A different sort of week

It has been a different week, which I guess many of them are.  Monday, Tuesday, and today I was back to my old nanny job, this time from 3:55-6:00 am.  It is a lot easier than before, since the boys are asleep until 5:30, and they get dropped off at school at 6:00.  So I’ve been doing a lot of work in my Bible study and on my presentation for the SAA conference in the wee hours.  I have the bulk of my presentation written, but it still needs a lot of organizing and editing and thought about what will be demonstration and what will be interactive.  

Baby sleep is a topic of interest the last week, and particularly when I had to leave the house at 3:35 am.  Saturday night before our concert Sunday, she was a champion sleeper, sleeping twelve-and-a-half hours straight with only one nursing in the middle.  So I figured Sunday night before my first baby-sitting gig that we might be in the clear.  Well, not so good.  Turns out that she woke up at 4:30, and was very upset that Mommy was gone and was not offering milk, despite my having fed her about 30 minutes before I left.  Jared spent some time trying to get her to go back to sleep, and finally he got both of them up at 5:00, parked her on the couch with books and a teddy bear and set up shop practicing in front of her.  This is how I found them when I arrived home at 6:15.  She was happy, and Jared was exhausted, and he was off to work about 6:40 and was busy straight through until 6:00 pm...  It worked out fine for Anne, because we had several more nap times for her during the day.  Tuesday morning we tried a different strategy which got repeated today.  At 3:30, I picked Anne up out of bed in the dark, strapped her into her carseat, covered her with a blanket and took her with me.  Jared got to sleep ‘til 6:00 yesterday, I think, since he had the luxury of not teaching until 9:30.  Today he was up at 5:15 which is his usual weekday get-up time right now.  Yesterday and today Anne slept in her carseat under the blanket until I got the boys up at 5:30 at which point she woke up and played with their cats until we went to school.  Then we came home and took a little nap until we had to go to Bible study.  No screaming a howling on her part, and Jared got a little rest.

Anne napping at my brother's house while we were gone to the concert on Sunday

So, back to Sunday...  our concert in Tacoma.  It was in the Great Hall of a 150-year-old girls boarding school on a beautiful campus with views of the Sound.  The Great Hall, like the rest of the place, is in an old English style with lots and lots of wood and a two-story ceiling.  The piano is situated in front of enormous windows, and they set out about 100 folding chairs on the enormous rug for the audience.  Lovely place to play, and the audience was enjoying themselves.  Nyaho played three or four solo piano pieces.  He played a piece with the violinist who is the artistic director of the series (delightful player, by the way!).  Jared and Nyaho played a set of songs with a wonderful soprano from Vancouver.  And we played our piano trio.  All of the music on the program was by African composers or composers of African descent.  And it was an amazing and wonderful variety.  

This is a crosswise view of the concert venue minus the folding chairs.

...Flashing forward to Tuesday.  Usually when I start a new job I feel sort of trapped - like I don’t really want to commit to it and be stuck.  For maybe about the first time in my adult life, I have not felt that way about teaching in Gig Harbor.  The first time I went down was completely non-committal on everyone’s part; it was strictly exploratory to see if the potential students and I were interested.  Now I look forward to going each week.  It’s so quiet and peaceful and beautiful and the students are committed, and Anne can play happily.  Yesterday I saw a trial student after I had an hour break.  It was a beautiful, sunny 70-degree day, so during the break Anne and I went walking on the beach so we could get a better view of the Olympics, Cascades, and Rainier.  Who could complain about that???  Going there I find myself in my happy place.  Jared went yesterday, too, and saw a trial student in addition to his two students who live there.  I hope this new student signs on so that he can start going there on Tuesdays with me.

This is a view of the Olympics from further out on the Penninsula, but it's not dissimilar from what you can see from the hill above the beach on Fox Island.

When we got back Anne and I spent some time on the playground with three girls - two preschoolers and one older girl.  We’ve played with one of the younger girls before, and I assumed she was Russian by how her grandmother was dressed.  But when I listened to these girls talking amongst themselves, I realized they were not speaking Russian.  The oldest girl is school-age and fluent in English, so I asked her what language they were speaking and it turns out it’s Turkish. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it spoken before. The two little girls kept bringing me pebbles to look at, so I asked the oldest girl how to say “thank you”.  It’s something like “dahkhol”, but I know I’m not saying it quite right because they kept correcting me.  Anne and the oldest girl got to be big buddies.  She was carrying Anne around and chasing a balloon with her and also helping her to walk.  Anne has so much fun on the playground!

