Being American

I’m an American. Or, at least, I was born in America to American parents and with American brothers and sisters.

But at various times I’m quite convinced that I’m English, a Roman, an Athenian, and an old Hebrew.

I’ve been reading The Once and Future King this week, and this week I’ve been mostly convinced that I’m English. To be honest, I spend most of my days being English anyway. A common language runs deeper than blood, but most of my blood traces back to the British Isles anyway, though I’m not sure to what parts and in what amounts. I can speak American when necessary, but I feel most myself when speaking English.

I’m married to an American, and quite happily so. She doesn’t care a bit for poetry, and isn’t remotely interested in the King Arthur or Robin Hood stories. When I read about King Arthur, I feel as if I’m back home in a childhood land I’d nearly forgotten, and when a line of Latin or old English gets quoted I can almost remember being there. I’m quite sure that the land of my grandfather’s grandfather’s was the sort of place that was inhabited by the “old people,” when there were wolves in savage forests and fairies and spells and witches. Then there were valleys and moors and marshes where not even the Latin language, let alone the English one, had been heard. Moonlight meant something and there were dragons—not like the Harry Potter sort, but what you might call dracones—and all sorts of nearly human people like Merlin who lived in places like Lothian and Avalon and are dimly remembered in Shakespeare.

But I’ve never been to those lands, and as I write this I’m sitting in an American city under fluorescent lights with gas heat. The concrete building I’m writing from has never been heated with a wood fire, and all the efforts of winter have been scraped and salted off its sidewalks. All the land around it has been paved over to accommodate automobiles, and there are no songs or poems about anything notable ever happening here. No one sleeps in this building, and there are never children or animals allowed nearby. No king has ever passed through this street, and no king has ever held this land. It’s sort of sad, really.

There are plenty of reasons why I’m glad to be an American, and listening to Copland 3 is one of them. I’m also proud whenever I go to the dentist, whenever I see snow on the fields of my parent’s house, whenever I visit Lake Ontario, and whenever I read the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. But I think I need some more reasons. So fire away—what things make you feel American and happy to be so?

In the meantime, I’ll be in Camelot.

Another List

I’m currently sitting in a Tim Horton’s in Buffalo. I’ve been here for the last 7 hours waiting for an evening concert and working on our 2013 taxes. The internet has currently pooped out, so I have plenty of time to think about the top 10 things I’d rather be doing, such as:

10) Playing about 340 high Bs in a row on a stuffy rotary trumpet that I’ve only ever played once before in my life. (Don’t worry, I’ll have a chance to do this in about two hours at the concert.)

9) Slowly flushing $1,006 of small bills down the toilet in the men’s room here. (That would be more enjoyable than writing checks in that amount to New York State and Uncle Sam)

8) Calculating the parabola of the total number of gas stations I passed while driving on the thruway this year divided by the hypotenuse of regular unleaded, so as to more accurately render my standard mileage expense. (It wouldn’t take me long, since I’ve already figured out the miles)

7) Answering questions from strangers about whether I’ve ever received rental income from a farm that owned the royalty rights to any business losses from Hurricane Sandy. (Answer: No)

6) Changing into a tuxedo without ever actually making skin contact with any surface of the money-flushing men’s room. (I’ll do this in about an hour)

5) Reading the enormous book that I brought with me because I thought that the taxes wouldn’t take 7 hours.

4) Taking a community course on how depreciation works for business inventory on a schedule C, since I have no earthly idea what any of the questions in that category are about

3) Having an hour or two alone with my wife to get a good look at her deductions and give her a very thorough Federal Review.

2) Attempting to give cellphone instructions to James on how to ride the New York City subway. (This is sort of what Turbo Tax is going through with me right now.)

1) Actually playing trains with James

The J 100

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I'll be spending it the most romantic day of the year exactly the way every wife envisions it: A 3 hour pops rehearsal in the afternoon, and then a concert and late drive home.

So, we're doing Valentine's Day today in the Smith house. I'm sure we'll see plenty of cynicism tomorrow about how Valentine's Day is a fiction of the massive floral-industrial complex, or how it's absurd for couples to spend one particular day in February pretending they're more attracted to one another than usual. There will also be lots of soupy goo on facebook, and a great deal of noise in every direction.

