MUSINGS

MY THOUGHTS ON WHATEVER MAY CURRENTLY STRIKE MY FANCY OR THE ANTICS OF MY LIFE

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Imbalance

I’ve got it good. I have an amazing husband. I’ve got a smart and funny son. I have my dream job (at least on paper). I’ve got a fluffy and hilarious dog. In spite of these facts, my stress level and anxiety are often paralyzing. I first put thought into this a couple of years ago when I saw a “cartoon” or infographic on social media about the typically female role of serving as a manager of household tasks and organization. In short, the idea is that even in the most progressive of homes*, the job of managing the home (delegating, planning, communicating, and serving as the default contact person) falls to the female. At the time I sort of passive aggressively showed it to my husband to gauge his reaction. It wasn’t some watershed moment and didn’t result in scintillating conversation one way or the other. I’ve continued to mull this over and have seen more writing about this with no real headway being made. Perhaps others are doing the same thing I am-putting the idea “out there” to see if a conversation can be started or a community built with similar concerns while also just trying to work out their feelings on the imbalance.

I think about this more as we come to “The Holidays,” a time of year that simultaneously brings me great joy and great angst. I’ve been sardonically joking for a week or so that I am the magic. I am where the buck stops with all things Christmas. I’m trying to figure out how much of this is my own fault (reinforcing social norms, being a bit of a control freak, previous reactions to things I didn’t think were up to snuff, etc.) and how much is a societal problem.

For some background and to give credit where it is due, my husband will truly do anything I ask him to do. I bought a five-foot wreath for the outside of our house with zero plan of how to hang it and the sucker us up on the house and looking gorgeous. That is not for nothing by a long shot. Sometimes, however, I don’t have the mental capacity to delegate and it is easier (not easy, to be clear, but takes extra steps out) for me to do whatever it is myself. The school schedule is wonky this year, so both my son and teacher husband are in school through Friday, December 23. It’s testing time, so there is a lot going on that is taking up brainpower for the two of them. I acknowledge that challenge and, at the same time, present my schedule over the last week (I could go back to when my holiday rush began just before Thanksgiving, but that seems overly dramatic):

Sunday: morning church performance, afternoon grocery shopping (usually done by husband, but he was sick), planning and cooking

Monday: drive kid to school, drive home to walk dog, submit final grades for bonus job at university, normal work day, make dinner

Tuesday: drive kid to school, mammogram, normal work day, rehearsal for Nutcracker

Wednesday: drive kid to school, drive home to walk dog, normal work day (8-8)

Thursday: drive kid to school, drive home to walk dog, normal work day, rehearsal for Lessons and Carols

Friday: (“day off”) play hooky to take child to the most magical place on earth on our last non-blocked out day of the year, return for afternoon violin lesson for child, trade off with husband, change clothes to perform, meet students for Nutcracker performance

Saturday: teach 8:30-12:30, coordinate play date for child so that husband can have a few hours off to himself, go to get snowy white roots touched up (simultaneously make grocery list and list for annual cookie night-TONIGHT), go back to work to pick up music stands for performance tomorrow, stop at grocery store and liquor store, put together gifts for friends, cookie night

Sunday: skip church because there is just no way, meet students for morning performance, stay to talk with author and event coordinators, rehearsal for Lessons and Carols, performance

Monday: pawn off school drive on husband, meetings at work, followed by working from home and waiting for a chair delivery

Tuesday: once again pawn of school drive, wrap all the presents in the morning, teach/work, coordinate practice with older student for son, remember that I forgot we were supposed to get together with friends for dinner and frantically text to finalize that

I honestly don’t know how well the above conveys things at the moment, but I’m definitely burning the candle at both ends. My bizarre to-do list right now has things ranging from “call the gravedigger” to “make grocery list for Christmas dinner.” My adorable son won’t stop talking and my brain is struggling. I’m not sure how much of my frustrations are specific to my circumstances right now (I’m sure at least some of them are), but I still believe there’s a major ingrained imbalance in our society. Women are the default organizers of all things. I wonder sometimes what would happen if I just sat back and did nothing. I quickly come to my senses and realize that very little would happen. Much like the experiment some have tried of not cleaning the house and seeing where the breaking point is when the male spouse will do anything, I think the breaking point is quite a ways off. So that begs the question, is this Christmas magic a construct of my own and a burden I unnecessarily place upon my own shoulders? I think there’s a certain element of that. I love Christmas and all the individual components of it. Does it really come down to an either-or question of either having all the Christmas spirit OR being relaxed? I don’t know. I get a warm and fuzzy feeling when my hard work is acknowledged but the things that have been laid at my feet are plentiful and surprising.

I scheduled photos, made and ordered Christmas cards, updated the mailing list, and mailed all the cards out.

I have been responsible for all gifts I didn’t expressly tell my husband were on him. Even those two started with me making a suggestion I thought wasn’t personal enough and asking him to take care of those two people since he knows them better. He ultimately ended up getting them each the gifts I initially mentioned that I thought weren’t personal enough. So I made a list, planned, purchased, and wrapped all the gifts. This includes all teachers.

I am responsible for Christmas dinner. I draw the line at turkey, which I know may be controversial. I asked my husband to order the meats and I will do the rest.

I will do stockings for 8 people.

I have cleaned the house and continue to do so.

I have planned Christmas festivities.

In addition to the above, I’ve received a number of interesting communications:

I couldn’t pin down two family members to commit one way or the other for Christmas and a week after I finally got an answer and confirmed plans received a follow-up text that they really feel it’s best for us to go ahead and do Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve for several weak reasons that essentially boil down to very innocent narcissism. After fuming for a bit, I sent a polite message back acknowledging the concerns and letting them know that Christmas dinner will happen at lunchtime on Christmas as previously planned to accommodate their needs, that Christmas Eve dinner is already planned based on the fact that I am performing that night, and that they will be missed if they’re unable to stay for Christmas dinner but I understand.

I’ve gotten numerous texts from well-meaning family members that perishable food items are being sent that must be opened and refrigerated immediately upon their arrival. While I’m at work. So far there have been 7 such boxes. I just received a message of another one arriving today. At this rate, we may not have room for the actual Christmas food in the fridge.

I got a text on Sunday from a beloved family member inquiring about help for a Christmas gift in an area in which I am far from an expert. I messaged someone I know with extensive knowledge in that area and forwarded all information along and got the distinct impression that the help was not appreciated, though I can’t read tone in text.

I was informed yesterday that I needed to order a specific cake for a birthday that happens to line up with the holidays.

All of the above has been while I’ve been at work.

So, back to the imbalance. My husband is very busy and stressed out right now. Legitimately. So am I. The difference is that I am the default. All of those communications above went to me. They did not go to both of us. Over the decades, as the shift has been made from women working in the home to working outside the home, no one seems to have figured out how to account for those in-the-home managerial and logistical jobs. Since women had already been doing them, they have continued to default to women in what I would surmise to be the majority of homes.+ As a firmly middle class human, I am comfortable but certainly not in a position to be hiring a personal assistant or live-in house manager. So, these things default to me. Anything I ask my family to do gets done-sometimes right away and sometimes eventually after considerable reminders on my part. Just writing this tires me. Hell, the time I’ve taken to write this should probably have gone to another task.

Women are overextended.^ We are working full-time jobs, often with employers who think 40 hours a week is the bare minimum rather than the actual number of hours that should be worked. We are managing household communications, calendars, medical needs, food, play dates, extracurricular activities, etc. We are not in need of “help,” but rather communication and partnership in accomplishing these myriad tasks. Our society needs a paradigm shift in the way we balance home, work, and relationships and to wipe clean the slate of gender-based expectations and responsibilities.

*Heterosexual, “traditional” homes, though I’m really curious to know if there’s a parallel imbalance in families with same-sex couples.

+No, I have not done my due diligence to find actual statistics on this and welcome those statistics.

^I’m sure there are exceptions to this. I just don’t know them.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

Donning Dickies in December

Life is a balancing act and I think many of us can agree that there are times when the act loses its luster. December is one of those times. I find I’m drowning in holiday-related work in the performing arts, trying to keep on top of gifts and home holiday obligations, and we now also have the performances of the child in the mix. It’s academically a busy time of year as well, so suffice it to say that we’re all struggling a bit.

I often think about the shoemaker whose children have no shoes. My child should be well-prepared for performances at my place of work. I know the call times, ticket ordering details, attire, etc. Today is an epic fail for attire. The child is supposed to wear closed-toe shoes that are not tennis shoes. The combination of his rapid growth and great abuse of clothing of all varieties with my inability to find time to go to the store means that my child will be wearing the nicest shoes he has that fit him for tonight’s concert: black tennis shoes with a white bottom. Fail. Additionally, I had pulled out his nice black pants and a festive red plaid holiday shirt given by a beloved family member. I grabbed it to put in my bag to take with me to work (because I certainly don’t think it would have made it through the day in the child’s backpack) and noticed something very odd. The collar is split down the back. Upon closer inspection I noticed that it had more separation from the shirt itself and that there were Velcro squares as well. As I picked the shirt up, I realized that there is no back to the shirt at all. I was completely baffled and then the obscenities started flying. What is this thing and why would someone think I can send my child to a concert in a Dickie?! The tags are still on the shirt, so I typed in the product number on the Disney website (it’s a really cute button-down shirt with a Mickey on it). It’s apparently no longer available for purchase from Disney but as I scrolled down a bit through other shopping options, I found it on the Amazon site for India. It is not, in fact, a Dickie, but an adaptive shirt. Having a guess, but not knowing exactly what that was, I searched for that and finally found out what it is. Adaptive clothing is designed for the needs of people with a variety of disabilities, such as sitting in a wheelchair. Okay-that’s truly wonderful and I am so happy that is an option for people to purchase rather than having to alter each individual piece of their clothing. I learned something new today. Yay! I will try to find someone who could actually use and benefit from this shirt. In the meantime, I’m going to try to find another option for tonight’s concert. Wish me luck!

Friday, December 2, 2022

Parenting is Hard (and other reminders from a difficult conversation)

I may have experienced a bit more death when I was young than your average kid (or perhaps that was just my impression as a child), so that likely shades my views on it and the emotional aspects surrounding it. I figured at some point there would be a discussion about it with the seven year old. He hasn’t experienced a great deal of loss, for which I’m grateful. My parents were both gone before he was aware of such things and his other grandparents and grandparent figures are relatively young and healthy, so family pet passings have been our only experience from which to draw. We’ve read age-appropriate books and asked open-ended questions that would hopefully invite any burning questions without prematurely forcing the issue. We had some superficial talks and they seemed to be Asher’s comfort zone at the time. My dad’s sister passed away three months ago and I had made several trips to visit her just prior to that, so was open about that and the fact that I was sad but also glad she wasn’t in any discomfort any longer. I’ve shared my thoughts on what happens after death and that I like to think we’ll be reunited with all our loved ones (both human and animal, obviously) and also suggested that our priest might be a good resource for the theological side of this topic. Asher didn’t seem all that interested or bothered, so I left it there.

Fast-forward to two nights ago. I was feeling pretty relaxed and happy after a glass of wine and was tucking the child in having our usual bedtime conversations when he drops some type of bomb that just keeps exploding rapid-fire: “Mama, does everyone die” - “What does it feel like to die” - “Why do people have to die” - “Why can’t we live forever” - “What happens after we die” - - - I felt like I was handling these with a certain amount of grace and tact right up until the big one “Mama, will you die before I do” - gut punch. There is no good way to answer this question. I’m not big on lying to my son anyway, but even a lie in this situation is completely unhelpful. The alternative scenario is no less upsetting. So, I answered the best I could “that is probably what will happen because I’m older than you are and it’s the natural order of things, but I’m not planning on going anywhere for many, many years.” Nope. That was not the correct answer. Asher dissolved in very quiet sobs as I hugged him close. I tried to think of reassurances but, to be honest, I remember when I started to fully grasp death as a child and it hit me very hard. It felt lonely and scary and it seems like my child’s reaction to it wasn’t all that different from my own. So I snuggled up and hugged him more.

There was no mention of this yesterday morning, but more snuggle time was needed again last night, which is totally fine with me. I guess I’ll just have to ride this one out and take it one conversation at a time.

Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Situation Normal: All Fouled* Up

There’s a military acronym dating back to the First World War that comes to mind from time to time: SNAFU. You are likely familiar with this and have perhaps used it. In my experience, most of us use it as a synonym for a mistake or error. For example, I might say that there was a snafu in the schedule, meaning there was a mistake or hiccup in planning something. However, I think about what it means literally more and more these days-that the status quo is that things are broken. I’m still dealing with the frustrations of my aunt’s estate and the cancellation of her insurance policy and resulting Catch-22. I’ve also been dealing with a number of issues related to the medical industry. I called to schedule my annual “Well Woman+” exam today. To take responsibility for my own shortcomings, I am late scheduling it. Apparently I should have scheduled it for October and it is now November, so that’s on me. It’s been lumped in with the need to schedule my mammogram, for which I’m similarly a month behind schedule. I’ve been distracted by other trivial things like scheduling medical appointments for other family members, my job, household maintenance, car repairs, financial concerns, etc. However, and here’s the TMI part, I do not want to have that particular appointment just any old time. Last year’s “any old time” turned out to be very awkward and unpleasant for me and I’d prefer to avoid that in the future. So I was finally able to sit down with my calendar and figure out possible times over the coming 6 weeks that would work for me. I called the doctor, calendar in hand, only to find out that the earliest possible appointment I can get is nearly three months away in February. When I expressed my concern about potentially needing to reschedule (suffice it to say my body does not stick to a routine well; we’ve had a chat and no headway has been made) and asked if that meant I’d likely be scheduling another three months out at that point, I was given a non-committal answer that I took to be a “yes.” I then asked if this is an issue industry-wide and was given a semi-diplomatic and rambling “well-we-are-only-familiar-with-our-own-offices-but-yes-it-does-seem-to-be-and-if-you-change-doctors-you’ll-be-considered-a-new-patient-and-will-likely-have-to-wait-even-longer”reply.