Irregularities

Anne had some very loud sleeping irregularities (translation: on-and-off screaming) between say 3:00 and 5:00 this morning, which means that the rest of us didn't sleep well either.  Milk didn't help, although she kept asking.  Rocking chair helped.  Then we tried to get back in bed.  No go.  Fresh diaper and dry pajamas helped a little.  Then the rocking chair was awesome.  Back to sleep.  Then we tried to get back in bed.  Really no go.  Rocking chair again.  Bad news bears.  Then it occurred to Jared that the teething might be the problem.  Advil and teddy bear were administered.  So back in bed and she conked out and slept about six hours straight.  Everyone got some more sleep.

Needless to say we didn't make it to church.  We listened to a great Sabbath school program online and also a sermon.  This afternoon we went to my viola student's senior recital that she was playing with her three siblings.  It was a fun culmination, and I will miss working with her!

At that point we were three-quarters of the way to the hospital.  Not that we needed the hospital, but I had wanted to do a memory walk on Anne's birthday, which finally panned out today.  The day she was born, a Sunday, I had been in labor since Wednesday evening, and let me tell you it was getting ridiculously old.  So late Sunday afternoon we went into the hospital so I could at least get checked by the midwife.  She said I was a 2, and of course, you need to be a 10 to deliver the baby.  Four days of labor for a 2.  Very discouraging.  She said to go walk and come back in two hours.  So we went walking in the neighborhood by the hospital in the rain and got thoroughly soak, and when I returned, she said I was a 4 and could stay.  And the rest is history.  Anne arrived three hours later.  So anway, back to today, we parked in the hospital parking lot and went walking in that same neighborhood, and no wonder it got my labor going (not that I hadn't been walking hours a day already).  It's on the side of a steep hill, and going up and down was quite a chore.  I got some good exercise today, and Jared got some very good exercise, since he was pushing the stroller with the sleeping child in it.

Anne has been super-nursy the last week or so after an initial solid several hours of night sleeping.  I was thinking it was because she had been dragged around so much.  Very possibly true, but the teething is probably part of it.  Hoping to think of administering Advil under similar circumstances in the future (tonight?)...  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday mornings this coming week I am temporarily back to my old nanny job from 4:00-6:00 am.  When I had agreed to this, Anne was sleeping at least six hour chunks at night, and I was thinking it would be easy to leave while she and Jared slept, and then I'd get home before Jared had to go to work.  This past week she's slept maybe the first six-hour chunk and then gone into asking to nurse every hour after that.  And I know she's not hungry.  Before you start telling me she should be sleep trained, etc., let's just say we've had a pretty good system, and I don't mind how things go.  I wasn't counting on teething this week.  It's those pesky one-year molars, and she's cut two so far.  No fun.  College students whose wisdom teeth are coming in don't sleep through the night and they are up taking Advil at 3:00 am as well...

Here's a little picture of her climbing into her stroller herself today:

Gamal Abdel-Rahim

He was born in Egypt in 1924, and he passed away during a trip to West Germany in 1988.  In his mid-twenties he went to Germany to study music in the country of his heroes Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Goethe.  He studied musicology for two semesters and then decided that composition was his calling, so he became the grand-student of Hindemith, meaning he studied with Harald Genzmer.  Late, back in Egypt, he married a pianist who had just returned from studies in Britain, and he became a teacher of theory and harmony at Cairo University.  Later he founded the composition department.  Here's the man:

Jared and Nyaho and I are playing his piano trio this Sunday on a chamber concert in Tacoma, titled Songs of Africa.  Nyaho is a Ghanaian pianist whom I met many years ago.  I was in elementary school, and he was at UT working on his doctorate in piano.  And he sang in the church choir with my mom and grandmother.  He was somewhat legendary in the church for his piano playing.  As was I, although I was obviously playing at a much lower level!  Now after adventures on both of our parts, we find ourselves living literally fifteen minutes from each other in the Seattle area.  So we find ourselves playing together, and what fun!  Here's the man:

Learning this trio has been interesting.  The composer is brand new to two of us, and the piece is new to all three of us, so we don't have any history to fall back upon in interpretation.  However, it is clearly Western art music with lots of Arab flavor.  There are two movements, currently labeled I and II.  Actually they were meant to be the second and third movements, but he had not gotten very far with the first movement when he passed away.