But really, it is an extraordinary thing to be married to a woman. And here are 100 extraordinary things about being married to J:

1)      Really good at doing math in her head, and she knows how to do fancy calculus stuff

2)      Makes delicious homemade pizza every Friday

3)      Wants to be a stay at home Mom with James

4)      Cleans the bathroom, which is my least favorite chore by far

5)      Doesn’t get all weepy about little things

6)      Knows as much or more about football than most men

7)      Shares my dislike for professional basketball

8)      Always lets me drive on long trips, which is way more interesting than waiting around in the passenger seat

9)      Reads books

10)   Doesn’t vegetate in front of the television screen for hours every night

11)   Uses correct punctuation, capitalization, and grammar when texting

12)   Has luxurious curly hair

13)   Is a graceful and natural dancer

14)   Eats healthy without needing to be a vegetarian

15)   Stays active without being a perpetually sweaty gym rat

16)   Pronounces the words “probably” and “February” correctly

17)   Is endlessly patient with her very two two-year-old son

18)   Did the dishes ungrudgingly for seven years before we moved into a place with a dishwasher

19)   Always errs on the side of caution when spending money

20)   Has an M.M. degree from a major university

21)   Graduated with said degree without incurring any additional debt

22)   Has an uncanny ability for accurate first impressions of people

23)   Knows and behaves with social graces I am oblivious to

24)   Can play the Hindemith and Halsey Stevens sonatas

25)   Doesn’t listen to pop music, or if she does it’s when I’m not around

26)   Can pronounce frightening-looking German words correctly

27)   Appreciates a good glass of wine

28)   Boobs

29)   Looks good in almost any style of sunglasses

30)   Dresses our son in weather-appropriate matching clothes

31)   Feeds our son healthy and interesting meals

32)   Loves rest and relaxation

33)   Has huge gorgeous eyes

34)   Is a simply extraordinary flute player

35)   Routinely saves me from conversations that I am tactlessly blundering

36)   Remembers the names of my coworkers and semi-distant relations better than I do

37)   Always knows what time it is within ten minutes, even if she hasn’t seen a clock in hours

38)   Always knows what the weather will be for the day

39)   Knows that she doesn’t know everything, and doesn’t pretend to know the things she doesn’t know

40)   Came with great in-laws for me

41)   Gave birth to a conspicuously handsome boy

42)   Is absolutely adored by her son

43)   Is more fun to travel with than anyone else I know

44)   Still is sort of surprised to find out that people think she’s pretty

45)   Is deeply beloved by her friends

46)   Is fiercely loyal to her friends, teachers, and family

47)   Has bucked every homeschooling stereotype there is

48)   Is a responsible and self-directed employee

49)   Has a unique gift for thinking through the details of event planning

50)   Is an expressive and gifted writer

51)   Is able to see herself and the world both lightly and seriously

52)   Is my most trusted proofreader

53)   Remembers which months have 30 and which months have 31 days

54)   Is a great conductor

55)   Is an excellent private teacher

56)   Can sight-read anything

57)   Was a great student and always loved by her teachers

58)   Loves my family like her own

59)   Can shoot a basketball very accurately

60)   Is a better baseball player than me

61)   Is almost as good as me in ping pong

62)   Is not afraid of getting dirty or sweaty if there is work to be done

63)   Understands and regularly uses analogies and jokes from Harry Potter

64)   Only ever dated me

65)   Can read children’s books upside down

66)   Can wrap presents perfectly neatly

67)   Can write in cursive

68)   Has converted to sacred order of the carafe (become a coffee drinker) since marrying me

69)   Can read my handwriting

70)   Has listened to the Ballerina Dance, Promenade, and Mahler 5 more times than any human being should ever suffer

71)   Knows the names of medicines and what they do

72)   Doesn’t get frustrated and whiny about having to fill out paperwork

73)   Knows how to do drywall, roofing, and flooring

74)   Cuts my hair

75)   Is the person I laugh with more than anyone else

76)   Understands and enjoys playing poker

77)   Is genuinely happy for the success of others

78)   Is extraordinarily tough, as evidenced by the 77 hour delivery of James

79)   Doesn’t have weird beliefs about vaccines, the moon landing, or soybeans

80)   Knows the order and random trivia of all the Presidents

81)   Was an all-star softball player

82)   Sings really tight harmonies by ear

83)   Knows the name of every variation of every color

84)   Can do all sorts of crazy flexible yoga positions

85)   Prefers to be outside when the weather is warm

86)   Fights fair when we have disagreements

87)   Folds the laundry very neatly

88)   Manufactures dishwasher space when I thought it was full six plates ago

89)   Graduated from the honors program summa cum laude in undergrad

90)   Regularly wears and looks amazing in leggings

91)   Roots against the Patriots at every opportunity

92)   Uses humorous Pennsylvanianisms, such as “hot dog!” and “gee whillikers!”