So, do I need to get my act together? Absolutely. However, I’ve run into this issue countless times with various doctors ranging from my primary care provider (I haven’t actually seen an MD or DO at my primary…well, ever) to dentist to cardiologist. Last year I was having some really bizarre headaches with distorted vision that weren’t traditional migraines. Just to rule things out, I needed to have a few appointments-an initial consultation, an MRI, some bloodwork, an ophthalmologist visit, and a follow-up with my PCP. I am a relatively young and healthy person and have a little more flexibility in my schedule during work hours than many do and this was still a complete nightmare. This is when I initially started thinking about “SNAFU.” I truly struggled to get those appointments scheduled on top of everything else. Multiple phone calls were involved, as was insurance coverage verification, and apparently unanswerable questions about copays for which I just had to hold my breath, wait for the bill, and hope for the best. I found myself wondering about people a generation older than myself and the struggles they must face as their medical needs increase. The system is broken. That is our “SNAFU.” I believe there are two main factors at work here (and I fully admit my lack of expertise in this area): the mercenary nature of the insurance industry and medical profession burnout.

I sadly have no solutions to present, but am bothered that I don’t hear more from our leaders about this problem which, to me, seems completely unacceptable. As for me, I now have calendar alerts on my phone to schedule appointments well ahead of time and I’m trying to establish the habit of scheduling next year’s appointment at the previous appointment whenever possible. Baby steps.

* Only it didn't say "Fouled." It said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the "F-dash-dash-dash" word! -loose adaptation of Adult Ralphie narrator in the 1983 film “A Christmas Story.”

+Does that label bother anyone else? No? Just me, huh?

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Possums and Property Insurance

Yesterday morning Milo-the-Wheaten lost it. The humans in our household were all preparing for school and work, with a combination of hurried food preparation, necessary caffeine consumption, and the ritual morning reading of a Beverly Cleary book. At first it looked as though Milo might be trying a canine form of dressage, then he started whimpering, and finally he threw his head back and barked with great vigor and indignation. The cause of his angst? A possum scurrying along the perimeter of our yard. It made me smile and reminded me that it’s been a bit since I’ve written. Truthfully, I have written a number of things I haven’t posted due to their personal nature and relating to the passing of my aunt in August. I may go back and edit them for the purposes of sharing but, any way you slice it, I’ve been in a bit of a slump. Life has sped up (that happened noticeably on November 1), the to do list has exponentially grown, and I seem to have slowed down which is extremely unhelpful.

As usual, life has its share of ups and downs and I would say it generally leans toward “up,” for which I’m thankful. However, the past few weeks have continually reinforced my perception of myself as a pessimistic optimist (or vice versa). When good things happen, I have a tendency to look for the equalizing not-so-good thing and when not-so-good things happen, I look for the silver lining. The minutia leading up to last night’s breaking point is not necessarily important, but I can “bottom line” it by saying that (a) I am wholly disappointed in our nation’s medical field and (b) I had not idea how mercenary the death industry is.

I’ve been dealing with my aunt’s estate at varying stages of “hurry up and wait” over the past few months. My view has been that it is my duty as her next-of-kin and chosen representative to do this well and not half-ass it. I’ve tried to be communicative with everyone I’m aware I need to be communicating and keep on top of bills, house maintenance, insurance, etc. I think I’ve been doing a good job. Imagine my surprise when I got home from work last night to find a letter from the home owner’s insurance saying nothing more than that a credit had been issued in the exact same amount as the amount I had paid several weeks ago for the premium. I checked the bank and, sure enough, there it was. I called immediately to find out the cause of this refund and was told that, while they weren’t typically allowed to talk to someone not on the policy, there had been special permission given to tell me that the policy had been cancelled. When I asked why, I was told that they were not permitted to tell me that but in generic terms, if an insurance company is notified that a policy holder has passed away, that could (hypothetically, of course) be cause for cancelling the policy. At this point in the conversation I was having a very hard time holding it together (imagine Roger Rabbit shaking from his need to sing “two bits” in response to Christopher Lloyd knocking the “shave and a haircut” portion in Who Framed Roger Rabbit). In a barely controlled voice, I asked the representative to clarify that when I called to notify the agency of my aunt’s passing and to pay the premium, the person with whom I spoke allowed me to pay the premium knowing full well that the policy would be cancelled and did not disclose that information. Upon wishy-washy confirmation of that (“well, there’s always a possibility a policy won’t be cancelled upon the homeowner’s death…”), I took it a step further and asked the representative if I instead should have lied and paid the policy as my aunt rather than disclosing her death since it seems there’s clearly a penalty for honesty. He calmly explained that would cause other problems in that, if a claim were filed and the insurance company found out about the death, the claim would not be paid. To be clear, I never would have lied about this. It is simply infuriating that there have now been a few instances in which I have seemingly complicated the situation by being truthful. The rest of the conversation was tedious and unproductive. The representative was actually wonderful, and I told him as much. The institution he works for is, in my opinion, reprehensible. I also told him that.

I’m in a bizarre Catch-22. It’s been nearly three months since my aunt passed and almost two months until my court date to be appointed executor. While it is not absolutely impossible to insure a home you do not own, it is certainly far more difficult and expensive. After inviting me to apply for a new policy, the previous insurance company has confirmed that they absolutely will not write a policy for the house because I am not the homeowner. Only my aunt can apply for a policy…ah, but that proves a little tricky as she is no longer living. I called the attorney handling probate in a panic and they very quickly put me in touch with an insurance company they work with in circumstances such as this. They just need to see the house. This is a perfectly reasonable request…except this is in a gated community with a gate guard (no code). I am on the approved guest list because my aunt put me on the list while she was living but I am certainly in no position to add anyone to that list (hell, the HOA was even wary of taking my money for dues; they’re certainly not going to let some rando (me) add another rando (insurance agent) to the list. If I lived there, I could escort the person in myself, but I am at minimum a 4-plus hour flight followed by a 30-minute drive away.

While my circumstances are frustrating, what I’m truly more astounded by is that there aren’t procedures in place for many, if not all, of these hurdles. Death is the one thing we all have in common. I hate to be a Debbie downer, but we are all going to die. The insurance agent, the HOA president, the attorneys, and I will all die. Many, many people have died before us. This is neither a new, nor an unexpected event. I can not fathom why on earth this could or should be as complicated as it is. I am all for protecting the estate, assets, and wishes of the deceased, but there are some very basic provisions that should be in place when someone is in my position and in a sort of death-industry-purgatory. For example, I should have been able to easily disconnect services such as cable and internet. There should be some kind of stop-gap insurance coverage for houses (and cars, come to think of it; I bet that’s going to be another hurdle in the foreseeable future). Or, perhaps there should be a way to shorten the time between a loved one’s passing and actually appointing their executor, especially when they’ve clearly outlined in a legal document who they have chosen for that duty.

In the midst of the call with the insurance company, my mind returned to a question that often occurs to me: is the human race innately good or innately bad? To me, any CEO, CFO, or board member that approves as a standard practice the cancellation of the policy of a recently deceased person and leaves the next-of-kin or similar in a lurch is a bad person. Full stop. Perhaps I should be more charitable than that. I am not. On the flip side, the representative who spoke so patiently (and not condescendingly) and acknowledged my frustrations and the difficulty of the situation is a good person. Now of course nothing is 100% good or bad but I guess I’m aiming for an assessment of the majority. I want humankind to be mostly good and to care more for each other and our collective wellbeing than for our own individual needs and the almighty bottom line. There are certainly times when we need to look after our own needs first but for that to be the default disconnects us from one another and breaks down community and the feeling of being part of a global family.

So, as I grapple with my own personal situation and the many worse situations it represents to me, I feel a deep sadness at the state of humanity and our priorities. After I get over my pity party, I’m going to put on my “big girl” pants, take this one step at a time, and look for the good in the world wherever I can find it.

Thursday, May 5, 2022

The Rediscovery of Redux

I think most people consider mixtapes to be the domain of the 1980s. While I did make good use of the glorious high speed dubbing function of my boom box to make mixtapes in the 1980s, my heyday for that medium came in the late 1990s and early 2000s when I got a CD burner and had the perfect venue in which to play my carefully curated selections.

I was working in a coffee shop in college and loved working the first shift of the day. I got there in the 5:00 hour to set things up and blasted my music until opening time, then turned it down just enough. One of my favorite aspects of that job was that the employees got to choose our own music. The shop was not part of any large corporation and didn’t have the strictures on music selections that chain restaurants had. Over the course of the day there would be a steady evolution to the music that I just loved. My selections first thing in the morning were often in the vein of Ella Fitzgerald, Blossom Dearie, and Frank Sinatra. As I got to later morning, lunchtime, and the end of my shift, the music would move toward the Indigo Girls, Rufus Wainwright, and Green Day. Depending upon the day and my current mix (remember, this is before iPods and playlists, so I had to actually make physical mix CDs), there’d also frequently be some Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and much more. After my shift, the music chosen by the next employees might veer toward local independent musicians before going heavier in the evenings. It was fabulous.

There’s something different about mixtapes and playlists that changes the listening experience of a song. When you listen to an entire album by a musician, it doesn’t hit the same way as when it’s sandwiched by contrasting and complementary music. This isn’t solely within the purview of music. I used to get annoyed by remakes of movies and what I viewed as unoriginal ideas. These days, when I think about it, I have a very different view.

Remakes can take different forms. Sometimes they are truly identical and add nothing new. I can see the least justification for these; however, the recent remake of West Side Story makes me rethink my dislike of (largely) identical remakes. In that case, I view the remake as a positive because it brings a new audience to a classic. Many people would not have gone to a screening of 1961 film featuring music by a long-gone composer. But, some of those people would definitely go see a new Steven Spielberg movie.

Sometimes remakes maintain the original content but repackage it. I’ve seen more and more students waiting for their lessons reading the graphic novel retellings of the Babysitters Club books. These newer versions have the same titles as the originals but are clearly presented in an entirely different way. Again, this has brought a whole new audience to these books and has even been further highlighted by a Netflix series.

A third type of remake really isn’t a remake at all but something inspired by a classic (you may define that in whatever way you see fit). A literary example of this would be the series kicked off by “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.” While the original story is in there, there’s an entirely new spin that Jane Austen likely never imagined.

We see remakes all the time in music. In classical music, there are oodles of live performances and recordings of the same great works (often by Bach, Beethoven, and the Boys) and it might take a professional musician to notice the differences. In non-classical music, the cover band is sort of the definition of this. I used to think what I wanted from a cover was an exact replica of the original. For years, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Joe Cocker cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends,” not because of anything specifically related to his voice, tempo, or instrumentation, but simply because it was so different from the Beatles original. Now, I love remakes that are wonderfully weird and different from the original. I feel the same way about interpretations of classical standards. I may not always agree, but I definitely don’t think the main objective should be to identically recreate something else.

We’ve all heard variations on the idea that there’s nothing new under the sun, just different trappings of the same old same old. I posit that, rather than being a sad truth, this is an exciting opportunity. The creative space in which I currently find myself is one filled with amazing opportunities to reframe existing ideas. We might just slightly repackage something or we might completely dissect and reassemble it so that it barely resembles the original. Love it or hate it, if the purpose of art is to make us think and feel, remakes largely fit the bill.

Some of my favorite “remakes”

Classical Music:

• Nigel Kennedy’s rock ‘n’ roll style version of the storm from Vivaldi’s Winter

• Morimur (Hilliard Ensemble and Christoph Poppen): Bach Chaconne

Non-Classical Music:

• In My Life (this album, which was the creative brainchild of longtime Beatles producer George Martin, is comprised entirely of Beatles covers by a wide variety of usual and unusual suspects from Robin Williams and Bobby McFerrin to Jeff Beck)

• El Tango de Roxanne (this cover of the Police song was originally featured in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge and features a kick-ass violin solo)

Films:

• High Society (remake of The Philadelphia Story)

• You’ve Got Mail (not so much because of the movie itself, but because it made me aware of the Jimmy Stewart-Margaret Sullivan film The Shop Around the Corner, on which it was based)

• Romeo + Juliet (yes, the Baz Luhrmann one; while I understand there are aspects of this that were problematic, I loved the boldness of pairing such a modern aural and optical experience with a 400+ year old literary masterpiece

Books:

• Any of Sonali Dev’s Jane Austen retellings featuring the Rajes

• Ayesha at Last (another P&P retelling, this time by Uzma Jalaluddin)

• The Lady Janies series (co-written by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, these books present the stories of several famous “Janes’ in inventive and fun ways)

Space Capades

I was given my first compact disc player in late 1991 or early 1992. It was a 5-disc changer and I received three CDs with it. I still listened to a lot of vinyl and cassette tapes*, and I recorded favorite songs off the radio, using high-speed dubbing to make mix tapes. However, as time went on, I made efforts to build my CD library. There was a bookstore called Bookstop that carried a line of budget classical discs by Laserlight and a local CD store that had amazing used discs in varied genres.

I’ve also always had eclectic musical tastes and love the evolution of art, music, and life in the 1960s. Sometime in high school I came across a disc called “Space Capades.” Pure gold. The cover art already caught my eye, as did the play on words in “Atomic Age Audities.” It also had a favorite song of mine, known to me at the time as a They Might Be Giants tune-Istanbul, Not Constantinople. So that sealed the deal. I bought it. In the 25 or so intervening years, I’ve forgotten and rediscovered this album several times, the most recent of which was early this week. It never fails me. This time around I’ve gotten to share it with Asher (also a budding TMBG fan with his own unique musical taste). In addition to just general enjoyment of music that sounds at some times like big band music, at others like it could’ve been part of the Bewitched theme song, and has a healthy dose of theramin, I always discover new nuggets of information when figuratively picking up this album anew. This time I saw the name Felix Slatkin and wondered if he was any relation to the conductor Leonard Slatkin. Felix was, in fact, Leonard’s father and the whole family is musical. So, fun discoveries all around.

*I think it is worth noting that I also have a fascination with 8-track players. At some point, my family had one in what looked like a dated travel case and (drumroll, please)…we also had an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme that actually had an 8-track in the dash. If you’re unfamiliar with this technology, 8-track tapes have the distinction of being-to-my knowledge-the only audio format in which you can only go forward. You may listen or fast-forward, but never rewind. While this may be a great metaphor and life lesson, it’s problematic for music consumption.

