Scherzo

You may have noticed I’ve been a bit absent from my blog. This is primarily due to the fact that I joined the local philharmonic orchestra and have spent all my spare evening hours practicing.. It sounds great, but I’m not yet convinced. I joined thinking how nice it would be to get away to rehearsal once a week, to awaken a part of my brain and soul that has been dormant (or focused solely on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”) for some time. Last week was the first of four rehearsals for the upcoming concert. I’ve come to realize that rather than awakening the musician in my soul, I think I’m doing penance.

You see, as a twelve-year-old girl, I auditioned for the Utah Youth Symphony. I actually made it into the concert orchestra—last chair third violin. I went to one three-hour rehearsal, went home in tears and promptly quit. I have now regretted that decision for twenty-two years. Twenty-two years ago I not only had more free time, but I was a much better violinist. As the last chair second violin in the Brevard Philharmonic, I am struggling. I am playing three pieces in a concert two short weeks and three even shorter rehearsals from now and I am terrified and feeling very incompetent. In honor of the impending concert, I’d like to introduce a few musical terms.

Scherzo (Joke). Considering my presence at the concert, this term is self-explanatory.

Con Grazia (With Grace). By the Grace of God I don’t have a stand partner to wince while I play.

Concerto Grosso (Fat Concert). Is that a fat joke? I did notice my Oprah Arms flapping with my bow.

Pizzicato or Pizz. (Plucked, as opposed to bowed). Plucking for three pages is the pizz.

Ritard (Slow). Last chair, second violin. Need I say more?

Chatterbox

When I was small, my father would come home at night and ask my mother if I ever stopped talking. Once again, I am doing penance. Ethan enjoys spending the bulk of his day following me from room to room endlessly talking. He is usually explaining to me the many details of his present make-believe situation, in which I am required to take part. I’ve learned to tune him out until the point when he says “Are you ‘tending that mom?” and I respond “Yes, of course I’m pretending that.” This only backfires when my part of the ‘tending involved making a phone call or some other active participation on my part. Then it’s back to the drawing board when I ask for clarification. Honestly sometimes I try and follow the storyline, but it’s usually so complex that my brain shuts down somewhere between “’Tend your pipes are frozen and dey burst” and “’tend you want a pipe-fixer to come live with you and your 35 kids.”

Today, after he had been going on and on for a good fifteen minutes, I explained that I needed to go out to the car to get something but that he and his dog and his other pretend house-guests should make themselves at home while I was gone. I hadn’t been out there 30 seconds when I hear my bedroom window open to the cold January air and the explanation continue in a loud yell “’tend you had a . . . “. I’ll admit, I lost it. The baby was sleeping through the adjacent single-paned window and I was being followed around and yelled at about this pretend world. The driveway, the shower, the toilet, my nap, it doesn’t matter, the narration continues. And I started scolding him. Well, I hurt his feelings. I went inside and asked him what was so important he had to yell it at me out the window. He said he just had to tell me what we were pretending. I felt bad, but honestly, the voices outside my head were beginning to drive me a little batty.

I appreciate the fact that he is so creative. I think it’s great. I just wish that somedays his outer monologue would be an inner one.

iFriend

My husband has wanted a GPS navigation device for some time now. This has been a source of contention between us because well, they’re very expensive (relative to our income) and, for me, mostly useless. You see, as was pointed out in a recent ‘discussion’ of the topic, I have a relatively sound built in navigation system. It’s called a good sense of direction. I think I developed this during my formative years in Utah (900 East 400 South—thank you Brigham Young). My husband, having grown up in Washington with their wannabe grid system and near complete lack of large, imposing land features such as mountains (except of course Mount Rainier, which can only be seen on the rare clear day), did not develop such a system.

So, the other day, Matt scraped together enough discretionary funds to justify the purchase of a device as an early birthday gift. The Garmin being out of the price-range, he opted for the Magellan. Now, as I recall (with a little help from wikipedia) Magellan's voyage around the earth encountered some pretty serious setbacks. Only one of the original five ships actually completed the trip. Also, 252 of the original 270 crew members (including Ferdinand Magellan himself) were killed enroute. Considering all this, I'm not sure the Magellan is suitably named. Then again, having ridden in a vehicle guided by such a system, I've wondered if we weren't indeed taking the longest possible route and if we'd actually arrive at our destination alive--so perhaps it's the perfect name.