93)   Uses facebook judiciously and tactfully

94)   Steps on my back when it’s all messed up or tweaked

95)   Doesn’t flail, jolt, or snore when she sleeps

96)   Makes healthy food taste interesting

97)   Irons clothes flawlessly, even when they’ve been crumpled up in the bottom of a gig bag for a month

98)   Has called me to save me from entrapping conversations

99)   Introduced me to Dutch Blitz

100)  Is really, really, stunningly pretty

Welcome to our House

Welcome to our house! Let me show you around. If you haven't been over to our apartment before, you'll have to be careful on our welcome mat, where there are several sets of snowy shoes outside the door. We only left the house once today, when James and I went up the courtyard to visit the office and then to say hello to the carwash down past the business park. (I carried him back screaming and crying, because the onset of hypothermia is not a sufficient reason to leave his carwash-observations snowbank.)

If you step into the foyer area, you'll see that two toolboxes are out and and open. Were we conducting major repairs? No, we were looking for a box-cutter and duct tape to construct a hot wheels ramp out of the remnants of a cardboard box. Don't worry, that will all get picked up for bedtime.

There is leftover pizza out in the kitchen. Friday night is pizza night at our house, and tonight we had a delicious homemade pizza courtesy of Mom. There are three wineglasses out drying, because we accidentally broke the fourth today. Oh, well. This set made it almost a whole month before the first casualty. It was a pretty scary experience. Not the breaking of the glass, mind you, but vacuuming up the shards afterwards. Whenever the real vacuum comes out, someone has to hold a two year old who is positively quaking with fear.

Off of the kitchen you can see our pantry, which is conspicuously devoid of mop, hand-broom, dustpan, and ironing board. We need all of these items out in the living room for the reading and acting out of various books. We require the mop to read "Curious George and the Carwash," in which George constructs a homemade car wash for his toy cars. It is the best book ever. The hand broom is used for "Curious George Gets a Medal" because it looks like a paint brush, and George does some painting in that one. I think the dustpan is just for fun, and the ironing board is out for use as a second hot wheels ramp.

If you come into the living room, you'll see piles and piles of books on the floor, and not all of them belong to James. But lots of them do. We went to the library yesterday and got a new Thomas book, a new George book, and three books about car washes. James got so worked up about car washes by lunchtime today that we tapped into the secret reserve of never opened Christmas presents that we hid in his closet. We decided that today, the day in which we weren't going to go anywhere or do anything, would be an ideal time to get out his mega-blocks. James took to them instantly, and requested that we build a model car wash. Once that was finished, he disappeared into his room for a minute, then came out with an unopened puzzle from the no-longer-secret stash of never opened Christmas presents that we hid in his closet.

Back in James' room you'll see an enormous cardboard box that doubles as a fort and a hot wheels garage, as well as a bookcase full of books not currently involved in the living room rotation and a falling apart photo album that he likes to look through. The most striking new feature of his room, however, is the converted toddler bed that used to be his crib. He has mostly stayed in it when he needs to, although yesterday he wandered out halfway through his nap time with a binky in his mouth and a book under his arm, saw that I was playing Madden on the Wii, and promptly began humming the CBS football theme.

Our room is currently a jungle. Literally, actually. There are zebra-striped bed sheets and two six-foot inflatable glowing palm trees, plus colored cut outs of jungle animals and a layer of construction paper grass. It's the middle of February in Rochester, and there are several feet off snow outside. The air is cold, and you can't go anywhere without getting your feet soaked. But in our apartment, we have a little tropical paradise, complete with its very own monkey. A monkey who loves car washes.

The Big Game

Tonight's LIVE BLOGGING coverage of the Super Bowl is brought to you with limited commercial interruption by Graco baby products, maker of the Graco convertible crib. Our Graco crib has been converted, as of 5:45 this evening, into a toddler bed which James can climb/fall out of at any time. And by Wegmans, maker of frozen pizzas and wings.

6:00
All the football players are writing I Will statements on a giant chalkboard. J says "these aren't wedding vows, guys." I think the commercial is rather overrating their spelling abilities, with the possible exception of Peyton Manning.

Troy Aikman is talking about Peyton Manning. Let's see how long it takes for him to mention how he is ALSO a Super Bowl winning quarterback.

Also, Joe Buck might have picked out his tie in the dark.

6:08
Advertisement for The Following. No smiling aloud in this show.

I always imagined Charles Tillman (a defensive back) would be a smaller sort of guy. Standing next to normal people, though, he looks enormous.

Pizza time. Sorry, Queen Latifah.

Okay, the pizza is delicious. Union rules state that any orchestra performance must be proceeded by at least 15 minutes of warm-up time in a space which the orchestra travels to. I kind of doubt that the NJ Symphony is going to get their full 15 before they play the national anthem.