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Birthday Party SOP

I am an introvert who loses sleep over planning children’s birthday parties. When I first started working in a non-profit, I became familiar with the alphabetization “S.O.P.” or “Standard Operating Procedure.” (I also learned many new and exciting terms I now lump together as “bureau-speak.” To this day I chuckle when I reminisce about someone saying that I (as a person, not some project on which I was working) needed troubleshooting on my first day. But I digress. The stress of having recently completed the sixth of as many birthday parties (minus one for COVID year #1 and add a Zoom party last year for good measure) for my child has resulted in such antics as me waking up out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night wondering if I ordered the right size bounce house and, while I did stop short of going in the backyard in my jammies to remeasure, that thought did occur to me. So, my sleep-deprived brain had a brilliant (to me, that is) idea: why don’t I create an SOP for future birthday parties?!

SOP: Birthday party for a child between the ages of 5 and 8 (please note that different procedures apply to parties for those ages 0-4 and 9-up)

Created by: Full-time employee of some type of work outside the home, full-time project and life manager within the home

Date: Today

Version: 1.0 2.0 3.1 (because that worked so well for Windows)

Effective Date: 3 months ago (yes, you are already that far behind)

Two months before:

Inform child that he/she/they may now start talking about the birthday that they’ve already honestly been talking about for four months.

Discuss if there is a need for a theme (spoiler: there is), possible themes, and narrow down to four (note that the more obscure themes will provide more of a challenge and, therefore, more opportunity for growth as a parent).

Create a Pinterest board (or four) and Etsy favorites list for each theme and carefully note the delivery time for each item.

Pat yourself on the back for planning ahead. Have a cool, cleansing glass of sparkling water.

Six weeks before:

Sit down with child to determine first draft guest list. Note that some schools require you invite the entire class. Also note that if you are in a neighborhood with many kids, you may need to choose between inviting the people you actually want to and insulting neighbors who *might* be on the HOA board and *could* be responsible for judging the appearance of your lawn for the purposes of fines.

Try not to gawk when the child hands you a guest list of 70 bazillion and you must rethink your venue.

Look into city and county park shelter rentals and realize that you would have needed to reserve any desirable shelter immediately following the child’s last birthday.

Momentarily consider having party at Chuck-E-Cheese before realizing that you don’t really want to enter that particular circle of hell.

Resolve to host party at home feel some sense of relief. Enjoy and soda of your choice on the rocks.

Four weeks before:

Try not to panic when you realize that you never actually ordered any of that awesome birthday party stuff on Etsy and scramble to do so.

Order bounce house because, hey, you panicked.

Call back bounce house place several times to confirm that your space will actually work for the bounce house. Offer to have a video call with them to show them your yard.

Recognize your limitations and commit to delegate some tasks as the party date gets closer.

Design invitations with plan to print and hand out in person (but don’t actually do that yet).

Make a list of household things that need to be done.

Make a list of snacks, food, and drinks to get.

Decide to get pizza because it will be easier.

Sit back, relax, and have a nice Chablis.

Three weeks before:

Text PDFs of invitation to those guests for whom you have contact information, print out some streaky other ones because you didn’t plan ahead to buy ink; have child hand deliver those so that the cute factor *may* outweigh the poor preparation factor.

Covertly invite some classmates even though you told the child that inviting the whole class was not possible (see above re: introverted parent) and hope no one finds out.

Confident that you have some things in place and guests invited, walk around the house determining what needs to be swept, pressure-washed, put away, or otherwise hidden for the party. This activity pairs nicely with a cider that is now room temperature from all the pacing.

Two weeks before:

Receive gifts from loving family members that you promise yourself you’ll wrap (let’s be honest-that was never going to happen).

Wake up with a start in the middle of the night with the realization that you have not, in fact, gotten the child a gift for his birthday and scramble to come up with a thoughtful and engaging gift that will challenge him or her intellectually.

Realize that you have a major project/deadline/performance review at work coinciding with the birthday in perfect synchronicity for optimum stress.

Start looking online for tables and chairs and realize they’re actually far more expensive to purchase than you had anticipated; put feelers out with friends and acquaintances (and maybe that kind lady who runs the friends of the bookstore table).

Make yourself a refreshing old fashioned (without the luxardo cherry and orange garnish-no time for those).

One week before:

It’s time to delegate! Ask partner/spouse/husband/wife/good friend to order the cake. Field texts with questions about the correct cake to purchase. Realize you stink at delegating.

Call around about getting those great themed Etsy balloons filled with helium and discover that there’s currently a helium shortage and that the only place that will fill them opens just one hour before the party and will fill those balloons for the low, low price of a goat, a dozen eggs, and your third born child. This place is also the opposite direction from the cake pickup location, just to keep you on your toes.

You will make this work because you are a PROBLEM SOLVER and don’t need troubleshooting at all.

Secure chairs and tables from amazing friends.

Have a scotch neat.

1 and 2 days before:

Work 8-10 hour days.

Pressure wash deck.

Drive around to pick up tables and chairs.

Call housecleaning service in desperate last-ditch effort to delegate. Laugh along with person on the other end of the phone when they say you couldn’t possibly mean this weekend. “No, of course that’s not what I mean. That would be ridiculous.” Hang up phone and try that 4-7-8 breathing you’ve heard about.

On general principal, sweep leaves that will magically reappear as soon as you turn your back.

Inexplicably discover 30+ deceased bees in the guest bedroom window seat, take pictures to show to the pest control people, cry over the state of the world and environment because bees are so vitally important, close the door and resolve to deal with that later.

Purchase some light adult beverage options for the grown-ups because you can’t for the life of you remember what the liquor laws are on weekends and don’t know if that will be an option with the next day’s grocery trip.

Negotiate pizza price with carry out place. (Who knew there was an art to haggling over pizza prices?)

Accept (gratefully) offer of one friend to pickup the pizzas and another to bring ice.

Shot of choice.

Day of party:

Wake up at 5:00 and unsuccessfully attempt to go back to sleep until your alarm goes off.

Vacuum house and pool.

Wrap child’s gift and write a thoughtful card about the joy of watching him/her grow and the wonder of life.

Send spouse/partner/wife/husband out to the store and marvel at the choice to make two separate trips (one for the cake and other for a full grocery trip) so close to the party start time while you wait for the bounce house people and dispose of the bee remains.

Carefully arrange, then rearrange chairs and tables (should they be in straight lines or arranged in small groups for multiple conversations? Who knows-you’ll probably be looking at a wall and rocking back and forth by the time this party starts.)

Hang, place, and arrange decorations.

Try to keep the dog off the bounce house because lord knows you do not want to buy that thing.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy the party (that, to be clear, will be lovely and a wonderful group of adults and children).

The Aftermath, or Considerations after the Party:

If you have decided to have your child write thank you notes, it’s gonna be a long haul and there will be some coercing and hand-holding.

You have absolutely completely not invited someone you should have. This may be an oversight or it might have been a conscious decision that you thought was the right and kind one, but you are guaranteed to have insulted or angered someone.

Someone else had a bigger/better/swankier/more Magnolia Home-inspired/fill-in-the-blank party than you did this very same weekend. There is absolutely no way to keep up with the Joneses. Fuggedaboutit.

Resolve to never again put yourself through this nonsense.

Then, look at your kiddo’s joyful, smiling-from-ear-to-ear face and listen to him or her say “this was the BEST DAY EVER,” melt into a ridiculous puddle on the floor knowing that you are no match for their superpowers.

Tuesday, February 14, 2022

Graduation Day

There’s an episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” with this title. If memory serves, it’s a season finale in which the principal of the school is finally revealed as the literal monster that he is. Buffy and the Scooby gang save the day and walk off frame with a “meh, no big deal” attitude. This occurred to me today as I failed to graduate from physical therapy related to a ridiculous (because it’s me and there typically has to be an element of the absurd in most mundane activities for me) injury.

I injured my back-not once but twice-related to moving pianos I had no business moving. Through stern talkings-to from my HR department and the huge time-suck that has been many follow-up appointments in which I wait for 2 hours to be seen for 15 minutes, I am proud to say that I have seen the light. I have no intentions of moving a piano again. When I went to the doctor for my initial visit, the receptionist actually laughed out loud and asked me to clarify my response (“pulled back moving baby grand piano”) to the query about how I hurt myself.

Going to physical therapy has actually been nice. I’m 11 sessions in and have some great exercises I can continue beyond my visits there to strengthen my core and generally not be stupid about the way I move my body. I feel almost completely normal (physically, that is) and I thought today might just be the day I graduate from PT. Sigh. Alas, I was mistaken.

Aside from the obvious benefits, going to physical therapy twice a week has been a really good reality check for me both as a reminder of how fortunate I am to be relatively young and healthy and of how fleeting time is. I am most frequently surrounded in the exercise room by people much older than myself with injuries that seriously impact their day-to-day lives. I’ve heard the saying “youth is wasted on the young” uttered (or muttered) by well-meaning (or curmudgeonly, crotchety) people and I think there’s something to it. As a person in my early forties surrounded by ludicrous media that can easily lead one to think that anything over 35 is old, I believe I am old enough to know the impermanence of life and young enough to get off my keister and make something of my time.

So, while today may not have been graduation day for me, it was a good day to appreciate how good I’ve got it and that it’s worth taking a moment every once in a while to sit with that.

Wednesday, February 9, 2022

A Year in the Life...?

“It has been an interesting year” is a sentence I’ve uttered more times than I can count. The first year of the pandemic was actually a very good one for my family and for me personally and I felt a certain amount of guilt about that. I’m sometimes inexplicably superstitious so, in keeping with that, perhaps I got a bit too big for my britches about our collective good fortune between March 2020 and March 2021. The cosmos took us down a notch in March 2021 and it’s been quite a roller coaster. While the primary traumatic event had largely come to a close by the end of July, I’ve had a challenging time coping with the aftermath and my threshold for dealing with any hurdles has been significantly lowered as a result. Juggling things has become more and more difficult and my ability to handle frustrations has been less than stellar. As a result, my activity in writing about my optimistic pessimism stalled out a bit. I have continued to write throughout this time but some of that has been unintelligible trash* and other examples have been more personal than is fit for public consumption. Thanks to wonderful family and friends, some therapy, and time marching along doing its wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing, I’m feeling more like myself. I’ve updated my booklist, I’ve got grandiose ideas I want to undertake, and I feel a greater balance in what I choose to take on and leave behind. Since most major undertakings in life happen not suddenly but seismically (or in fits and starts), I want to engage myself in a completely stress-free way with a daily happiness challenge. I’m not interested in taking on more responsibilities to add to my plate, so this will be a completely random and haphazard challenge: I want to do one tangible thing each day that warms my soul. I don’t have to decide ahead of time what that is. It might be large or small. It could be brainstorming about a project, planning a creative outing with my kiddo, having a date night with my husband, writing, composing, going to a library or bookstore, or whatever strikes my fancy. My hope is that I can consistently document this for myself and, at the end of a year, feel better and possibly have some completed projects or projects-in-progress I feel good about. Here’s to finding a happiness groove!

*I have a standing joke that the inside of my head is like a pinball machine. Ideas are bouncing around and, in a cruel joke of the universe, I have the best ideas when I’m not in a position to put pen to paper. I write a good deal (thank you, Julia Cameron) but like to have some time to re-read and refine at least a little bit.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Thirty years ago today-November 23, 1991-my dad and I were busy making a papier-mâché pyramid for my social studies class. The next day-November 24, 1991-dad went on a fishing trip and died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Every few years, I feel a need to share memories of him in a public way. I blame the movie Coco for this. My takeaway from that film is that we live on in the memories of our loved ones. That’s both heartwarming and bittersweet for me as my family tree is getting noticeably thinner in each subsequent generation. I feel a responsibility to share what a great dad I had for almost twelve years.

My dad was a geek. Full-throttle, pocket protector-toting, short-sleeved business-shirt-with-a-tie-wearing, statistics journal subscriber-and-reader, government employee geek. It seems he and I shared a love of school (and stretching the college experience out a bit) and that he was in the midst of pursuing a Ph.D. when life got in the way. I looked up “geek,” “nerd,” and “dork” to ensure I do Dad justice (because, of course I did-I grew up with a 1950s World Book Encyclopedia and that set the tone for me looking up absolutely everything). I’m pretty sure I’m using the correct term.

I remember a family trip to a mall in Louisville, KY in what must have been 1984 or 1985 to purchase our first computer. It was amazing and Dad’s excitement and enthusiasm for computers was contagious. From as early as I can remember, my drawing and coloring paper at home consisted of reams and reams of very wide green and white striped printer paper with holes on the sides to feed it into the printer. I used that paper for everything from drawing to coloring to making drive-through bank teller windows and making my friends play with me. (You know who you are.) That paper was from the computer rooms where Dad worked at Fort Knox, where I got to visit him on occasion. After we moved to Florida, Dad had a study at home that was where the computer lived. He liked to play Flight Navigator and taught me to type with an Atari-style game called Typing Tutor. My first computer games were a 3-color (chef’s kiss to the graphics team of that game) Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! that looked just like it did on television (I promise).

My dad was the dad who came with me to my violin lessons and would do or buy whatever my teacher told him to. No questions asked. One of my favorite memories (and one I actually get to bring up to my own students from time to time) is of us collectively trying to figure out vibrato on the violin. We were a hilarious mess. One of us would hold the violin and move the bow while the other one would wiggle a finger on the string. Satisfied with our efforts, we’d switch roles. I’m not sure either of us mastered vibrato in his lifetime, but that was amazing.

Dad also proudly attended the Disney Dreamers and Doers ceremony with me in fifth grade (this is the one where I was quoted by the Orlando Sentinel as saying I planned to become an attorney when I grew up so that I could get my mother-a bookkeeper-out of tax trouble) and any other recital, ceremony, or the like. In short, he was a very present dad.

I love hearing stories about my dad. A favorite uncle of mine (I have the best uncles around) likes to tell a story about Dad. I have easily heard this story upwards of a dozen times and I will never, ever stop my uncle from telling it. One summer in 1987 or 1988 my mom’s side of the family all came to visit and go to the house of mouse. At some point in the trip, my uncle was up to his eyeballs in amusement and took the day to go with Dad to work. As Junius tells this, Dad worked in one of the smaller offices in his government job but, despite that, a steady stream of people came to him throughout the day asking for his input and advice on large-scale projects. It became clear to my uncle that my dad was very respected in his work and that he didn’t need the big corner office to wield that respect.