The first movement is called Ekhnaton's Prayer.  Ekhnaton was the Pharoh known during the first part of his reign as Amenhotep IV, but his title was changed after he became a religious reformer.  Aten was the sun god in the Egyptian pantheon, and this Pharoh revered him so far above the other gods that he hardly even considered that there were other gods.  He was interested in making the kingdom somewhat more monotheistic or henotheistic.  The movement is slow and meditative, creating a monumental sound and using some traditional Arab turns and intervals.  It is richly coloristic and also somewhat contrapuntal in sections.

The second movement is called Phoenician Dance.  It has great rhythm which makes you want to start tapping your toes, and it mostly centers around additive rhythm rather than our Western pulse.  Quick primer:  Pulse is the beat and in Western music we use a larger pulse and break it down into symmetrical subdivisions.  With additive rhythm styles, the pulse is a tiny, fast iteration which is added together in various groupings, which are not symmetrical, so you get lopsided beats.  This movement has a lot of great percussion created by the cellist slapping and knocking on the wood of the instrument as well as percussive elements from the violin and piano.

Abdel-Rahim was not a performer of any instrument at a high level, which means that some of the things he has written for our instruments turn out not to be practical in performance.  So we've been doing a little bit of exploration, trying to figure out how to retain his idea and spirit but using techniques which would make sense on stage.  For one example, I have a fast 16th-note passage marked col legno, which means that rather than bowing with the hairs, you tap out the notes with the stick.  There is a limit to how fast you can do this, it is very quiet and percussive, it somewhat obscures the pitch, and it is hard on your bow.  We wanted to retain the percussive aspect and honor the pitch at a certain level, but we needed to find a way for it to be quick enough and loud enough.  So instead of col legno I am doing a multi-string strumming pizzicato which is percussive, noisy, and somewhat pitch-y.  Also, there are some passages which involve double stops (playing on two or more strings at once) whose execution is way harder than what the line calls for, so Jared and I have made some small changes, leaving out the lower note of some octaves or eliminating a note from a cluster chord to make the passage playable and easy-sounding, as it is meant to be.  All of this is not a bad reflection on Abdel-Rahim.  When one plays the string quartets of Schumann, one has to do some of the same sort of rewriting to get the effect Schumann was looking for without following all of his recommendations literally.

We're looking into playing some more African trios in the future, and maybe we'll eventually record this one - no one has, yet.

Beautiful heart

Three little pieces of hope lately that my child can develop a beautiful heart after God's:

• She likes to help me unload the dishwasher by handing me the things she can get out on her own.
• She likes to hug stuffed animals and wave at little children.
• She has been able to obey me on several occasions when I said, "Hands off,"  and "No parking lot."

I feel the weight of responsibility of being a parent today.

Put on your thinking cap

As promised, the photos of Anne wearing the research cap from her language experiment at UW:

Agape Feast

Friday evening was our church's Good Friday service; Anne and I went because I had agreed to play a special number.  It was billed as an Agape Feast with communion.  Anyway, I've heard this term in reference to something from one of the old-school Anabaptist churches in the Midwest.  Here's Wikipedia's take.  Anyway, it turned out to be lovely - a wonderful mixture of reverent and informal.  People came as they were - many straight from work in jeans, suits, shop uniforms, etc.