The 12th man banner is classy. I'm rooting for the Broncos, but that was really cool.

I don't see a symphony anywhere? Did I make up that they were going to be there?

Good job, Renee. Way to hang over on the high note. (Advice from a trumpet player, add a kiss-off at the end next time.)

We just got our first flashback of Wide Right.

Mountain Dew cans that blast sparks out the top. I think drinking the sparks would be healthier.

6:27
First IPA

Oh YES. Joe Namath is doing the coin toss. Please let him be drunk.

Joe Namath picked out Joe Buck's tie in the dark, then dressed himself.

Yep, definitely drunk. That was an amazing coin toss. I want Joe Namath to do the coin toss at a Bills game next year. He was very eager.

"The NFL has given the stiff arm to mother nature."

Aw, 9 year old James just brought out the football.

I'm starting to count self-referencing 4th wall commercials. Ford Hybrid starts us off with one and two.

6:30
James could not be less interested in the football, mostly because it doesn't have the CBS theme. He is playing trains on the iPad.

Trindon Holliday is more dangerous to the Broncos than the Seahawks.

BAD START. And there's two points. C'mon center.

"You didn't wait for me to say 'Omaha!'"

Third safety in Super Bowl History. Two years ago, Tom Brady's intentional grounding, twenty years ago, Bruce Smith. (He should've gone for the strip-touchdown)

No wonder Manny Ramirez screwed up the snap, he's supposed to be playing baseball.

Percy Harvin's pretty darn fast. Peyton has his constipated face on.

Russell Wilson and Manny Ramirez should talk about their feelings and see if they can get some of the nerves out.

The Fox graphic is wrong. That was actually 2nd and 15, not 3rd and 15.

James just tried to buy an app on the iPad.

Terrence Knighton is shaped like a 400 lb letter S.

I bet the Seattle cheerleaders are a lot warmer than the Denver ones.

4th and 1. Playing the best offense in history in the Super Bowl. Go for it or take the three?

It's escape, not exscape.

That looks like a pretty good challenge.

There are hidden cameras in this beer commercial? This must all be completely authentic and unscripted!

We're now at three 4th-wall commercials.

James is begging me to come look at his toddler bed with him. I don't know, I might miss the Walt Whitman style car commercials.

James told me that he wants to put his bed back together and then take it apart again. I told him that's goofy, and he said "oh, COOKIE!"

5-0. Someone, somewhere, got really good odds on that.

James wants to take apart Mommy and Daddy's bed now.

6:51
There's a Farwell in the Super Bowl. Family pride.

3 and out.

6:59
Going on 8 minutes of playing catch with James and trying to get him to pay attention when it's third down.

J: Well, that was a flea flicker gone flat

James: Daddy, Daddy! Daddy, Daddy! (We need to go look at my toddler bed again.)

3rd and goal. James is running absolutely as fast as he can, laps between his bedroom and the living room.

7:05
Spend the last 3 minutes in James' room, explaining again that we aren't going to put his bed back together and take it apart again.

Great pass break-up. Bravo, 56.

J: There's something about 8-0 that seems less worse than 5-0.

James: Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! (We need to go look at my toddler bed again.)

Hyundai Genesis is the winning commercial so far. This is our life.

7:11
James: Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!

J: But I just want to watch the Super Bowl!

And there's the pick. This is not looking good for the Peyton-choking narrative.

RadioShack 80's ad was pretty good.

J and I are arguing about the Broncos total yardage through the 1st quarter. I think that the television tallied it wrong. James just hit the laptop with a baseball bat.

Another Following ad. Still, no one has smiled. Maybe they should try a bounce house visit.

7:18
James just walked into the living room carrying 7 stuffed animals and a tennis ball. He is now swinging the baseball bat again. Wrong sport, kid.

3rd down again. Denver needs the ball back. Badly.

I wouldn't have guessed that the first defensive pass interference call would go against the Broncos.

Buffalo Bills are mentioned!

7:24
Peyton Manning is really hoping that he wakes up before this gets any worse so he can start preparing for the game.

Advertisement for a movie based on toys.

Penny for your thoughts, Jim Irsay.

J is excited to watch Bruno Mars. She digs his chord changes. And she made no bones about how much she likes Benedict Cumberbatch. I'm feeling a little marginalized.

James is going much more slowly, but still making slow-motion running motions. He just carried stuffed animal number eight into the living room. I think we're getting sleepy.

James is lying down on the pile of stuffed animals. But he says he is not sleepy.

7:29
Denver's first 1st down.

I hate dancing behind the first down marker in a greedy attempt to get more yardage. It's like they can't even see the yellow line.