He has since named his little Magellan “Maggie”. He and Maggie have spent the last week together in Tampa--I'm not sure how I feel about that. While home alone with my children and computer (I think I'll name him Balthazar) I have had a vision of the future of the GPS navigation system: the iFriend. This will be Apple’s answer to the portable electronic imaginary friend. You program it to just what you expect of a friend and it responds accordingly.

“Wow, you look great today!”

“Those jeans make your butt look big.”

“You really should hit the Taco Bell drive through. You’ve had a rough week.”

“You are a good mother and your children are so well-behaved.”

“No, you don’t have bad breath.”

“You are a slob, clean out your car.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll watch the kids, you go shop.”

What would your iFriend say to you? What would it say to others about you?

Holy Tantrum

This morning my son was playing "church". This involved setting up all my kitchen chairs in the living room, standing on the hearth to sing and pray and bless trays of bread and water to be passed amongst the parishioners. It was all very cute until things got ugly. The services had to be halted while I cleaned up the can of peaches Elliot dumped on my bedroom floor, and again while I called poison control after I found him licking a stamp pad.

After it was determined that no hospital trip was required, things again got underway. This was short-lived however. Elliot began double-dipping into the pretend sacramental bread which infuriated the priest/deacon. I had to pause prior to partaking of the water to prevent a brawl. This resulted in the priest/deacon smacking me upside the head and being sent to his room with a spanking.

Considering it was church, there was an awful lot of physical abuse going on.

Eat More Venysin

We were driving back to Fairyland from visiting family in Atlanta and we needed a little break. We exited the highway and were pleased to see a Chick-fil-A with a playground. I’ve blogged before about strange experiences at Chick-fil-A and this day did not disappoint (though, by far still a much better fast food choice than most out there).

There were a couple of large charter buses in the parking lot, but, undaunted, we found a spot and muscled our way in the restaurant. Fortunately the charter-people were just finishing up. Unfortunately, the remaining members, a teenage boy and a middle-aged man, were sitting at a table next to ours. The man was talking on his cell phone.

“Well, Troy is sick.”

Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

“He’s running a fever and –Troy, can I get you a bag in case it happens again?”

I’m filling in the blanks here as I had mostly tuned out any conversation not directly involving keeping my children seated and eating.

“Yes, we’re at the Chick-fil-A at exit 144”

Actually, it was 149, but what do a few miles matter when your kid is puking in a Chick-fil-A in middle of nowhere Georgia?

At this point the manager enters the scene.

“Troy, I’m the manager here, why don’t you come with me and I’ll get you some sprite and crackers and find you a place to wait for your parents.”

Perfect, as a parent, I’m comforted to know that the puking kid is no longer sitting next to my child as we’re about to get back underway on our road trip. As a parent, I’m also a bit concerned about the idea of a chaperone leaving a sick child in the middle of nowhere in the care of a fast food restaurant manger. Shouldn’t an adult from charter bus land stay with him?

Well, my kids finish up, play for a bit, then, we head back out to the car. Matt motions toward the bed of the pick-up truck now parked next to us. Ladies and Gentlemen, there was a deer lying gracefully dead in the open bed of the truck.

But, as Matt pointed out, they had at least covered its head with a camouflage jacket. Well, that makes it all okay then. (Where’d the head go? I dunno, all I see are a bunch of leaves.)

As a parent, I was much less disturbed by the deer carcass then by the pair of rifles lying beside the beast in the open bed of the truck, next to the children’s play area at the local Chick-fil-A. Matt likes to point out that the guns were in cases. Yes, they were in rifle shaped cases. Welcome to the South.

We left Chick-fil-A and stopped briefly by the neighboring outlet mall. I bought a pair of camouflage pants. I can’t say I’ve ever owned anything camouflage before, but my reasons at this moment were plentiful:

1) I live in the woods—you never know when you might want to blend in.

2) I live in the South—I just my take up hunting—or not. It seems to be the standard of dress around here, regardless of whether you’re intending to shoot something in the immediate future—besides, you never know when you might get a hankering to shoot something.