We met in the fellowship hall; they had set up the tables in the shape of a large cross, and they were covered with purple and white tablecloths and purple flowers.  After an opening prayer, soups, breads, and fruits were served.  After the meal, the pastor spoke briefly about the meaning of Good Friday and communion and particularly the wine.  Then they had a big bucket in the corner and the children were invited to tape plastic bags over their feet and stomp on the grapes therein to make juice.   It was quite interesting and uproarious.  When that was over, we did some extemporaneous singing of various hymns that a quorum knew by heart.  After the singing we separated for the foot washing.  In our church, foot washing is part of every communion service, and it is really beautiful.  They set up a room for men, a room for women, and a room for families.  Anne and I went to the women's room, where we took turns washing each others' feet by candle light and prayed and sang.  As everyone was returning to the tables in the fellowship hall, we sang more hymns, and then I played my number (with Anne in the pack on my back, wearing her muddy playground jeans).  I played my favorite Good Friday hymn which is O Sacred Head Now Wounded.  After that, the bread was passed around for part one of communion, which involved a Biblical passage and a prayer.  And then the juice was passed around.  They had non-stomped juice for the less brave, but I went for the stomped, myself.  And part two of communion was another Biblical passage and a prayer.  Then we all sang a hymn and went out.  It wasn't dark yet, so lots of the kids were out on the lawn playing.

This is the sort of thing which could be socially awkward for an introvert such as myself, but I have to say that with a baby in tow, you don't have to worry about it.  You spend most of your time keeping track of and caring for the child, and everyone else wants to inquire about the baby and tell you the stories of their own children from long ago.

Other holiday activities this weekend:  Jared played a Good Friday service at another church, and he's there right now playing an Easter service.  He's got two more there tomorrow morning.  This afternoon Anne and I attempted to dye our own Easter eggs - it was experimental and we'll know tomorrow morning how it turned out.  Also we listened to some of St. John's Passion on Friday, and I am currently listening to a live broadcast of St. Matthew's Passion from Andrews University in Michigan.  Also I am currently trying an experiment of making an unleavened millet bread.  Tomorrow morning Anne and I are attending the grand opening of a church which meets at an elementary school in Renton.  One of the church planters is a woman from my Bible study group, and we wanted to go to support her.  In the later afternoon Anne will be going with her aunt and uncle to Easter dinner at our cousin's house while Jared and I play excerpts from Parts II and III of the Messiah at another church.

Easter and the attached holidays have always been some of my favorites.

...This is neither here nor there, but I was thinking about it the other day and there are two sorts of church services I feel naturally attracted two.  One is the high church Anglican, which is quiet, reverent, routine, and has beautiful music.  The other is house church.  I have to admit I've never been, but I like the idea of meeting in a living room with a small group of people to sing, pray, and read the Bible, and I imagine our Friday night service might be rather similar to what might happen in a house church.

Spring Break

Ha.  Sort of.

This is the Seattle public schools break this week, so we had designated this our spring break week from teaching before the school year started.  So Jared is free from public school and from private teaching.  And I didn't go down to Gig Harbor on Tuesday, and there was no group class tonight.

Makes for a nice quiet week, right?

Sort of not.  Jared will be having a total of four out-of-home rehearsals in three separate locations for three separate gigs, as well as playing for five church services in two locations.  He's also trying to watch 30 hours of cello lessons on video and take notes on them as an assignment for two classes he's taking in June.  And practice.  And catch up on a ton of other things.  Like read a book that he has to write a report about.

I'll have two out-of-home rehearsals and play for two church services.  I'm actually teaching all of my students this week except the Gig Harbor ones as a make-up for when I'm gone to the Suzuki Conference in May.  Also took Anne to get her lab work redone, because they didn't get a good sample last time.  Argh.  And we had her experiment at UW on Monday.  And I'm trying to work on writing my presentation.

Friday Jared is playing for a Good Friday service in Federal Way, and I'm playing for our own church's Good Friday.  Sunday we're both playing the same afternoon rehearsal and evening service, so Anne is going over to her aunt and uncle's house, and then they're all going to my dad's cousin's house for dinner.  I'm already trying to think of everything I need to pack for her for those four hours (pretty much the kitchen sink...) and the instructions for the relatives.  Not that they haven't babysat her a ton of times, but the instructions change weekly.

I got eggs and the herbal teas for dyeing them today at Target.  So I think that project will likely happen on Saturday, and likely while Jared is in Federal Way playing a pre-Easter service...

I got an email from a dad of a potential student who said, "This week is kind of insane if insanity can be measured in small doses."  I said I know that insanity can be measured in small doses.  I have a one-year-old.  And a life.