"James, are you going to stay in bed?" "Yeah." "James, are you going to get out of bed?" "Yeah."

J: Wes Welker isn't nearly as evil-looking in orange.

Major holding by Denver 74. Not called, but they did call a tripping foul on the next play. Come on, refs, you can't just invent penalties.

Manning picked again, and James is making every effort to turn off the laptop.

7:45
Just got back from putting James to bed and found out that Denver had fumbled. (Call reversed, though.) James had teeth brushed and prayers said. We are bribing him to stay in bed by allowing him to have the projector on his noise machine on. We'll probably see him in about 5 minutes. J is making chicken wings.

Roger Goodell is sitting with the Weasley family.

The Sonos wi-fi system. Invented by Charles Ives, apparently.

4th and short. Come on, make it a game.

What an ugly throw. But I like seeing the Muppets in a commercial.

8:01
The words "Downton Abbey" were just uttered. But I suspect she's just making a feint in an attempt to get to Sherlock and Mr. Cumberbatch.

If I knew anything about Seinfeld, this would probably be hilarious. It's kind of hilarious anyway.

Still no one happy on The Following.

It's a shame James can't be up to watch the drum solo. ("I want that!")

Props to the guy dancing and playing the trumpet at the same time. If he is actually playing the trumpet (doubtful) he must be doing a marvelous job managing his embouchure while jostling around and being out of breath. Or perhaps there are some people who don't get out of breath from light exercise.

I like the suits. Next orchestra meeting, I am suggesting that we go to gold jackets with skinny black ties for Masteworks shows.

J: And it just go so much less classy

They're singing really grungy music, but I'm looking at them and thinking of the Muffin Top song.

J: Seriously, that guy is fat and out of shape.

There was some really cool coordinated dancing in the first part. This looks like a mass epileptic seizure.

8:22
Time for wings! And beer number two!

8:31
Time for MVP balloting! I've never seen a Peyton team beat this badly.

Troy Aikman: We've got a Bronco down
Joe Buck: Actually, it's a Seahawk

8:41
Red Bryant, neutral zone infraction. Denver has its first grain of luck.

J has just made an official request to watch Mr. Cumberbatch at 9:00.

J wonders if she has become a Cumberbitch. Hi, Mom. Hi, Grandma Weitzel.

I don't think she realizes how accustomed I am to watching gut-wrenching, worldview-destroying football massacres. This is exactly like watching the Bills.

J is peeking on James, who we haven't heard a peep from yet.

Update: J opens the door and James says "hi!" But he is still in bed. (Too excited to sleep)

8:55
Troy Aikman: Down 29-0, they need four touchdowns and three two-point conversions, if you do the math.

Denver turnover #67.

I think we're headed over to PBS. This live blogging experience will continue as we watch SHERLOCK, starring the talented Martin Freeman and the exceptionally-plain looking Benedict Cumberbatch.

WXXI fundraiser just pronounced viewers "voo-ers." She's thinking, "no one's watching, it's the Super Bowl."

J is retaliating against my record of her potty mouth by publishing on facebook that we aren't watching the Super Bowl anymore. She is currently topless. And playing the trumpet.

This is not Sherlock, this is Downton Abbey. We are not doing this.

Sherlock is on at 10. We will watch Sherlock then, and will watch Peyton's consternation face until then.

9:01
Seattle is driving some more. Someday when the Bills are back in the Super Bowl, I want to win like this. I don't want a close "good" game, I want an absolute blow-out. And even then, I won't be able to relax until it's over.

9:02
Touchdown, Seattle. If this goes much worse, the Bills record of "most embarrassing Super Bowl loss" could be in jeopardy.

Update on what we are actually wearing/doing. J is in her Steelers hoodie and sweatpants. I am in what used to be a nice dress shirt that now has several holes in the collar, but I sometimes still wear on Sundays under my choir robes, and sweatpants. We are perched on the couch, J with her iPad on her lap and me with the laptop. We never picked up after James went to bed, so there are trains and matchbox cars all over the place.

9:08
Pity flag. Not sure that was actual pass interference, but the refs feel bad for the Broncos.

Saved from the shutout. Good throw, good catch.

So Disney owns the Muppets and Star Wars. Let me be the first to suggest a crossover movie...

J: He doesn't look as handsome as real life as he does on Sherlock. It's the hair, and the coat.

J, ten hours earlier, while I was wearing my Sherlock coat: You smell like an airport.

Meanwhile, more backwards-running in the game.

9:23
43-8. On the SB Nation Broncos site, looking at comments and feeling better about being a Bills fan.

Oikos commercial wins the night

9:31
Catch number 13 for Thomas, adding to his Super Bowl record. It's the little things.

