I hadn’t been to the beach for weeks, and tonight we had the opportunity to go down the hill. The ice was beautiful: layers and shards and piles and shapes of all sorts. More pictures are coming, although really, pictures could never do it justice, especially since there was a light northeast breeze which was causing a huge plate of ice to move and buckle up against the edge of the ice ledge. The sound of the moving ice was amazing, constant and glorious. Someone should record it. It would be perfect for a white noise machine. I’m not a big fan of white noise, but if I were, that would be what I would want to listen to as I was falling asleep.
Recently I was teaching a bright and cheerful kindergartener at piano lessons. We were learning something new. He looked at me and said, “I’m really, really smart! And right now, my brain is turning circles really fast!”
I am a terrible music sight reader. I have always been really bad at sightreading, and although my skills have actually improved a little bit over the years, I will simply never be a great sight reader. It has a lot to do with how my brain works and how it processes new information, and although I think about music very differently for each instrument I play and different still for singing, I am really bad at sightreading in every area of music that I participate in. Often when I teach piano lessons, I sight read two or three different options when it is time for a student to choose what to work on next. Recently I was working with a wonderful fifth grader, and after I finished playing a piece for her, she looked at me and said, “You are so good you could be on a CD!” I’m really not, but it just made me smile, and I wanted to remember it.
Perhaps you recall that we experienced a laundry crisis a few weeks ago, when our not so very old washing machine bit the dust prior to leaving for North Dakota. We had to get a new washing machine, and after it was installed, it leaked. The new washing machine is a high technology high efficient top loading washing machine, built by Maytag. Let me tell you, the new washing machine and I were not friends. Not friends at all. The washing machine is complicated, and when it was leaking it wasn’t doing anything that it was supposed to do, and of course, the repair person couldn’t come out for weeks with the right part to fix the leak. I thought I was going to go crazy. The machine and I really had it out, and one day I was so angry with it that had I been a person who swears, I would have cussed it out! I wanted to slam and hit that metal cube with all my might! Oh! Goodness! I was just furious with it. Three days before the repairman was finally supposed to come with the new part, the machine miraculously stopped leaking all on its own, just like that. It worked perfectly. It completed its cycle. It did everything exactly like it should. The repairman came and replaced the part anyway, and the washing machine and I have not had any more battles, and we are working on resolving our issues.
My cousin Emily, who is The Banana’s godmother, sent The Banana a pair of bright purplish pink suede boots a few weeks ago. The Banana loves them and wears them everywhere. Emily wrote in her letter that the color reminded her very much of my Grandma Edna, who always put the most interesting bright not matching colors together. Emily was pretty sure that the boots wouldn’t match anything, but both Emily and I are of the mindset that allows us to embrace some pretty crazy things. A few weeks ago my choir was singing two very big requiems at a concert with strings and organ, and because it was a concert that we had really worked hard on and the instruments were interesting (YaYa’s oboe teacher was playing and the very best string players in town were playing) I convinced Dr. Peds to bring the three big kids to the concert and we got a babysitter for Mr. TOF. I had to be at the church where the concert was much earlier than they did. When I walked onstage and looked out into the audience, in my direct line of vision was my daughter, The Banana, sitting in the front row, cute as a button, wearing a beautiful red fancy church dress, tights and CRAZY PURPLISH PINK SUEDE BOOTS. I capitalize that because that’s how loudly the boots stood out! I nearly got the giggles because that was exactly something like Grandma Edna would have worn! From where I was standing, as I watched the conductor through the whole concert, The Banana’s pink boots were directly behind him, and just happily thought of my Grandma Edna all through the requiems.
On our way back from our trip to Wisconsin Dells, we took a little detour to LaCrosse to visit some friends from residency in Marshfield who moved there a few years ago. It was so fun to visit them and see their super interesting old farmhouse that they’ve fixed up, and it was even more fun to see their four kids and how they’ve grown. The visit was short but great, and while I was talking with my friend, her little girl, who is one year older than The Banana sat down next to her mom and listened for a few minutes. Suddenly she interrupted our conversation and said, “Wait! Wait! How can you talk so much without fighting?” Her mom looked at me in confusion and then looked at the little girl in confusion. “If Grace (her bigger sister) and I were talking this long we’d be fighting for sure!” It totally made me crack up inside, and I told her it’s a lot easier to talk a long time with friends than it is to talk a long time with sisters. Although, I guess I technically don’t have a sister to compare, but that’s certainly how I imagine it.
I love, love, LOVE that the hours of daylight are increasing and it stays light until 7:00. Daylight makes me happy.
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