Dah Tah

I've been reading the memoir of my parents' across-the-street neighbor, Bob Mayfield.  I've been struck by two things: how many crazy things he did in his twenties (much crazier than me!) and how extroverted he is.  I learned some interesting things about the Sikhs and the Punjab region yesterday and today in his book, which is of interest because of how many Punjabi Sikhs live in our neighborhood.  Punjab is a compound word:  "pancha" meaning "five" and "aab" meaning "water" - it is a regions with five major rivers coming down out of the Himalayas....

Yesterday I took Anne up to UW for her latest participation in scientific research.  We met the head researcher named Naya (spelling?), two other researchers named Pat and Sahar, and the older guy who did the tech stuff, named Miles.

First Anne sat in a high chair while Miles put on the little cap and taped a bunch of sensors on cords to it.  He then used an electronic pen to trace different lines and circles on the cap to electronically document her head shape and location of the sensors so that when she wiggled in the "machine", they'd be able to track the location of things by digitizing it.  The pen beeped every time it made a reading, and Anne beeped right back.

After the headgear was all properly installed, Anne and I and Pat and Sahar went into The Room, which is where the MEG machine was.  You can see a picture of the actual machine here.  They refer to it as the hairdryer from outer space.  The room is surrounded by metal but there is no metal inside except for the electronics of the machine.  We had to be careful not to take any metal in.  No snaps, no zippers, no jewelry, no safety pins, no hair ties with metal, etc.  I did think carefully about how we would dress!  So Anne sat in this thing, and there was a screen with pictures of babies and animals which changed now and then for entertainment.  Also Pat and Sahar and I took turns amusing her with various cloth and plastic toys.  Once the experiment started, we heard this over the loudspeaker:

"Dah......Dah.....Dah.....Dah.....Dah.....Dah......Tah......Dah......Dah.....Dah.....Tah.....Dah...."

... for eighteen minutes.  We were not supposed to talk, because the MEG machine was trying to record Anne's brain's electrical activity in response to those two consonant sounds.  She, however, talked a few times when she saw kittens and puppies on the screen.  She said "That" and meowed and barked at them.  She got a little unhappy during the experiment - I think she was hot in her sweater, and she didn't like the velcro strap that kept getting stuck to her sleeve, and she really wanted to touch the on-screen animals, but she made it through the whole experiment which is not something a lot of their subjects do.

They took a picture of Anne in her cap after it was all over, and I'll be happy to share it when they send it to me.  I also agreed to participate in another study which will not involve leaving home.  Over the course of a couple of years, they will send me questionnaires to fill out about her language development, so that sounds pretty fun.  I kinda like quizzes of that sort.

Anne and I went outside and played in the grass outside of the Intelligence Learning And Brain Science building for a bit before we had to drive back home.

The latest obsession around here is repeatedly opening and closing the sliding glass door and screen door.  The glass door can be locked, but the screen can't, so I have to provide some close supervision.  Have to keep the kid and the cats all in.  I asked the management to put a latch on the screen, so we'll see if and when they get around to it.  I told them that Anne can open the door and go out unattended, so I'm hoping they'll see the wisdom in avoiding lawsuits from me.   Ha.

Yesterday evening Anne spent another long time out on the playground* right next to our building, and we visited with quite a lot of children.  At one point three little girls, maybe around first grade age, came and asked me if I lived in the house with three cats and could they come inside and pet them.  I said they could, so Anne and I and three little girls all traipsed inside to visit kitties.  Black Bean would have nothing to do with them, of course, but the two girl kitties at least showed themselves and a small amount of interest in their favorite toys.  Then the girls discovered the piano, and I wish for the life of me I could have gotten a picture from behind.  All three of them plus Anne were standing at the keyboard banging away, and it was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.  Maybe they'll come again to visit and I can get my picture.

*By playground I mean a large square area filled with gravel and a red climbing frame.  No swings.  No slides.  Nothing for toddlers.  But the big kids can go on the monkey bars and do flips and such.

Anyway, she's asleep right now, so I'm going to try to get a little practicing done.  Not easy to fit it in these days.

Friends, friends, friends

HJ????CXBu/

Annie typed that for your enjoyment.