It was in this same office that something else happened that I only found out about a few months ago. As previously established, my dad was a geek. He loved new technology and, in keeping with that, got a super-high-tech mini tape recorder/player at some point. He recorded all kinds of things, ranging from driving in the car and listening to the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel to frogs* on our back porch after a rain storm to a visit to his cardiologist. I’ve had a mini tape for years that was labeled “Bing’s Voice,” and finally listened to it from beginning to end a few months ago. There was a lot of static, some of me playing the violin, some frogs, and then the jackpot:

The first thing I heard was the creaking of an office chair, then Dad talking to a co-worker. Since it had been almost 30 years since I’d heard Dad’s voice, I listened several times to see if it lined up with my memory (it didn’t entirely-it was higher-pitched and a bit more nasal than I remember, but I understand memories are flawed). The coworker asked about something on Dad’s desk and he chuckled and deciphered it: “K-A-T-Y.” That’s me! He said he snatched it up the first time he realized I was actually writing my name and framed it. Then came the part that I can only fully appreciate now that I’m a parent: that ever since then I had been bringing home lots of “junk” and that I wanted him to keep every single piece of it. I laughed out loud as my face sprung a minor leak. I absolutely relate to the challenge of deciding which of your kid’s artwork to keep and how to smuggle the rest out to trash or recycling. What a surprising moment of parenting camaraderie with my Dad.

Just like the rest of us, Dad wasn’t perfect. He did not adequately prepare 11 year old me for the shock of dealing with a mother with substantial mental health challenges. I’m sure he thought he had more time than he actually did, and I can’t imagine what I would do or tell my own child if I were in that position. I was angry with him for some time for that, but really think it must have been an impossible situation. In a way, that and other related stories helped me learn the lesson that grown-ups don’t know everything and that we all make mistakes, pick ourselves up and dust off the dirt, and try again.

At 41 years old, I have spent nearly 75% of my life without my dad, but I still feel a closeness to him. I didn’t get to know him as an adult and there are certainly many conversations I would have loved to have had with him. In spite of that, I have some wonderful memories, stories told to me by his friends and family, and a foundation of love for life, family, and learning that he helped build for me. When investing for retirement, we’re often told that investing early-no matter how small the amount-can have a great impact on long-term growth. It’s definitely an odd comparison, but I think of my time with Dad this way: I didn’t have lots of time with him, but I had a good solid investment in my early years that has continued to grow and give returns (often at unexpected times) for many years.

Rest well, Dad.

___________________________

I’ve always loved Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile.” The lyrics are certainly more tragic than the sentiment I want to express (one of smiling because of what you’ve had rather than being sad about what you’ve lost), but the music conveys a nostalgic sweetness to me.

Smile, though your heart is aching

Smile, even though it's breaking

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by

If you smile through your fear and sorrows

Smile and maybe tomorrow

You see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness

Hide every trace of sadness

Although our tears may be ever so near

That's the time you must keep on trying

Smile, what's the use of crying

You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you just smile

(*Dad’s affinity for recording frogs after a rain storm baffled me for the longest time. We recently moved a whopping 7.5 miles from central Tampa to Lutz. There have been a number of small adjustments to make but perhaps the most hilarious and obnoxious one has been the alarmingly loud crickets and…you guessed it…frogs. I’ve taken to calling these “murder frogs” because that is exactly what it sounds like they’re doing or are about to do. I’ve felt the urge to record them just to prove that they exist, so I feel like perhaps I “get” Dad’s frog recording thing a bit more now.)

Friday, March 26, 2021

Quotation Marks

I have chosen a truly insignificant sword to fall on today. I recognize that and still couldn’t help myself. I got all riled up and now I’m in a tizzy and a little embarrassed.

I despise quotation marks. Not all quotation marks, but unnecessary or superfluous ones. I think they’re largely misunderstood and when we see them misused with frequency, it just confuses all of us. It’s grammatical gaslighting. Many times, quotation marks will be used to emphasize something instead of italicizing. Of course, there’s the sarcastic use of air quotes which is sometimes also used in print, but that has a tendency to be a slippery slope into misuse. As a musician who has had to type up far more concert programs than I can count in multiple universities, conservatories, and similar, my program drafts have gone through some pretty tedious proof-reading. I have then had to go through and fix all errors or inconsistencies. As a result of this, I have some fairly strong views on the use of quotation marks in musical documents. If, for example, a student of mine is playing the first selection in Suzuki book one, that would appear as “Chorus” from Judas Maccabaeus, with the composer’s name off to the right. “Chorus” is in quotes because it is a specific selection from a larger work. Judas Maccabaeus is italicized because it is that larger work. However, another selection from that same book would be instead written Witches’ Dance with no quotation marks. This is neither a song nor a selection from a larger work and therefore does not require additional punctuation. At this point, I’m guessing your eyes have either glazed over or you’re vehemently arguing with the screen.

Well, I received a draft of a concert program with a note that all song titles would be put in quotes. After doing my best impression of Madeleine Kahn from the movie Clue (“flames...flames...on the side of my face”), I sent an email explaining why the quotation marks were wrong (including attached documentation from multiple institutions of higher learning and mentioning that a concerto is not a song), why it bothered me so much (in crass terms, it makes us look stupid), and asking how to most effectively address this. Now, the fact that this has come up multiple times in the past and that I have made no headway clearly indicates that I am the crazy one. At the very least I am not picking up on the cues that this is not going to change on my watch.

Grammar and punctuation are certainly things in which I am interested. Yes, I was the weird kid who enjoyed diagramming sentences. However, I have also encountered truly brilliant people for whom grammar is not a strength. Professionally speaking, for people established as experts in their field, this is not too much of a hurdle. The people most adversely affected are younger or people-or newer institutions-less established in their professional area. Something I mention to students in writing is that grammar is important less for its own sake and more because it can sometimes get in the way of conveying excellent content.

For me, this raises other questions. Does this matter in everyday, non-professional communications? (As I re-read this, I absolutely notice some casual language that is not grammatically correct. Should this-a casual essay-be written in a strictly accurate way that doesn’t reflect my normal conversational speech patterns for the sake of correctness?) Perhaps a more significant question to ask would be if there is there an unavoidable racial or socio-economic bias with regards to something as arguably insignificant or insubstantial as grammar. How do we address this and compensate for it or change the norm of how we ascertain and convey a level of professional authority?

As usual, I’m overthinking this. But overthinking can sometimes be rewarding and productive. For the time being, I’ll do what I always do when I’m troubled by or trying to understand something-look for books and articles. Who knows, I may change my thinking on quotation marks and grammar as a whole. Or I might dig in and become a crotchety person rocking on my front porch complaining loudly and talking about how important grammar was “in my day.” Only time will tell.

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

Different generation, same parenting challenges

My dad died nearly 30 years ago. I’m not sure at what point I realized I’d forgotten the sound of his voice, but it happened. In my collection of outdated technology (an affinity I believe I got from Dad) is a micro recorder and a tape labeled “Bing’s voice.” About a year ago I decided it was time and that I wanted to listen to it. Alas, the recorder was not functioning and I hoped the same fate had not met the tape. Fast forward to an online lesson a few weeks ago when a young student of mine proudly held up something of her mother’s she’d found that she was excited about: a micro tape recorder. I mentioned that I had a tape I’d love to hear and she and her mom graciously agreed for her to bring it to our next in-person class to let me borrow it. This was followed up closely by me being quarantined for a COVID exposure. Today after 3 weeks (plus 29 years, 4 months, and some odd days-give or take), I got to hear Dad’s voice for the first time. I anticipated listening to a lot of ambient noise because I vaguely remember him getting the recorder and just leaving it on. He recorded us in the car listening to Cool 105.9 (the oldies station) and the frogs loudly croaking after the rain, so I got comfy and prepared to listen to the full 120 minutes. I realized a few minutes in that the voice I was hearing the most of was likely Dad and that it was both a higher voice than I remembered and that he had more of his western North Carolina accent remaining than I recalled. That definitely made me a little sad that I had to figure out which voice was “the one” even though it wasn’t entirely surprising. A few moments later I heard an exchange that would have been worth listening to hours of tape for: someone asked about something on Dad’s desk and he chuckled and deciphered it: “K-A-T-Y.” That’s me! He said he snatched it up the first time he realized I was actually writing my name and framed it. Then comes the part that I can only fully appreciate now that I’m a parent: that ever since then I had been bringing home lots of “junk” and that I wanted him to keep every single piece of it. There is the best moment of laughing through tears I can think of. I absolutely relate to the challenge of deciding which of your kid’s artwork to keep and how to smuggle the rest out to trash or recycling. I’ll listen to the rest of the tape and see what I can do to digitize it, but for now, I’m going to savor the wonderful moment I just heard.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Superstitions and Skepticism

I’ve not been writing as much lately because of some extra things on my plate and feeling very unfocused, and it occurred to me on my drive back from dropping Asher off at school that this current state is a good example of the whole blended optimist/pessimist idea.

A few years ago, I started writing an essay comparing my brain to a pinball machine where the pinballs were the ideas flying rapidly around inside my head. Something happened that resulted in me not getting through the first sentence, which I thought was both hilarious and very telling. I never returned to complete that thought, but it’s often in the back of my mind. That is absolutely how I feel right now. I talk to students about this in practice and how focus goes a long way in getting good quality practice. If we suffer from what I call “shiny object” syndrome and constantly change our focus, it’s virtually impossible to accomplish anything. I feel fairly competent in applying this to my violin practice, but much less so in life.

Recently, we’ve been doing work on our house while trying to decide if we want to stay or move. We’ve been both looking at other houses and talking to contractors about adding or doing things to our home to make it more practical for our family. We’ve had busy stuff going on at school and work, various quarantines (all thankfully precautionary and not the result of actually having COVID thus far), and I’ve somehow ended up on a committee to put together a fundraising event not for my full-time position but for my very part-time position. I’ve also had guilt about my teaching schedule. I’m a bit of a workaholic (I love what I do, so there’s that) and, amid these uncertain times for the arts, I feel a need now more than ever to justify my worth and my job. What that translates to for me is taking on additional students that cut into dinner time and bedtime some nights. Obviously that results in lots of guilt about not spending that time with my family and trying to make up for it whenever I can.

So, we’re all spread a little thin at the moment. There have been four houses in which we’ve been interested. The first was a long shot simply because we still had work we needed to finish on our own house before putting it on the market. However, it had been on the market for quite some time, so I had hoped it might stay on a bit longer. A little earlier than we were ready, it went under contract. We didn’t make an offer, but I still consider it to be the first house we lost. The market really heated up mid-January and houses would go on the market and be under contract within 48 hours. The second house we seriously considered had some layout issues in the kitchen/family room area, but we decided it was worth it to make an offer. It was the first contact we’d seen in nearly 12 years, so we both read over it very thoroughly. Apparently too thoroughly, because the house was already under contract once we finished signing everything. We actually did submit an offer on third house-one that I felt was strong. Thankfully we didn’t have to wait too long to find out they had accepted another offer. At that point, I stopped showing people pictures of the houses I was really excited about. I became-and remain-very superstitious that if I show pictures of these houses to people that will somehow mess everything up. So there’s my first level of superstition, ridiculous though it may be.

I started looking at a house early last week that is not without its challenges, but the pros far outweigh those challenges in my opinion. Clearly I’m not going to describe it in detail here, because we are now under contract. I’ve tried to strike a ridiculous balance between not jinxing it and still planning for things that would need to be done if this continues to go our way. I am crazy incarnate at the moment. Add to that the fact that it occurred to me last night that I should think positive thoughts rather than expecting the worst, and I’m a walking contradictory bundle of nerves.

When I take a step back, here’s the perspective I can see from my head if not in my gut: I just have to ride this one out and take all the responsible and legally mandated steps relating to inspections, budgeting, and triple-checking everything. If I don’t take shortcuts and do this the right way, whether it results in us buying a new home or continuing to live in a home we’ve done some excellent work to, that’s not too shabby. Now if I could just boil that down to a shorter mantra I could repeat to myself...

Thursday, February 11, 2021

Yin and Yang

When I doodled the illustration that inspired the name of this website, I started with a yin and yang symbol and then put a possum on top of it. I’m drawn to the yin and yang because balance is something I think about a lot and strive (mainly in vain) to achieve. My admittedly limited understanding of this ancient Chinese symbol is that it represents the coexistence of seemingly opposing forces that are in fact complementary to one another.

I often find that when I’m feeling really good about one aspect of my life, another feels like it is suffering. Pre-child, I had three areas I attempted to keep in balance: my personal relationships and growth, my physical health and well-being, and my violin practice. I usually felt pretty good about two of the three, but rarely felt that all three received the attention they needed. Now I feel more like a juggler with multiple balls flying through the air that I sometimes catch, sometimes fling in the air for them to come back to me later, and sometimes drop entirely.

I also look for balance in my state of mind. When something happens that seems bad, I try to look for the silver lining. Sometimes that works; other times not so much. Yesterday had its ups and downs and made me think of the recent trend in various blogs of “three things I love and three things I don’t” or similar. Here are the things I loved about yesterday: I had a wonderful start to my day. The five year old was adorably talkative as well as very helpful in getting out of the house. I was a melty puddle on the floor when he took it upon himself to crate the dog, have him sit for his treat, and then showered him with praise. We had a lovely chat on the way to school and it was amazing to see how quickly my little boy is growing up and how thoughtful he is. I was then able to be very productive both personally and with work-related tasks before taking the dog on a walk. On the walk, I saw the most incredible thing. There was a gentleman running as Milo-the-dog and I rounded the corner. It was unlike any run I’ve ever seen. It was almost prancing (as vertical as it was horizontal), included some hand-flapping at his sides, and really made me think of Flashdance. I tried to get Milo to hurry up so that I could see more. Milo was uninterested, so we fell behind. As luck would have it, we turned the next corner at the perfect moment to see elated jumping in the air, complete with hand motions. This may very well have been part of some exercise routine with which I’m unfamiliar (like burpees), but all I know is it brought me joy to see anyone do something with such enthusiasm.