I am keenly aware of how much pizza/wings/beer I consumed.

A Super Bowl record 33 completions in this game for Manning. It's the little things.

T-MOBIL IS PLAYING THE ROBIN HOOD SONG!!!

(We are switching now.)

9:38
Took way longer than I expected, but we just got the Troy Aikman "I'm a great quarterback" moment. Talking about being in a game like this. Blowing a team out.

Well, Seahawks fans must be very happy. And they have waited a long time to be happy...well earned.

Joe Buck: Of course, there were some controversial calls in the last Seattle Super Bowl...
J: Oh, yada yada yada...

9:48
More Peyton sadness. Currently looking at Groupon getaways for next year's vacation.

Doritos commercial gets extra credit for using two pieces of the symphonic repertoire, but faces deductions for chopping them into little bits.

9:55
And with that, the Seattle Seahawks win the Super Bowl. Congratulations to them and to their fans. They were absolutely the best team on the field.

San Francisco

We're back from vacation.

J and I spent the first part of this week traveling, and it was the first quasi-vacation that we've taken alone together since our honeymoon. James stayed with Nama and Papa (benedicte) and Kylie (benedicte) while we were gone, and I'm not actually sure that he noticed we weren't there. There is a sandbox at Nama's, and once he's in the sand it's hard for him to notice anything else.

I was, as is my custom before auditions, feeling wretched on Sunday morning. We went to our separate churches, came home, and finished loading up our suitcases. We woke James up, bundled him up in multiple layers, and then carried (what felt like) all our earthly possessions to the car. It was snowing pretty hard, so it was a slow drive to N. Chili, where we dropped him off. From there to the airport, onto the airport shuttle, and through an almost empty security line in terminal A of the mighty Rochester International Airport.

ROC isn't terribly crowded even at its busiest moments, but it seemed very nearly abandoned as we played cribbage outside our gate. Our connecting flight to Philadelphia looked like it might be the only departure for the evening, and the two-dozenish travelers who lounged around us were all looking like it was the end, rather than the beginning, of the week. I heard a phone go off, then another, and several other ringtones simultaneously. I noticed my pocket was buzzing, glanced outside at the the thick-falling snow, and said to J "This isn't going to be good news."

It wasn't. Our 5:45 departure was delayed due to icing on a previous flight, and our new time of departure would be 6:30. It takes just about an hour to fly to Philly, and our connecting flight was supposed to leave at 8:30.

"We're probably fine," said J "and more than likely our flight to San Francisco is going to be delayed also."

We meandered past closed and gated shops until we found the only open restaurant in the airport--McDonalds--and enjoyed a lovely and romantic vacation-starting meal. When we got back to our gate we found that our departure was bumped back again, this time to 6:50.

The plane arrived, a tiny regional jet with hardly enough space to swing a kneazle. (I spent most of the plane rides reading Harry Potter 5 and 6.) We squished on board and became intimate with countless human odors hitherto unfamiliar. Once I'd squashed my gig bag under the seat in front of us and successfully hid the protruding end under my lap-coat, we received word from the captain that we'd be pushing back momentarily and making every effort to arrive in Philly in a timely manner.

And then the plane went dark.

Do you know how commercial aircaft are supposed to be some of the safest and most thoroughly regulated and tested examples of engineering in the modern world? Well, apparently you can still accidentally bump the power switch on them. And that is what happened to us. We were in good shape to make it to Philly in time for our connection, and then we waited on the tarmac for 20 minutes while the plane rebooted and powered up. (Apparently US Airways regional jets run on Windows 98, which also did not have record start-up speeds.)

Incidentally, whenever I type the word "tarmac" in my phone it is auto-corrected to a capital T, making for weird texts such as:

R: I'm stuck on the Tarmac at O'Hare, can you text me a revealing picture of yourself?

J: I have never done that once, nor will I ever. Stop asking.

R: I meant "tarmac." Stupid auto-correct.

Anyway, we waited on the "Tarmac" for 20 minutes for the lights to come back on, and then for another 15 while we waited for the runway to be re-plowed. It was 7:25 when we took off.

I reminded myself not to grind my teeth every few minutes while reading Harry Potter, and we touched down in Philly at 8:25, just 10 minutes before our flight was scheduled to leave. We then waited for 20 minutes for an open gate.

Our flight to San Francisco was gone before we ever stepped off the plane. There was never a chance. US Airways was dumb about a lot of things over the course of the weekend, but they were good about this: As soon as we stepped off our first flight, they had rebooked tickets printed for us for the next flight out in the morning. And, it turned out that our original flight got re-routed to Kansas City because the snow was so bad. So maybe it worked out okay.