One of the things I've enjoyed most about being a parent so far is watching Anne make friends with other kids.  Her two favorites, far and away, are a 7-year-old violinist boy "A" who comes on Wednesday and a 10-year-old cellist boy "J" who comes on Friday.  "A" likes to play with her toys and pretend he's a cat.  And he also sometimes has math homework to do, which she is happy to help him write on with a pencil.  "J" brings fun things with him, like a flashlight on his belt and friendship bracelets made out of rubber bands.  He likes to set things on her head and pretend he can't find them.  She thinks this is uproarious.

On Thursday nights I teach a lesson right after group class, and there is a play area in the group class room, which she avails herself of.  This week she was playing with the almost? four-year-old grandson of our co-teacher over there during my lesson.  Other weeks she's been over there playing with other kids.

Yesterday afternoon while we were hanging around at Group Class House well before class started, our co-teacher's granddaughter "Z" arrived, who is exactly two months older than Anne.  "Z" was just sitting on the floor looking serious, and Anne went right over to her with a great look of delight on her face.  New friend!  she was thinking.  She proceeded to talk to Z and pet her arm gently and tried to boop her on the nose as well as wave "hi" at her repeatedly.   "Z" wasn't sure she wanted a new friend, but Anne was persistent.  Eventually they wound up climbing the stairs together.  "Z" walks and can go up and down, and Anne would get to the top and be stuck...

She's always wanting to go out when she sees the neighborhood kids out playing in the yard, and she likes to watch them when I take her out to the playground.  Any time she sees pictures of babies or kids (or the real thing, of course), she is rather excited and has a lot to say.

Lucky girl, she's going to have a childhood of playdates when siblings are hanging out during lesson time.  Of course, her baby sitter and her sister come for lessons on Monday, and that's also great fun.  She'll sit in their laps and attempt to help them take notes.

Double feature

I'm slated to have a skype call with my sister as soon as the baby gets up.  She's sleeping later today than she has all week.  Which reminded me I promised a picture of the year-late wedding present I made for my sister, and since it arrived to her house on Monday, I can show the picture around:

I'm not on Pinterest, but that's where I got the idea.  Leave it to me to decide to make something for which I have no prior experience and no tools.  The borrowed sewing machine and the sewing machine tutorial, along with some trips to Joanne's fabrics plus sleeping baby and a dose of courage turned out a homemade result.  The end.

Music appreciation 101

As alluded to in the previous post, Jared and I attended a concert of the Oregon Symphony on Saturday night, curtousy of his parents, who are season ticket holders.  They decided not to attend, but to send us in their place so that they could stay home and play with their granddaughter.

The first piece on the program was Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten by Arvo Part.  Even if you're not a classical music fan, you'd probably love this one.  You can watch it on YouTube.  I heard a most memorable performance of it played by Kremerata Baltica in the Eastman Theater many years ago.

Second piece was the Second Cello Concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich, which I've never heard live  - only on recordings.  Very introspective.  The soloist was Alban Gerhart.

After the intermission we were treated to Dvorak Symphony No. 5, which I've never heard of before in my life.  It was enjoyable, and the introduction section of the third movement was about the longest dominant I've heard, and to be particularly nerdy about it, it was not clear for a long time if it was a dominant or if it was a German 6th, leading to another tertian-relation-key movement like the second.  Left me in suspenders!

But here's what I actually wanted to write about.  At intermission, Jared left to call his parents and make sure we didn't need to rush home on account of anything going on with Anne, and I hung around the seats.  At this time, the chatter amongst my seat mates made it clear that there was a large group of them who is taking some sort of an 8 am music appreciation course, and they were at this concert as a field trip which was going to generate some sort of assignment or project for the class afterward.  I don't believe any of these young people had ever been to a professional concert before, so this was their first taste.

It was hard for me to put myself in their shoes, since my entire life from birth has been a course in music appreciation, and my first attendance at a professional classical concert is lost in the recesses of my memory somewhere in the toddler years.  But try, I did.

If I were twenty years old and was taking a quarter on art music to fulfill some credit and I'd been shipped off to this concert, what would I need to do to appreciate the experience?

Before I answer that question, I'll mention some questions and ideas I heard the students discussing amongst themselves.