As for the stuff I didn’t love so much about yesterday, at the top of this list is that I’ve been exposed to COVID-19 (again) and will be working and teaching from home for the next two weeks. I will get tested in a few days but, regardless of the outcome of that test, I’m not permitted back at work for fourteen days. I respect this policy and believe it is why we’ve had very few cases where I work. It’s just very challenging to teach my youngest students through a screen, and will once again require me to dig deep in my creative resources. Along with this is the fact that we’ve been house hunting and are supposed to look at a house I think I may be in love with (which clearly means it won’t work out, but that’s another story and personal superstition for another time) tomorrow. Now, I will be watching this house tour on a screen. Yay, technology. I, like the rest of the world, am ready for this particular chapter to be closed. I just have to be patient and that has never been one of my strengths.

So, balance. I’m going to keep striving for that and perspective. Two steps forward and one step back is still heading in the right direction, right?

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

(In)Decision Fatigue

I struggle with making decisions. I’m not sure if I’ve always been this way (it’s very likely I have), but I’ve been aware of it for about a decade. I’ll go through periods of time trying to overcompensate for my indecisiveness, but eventually settle semi-comfortably back into it. I think this is in part because, in some small way, every decision we make closes off another option. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I like having choices, so this contributes to my inertia. I’m fairly certain I’m not alone in this. I think of college students who change their majors repeatedly and the “jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none” idea and how those could be examples of indecisiveness.

A movie I have a soft spot for is “You’ve Got Mail” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Fairly early in the film, Tom Hanks’ character Joe Fox describes ordering a drink at Starbucks as a paradigm of indecision. He says, “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.” While the price tag on that cup of coffee has certainly gone up since the movie was released in 1998, I think the rest of that idea has aged well.

For me, some of my indecision comes down to a broader (and admittedly dark) understanding that life is relatively short and we can’t actually do everything we want to do at a high level, so we must choose to either get the Reader’s Digest version of a wider variety of experiences or buckle down and gain a more in-depth exposure to fewer. Since the process of making a decision necessarily eliminates some options, this can be scary. As a simple and completely inconsequential example, if I decide to eat Thai food tonight, it means I’m not also going to eat Mexican. While that is hardly Sophie’s choice, on a larger scale, these types of decisions can feel like they close off opportunities.

Right now, we’re in just such a dilemma with our house. We live in a 1920s bungalow that is 10 minutes away from where we all work and go to school. I love it and its charm, history, and original details. Thirteen years ago (and without a child), we lived much farther north and both had fairly significant commutes in opposite directions, so I love also our location. Apparently others agree, because we’ve been priced out of buying anything larger in our general vicinity, which is exactly the problem. Our beautiful home is too small. We live on a double lot, so could theoretically add on to the house. This is tricky also because, on the one hand, I want to maintain as many original aspects of the house as possible and, on the other, I don’t want a “Frankenhouse” with strange disjointed connections or inconsistencies. A small addition was already done to the home before we bought it and that is clearly not the same level of craftsmanship as the rest. We were frozen with indecision for about 18 months. We didn’t do anything to the house because whether we were staying or going would affect what types of updates we would do to the house. Do we remodel the kitchen? Bathroom? Repair the deck or rebuild a bigger, nicer one? Get a play set for the five year old? You get the idea. However, we don’t want to move for just any old (or new) house, especially since any move we may make will result in a longer daily drive. We kept flip-flopping on what we want to do and were finally able to commit to doing a good amount of work on our house that doesn’t lock us in to one decision or the other. We’ve been simultaneously looking at houses and decluttering our house to get it ready to put it on the market if we decide to do that and contemplating things that might make our home more practical for our needs. Ultimately, we will have to make some decisions that will open one door and close another (don’t you just hear the Mother Superior from The Sound of Music right now?).

I think the lesson in this is about finding balance between doing your due diligence to make educated decisions and also sometimes taking a leap of faith not being 100% sure of the outcome. As my mother-in-law says, “it’s an adventure.” Or, in a less eloquent sentiment from my mother “pee or get off the pot.”

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

There is a deceased possum on my regular dog-walking route. I don't know what to do with this information and Milo is far more interested in this than my comfort zone allows. That is all.

Monday, January 4, 2020

Without Caffeine, Comedy Ensues

I love hot beverages and my morning drink of choice is black coffee. I like to savor it and, truth be told, it takes a little while to kick in. This morning, I certainly wish it had activated a bit sooner.

After the first few weeks of kindergarten, during which I dutifully walked Asher from the parking garage to the school entrance each morning, I began dropping him off in the drop-off/pick-up lane. The fifth grade safety patrol kids are there to help (side note: I was really jealous of my friends on safety patrol when I was in fifth grade). Asher started to get frustrated that he couldn’t open his own door, I couldn’t get out of the car in the narrow lane with departing cars also driving past the driver’s side, and the polite fifth graders wouldn’t just walk up to my car and open it uninvited, so what resulted was a haphazard system of me putting on my mask and as politely as possible trying to wave down a member of the safety patrol to let them know that my son wasn’t able to open his own door. After several weeks of this, I looked into how to take the child lock off the door. Easy peasy. It worked very well for a short time. Over the winter break, Asher started to get bolder with his opening of the door and it became clear that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings before flinging the door open dramatically. This morning he opening the door in the carline while I was still moving and that was it. I told him that the child lock would be going back on today. I actually had intended all weekend to do this and kept getting sidetracked. So, in the midst of running errands, I remembered in the Publix parking lot and decided there was no time like the present. When I deactivated the child lock in the fall, I looked it up in the owner’s manual and followed the directions. It was very easy, so I decided there was no need for that and that reversing the process would be very easy. What followed was some seriously unintelligent, Laurel and Hardy-style ridiculousness. My key ring is on a small carabiner so that I can easily hook it to my purse and not lose it. In a dangerous combination of great haste, unfounded confidence in my “expertise,” and lack of actually knowing what I was doing, I stuck the side of the carabiner into the latch and pushed it to the right. It was at this point that the latch clicked back into place with the carabiner stuck in the latch. I realized my foul up right away and, about this same time, noticed the small white flathead-screw-looking thing just above the latch clearly labeled “child lock.” I started to panic just a bit as the woman parked next to me returned from purchasing her groceries and was quite kind and talkative at a time when I was struggling to focus on the problem at hand, let alone a friendly conversation with a kind stranger in the middle of my personal automotive crisis. I thought about calling AAA, but I let my membership lapse and wanted to explore other options first. I opened up the owner’s manual but it seemed to be mocking me for ignoring it prior to the incident and had nothing helpful to offer. I had visions of the door being held closed-on the side with my five year old-by bungee cords and child protective services having opinions on that. The key was close enough to the ignition that I wondered if I could start the car and drive very slowly to a car shop and decided that was a recipe for disaster (see, I do learn!). At last, I took what I believed was the least foolhardy action and attempted to break the carabiner to make it possible to remove. It worked! I chuckled at my almost-harrowing experience and overreaction. I then proceeded to DO THE EXACT SAME THING AGAIN. (So, yeah, maybe I retract my previous statement about learning.) This time the remains of the carabiner were smaller, no longer had a key ring attached, and didn’t form a closed loop, but it was stuck again nonetheless. I can’t say exactly what led me to do this. I know I was thinking “I still need to turn on the damn child lock,” but at this point I knew full well that the latch was not the child lock, so my thought process in that moment is a mystery even to me. Through determination, brute force, and dumb luck, I was eventually able to retrieve the remains of the carabiner with minimal damage and destruction. I used my house key to re-engage the child lock correctly, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. The moral of this story: read the manual and think before acting. Now, coffee.

Sunday, January 3, 2020

The Christmas Carnage*

*Everyone but Olaf escaped this incident with minimal trauma.

Olaf the inflatable snowman is bloodied, missing an arm, and in the trash and I’m almost done with my antibiotics. This was an unexpected and unwelcome turn of events on the Monday after Christmas. The scene that led to this still baffles me. In the two weeks leading up to this, I got it in my head that I really wanted a Christmas inflatable. I like classic Christmas decorations and didn’t want to go overboard but was thinking a nice nutcracker might be just the thing. Husband and child made a trip while I was working, so we ended up with Olaf instead. That’s not what I had in mind, but okay (and it still doesn’t compare to the 20’ inflatable Frosty at the end of our street). Totally fine. In addition to the newly acquired inflatable, we also have a lot of feral cats in our neighborhood with whom I have a fraught relationship. These cats have previously posed such problems as repeatedly urinating on the front porch, using the backyard as a litter box, and generally tormenting our dogs over the years. Add to that the fact that I’m allergic and I’m not a fan. That being said, I have a general concern for the welfare of creatures that can’t speak up for themselves (so, yeah-animals and small children) and would never wish the cats harm. I just wish they’d reside elsewhere. The cats are the reason that the charming hay bale I used for fall decorating one year was an isolated event, and I really should have foreseen some type of issue arising from the cats’ generally mischievous nature combined with a holiday inflatable. I was lulled into a false sense of “okayness” when the cats ignored Olaf for almost 2 weeks.

The morning of the Monday after Christmas was a lovely Florida “winter” day, so we had the front door open. I noticed as I rolled the trash can back from the street that some of the cats were hanging out around Olaf. I walked over to find that they were chewing on one of the anchor cords and I shooed them away, sounding much like the crotchety 80-year-old I aspire to one day be. I then went about my day. A little after 3:00 something caught my eye at the front of the house. The timer had just turned on for the decorations and Olaf was inflating. The cats were very excited and one of them was jumping up on the inflatable. It was really bizarre-looking and I was about to grab my camera to get a quick picture before attempting to scatter the cats when I realized that the cat was not voluntarily jumping. Somehow it had gotten caught in Olaf’s arm (I honestly have no idea how unless it had somehow gotten tied in a knot and there’s no way to tell now) and was stuck, panicking, and in danger. I ran out of the house to the cat and Olaf. Now, it should be noted that I make terrible judgement calls when animals are in danger. Some people respond well under pressure and I feel I do in other circumstances, but that goes out the window when animals are involved and I make spectacularly questionable decisions. For example, many years ago when our dogs Abigail and Noley were attacked by a pit bull, I actually stuck my hand in the pit bull’s mouth to try to get him off Abby. Not my brightest moment. So, that’s the judgement I was working with as I ran toward the cat and Olaf. I reached straight for the cat and the portion of the inflatable around its neck and all I could think was that I needed to relieve the strain on it. The cat did not take to kindly to my hands around its neck, no matter how altruistic my intentions may have been and it bit me. Hard. I hold no ill will, and assume it blamed me for everything happening. Apparently it bit me in such a way or place that there was copious blood. I didn’t notice this at the time. I was yelling for Paul to come with a pair of scissors to cut Olaf. When he didn’t immediately come, I started screaming. With the screaming, he decided coming to me was more important than getting scissors and came empty-handed. Once he figured out what was going on, he came back quickly with scissors and cut Olaf’s arm off. That cat and its buddy (who had been watching most unhelpfully the whole time) both shot me extremely pissed off glares before hightailing it out of there. I went inside to clean my wounds and started shaking pretty badly. I expect this may come up in therapy at some point. Paul came in a little while later to let me know he’d dealt with the crime scene cleanup and to ask me if I was okay and also if I knew that I had blood on my jeans.

Later that night my thumb had swollen significantly and I wasn’t able to bend it so, after a lovely phone call with my doctor’s answering service, it was determined that steroids and antibiotics for me would be a good idea.

Going back to my terrible handling of animal endangerment situations, the kicker of all this is that I’m pretty sure that if I had initially gone straight to the outlet and unplugged Olaf as soon as I realized what was going on, all of this could have been avoided. I can hear the sad trombone playing “womp womp womp” in the distance...

Saturday, December 26, 2020

All I Want for Christmas

I realized a few weeks ago that our son’s bottom middle two teeth had grown almost completely in without us even noticing. I felt like a terrible and unobservant parent. I take Asher to the dentist twice a year and watch him floss and brush his teeth, but I guess I hadn’t actually gone over it myself recently, so this was a complete surprise. He looked like a shark with two layers of teeth. A few days later I called the dentist and asked if this was normal or if there was anything I should be concerned about. I could hear the smile in the hygienist’s voice as she assured me that this is completely normal and that the teeth may look strange as they grow in and that eating normal foods should facilitate the baby teeth falling out. Boy, she wasn’t kidding! The day after Christmas, we were sitting at the table eating breakfast when Asher spit out his food. He complained about “something in his food” and we realized pretty quickly what was going on. The tooth was found, celebrations were had, and the day continued. Imagine the surprise when, at lunch, IT HAPPENED AGAIN! We were ill-prepared for the tooth fairy, so used a little drawstring pouch that with some festive Christmassy saying. The combination of the spirit of generosity in the holiday season with the awe of having two lost teeth in the same day at consecutive meals earned Asher a whopping five dollars. I fully intend to cite those reasons in a well-worded letter from the fairy herself when he is surprised by the significantly lower amount he will receive for subsequent teeth. I guess this puts a new spin on the song, “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.”

Friday, December 11, 2020

HSP

I first became aware of the concept of a “highly sensitive person” a couple of years ago. My first reaction was absolutely to scoff at it. Pshaw. Highly sensitive, eh? People who are sensitive to the tags in their clothing? That’s ridiculous. We should all just suck it up and be productive members of society. Except that I am one of these people. As I think back over my childhood and some of the most memorable (and sometimes traumatic) moments of my life, it is quite apparent that this label applies quite easily to me. I’m actually not one who is typically very sensitive to the tags in my clothing but I am extremely susceptible to feelings of sensory overload (I can’t read a book in the same room where my husband is watching a television show or really multitask with any type of electronics at all), feel easily overwhelmed (I’m fine up to a certain point then, to an outsider who doesn’t see the inner workings of my brain, seem to snap with very little provocation), and-perhaps most noticeably-take on the emotional weight of what I perceive to be feelings of others around me or in books I’m reading in a not-entirely-healthy way. Interestingly enough (to me, anyway), I used to get very frustrated when I saw this same type of extremely empathic reaction in my mother. I felt she was somehow commandeering emotions and scenarios to which she had no right or ownership and I found that to be offensive. I’m fairly certain I might still react the same way today but I recognize that it’s possible she didn’t have as much control over her reactions as I thought she should. As a result, I work to hide visible reactions to the pain or trials/tribulations of others.