J and I were tired as we weighed our options. We had been given a number to call around for discount hotels, but since our nice romantic hotel in San Francisco was already paid for and non-refundable, we thought perhaps we ought to sleep at the airport that night. The volume and song selection of the airport music made the Days Inn Philadelphia an easy choice. We rode a swerving shuttle (think the Knight Bus...again, it was a Harry Potter filled trip) out to Springfield, watched the last ten minutes of the Pro Bowl, and immediately collapsed on what turned out to be a perfectly comfortable king-sized bed.

Here is the update from this year's Pro Bowl:

Al Michaels: Well, from the way that kicker just completed the extra point try you can tell that this year is really different and that the players are trying much harder than they have in the past. If you watch the replay, you'll see that the Coach Rivera actually put down his Mai-Tai to adjust his headset before calling the play in. Clearly, he really wants to win this game.

Chris Collinsworth: Yeah, and this player is sort of unknown and underrated, even though he made it to the Pro Bowl and is a millionaire, and plays for either Dallas, New York, San Francisco or New England. 

We woke up in time for the 6 AM shuttle back, checked through the security lines again, and then took our seats two rows apart on the six hour flight to San Francisco. Fortunately our luck began to turn here, and a kind man offered to switch with me so that I could sit next to J. (Seriously, this guy was a saint--I was in the very back row next to the lavatory. On a six-hour flight.) I then proceeded to not think about sick and nervous I was for the next six hours as we took off at 7:30 and and landed at 10:30 thanks to the magic of time zones. Breakfast that morning had been half of a fruit smoothie at the airport, and a bagel. J was a saint through the whole process, and didn't complain once as we took the smelly subway to the hall.

There isn't much to say about the audition. The staff was fine with me arriving late, they were very helpful through the whole round, and I ended up playing a good first round. I didn't advance, which was too bad. But that meant that we were free in San Francisco. In the city by the bay, my beautiful young wife and I had left our child and all our worldly responsibilities behind for 36 whole hours. It was 60 degrees out an sunny, and the day was ours.

"Let's go back to the hotel room and take a nap."

"Sounds great."

We checked in at the Fitzgeral Hotel in Union Square, and they were great to us. They refunded us the unused night (although they weren't obliged to do so) gave us great information about what to do in the city, and provided a lovely eclectic style room with a teensy-weensy television and a great view of the city. We sacked out for a few hours and woke up at about 5 PM real time (2 PM fake time) and walked down to Union Square, the fashionable shopping/retail district of San Francisco. We poked around a seven floor Macy's looking for food, and found a Cheesecake Factory on the top floor overlooking the square. To anyone who is judging us for eating at a restaurant that is less than a block away from our real house, WHATEVER because we were outside on the seventh floor looking over the city and watching pigeons steal people's food, and we had a great time. We hadn't eaten since breakfast (6 AM real time) and the crab dip, fish tacos, martini, and hamburger were amazing.

We walked around the square a bit more as it failed to get dark out at the appropriate time and balked at many prices. I accidentally knocked down a big sign in a three-story Old Navy, and we touched lots of things at a huge Apple store that we saw a picture of in the news the next day. We were back to the hotel by 7 PM fake time completely exhausted.

It was unbelievably cool to wake up at 6:30 fake time the next morning having slept for almost 12 hours, the air already warm, and the sun just starting to rise. We had breakfast at the hotel (complimentary Nutella, thank you very much) and were out on the streets even before the morning rush of men-in-suits-talking-on-cellphones. We played more cribbage at a Starbucks while we waited for shops to open, then did some clothing shopping, bought super fancy chocolate to bring home, and looked through rows and rows of jewelry. We did Thai for lunch, checked out of the hotel--they were kind enough to let us store our luggage there while we explored in the afternoon--and then set our for Fisherman's Wharf.

This was maybe the only really dumb decision that we made, although I still think it was kind of worth it. We decided to walk up to the Wharf instead of taking the bus, so that we could save a little money, get some exercise, and also see a little bit of Chinatown up close. It turns out that Fisherman's Wharf is pretty darn far away when you are going up and down hills the entire time. I used to walk a half an hour each way in grad school to go into classes, and I don't remember feeling as sore then as I did that afternoon. Still, we got to see some really amazing authentic Chinese architecture, decoration, and pornography shops, so the walk was pretty much worth it. 