"How much do you think those people get paid?"
"I don't know, probably a pretty good salary, but not too much."
"Do you think any of them are nervous?"
"I think they trade instruments around."
"I kept zoning out and looking at the audience."
"This theater is amazing."
"It's way better than listening to him blast this stuff at 8 am."
"I tried to watch the second Hobbit movie last night, but I had to leave.  The first one was action-packed, but it just got too boring."
"What's your presentation going to be on?"

My thoughts on what it takes to enjoy a concert.  Not researched, just pondered one evening.

1. It is helpful, but not essential to know something about the music.  I'm sure they got some good pointers in their class.  There are also program notes to help, and at this concert, the conductor spoke to the audience about the three pieces and what he loves about them before the orchestra performed them.  I always like when the performers speak about the music just before they play, because I learn more about the music and feel a personal connection to the musician.  Makes it much more enjoyable.

2. The ability to concentrate for a long time.  That's generally a skill which is not encouraged by our fast-paced culture.  Focussing for thirty minutes at a time with a slow-moving visual is the opposite of Hollywood.  The fellow who couldn't focus on the Hobbit was probably having a hard time with this one, too.

3. An enjoyment of sensory input and/or imagination in conjunction with letting go of your ego/need to be entertained.  There are a ton of different ways to take in a concert.  You can watch the musicians.  You can track whichever instruments seem to be playing the most interesting part at any moment.  You can create a movie in your heard for which the music is a sound track.  You can close your eyes and see what sort of feelings the music creates.  Etc., etc., etc.  They sky's the limit on ways to take it all in.

Anyway, I heard the concert differently than I have before, and maybe because I am so far removed from a performing career right now as compared to my usual self.  (It has been two years since my last paid playing gig! although I've got two later this month.)  I was rather unfocussed on the technique of the string players, and rather more focussed this time on how the composers used different blends of instruments to create different landscapes, impressions, and feelings.  Particularly in the concerto, I paid relatively little attention to the soloist and rather more attention to the interesting combinations of instruments.  Let me tell you, Shostakovich did some pretty interesting things with THREE bassoons at once.  There were three people I would have been nervous to have been on that stage moreso than being the soloist - the first horn player who had a lot of very exposed and difficult solos along with the cellist, the guy who had to shake the tambourine at a very steady and low level for the entire cello cadenza to create an entirely unobtrusive backdrop, and the fellow playing the snare at the very end of the piece.  His part had several different techniques running in a sequence which had to be entirely steady and repetitive - any little misstep would stand out like a sore thumb.

So there you have it.

Birthday and other news items

You're gonna like this post, because it's got lots of pictures, if I may presume to know your tastes.

Friday we made it to Portland in time to get Jared's bow repaired before the shop closed.  It was a small and easy repair, but the bow was unusable until it happened.

Highlights of Saturday included carrot cake cupcakes in honor of someone's upcoming birthday...

...and Jared's and my attendance at an Oregon Symphony concert.  I would like to write a separate post about that soon, but in the meantime, I'll mention that this involved more to do with Jared's new cello.  Before the concert, we met KF at the backstage door, as he is a member of the Symphony and dropped off Jared's cello with him.  KF got permission to play Jared's cello in the concert.  So we enjoyed peering down at it from the top of the balcony.  We went back after the concert and met KF again, and Jared ran into another old buddy from school who is a member of the cello section.  And we had the opportunity to congratulate the cello soloist in person.

Playing with Grandma in the kitchen

Looking at the flowers with Grampa

Highlights of Sunday included visiting with Jared's brother and his wife.  Auntie Marie had picked up a fun new book for Anne at a library sale, and we know it's a good book, because it has a picture of a violin in it.  It was read to her, and also she got licked in the face by the dog and followed the cats around in a vain attempt to touch them.  Also, she played fetch with the pet's balls, and even convinced her Uncle Matthew, who is not much of a baby person, to play with her.  She kept peering at him pointedly until he participated in the game.