When a friend mentioned that she thought I might be an HSP and a test I took (clearly a scholarly one, ya know, online) confirmed that, I started to think back over events in my life that have stuck with me in a less-than-positive way. The first one dates back to 1988. I was eight years old. Each Sunday my family went to Morrison’s Cafeteria after church. I have fond memories of the time spent with my parents and the change machine when we paid and, of course, the Andes mints. What sticks with me the most, however, is the memory of a gentleman who was in a wheelchair outside the restaurant. In my memory, he sat out there selling pencils every time we arrived and was always a pleasant presence. I always thought about buying a pencil from him but never did. His name was Willie. One Sunday he wasn’t there. The newspaper write-up was in the upper corner of the front page. It described him as “an old man at the age of 49.” I was beside myself. I genuinely believed that if I had bought a pencil from him, he would have still been around. The guilt stayed with me for months. I still think about Willie from time to time and looked up the article the other day to see if it lined up with my memory since I know memory is not as trustworthy as I would hope. I was able to find the front page article, but not the portion that continues on a later page in the section. I wish I could find that second page about Willie. I feel a need to say his name even though I can’t honestly say we ever had a conversation that would warrant me being familiar enough with him to be on a first-name basis partially because of the idea so well-outlined in Disney’s Coco that we live on as long as people remember us and I think we all deserve to be remembered. Willie may well have a large group of people who remember him, but just in case he doesn’t-I remember. So, that has stuck with me for over thirty years and always elicits a feeling of guilt that I don’t honestly believe is earned. So, where does it come from?

Next memory: seventh grade English. I was in a class that was heavily focused on the Holocaust. Now, I feel this is an extremely important part of history and shouldn’t be glossed over. However, my 12 or 13 year old self couldn’t handle it. I’m not sure if it was the descriptions of the gas chambers or the piles of hair or luggage or the fact that my brain couldn’t reconcile the completely unwarranted atrocities that happened fellow human beings-some of whom were my age or younger. Whatever it was, I was not emotionally equipped to process that information. It may have been entirely age-appropriate for my classmates, but I ended up transferring out of the class. I did round-out that portion of my education. Seventh grade was just not the time for me. I had nightmares and experienced nausea.

A third example: I started a Pinterest account several years ago and, as part of the “getting to know your interests” portion of creating my account, it took me through a series of questionnaires to discover my interests. There were broad categories that narrowed down to more specific interests the longer I went. At some point I must have clicked on some things that indicated an interest not only in animals but in animal rights. The first time I opened Pinterest after this initial set-up, I saw something that was upsetting enough to me that I closed Pinterest immediately, deleted the app off my phone, and didn’t entertain the idea of revisiting it for close to a year. I have some type of defense mechanism and I’m quite curious to know if it is a common human trait or something more unusual. When presented with visually traumatic images, my brain isn’t able to interpret them for a few moments. I get enough information for it to register as a warning bell, then have just enough time for me to remove myself from the image before my brain can fully register what it is. In the case of this Pinterest animal rights/treatment issue, I didn’t pay attention to the warning bells and the image I saw still haunts me.

My last and most recent example of this is my reaction to a book I’m currently reading. Symphony for the City of the Dead is a book about Dmitri Shostakovich and the composition of his Seventh Symphony. However, it goes into much greater detail about Shostakovich’s life and the circumstances (Soviet Union under Stalin and Hitler’s largely successful attempt to destroy Leningrad) that surrounded his compositional process. I knew Stalin. This has been very similar to my reaction to first learning about the Holocaust. I feel better-equipped to handle information of this sort now and truly have found the book to be very interesting, informative, and inspiring. I’ve even taken breaks from reading the book to pull out my parts to Shostakovich’s symphonies and string quartets and that’s been an amazing and wonderfully interactive experience. Where I’ve struggled has been with the graphic details about the lengths many people went to (were driven to, really) in order to survive such an indescribably awful time.

So, why spend time and brainpower mulling this all over? I’ve been fascinated for years by personality tests and similar tools that help us to understand how we work and what motivates and inspires us. I think that gaining and reflecting upon an understanding our strengths, weaknesses, and motivations can help us make the most of our lives, livelihoods, and relationships.

Friday, December 4, 2020

Snabigail

Twelve and a half years ago, my then boyfriend (now husband) and I got a dog together. We had hoped to get a dog from the Humane Society, but both have terrible allergies and were running into all kinds of problems. We looked into “hypo-allergenic” breeds (which, if I understand correctly, aren’t actually a true thing, but that’s where we started) and came up with two breeds to further explore. One was the Basenji and the other was the unnecessarily but enjoyably wordy Soft-Coated Wheaten Terrier. We did what we now know we never should have done and went to a puppy store. I plead ignorance on that now and have never set foot in a puppy store since being enlightened on that subject. It was at that puppy store that we met our Abigail.

As with many family pets, Abigail has a plethora of nicknames (Abby, Snabby Abby, and Snabigail most frequently). We fell in love with this adorable little puppy who was clearly indifferent to our presence in her life. We brought her home and she very quickly established her role in our relationship (which is to say “dominant”). On her third day home, she “fell” (i.e. jumped in a theatrical way) off the sofa and immediately started limping and whimpering. My better half took his first personal day in years and the three of us headed off to the vet. Since it was our first visit, there was an intake questionnaire that had the most bizarre question. It asked something along the lines of whether we thought of our animal as a pet or a family member. We looked at each other with smirks that clearly showed how idiotic we thought the question was and checked off the “family member”box without actually talking about it at all. Right about the time we finished the form, Abby was doing what can only be described as “frolicking” around charming everyone and with no visible limp or discomfort. I believe the exact statement the vet made when we were escorted back was “well, she played you.”

A few weeks later, we gave Abigail a bath and put her in her crate while we went down the street for a quick dinner. When we returned a short time later, we were greeted by a soaking wet Abby at the door. She had apparently been indignant at being left, so had relieved herself and rolled in it. The only logical next step was to Houdini her way out of her crate (yes, I do realize its far more plausible that we didn’t properly latch it, but let me have this one) and greet us as we entered the front door.

We dutifully took Abby to training, though I’d never argue that we’re expert or the picture of consistency. She regularly went through her entire repertoire of tricks in quick succession to get the damned treat. It was hilarious. We moved across the country and at a stop to visit family along the way, Paul proudly and repeatedly introduced her as his baby girl. It’s one of my fondest memories. Abby saw tumbleweeds and completely different terrain as we made bathroom stops for her along the way. She loved to play with lizards and sometimes butterflies and was always sort of sad and confused when they eventually stopped playing back. In Arizona, she was once so excited to get to her daddy that she broke away from me and went tearing straight for him. I still picture it in slow motion: a fluffy almost-puppy galloping toward her target with her tongue lazily hanging out of her mouth. She fully knocked him over. It was amazing.

Our time in Arizona also had its share of fun Abigail stories. My two favorites are her grabbing the toilet paper and running through the house with a look of great pride and accomplishment and what I’ve dubbed the “poo bath of 2008.” Abby had accidentally sat in her own slightly runny waste outside. I put her straight into the bathtub and got her completely wet. As I turned to grab the shampoo, she bolted and in what I once again now picture as a slow-motion move, shook her entire wet body so that moist feces went flying everywhere. One of many rookie mistakes I made include failing to close the door, so this was sadly not confined to the bathroom.

While in Arizona, we got a second Wheaten-this time from a rescue. We did a lot of research to find Noley and to figure out the best way to introduce Noley and Abby. I took an item of Abby’s with me to Missouri to get Noley and, upon my return, brought that item plus another one with Noley’s scent to give to Abby. I walked Noley around the backyard, then Paul walked Abby around the backyard. We introduced them at the park close to our house and attempted to make it seem like Abby’s idea to invite the new dog home. They got along famously for a short time.

When we moved back across the country, we moved several months apart and my dog-loving in-laws graciously agreed to keep both Abby and Noley until we had both made it back and had a home to move into. Abby and Noley were spoiled rotten. We finally all got settled in our new home and life was good. One morning Abby got hold of a Bufo Toad one day in our backyard (in the ferns, which were immediately removed after I found that that’s a prime hiding place for Bufo Toads) and ended up at the vet again on a heart monitor for a few hours. We took both pups on regular walks on a double-leash and they both snuggled up with us regularly. One day, two pit bulls attacked us on our walk. The owner threw his body on top of one and got him under control, but the other one had his eyes on Abigail. Since the dogs were on a double leash, Noley definitely got jerked around, but Abby was the one with injuries. I stupidly stuck my hand in between the pit bull’s moth and Abby’s throat and was very lucky not to have been injured myself. Abby was also lucky. She looked like a vampire had bitten her and we went straight to the emergency vet. She would be fine, but that night was a rough one. She was on medication for pain and to help her sleep, but either fear or adrenaline wouldn’t allow her to sleep. She’d keep almost nodding off only to wake herself up again.

The pit bull attack was a turning point. Shortly after that, Abby and Noley started exhibiting very strange behavior toward one another. The first day I realized it was an issue was the day I came home to find a bag of bagels on the ground in the living room and small wounds on both pups. It seemed to be a mutual fault situation: Noley (a puppy mill dog with many neuroses) would alter his body language in a way I can’t really accurately describe, but it was noticeable; then Abby would lunge at him. She normally was the one to walk away a little worse off, but she also had a part in instigating. It got to a point that we had to keep the two separated and we had a dog trainer come to the house to advise us. We didn’t really get anywhere productive with long-lasting results. The situation was not pleasant for anyone. We had been talking with “the grandparents” about everything that had been going on and had also talked between the two of us about whether it might be possible for Abby to go live with them. My mother-in-law is some kind of animal whisperer. All animals love her and hang on her every word and move. It’s amazing. Abigail was no exception and worships the ground Sharon walks on. Paul and I agreed that we would not re-home Abby unless his parents were okay to have her. Otherwise, we would have pursued the dog psychologist and any other possible angles. Thankfully for all, Paul’s parents said they were thrilled to have Abby come live with them. It was both heartbreaking and a relief.

In Abby’s first few months with the grandparents, she put on a few pounds (Nana spoils her grandchildren, be they human or canine) and had another run-in with a reptile. This time it was a relatively small frog that got lodged in her throat. By the time they made it to the emergency vet, it had cleared her throat. Abigail found her groove. The extra weight came off, she bosses Nana around, she has had good friends in the other family dogs (especially Oliver the Husky and Dax the Sheltie), and we still get to see her regularly. When our son Asher was born, she decided she had a new buddy to boss around. She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of him until he got old enough to toddle, then walk and play with her. Since then, they’ve had a blast.

Abigail is twelve now and her thirteenth birthday is coming up in February. About a year ago, she started slowing down and bloodwork taken in preparation for a dental cleaning confirmed that she has a number of ailments including some kidney problems and that they would not be putting her under for a dental cleaning because of her health issues. Sometime after that (but still pre-pandemic), the vet mentioned something about her probably only making it another few months. In true Abigail fashion, she “pshawed” at that and has stubbornly stuck around, though at an admittedly slower pace. Our last few video calls have shown Abby looking more drawn and not herself. A couple of hours ago, my mother-in-law let us know that Abby’s not doing well and that she’s going to the vet later today. I feel like there’s lead in my chest. This amazing, beautiful, marches-to-the-beat-of-her-own-drum dog is one of my favorite creatures on this earth. She is the dog version of Miss Piggy with all her stubbornness and drama. She makes us laugh and exasperates us and is joy incarnate. I don’t want her to be in pain of any sort and she has lived an amazing life, but that doesn’t mean I’m okay with any of this. It may or may not be today. Last year when this came up, we had talked about going to be with her when the time came. She’s about two and a half hours away, so that’s manageable. With the pandemic and my mother-in-law being high risk, that’s unfortunately not going to happen.

When Noley passed away three years ago, someone sent me this quote, attributed to a six-year old, explaining why dogs don’t live as long as humans:

“People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life-like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right? Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay for as long as we do.” And I think that’s an excellent explanation.

Thinking of my Snabby Abby today and all the amazing pups out there who seem to understand how to love life and live in the moment in a way we could all take to heart.

Saturday, November 21, 2020

It’s the Little Things

Some unrelated examples of how the little things matter, in good, disappointing, and nostalgic ways.

I came home yesterday morning after dropping off my son at school to find that two signs had been removed from my yard. These were signs of a political nature that had certainly outlived their intended purpose and I just got sidetracked from removing them by work, illness, and life in general. I won’t go as far as to say I felt violated that someone took in upon themselves to remove the signs for me, but I was disappointed. I checked with the various family members to see if I could find the responsible party. The dog and child used their wiles to eschew guilt and the only other adult member of the household also denied removing the signs. I was at the point of acceptance when my husband said that he had planned to give the signs to the beekeepers. I was flabbergasted. I had no idea the signs could be put to good use as pest deterrents, temperature regulators, and other helpful tasks. (For more information, here’s a helpful article: Sarasota Honey Company can use your political signs for its bees | wtsp.com.) This mini-revelation prompted a new wave of sadness over the signs as I pictured them ending up in a landfill rather than being put to good use.

I am a compulsive leaf jumper. One of the things I miss living in Florida (even though I’ve spent most of my life here) is a true autumn season. I love variety in weather, colors, and foliage. I’m a sucker for a leaf that has just fallen to the ground and have photographic evidence of having spent a day in graduate school in Boston playing in a pile of leaves. Our downtown area has some deceptive leaves. I am no expert on leaves or anything in that arena. My mother was a horticulturalist and that is one of several talents that has clearly skipped a generation. My uneducated eye identifies these as large maple leaves. This time of year (what I call “third summer”), the weather is so thoroughly confused that it can get cool enough for leaves to fall, then shoot right back up to the upper 80s. The humidity is also all over the place. The disappointing result of this is that each time I step on one of these gorgeous and crunchy-looking leaves of enormity - which is every time I encounter one - there is absolutely no crunch. While I know that this will be the case each time, I can’t stop myself from trying. I always hope for the crunch and if I get it even once per fall, it brings me joy.

