaned out the fridge and threw away old bottles of salad dressing that expired before James was born. I put all the measuring cups in one kitchen drawer.

It was hard to keep up with myself, actually. I had that huge three page list to live up to, and there was so much to do that I ended up tripping over myself. For example, I recently got an updated license. It's very official looking, and it even has my current address on it, not to mention a little heart signifying that I am an organ donor, and hence, a person of high moral excellence. I had put my old license in the little basket where we drop our keys and wallets as we go in and out. (Really it's full of old hairclips and necklaces, but theoretically it should be for keys and wallets.) I knew that I should take my old license down to the storage unit and put it in the box where I keep old documents that might be a federal crime to throw away. (For example, this is where I keep my expired insurance cards and my college ID)

I figured I'd take my old license down to the storage unit when I took the third load of trash out. (I threw away a LOT of trash today.) I put it in my pocket, and I even put it in the same pocket as my keys so I would remember it was there when I pulled out my keys to come back in from the garage.

I came back upstairs without going to the storage unit.

So I took a load of laundry downstairs, and figured I'd have to go into the storage unit anyway to get the detergent. Which I did. But without putting the old license away.

"Okay," I said to myself as I realized that the license was still in my pocket "I'm going to go downstairs again to put away this stack of music that I don't need, and THIS time I will remember to put away my license."

And that time I remembered to put away the music and the license. But when I got back to the top of the stairs I couldn't remember whether I'd actually turned the washing machines on or not, so I had to go back down and check. When I get old, I may be in really tough shape.

I put away all the candles (of which we have LOTS) that were out in the kitchen. I cleaned out the toaster. I put away the stack of Julie's music that had been on the clav. I sorted James' toys. I put away all of my books that were lying around in piles. I dusted the tops of the shelves. I sent a bunch of emails. I called a mortgage specialist. I refilled our laundry card. I went to the bank. I went to the library. I went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of wine as a present. I went to the craft store and bought a frame. I went to the grocery store and got some food for the week. I flipped six loads of laundry and then folded them all. I practiced for an hour and a half. I went for a run. I vacuumed the whole house. I mopped the kitchen floor. I scrubbed the bathroom.

And still, there's more on the list. Some of the projects have been fun. I bought magnets as a possible solution to the "beer cap" problem, and discovered that magnets do not stick to mirrors. (That makes no sense, since they both start with the letter M.) Magnets do, however, stick to other magnets that are on the other side of the mirror.

Tomorrow I'll have more to tackle. I'm going to try to sort the endless piles of my music that are currently in the storage unit. I'm going to clean James' wagon. I'm going to clean my trumpets, and I may even yet write that curriculum map. (Kind of doubtful, though.)

And do you know what I think, at the end of the Most Productive Day of All Time?

I miss James. I miss him making a mess and doing his own thing completely single-mindedly and being a two year old boy. Apparently there's a tent at the lake house where he's staying, and he's set up inside of it with Deedee and Oo-Ah and every wordly possession he holds dear, which apparently includes the Mancala marbles. I would so much rather be with him and with J.

Phooey.

The Plan

Well, James and J are gone for the week. The plan is that I'm going to get a lot of stuff done here. I'm going to get up early and go running and read and practice until the neighbors start banging down the door. I'm going to deep clean the house. I'm going to take care of all the tiny to-dos and errands that you can't do with a two year old in tow, and I'm going to get our lives ready for the new year.

We'll see how it goes.

I have a three page to do list next to me. Here are some highlights.

Mop kitchen floor
Can't usually do this, because it is a high traffic tricycle zone. Basically anything you try to do in the kitchen is dangerous around here. In order to put something in the microwave, you ought to be wearing one of those orange safety vests and set several cones around you. But it wouldn't matter, because a tiny person on a tricycle would still come roaring by and run over your bare foot (which still hurts, by the way) as he makes his way around for another circuit.

Wash, fold, and stow ALL LAUNDRY
You can tell I meant business when I wrote this because I put ALL LAUNDRY in caps. This is a hard job right now because J is pregnant, which means that she has about three pregnancy wardrobes lying on our bedroom floor. (Hers, her friends, and her sisters.) She's constantly trying stuff on and taking it off, since what fits one week no longer fits but what didn't fit the last week might fit now. Also, she isn't sure whether she likes this particular shirt or that particular pair of pants, so she tries on a couple of different things whenever she gets dressed, and usually just throws them back on the heap once they are done. So basically, she has a good idea of what's clean and what fits, but I am completely lost. My plan is just to wash all the clothes, fold them, and put them in her closet.

Vacuum all areas (including behind sofa)
Because usually when I vacuum James bursts into tears and hides in the closet. Hence, I try to keep it as short as possible.

System for beer caps
I don't really need a system for beer caps, I just made a slight code for "J's hair accessories and random jewelry that are lying on her nightstand, the kitchen counter, the dresser, and the bathroom sink" because, like beer caps, they are everywhere and she no longer sees them. I am in the market for some sort of wooden jewelry chest to put on her dresser. Or perhaps, an industrial sized magnet that I could mount next to the bathroom mirror. Haven't decided which system to use yet.

Curriculum map
I was supposed to write this and hand it in for my Lima job back in November, I think. I may or may not get to it.

Discharge excess keys
I have at least 30 keys riding along on my key ring, and some of them I have no idea what they or for or where they came from. A bunch of them were Hochstein keys, but I figured out which ones I needed the last time I was in the office there and left all the unnecessary ones on the receptionist's desk. It was a very liberating feeling. If I can't figure out what the key is for, it's coming off and going in an envelope down in the storage unit. I realize that I am running the risk that I may put away a key to a safe deposit box taken out in my name with hitherto unknown large sums of money, but that is a risk I am willing to take

Mount JAMES picture
Dad did a great photo for us of James holding up all the different letters of his name, and then ordered a print. We got it almost a year ago, and said to ourselves "let's get that framed and hung right away." We had company coming over, so I put it behind the clavinova. I remember it's there about once a month, usually when I'm driving somewhere. Time to get that up on the wall.

New eBay items
I've been very active lately selling old mouthpieces and unused trumpet gear on eBay, mostly out of guilt about buying my first ever brand new trumpet. (Which I love.) I know I have at least one more box of random trumpet detritus down in the storage unit, and apparently there are people out there on the internet who are willing to pay for this stuff and the shipping to get it to them. One man's trash, I suppose. Sadly, my C trumpet hasn't sold yet, but that's okay. It needs a minor repair, and that's also on the to-do list.

Stow James' toys
Every couple of months we go through James' toys and put away some of the talking/annoying ones in his closet. I don't know why, but he regards his closet with some pretty serious circumspection. (Does he think there's a monster in there?) He has no problem digging through the bathroom cupboards, the tupperware drawer, or my nightstand, but he won't get into his closet unless I open the door for him. When he does, however, he usually pulls out all the toys that we were trying to hide from him.

There are lots of other items too, and I'll be getting up at 5 AM tomorrow to start in on the list. Updates to follow!