A Few Brief Imageless Pictures of my Day, Yesterday

I started the day by jumping out of bed, into the shower, and zipping off to the other end of town for a quick dentist appointment.  I just needed to have my teeth cleaned, and an hour later I exited the dentist’s office with sparkling, smooth teeth, but I was in a dazed and overstimulated mental state.  It seems our family dentist, who has a specialty in pediatric dentistry (which is what let us to pick her for our dental caregiver)  believes that TV is just as powerful a sedative as any drug.  The dentist’s office is crawling with televisions.  Loud, blaring televisions, many of which do not even seem to be on the same channel.  There are televisions in the waiting room, televisions in the hallway, and televisions that swing out from the ceiling above the patient chairs.  While you are lying back in a relaxed, horizontal position, you cannot appreciate the fact that it is 8:00 in the morning and here you are, childless at the dentist office while your husband struggles to feed all of your kidlets breakfast and wrestles them out of their pajamas and into normal clothes.  There is no peace and relaxation while the dental hygienist is poking your gums and scraping on your enamel.  In fact, you can barely even hear the scrapes, because there is this obnoxious television blaring in your face!  I read cnn.com several times daily.  Let me assure you, it is much quieter and calmer and really very much more intelligent than the TV version.  Even televised NEWS is ridiculous when you aren’t around television very often.  

After teaching a few lessons and watching my children devour a frozen pizza with melted cheese from the oven, I rode my bike to the university where the Arrowhead Chorale rehearses.  We will be singing several pieces at Finnfest in a few weeks.  I like the pieces very much, and singing in Finnish is not as hard as many other languages.  It is much, much easier than French, for example.  The sounds of the French language are extremely difficult for me.  Even though Finnish was relatively easy to sing, I still proved to be a terrible sightreader.  I’m bad at sightreading on all the instruments I play, and I’m bad at sightsinging also. The only way I can get by in the world of classical music is with massive quantities of practice, and even then the results often leave a lot to be desired.  It was no surprise to me that sightreading music with Finnish words was . . . well, difficult.  I messed up a lot.  It’s hard to think about the notes and the Finnish words at the same time, especially when both of the other low alto singers were absent, so I was all alone on my part.  And it didn’t help that everyone ELSE had sung the Finnish pieces before, so they were much more familiar with the music.  So, envision little old me, sitting with excellent posture, squinting at music with a look of incredible consternation on my face, making more mistakes than the rest of the chorale put together.  My brain was tired by the end, but I am really excited about how neat the music is going to sound, especially after I do some heavy duty practicing in the next few weeks.  

 

To prove I am the Queen of Clumsyland, let me tell you about riding my terrific little blue bicycle home from the university.  The university is only a little over a mile away, down the hill a bit, but not down the steep part of the hill, so the short bike ride there works out great.  Unfortunately, it follows a busy street, which I don’t care much for.  On the way home, I crossed a semi-busy intersection, and traveling on the edge of the busy street.  Because all the busyness makes me a little uncomfortable on my bike, I usually just use the sidewalk.  I steered close to the sidewalk, but somehow managed to accidentally run my bike right up a little concrete ramp  to onto the narrow, ledge part of the  curb.  I was pedaling along rather quickly, and realized that I was stuck on this little concrete shelf.  I knew I wouldn’t be staying up there long, and sure enough, before I could actually use the breaks, I completely lost my balance.  My bike went flying and I landed on my stomach on the sidewalk.  Miraculously, there were only a few scrapes, which didn’t really even bleed.  The chain fell off my bicycle, though, so after I picked myself off the concrete, much to the relief of the people driving on the street and walking and biking on the sidewalk, I had to spend about ten minutes reassembling the chain.  Then I was off for home.  Dr. Peds just shook his head in amazement at my ability to fall down in yet another unusual fashion.