The pandemic has brought out both the best and the worst in humanity and I’ve really enjoyed seeing things around town that show the best. One of my favorites are the large hand-painted signs throughout the city with a message from the mayor to stay calm, stay kind, and stay safe. These messages are also painted on sidewalks downtown. Toward the beginning of the quarantine, we started noticing an uptick in chalk art on our dog-walking route. This grew and eventually turned into an all-out chalk art game board that spanned the space in front of two houses. It changed a few times and my son’s personal favorites were the lava challenge and the maze. The creativity was amazing and it inspired my son to make his own, far less elaborate version on our front sidewalk. There’s also a little library in our neighborhood and the family who “run it” were incredibly creative with how they addressed book safety. The books all disappeared but in their place was a miniature gnome and a note explaining that the books were quarantining and would return when possible. In the interim, there were weekly installments of a serialized story about the gnome. We looked forward to Nathan the Gnome stories all spring and summer.

It doesn’t always take a pandemic to bring out those little things that make us smile. There is an insurance company down the street from me that has a marquee. Rather than using the marquee to announce business-related information, it is used to broadcast lovely quotes that range from humorous to thought-provoking. Just down the street from the insurance company is a somewhat run-down building that I’ve been curious about for some time. Each holiday season, there is an elaborate window display with the leg lamp made famous in the movie “A Christmas Story.” The whole family loves seeing this display each year, especially since we have a running joke about the leg lamp. I finally looked up the address since there’s no visible exterior sign. It’s a welding studio, and I can’t wait to explore more!

A student sent me a simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking story of a retired music teacher in a hospital undergoing treatment for COVID requesting that his violin be brought to him to play for his medical team as thanks for their treatment of him. He played several selections in a row all while various tubes and wires were still attached to him. I was just thinking about the power of music and how the arts have really buoyed us during these challenging times when his last selection began and hit me like a sucker punch. I had a visceral reaction to it. It was a hymn I know as “Come Thou Fount.” Hymns are often very nostalgic for me as they were favorites of my mother’s, and this one was one she used to play and sing regularly. She’s been gone for four years and we didn’t always see eye to eye. However, her favorite hymns always remind me of the good parts of our relationship and that paired with the patient’s performance as way of thanks to his caregivers warms my heart in this time of year in which we count our blessings.

Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Creativity

I read a book years ago called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I keep it on my bookshelf with the intention of re-reading it at some point. My now-distant memory of it is that the term “artist” was used in a very broad and inviting way and that it encouraged daily stoking of the creative fire even if those daily efforts didn’t necessarily amount to something tangibly artistically brilliant. I see examples in my own life of the importance and effects of priming the creative pump. If we hold onto our creative ideas until we have time to see them through, I think one of two things may happen: the ideas may well stagnate or that time we keep waiting for will continue to elude us. In college, I kept a journal of my dreams. This wasn’t for some big creative project, but simply because I had some crazy and highly entertaining dreams and wanted to keep a record of them. I found that the more I wrote them down, the more likely I was to remember dreams yet to come. The reverse is also true. I’ve not recorded my dreams in any way for at least fifteen years and subsequently generally only remember bits a pieces when I first wake up. By a couple of hours later, there’s nothing other than perhaps a general feeling left.

So, what is creativity, what purpose does it serve, and who is the audience? I don’t think there are concrete and broad answers to these questions, but I think it’s worth checking in with them every once in a while since the answer mays change and give our creativity some direction. These questions are especially pertinent when we’re asked to justify the arts and art education, but that shouldn’t be the only reason we ask. This came to mind this morning as I was listening to an interview with Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) about a recently-released book of cartoons of which he is a co-author. As I listened, I wondered if there’s anything Steve doesn’t do. He’s a long-established comedian and actor, an author (I read and enjoyed his book “Shopgirl” years ago and that is just one of many books he’s written), a mean ukulele player, and now a collaborator on cartoons. I would not be at all surprised to find that there are other art form into which he has delved.

I think about this myself as I “do” this blogging experiment. This is not my field of expertise at all. I’m a musician. I love books and reading and took a whole lot of fun literature course in college (tangent: one of which was a fascinating class called “Sexuality in French Literature in Translation” which included a class on wine-tasting; no, I’m not joking). But to say that reading a lot qualifies me to be a writer seems to me like saying someone who listens to a lot of Ella Fitzgerald’s live version of “Mack the Knife” is ready for a thriving career in scatting. Yet there are many people who have fun side projects (or more serious ones) in adjacent art forms to their own.

Another question this raises for me is that of what makes us embrace or reject our own artistic output.* I think about musicians who publicly separate themselves from hugely commercially successful projects years later. In cases like those, the product may have been the result of a binding contact of some sort rather than something they felt called to do. What about the rest of us? Is it a case of striving for unattainable perfection? Imposter syndrome? I have two pieces being released as part of a streamed recital today. These recordings will be available to anyone interested enough to pony up and pay $15. One is a collaboration with a wonderful pianist that was recorded live with ample space and masks. The other is a flute, violin, piano collaboration that sadly had to be recorded separately and put together through the magic of editing due to COVID exposures. I watched both of the recordings last night and feel that both could be better. So, where is the line between striving for artistic excellence and chasing something unattainable? I tell my students that there’s no such thing as perfection but that we should strive for accuracy, honoring the composer’s wishes, and showing our own musical perspective. Perfection is not a driving goal for me. Some of my favorite things are beautifully imperfect. I think of the solo music of John Lennon. Much as I love John Lennon (and I do), he did not have an especially beautiful voice. But when I listen to “Mother,” I feel gripped by the raw quality of his voice in a way I wouldn’t if the recording was more polished (or-God forbid-auto tuned). Even quilters recognize the importance of flaws: many quilters intentionally put a small error into each of their painstakingly crafted quilts.

So, I feel I’m raising more questions than finding the answers, but to embrace the sentiments of John Lennon, if “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,” could it also be true that fulfilling artistic creativity is what happens when we find just the right way to ask the right question at the right time?

*”Artistic Output” sounds so pretentious. I welcome more casual alternatives. Bonus points for humor.

Monday, November 16, 2020

The Snark is Strong

Lest I seem too “Susie Sunshine,” I want to keep it real. While I am very thankful that my case of the flu is significantly milder than the last time I had it several years ago, three of the symptoms I’m experiencing that are most pronounced are congestion, exhaustion, and a complete lack of patience for people who...no, scratch that. Not “people who,” but “people” in general. Full stop. At the current moment, I’m extremely annoyed by two people I love very much (no, not you) and one complete stranger. Their “crimes”? Sharing opinions in a public forum and sending thoughtful gifts, respectively. <Pregnant pause> Ah, yes, I do see the irony of that first offense and the utter lack of thankfulness on my part for the second one. The third person was having a very loud conversation on speakerphone, so I stand firmly by that one.

I don’t “do” sick well. As a child, I was sick a lot (seriously-I missed seven consecutive weeks of school in sixth grade and returned to hear a fellow student tell me he thought I was dead-and we’re facebook friends now!), so I think I have some sort of mild PTSD-esque relationship with anything that results in me not being what I consider to be a full and functional member of society. I can enjoy an isolated lazy movie day every once in a while, but to do that for multiple consecutive days makes me feel like I’m living in a warped parallel universe. In what I’m convinced is a running joke God has with me, I have what I think may be my best and most creative ideas when I’m sick and unable to execute them. I do my best to write them down for use when I’m feeling better, but some of the magic dissipates. I’ve never talked with anyone about this, so have no idea if this is something common that others experience or if I’m just an oddball (please don’t answer that!). Oh, well. To quote one of my favorite heroines from movies I watched on sick days: “que sera sera.”

Saturday, November 14, 2020

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2020 has been a challenging year for all. In general, I feel that my family has been extraordinarily fortunate. That doesn’t mean the year has been a walk in the park by any stretch of the imagination, but for every challenge there’s been something to remind me of the good mixed in with that bad and ugly. Earlier this week I broke a seemingly very sturdy glass dish with spectacular style. I’ve truthfully never seen anything break in to so many minuscule pieces. I’ve had a fair amount of experience clumsily breaking things in the kitchen, and what typically happens is that there are several large, easy to pick up pieces along with a smattering of small shards that require sweeping, vacuuming, and re-checking with a flashlight. This was not the case this week. It looked like tiny dangerous diamonds everywhere. Once I did the first swipe at cleaning them up, they looked like this:

Yup. Not a large piece to be found.

However, that same day my husband also was able to capture some pictures of amazing snuggle time I had with the 5 year old and the puppy:

It’s how we start each morning and I absolutely love it. I know my child won’t want to snuggle with me forever, so I try to savor it.

As the week continued, even though there were several more items for “Bad/Ugly” column (a tropical storm, school closures, and a positive flu test), there were also several for the “Good” column (no damage from the tropical storm, extra time with family, finishing three books-two of which I really enjoyed, a relatively mild case of the flu, and fortuitous rescheduling of classes). As 2020 trudges forward with its seemingly limitless trials and tribulations, I keep searching for the positive and the remarkable thing is that whether I look for the good or the bad in life, I usually seem to be able to find it.

Wednesday, November 4, 2020

Morning Memories

As we prepared to return to a semi-normal schedule at the beginning of this school year following months of working, learning, and doing essentially everything from home, I panicked a little (okay, more than a little) about how I would have Quality Time (henceforth, “Q.T.”) with Asher. I absolutely love my job, but the nature of what I do is that a lot of my working time is the time when Asher is home from school. Up until this year (kindergarten), I’ve had the flexibility to take Asher to daycare or school late enough that we’ve gotten some good Q.T. in the morning, but this year he has to be at school at 7:50. Our morning time is really some of the best time we have together so I shifted my wake-up schedule to give us that time. I’ve always been a morning person, so this hasn’t been an enormous deal; I just have to make sure to allow myself enough time to get a cup of coffee and sit and read for a little while before the pup and I go in to start the child-waking process. We’re able to get a lot done in the morning, including a lot of laughing. Not every morning looks the same, but that time is when we practice together (he’s young, so that is still relatively short), read, play on the playground or take the dog for a walk, and play games like Uno. On the drive to school, we talk about the day and sing loudly to music (recently this has been the Frozen 2 soundtrack more often than not). I try to savor this time because I know it will shift as Asher gets older. We turn on music for Milo-the-dog when we leave the house. Some mornings it’s Bach, Beethoven, or Debussy. Others, like this morning, it is the Beatles. As we loaded up the car, Asher asked me what song had been playing as we left. It was “Come Together.” While Asher has heard a lot of Beatles music (thank you, Beat Bugs), I don’t think he had heard any of the Abbey Road album before today. My own love of the Beatles started with their early music and moved through the albums as I got older and I think as a result of that, I’ve introduced Asher to the albums (sort of) in chronological order.

All this made me think about my introduction to the Beatles and other music from around that time. I have fond memories of listening to the music of the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel in my dad’s Volkswagen Beetle on morning drives to school. Somewhere I even have a micro tape (anyone remember those?) of us both sitting in the car singing along with the radio. The tape recorder/player itself no longer works, and I think about looking into having the tape digitized occasionally. I don’t remember a lot of details about what we talked about, but the feeling I had sticks with me to this day some 30 years later.

So, as Ash and I got in the car, I put on some of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel tunes and cranked up the volume for us to sing and dance along. It brought me an overwhelming sense of joy. As we drove our normal route to school and alternated between singing and conversation with the kind of “shiny object” distractedness that is so typical in young children, I also thought about similar morning time I had with my mother. I don’t remember details of this time, but I knew that it was time just for the two of us and again that special feeling is what remains. Even as I grew older and more embarrassed by my mother, that time was always special.

It occurred to me at a stoplight that I probably looked ridiculous singing along loudly and dancing, and that made me laugh. I glanced around and realized that if I saw someone else singing and dancing with abandon in their car it would bring a smile to my face. I started looking at people and things around me to look for evidence of happiness, love, and kindness. The first thing I saw was the marquee outside an insurance building that said, “Kindness is choosing love over hate.” I saw people interacting on the street and at bus stops.

The movie Love Actually opens with a monologue delivered by the prime minister (played by Hugh Grant) that closes “When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

Mr. Rogers said something similarly profound that has been oft-quoted: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

If we put these two sentiments together, my takeaway is that the kindness, joy, and love we all need right now are all around us in the world, but we have to look for them in order to find them.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Lobsters and Phoenixes

Have you ever wondered what the plural of “phoenix” is? Neither had I, though I’ve certainly gone down the rabbit hole this morning. Having lived for a short time in Arizona, I did learn during that time that people who reside in Phoenix, AZ are sometimes called “Phoenicians,” a word that I enjoy and is brought back to mind each time I ride Spaceship Earth at EPCOT and hear Dame Judi Dench kindly inform me that I can “thank the Phoenicians.” Of course, she is referring to ancient Phoenicians rather than those from Arizona. As much as I’ve typed variants of this word, it starts to look strange. However, it’s neither ancient Phoenicia nor modern Phoenix, Arizona that has captured my imagination this morning. It is the mythological bird seen in so many works of visual and performing arts that has me thinking today.

I recently read and thoroughly enjoyed David Chang’s book Eat a Peach. In this book, he mentions a lesser-known factoid about lobsters: they shed their outer shell and grow a new one. During the time the new shell is growing, the lobster is at its most vulnerable. However, if the lobster survives its time without the protection of a outer shell, it emerges strong and whole at the end of the process. This really resonated with me and I’ve continued to think about it periodically in the time since I finished reading the book. Unsurprisingly, it led me to remember the legend of the phoenix, a bird that grows more and more beautiful until it catches fire and is destroyed, then is reborn out of the ashes, thus starting the cycle anew. There are numerous references to the phoenix in music (Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and Ballet come to mind), books (Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a relatively recent example), and virtually all art forms. (Sadly, I have yet to find similar references to the lobster in art, though I will keep looking.) I believe the phoenix is a subject to which artists are drawn because it gives hope in the darkest of moments. When all seems lost in the ash, the phoenix emerges unscathed and new.

The lobster and the phoenix are images I hold onto now in times that our country is so divided that it is sometimes impossible to even hold civilized conversations. When it seems that our party loyalty trumps our personal values and beliefs and when we feel our voices, opinions, and autonomy are marginalized, I look for symbols of hope. Sometimes out of great destruction comes beauty, art, love, and the very best in humanity. May we collectively come out of this time of fear and vulnerability as a phoenix with its rebirth out of the ashes and a lobster with a new protective shell.