3) They cost twelve dollars.

4) My husband said they make my butt disappear. (Camouflage, my a--!!)

Maybe soon I’ll bag my first deer . . .

Mary Christmas

In church on Sunday, the kids put together a brief live Nativity. This sparked quite the discussion with my 4-year-old son on the ride home. It went something like this:

“Mom?”

Yes?

“Can we do that game again?”

Sure, we’ll do it Christmas Eve.

“I want to be Mary.”

Okay.

“Mom?”

Yes?

“Next time you shouldn’t stand behind Mary.”

I was just handing her the baby when it was time to be born.

“Oh, so the box you had the baby in was her tummy?”

Yes.

“Mom?”

Yes?

“How did the baby get out of her tummy with no hospital?”

Well, back then they didn’t have hospitals and doctors like we do today. Her husband Joseph had to help get the baby out.

“How does the baby get out?”

(Matt steps in here)

Matt: “She had to push the baby out of a hole.”

“Her belly button?”

Matt: “No, it’s a special hole near her bottom that God made for babies.”

“How did Joseph get it closed?”

Well, the hole closes by itself.

“How big is it?”

It’s pretty small, but it stretches big enough for the baby to come out, then stretches back small again.

“Does it hurt?”

Yes.

Matt: “Mom had some special medicine when you were born so it didn’t hurt so much.”

“Oh.”

Do you still want to be Mary? (I didn’t really say that).

“Only Mommies have that hole since only they have babies in their tummies?”

Correct.

“Daddies don’t have that hole. They just have penises. Why don’t Daddies have babies in their tummies?”

Well, God knew they couldn’t handle the pain . . . (I didn’t really say that either).

Daddies have other jobs.

Matt: “God gave Moms the job of having babies and taking care of them and feeding them and changing their diapers.”

Me: Daddies do some of that stuff too.

This progressed into a long, drawn out discussion of exactly how the umbilical cord functions and another promise to get a book at the library.

Then, Christmas Eve, we got out a baby doll, wrapped Ethan/Mary up in a blue cloth and did the Nativity again. We’re short on participants in this family, so Matt and I played most of the other parts. Ethan’s stuffed tiger and dog played the sheep (the Giraffe played hisself since apparently there are Giraffes at this stable). We tried to get Elliot to play Joseph, but he primarily wandered around dismantling the stable, setting the sheep free and undressing the baby. At this point Mary began chasing Joseph down and beating him. It was unanimously decided that it was Joseph’s bedtime.

While Matt was putting Elliot to bed, Ethan wanted to do it one more time.

“But who will be Joseph?”

We can wait until Dad is back, or I can be Joseph.

“No, Joseph had to go to a meeting for eight days, so Mary will just take care of the baby herself.”

Eight days huh? Hopefully he'll show up for the circumcision.

Punishment

I once had a stage manager who went around saying “YOU’RE FIRED! And as your punishment, you have to stay.”

As I worried about losing my job and what we’d do about the money, my former boss (the one whom the new VP who fired me was replacing) discovered I was being let go and said he’d look into taking me back to work for him. I wasn’t convinced he could make it work, nor that I necessarily wanted to continue with this company and continued worrying (and re-doing our budget).

I finally came to the conclusion that it was going to be alright and was probably a blessing in disguise. But, that I would consider staying if my former boss came up with an acceptable arrangement. So, since I hadn’t heard from him, I decided to craft my own acceptable arrangement. I made my proposal and it appears I will now continue to be employed--for the time being anyway.

Then of course, I began worrying that I’d made the wrong decision and that perhaps I was just trying to thwart God who had been giving me a wonderful opportunity in disguise. A kind friend then made an outrageous comparison, which, though incomparable in magnitude, is nonetheless valid in principle. She reminded me of Abraham who was asked to sacrifice his only son Isaac. It was only when he had actually fastened Isaac to the altar that God intervened and stopped him. He had passed the test and his son was returned to him. In a much much smaller way, perhaps I needed to lay my employment on the altar, rework our family budget to accommodate it, and commit myself to being a more present and better mother before my job was returned to me. Hopefully now, under the slightly modified arrangement, I can focus on my truly highest priorities . . .

If I’d just stop spending so much time on the computer!