Once we arrived at the harbor we saw the incredibly loud sea lion colony, tons of seafood shops, lots of touristy t-shirts, and of course several spectacular views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. We did our touristy things and browsed around, and walked as far up as Ghirardelli square. We called James (who wasn't really interested in us), ate some seafood, and enjoyed the sun. It was lovely. It was amazing. We talked and laughed and didn't worry about who was going to take which car where or what time the other would be home. It was fantastic, and it made me realize why people spend so much money to go on vacations. But it only lasted for so long, and then we needed to catch a flight.

We rode a trolley car back to the square, picked up a few souvenirs, and then gathered our bags. It felt really late even by the time that we arrived at the airport, and then it was a long wait for an 11:00 (that's 2 AM real time, although we were already losing track of that) flight back across the country. We slept poorly, but we made it into Philly, and when we stepped outside to catch the terminal shuttle it was like getting slapped in the face by a winter-demon. There was another weather delay on our flight back, but our little 2-prop regional jet made it home, and we traipsed through the crunchy snow back to the terminal, out into the parking lot, and into our salt-stained dirty PT Cruiser.

Vacation is over now, but it was wonderful. And it won't be six years before the next time J and I get away together.

At the Carwash

I was walking through the frigid courtyard to our apartment building, and my legs were frozen from my toes all the way up past my knees. I'd left the house at 7:45 that morning and driven an hour and a half to Syracuse, where we'd played a two and a half hour rehearsal in an unheated auditorium, went straight to an orchestra meeting, and then played another two and a half hour rehearsal. The sun went down as we drove back, and by the time I parked in front of our building it was completely dark and completely cold. My shoes had been soaked all day, and I could feel the damp squish of my socks as I padded up the walk.

The foyer might have contained a blazing hearth. I stopped for a moment and leaned against the downstairs mailboxes, soaking in the warmth and quiet. J and James would be upstairs waiting for me. I slipped off the wet shoes on the doormat outside, and I hear James exclaim "Daddy!" inside when I turned my key in the latch. I heard him pitter-pattering up to the door as I pushed it open, and he grinned at me.

"Daddy! Daddy!"

I swung my trumpets off my back and grinned at him.

"What were you going to tell Daddy?"

"Daddy, COOKIE! Cookie! Cookie, cookie, cookie! Cookie, Daddy!"

I looked on the kitchen table, and there was a tray of gooey looking chocolate chip cookies set out to cool.

"Daddy, shh-shh! Shoes, shh-shh!"

"Shh-shh" doesn't mean silence. Shh-shh means car wash, which has found an even deeper level of fixation for James recently. He has loved walking down the hill by our apartment and gazing at the cars and trucks that pass through the Royal Car Wash for as long as we've lived at our apartment, and we even took him through once in the PT Cruiser. But last Friday he found his new favorite book in the world, Curious George and the Car Wash.

It is (as you may have guessed) the story of how Curious George visits a car wash with the man in the yellow hat. George then builds his own car wash with help from his friend Allie to wash his toy cars. We have read Curious George Car Wash so many times in the last week that we've started setting a timer between readings--we refuse to do it more than once every half hour. It is is the first thing that James asks for when he gets up, and the last thing he wants to do before he goes to bed. About halfway through the week we also discovered the corresponding Curious George TV episode, and it is a guaranteed 12 minutes of absolute still silence. (James' most recent haircut was done with the assistance of the Car Wash episode.)

Everyone in the house knows the book by heart. We've developed a read-aloud script where we leave out words that he can fill in without looking at the book, and he brings his entourage of toy cars (green, yellow, and red) along with George and sometimes Steven for each reading. And every time we go outside, he points to the car wash and begs to visit again.

So tonight, when I got back in and James asked to go see the car wash, I took him. I slipped my freezing wet shoes back on, pulled on his boots, coat, and hat, and drove down to the car wash. We pulled into the parking lot, and I switched him from his car seat to the front passenger seat. I paid the automated machine, and we drove through the initial spish-spish of the rinse, the flap-flap cloth, the blub-blub soap suds, the scrub-scrub scrubbers, and the spish-spish of the final rinse. (James helped me make all these sounds while transfixed in rapt wonder.) We drove out of the wash, and as soon as I put the car in park his eyes welled up with tears and he begged,

"Daddy, Daddy, do adain, do adain!"

"No, James, it's time for us to go home and have some supper."

"No, do adain!" he wailed, shaking his head.

He was still crying when I carried him back up the stairs, but when he saw what was on the table we were treated to the following chorus for the next half hour:

"Daddy, cookie! Cookie, Daddy. I want cookie. Cookie. I want that. Cookie, Daddy!"

(and repeat)

We read Curious George and the Car Wash twice before bed, and he asked to drive our car back down the hill to get washed again about twenty more times.

And that's why Julie and I are both tired at the end of the day.

At least we have some cookies.