Thursday, October 22, 2020

Looking for the Best...and Finding It

In this politically divisive time, I’m looking for the things we as members of the human race have in common. Much as I am wary of Facebook, I also find it to be a really efficient way of keeping in touch with friends and family near and far and can’t seem to break myself of the habit. There are also little moments of humor and zen. One of the challenges is that the days of having taboo topics are well behind us and many of us feel emboldened to share our unfiltered (and sometimes abrasive) views on social media in a way we would not if we were face-to-face with another person. I am not generally one to “unfriend”or block people, though I understand the urge to do that and do sometimes find myself scrolling a bit faster to avoid something I find to be particularly distasteful. Over time, we get a sense (though not a complete picture) of our friends’ and acquaintances’ beliefs, values, and sense of humor. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that what we see is a thorough representation of what a person stands for. I know I do. That’s what makes it so wonderful when someone posts something that pleasantly interrupts our concept of who that person is or something that reminds us that we have more in common than we previously thought. I certainly don’t mean to say that we shouldn’t have some serious and sometimes difficult discussions about our beliefs or that we should stand by silently and passively condone things we know in our heart to be wrong; these are important discussions to be sure. I simply hope that when we have these difficult discussions we can all take a step back and ponder the thought that the sum of a human’s good and bad attributes can’t truly be reflected on such a platform, that we are complex beings, and that at the end of the day, we have more in common that what divides us.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Yesterday posed some real challenges to my ability to stay positive, and I’m thankful that I was still able to see the silver linings of some difficult situations. It was a comedy of errors kind of day starting with my car dying right after dropping the kiddo off (hey, at least it was after rather than before). The wonderful Downtown Guides (I didn’t realize to scope of their services was so broad) came and attempted for 30 minutes and with great creativity to jump-start my car. I could see the car place from where I was but alas wasn’t able to push my car solo across a major street (gah-you’ve failed me again, non-existent superhuman strength). However, while I was waiting for the tow truck, the lovely staff at the daycare I was stopped in front of came over and asked if I would like to sit in the shade of their building with a cold bottle of water while I waited. We chatted for a while and it was lovely. The tow truck was supposed to be there in 45 minutes but didn’t arrive for over 90. During this time, I was able to handle a good amount of work emails, watch a video of a friend’s that I’d found but not had time to look at over the weekend, plan for the now-altered day, and listen to a good chunk of a wonderful audiobook (Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (as Told to Me) Story a memoir about her amazing grandmother by Bess Kalb-writer on the Jimmy Kimmel show). Because of where my car stopped and where Paul works, I was able to walk to his parking garage and borrow his car for a good portion of the day with a solid plan to bring it back to him and for him and Asher to drop me off at work. Many things that needed to be rescheduled for the day were shifted with relatively little effort. The Brahms recording was scheduled and I arrived for that only to find the piano (which we had just played on a few days ago) in a completely unplayable state (see picture). It was baffling and stressful but just bizarre enough to make me dissolve into awkward and barely controlled laughter. I’ve never seen anything like it. Ultimately, we were able to figure out the problem with the keys (embarrassingly simple) and record. The car return went off without a hitch and I missed a call while I was teaching telling me that my car was ready for pickup (ultimately it really did just need a battery, so I’m thankful for that) and that they would be closing in ten minutes (I listened to the message a good 45 minutes later when my class ended). We worked as a well-oiled family team this morning to get out of the house early to drop me off to get my car and for Paul and Asher to get to school. I’m at home briefly now to caffeinate and walk the puppers (who looked deeply betrayed all day yesterday). The icing on the cake? I’ve been working to pay off student loans and all other debt and have drawn a completely cheesy thermometer-type thing to measure this and check in with it and color it in a couple of times a year. With the pandemic, I actually hadn’t updated it since December, so decided to check in with it this morning and found that we’ve paid off nearly 56K since May 2018. I’m very excited about that, too. So, all-in-all, I’m feeling pretty awesome right now. And tired. Definitely tired. I’m going to grab another cup of coffee. If you’ve read this far, thank you, and I hope you have a few moments to savor the little things this week

Friday, October 9, 2020

tl;dr crazy musician problems highlight the good in life for me

Yesterday, instead of listening to a podcast or audiobook on the treadmill, I decided to listen to several recordings of the Brahms Sonatensatz in preparation for an upcoming performance. Midway through the first recording, I had a moment of shock as I heard two different notes from the ones I’ve been playing. While still going full speed on the treadmill, I reached for my sheet music and nearly fell off. My first thought was “how have I been playing this with two wrong notes” and, after looking at the music, my second thought was “nope, those are the correct notes.” After listening to Mutter, Heifetz, Vengerov, and Chung, I found a couple of things interesting: first the Heifetz recording was one of my favorites (not the norm for me) and second that they were evenly split in terms of those two notes (two played what is printed in my music and two played the alternate notes). This has been driving me a little crazy for the past twelve hours. I’ve been looking at different editions and trying to find any articles or documents that address this discrepancy.

Here’s the weird thing I’ve found: it this extremely bizarre and often-discouraging time, this little musical crisis has actually brought me a lot of joy. If that is the biggest challenge I face this week, I’m doing pretty well and I’m very thankful for that. I will continue to fret over the note discrepancy (m. 137 if any violinists, pianists, or musicologists would like to weigh in), but I’ll do so with the knowledge that I am extremely fortunate. And, if you’d like to see and hear which two notes I decide on, there will be a virtual Patel Conservatory faculty recital coming up next month.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Hot Sauce

I love spicy foods. A lot. My mother used to tell a story of accidentally eating a spicy pepper when she was pregnant with me and citing that as the reason for my love of hot foods. Hot and Sour Soup was my go to food when I was sick. This love surpasses cuisines. I love spicy Mexican, Thai, Chinese, Indian, American, and Vietnamese food and, if I haven’t listed a cuisine known for its spicy food, it’s only because I haven’t yet tried it. I seek out hot sauces and the only requirement I have is that they also taste yummy. I’m not a fan of a food additive like Pure Cap that adds heat for heat’s sake. Short of that, I’m game. My uncle used to make homemade salsa with peppers from his garden and the hot variation was amazing-and required a very precise ratio of tortilla chips to salsa and didn’t allow for trivial things such as conversation. (I’m looking at you, Uncle Ken.) This same uncle also graciously sent me home with a lot of delicious habanero peppers last August, with which I made my first ever batch of hot sauce. It turned out more like a paste, but was delicious. Okay, groundwork laid for this evening’s story. Here we go...

Paul bought some pepper plants a couple of months ago: jalapeño, cayenne, Anaheim, and Ghost. We’ve planned to make a hot sauce at some point. Tonight was that night. I used the same basic recipe I used last August, but with different peppers. Cool. Paul sent me an article earlier today covering basic Ghost Pepper safety and cooking tips. I clearly ignored reading this article because, you know, I’m an expert. Now, before you get too carried away and do the story equivalent of yelling at the idiot in the horror movie not to leave the house, I am not a complete novice. I have several hot sauces with Ghost Peppers that are delicious (now, exactly what percentage is GP, eh...I’m not so sure about that). So, Asher (the five year old) has been hearing for days that we’re planning on making hot sauce and wanted to be included. After dinner, Paul asked if I’ve read the GP safety article he sent and I poo-poo him. I’m ready. I wash the peppers-22 cayennes and 2 GP (without gloves), split them down the middle, and push them from the cutting board into the saucepan (no, not with my bare hands-I’m not a complete heathen). To my credit, the only thing I let Asher do was pour in the vinegar. I then sent him on his way. Whew. Bullet dodged. I put the other ingredients in the pan, brought it to a boil, then back down to a simmer and walked gleefully away. A short time later, the kitchen was becoming aromatic and I asked Asher to relocate his playtime elsewhere-anywhere else. I don’t know if you have, have had, or know any five year olds, but you have to “ask” them to do things approximately 700 times, so he kept wandering back into the kitchen as it more and more closely resembled a tear gas testing station. I added more vinegar (don’t ask why-I don’t really know), then left the kitchen to get Asher ready for bath time. In the bath, Asher started sneezing. Paul then walked in and, using the EXACT same tone of voice we used to ask each other to be careful when letting the dog out when there was a serial killer in the neighborhood, asked again if I really read the GP safety article and that he wants me to be really careful to avoid chili burn. I then owned up to not having actually read the article and his jaw dropped as he asked me how much GP I put in because the article suggested starting with a sliver of one, then adding more to taste. (This same article said that, not only should I have worn gloves to handle the GP, but that mere kitchen gloves are NOT SUFFICIENT.) You may recall that I put TWO FULL GHOST PEPPERS in the sauce pan. At this point, I pivot from completely unconcerned to FULL FRONTAL FREAKOUT. I tell Asher that I can not, in fact, help him wash his hair because I can’t touch him at all for his own safety. I wash my hands for the seventeenth time, making sure to follow the COVID-19 washing instructions, getting every nook and cranny, and ask Paul in a pitiful voice if he wouldn’t mind scooping out the GP hulls so that at least we’re only dealing with the seeds (hilarious, since the seeds are the hottest part of a pepper, but I’m grasping at straws at this point). He does it because he’s awesome and asks if one of us should go out to buy gloves. I gulp and say that I’ll make this work. We get Asher to bed and I walk into the kitchen to face the music. I get the food processor down to blend the hot sauce of death I’ve made, carefully transfer the sauce with a rubber spatula that may never see the light of day again, and turn the food processor on. Nothing happens. I repeat: nothing. happens. I press the test and reset buttons on the outlet and try another one all together. No dice. The food processor is broken. My only takeaway is not that an appliance needs to be replaced, but that I’m going to have to defile another freaking appliance with my sauce of death. Note: never once did it occur to me that I should throw out the sauce and/or everything it had touched. Down comes the blender. I ever-so-carefully transfer the sauce and immediately wash everything I can with soap. Twice. I finally get the sauce blended and everything cleaned up. It’s the moment of truth. Now I’ve made up for the lack of research I started this project with in spades and I have lemon juice, milk, and oil (yes, you read that correctly) all at the ready as I prepare to try my concoction. I’m someone who typically puts a lot of hot sauce on things, but in this instance, I grab a tortilla chip and put the teeniest, tiniest dot of sauce on the chip. I take a breath and put the chip in my mouth, other hand on the cup of milk. You know what? It’s pretty damn yummy. Spicy as hell, but yummy. So, it’s been an emotional rollercoaster of an evening, but the three of us and the dog are all okay, (Asher’s sneezing fit ended, and I think it may have been unrelated to the kitchen antics,) the kitchen is the cleanest it’s been in a while, and I have a new favorite hot sauce. If you’ve read this far, bless you. Keepin’ it classy and spicy here in Florida

-Katy

Update #1: I am now posed with an interesting quandary. The ghost pepper plants have thrived. Gulp. What to do...

Update #2: After about two weeks, I braved the plants with rubber gloves. I waited long enough that some of the peppers were goners, but there were still well over 30. I have picked them, washed them, sliced them, and frozen them. Only time will tell if I'm brave enough to use them again.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Tl;dr: I’m loving life. Come see the Michael Buble show in Tampa or wherever you are and glance up at the string section if you think of it.

I’m not generally one to toot my own horn for reasons ranging from an odd superstition that the moment I do so whatever streak of good fortune I have been experiencing will disappear with a poof or, worse yet, reverse itself to a sense of insecurity that I have wildly overestimated myself and that others with greater expertise view my “success” differently than I do (i.e. that I am misguided in my interpretation of my work or talents as “successful”). That being said, I am having a truly wonderful week that started with a realization in the shower that I may have actually “made it” - whatever that means. I’m sort of giddy over this and feel a need to share.

I’m playing in the backup band for Michael Buble this week and, while I’ve played many similar gigs over the years, this one feels different somehow. I’ve never been a particularly social person yet I feel at home with the assembled group of musicians including 15 other string players, a phenomenal group of jazz musicians and, to a certain extent, the headliner himself, who has been very nice, down-to-earth, and has a respectable understanding of how to use profanity. The music is fun, we get a chance to dance some onstage (if you know me, this is not my normal comfort zone, but I’m having a blast), and the catering is phenomenal. (Btw, I’ve discovered through this experience that bacon-wrapped dates are like candy and that I badly want a Nespresso for Christmas or birthday this year.) This is the beginning of a very long tour for the traveling group, and I’m happy to be part of the group first putting the show together when everyone is fresh. In the midst of our first rehearsal, Michael (Mr, Buble? The artist?) said something about having “made it” that both surprised me and echoed my own shower revelation (though clearly on an entirely different scale). I am not playing beyond tomorrow night because of some other things that are contributing to my feelings of success and contentment. I’m in my first (and possibly only-we’ll see what pans out) semester teaching a class at USF and the Friday Buble rehearsal and show conflicted with my class. I’m not yet in a comfort zone to ask for a sub, and that’s completely fine. I earned my doctorate because I was interested in university teaching. The dissertation process and academic masturbation I witnessed as part of my proposal and defense process was disappointing and made me put off seeking university positions when I finished school. That was an easy call as I also fell into a job that was created for me that I love. However, I have taught at HCC for the past 6 or 7 years to keep some kind of college teaching on my resume “just in case.” Since university teaching is more impressive than community college teaching (on a resume at least), I was thrilled to be approached to teach the String Techniques class at USF.

I’m not playing the Saturday Buble show because I have a hot date to go see Hamilton. I’m excited about Hamilton for Hamilton’s sake, but also because my husband and I have been trying to spend some more time alone together and this is an evening I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time.

The child has been adorable and, while I still sometimes feel like I spend all my patience on my students and don’t have enough left over for him, I am working on this and it’s been a good week for fun time and remarkably rewarding conversations with my son.

I suppose my bottom line here-and the reason I felt prompted to write such a long post that I seriously doubt many of you have read all the way through (& if you did, thank you)-is that I have a tendency to be cynical and feel unsuccessful in my efforts to achieve work-life-love-personal fulfillment balance; this week I have it all and am incredibly grateful. Celebrate your successes, both large and small. <Drops mic>