Monday.  Well, Monday was a day.  Jared taught in West Seattle in the morning/early afternoon, taught at home in the later afternoon/early evening, and then had a rehearsal in Federal Way arriving home at approximately bed time.  And Monday was someone's first birthday!  She had a doctor's appointment in the morning in which it was determined that in the last year she has gained about thirteen pounds and grown about eleven inches.  I challenge any teenager to do that.  Before and after that there was a trip to the grocery store, the cleaning of the apartment, the unpacking of our trip bags, the baking of a cake and a tray of cupcakes, the crafting of a decoration for the top of the cake, the wrapping of presents, and the cooking of dinner.  And then I taught from 2:00-4:00.  There were cupcakes distributed to all of the students and their family members who came through the apartment on Monday.  After that I practiced for a few minutes, and then Anne and I drove across town to a doughnut shop parking lot by the I-5 exit to meet a lady from one of the north suburbs who was dropping off Jared's cello.

The birthday girl wears a new birthday dress

(Cello maker CD was in Portland Sunday night and into Monday, and he was working on some of his cellos at the home of KF.  He cut a new sound post for Jared's instrument and did a couple of other tweaks.)

Anyway, when we got home from that Jeffrey and Linda were here, and then we got my parents on Skype and had a birthday party - dinner, cake, presents.

The table is ready for a party

Cake time.  You can see the hands of the auntie and uncle and the grandparents on Skype

Closeup of the cake

Uncle Jeff is singing Happy Birthday while one tiny, lone candle burns on the corner of the cake

..."and many more"...

Opening presents on Skype and playing with the cats' brush

Tuesday (yesterday) was also pretty busy - Anne had to get some lab work done, taught lessons at home, taught lessons in Gig Harbor, and then another Skype appointment so that my grandmother could be on.  Errands to Target, practicing, laundry... You get the picture.

Mountains and Old-School

I'm going a million miles an hour this morning (or at least I should be.)  Practicing, packing, cleaning, laundry, dishes, teaching, then *bam* in the car and on the road.  But there are two things I want to pause here to say.

One.  I had a dream last night in which I was discussing the possibility of moving back to Rochester with the father of one of my students there.  I love the students I worked with, and I met so many wonderful people.  But here's the thing.  I live near the mountains now.  I miss the snow of Rochester, but I can never go back.  How can one drink in all this beauty and leave it behind???

Two.  You will think I'm crazy.  We've instituted a somewhat flexible rule of lights out at 9:00 pm.  But that means candles on.  And window shades open, because the outdoor security lighting is quite bright.  Bedtime is theoretically around ten.  But my little night owl DOES NOT WANT TO GO DOWN.  I take full genetic credit for this.  I am and always have been a night owl.  Jared is an early bird.  If my child were an early bird, I'd let him take full genetic credit for that.  But here's my story.  I have no trouble going to sleep on a camping trip and getting up quite early.  And when we had our power out for a week, I was easily able to go to bed at 8:00 pm.  In both situations it was quite dark quite early, and I didn't have a choice about the dark.  So I've developed a little theory.  I think that being a night owl means that a person is very susceptible to light at night, and being an early bird means that a person is very susceptible to light in the morning.  Anyway, in our small sampling of two (Jared and me) our experience bears this out.  So in an effort to set up better sleep conditions for Miss 11:00 pm Dance Party (who is exhausted, mind you!), we are dialing back the clock a century, and/or zipping across the continent to a place without electricity.  It seems to be helping a lot.  And I'm not sad that our current candle of choice is mint-chocolate-chip scented.

Reading Material

...of the electronic kind...

If you're not on FB, you will have possibly missed on some of these reading items, so I'd like to share a few articles I've enjoyed recently.

This is an interview with Dr. Henry Cloud about his book on dating.  I haven't read the book, since it is not a topic of great concern to me these days.  However, I have thoroughly enjoyed three other books he has coauthored with Dr. John Townsend: Boundaries, Boundaries with Kids, and How People Grow.  Both individuals are practicing psychologists and practicing Christians, and their work bears out their commitments to both fields.  Anyway, I share this, because I appreciate his perspective in the interview, and maybe some of my single friends would like to read his book or maybe have already.

This article is super-science-y, not for the faint of heart.  But even if you don't understand all of it you can get the gist of it.  It's an analysis/review of a recently-published meta-anaylsis of cohort studies about the relationship between dietary saturated fat and coronary heart disease in North America.  It's of interest, because a lot of superficial science which has been in the media lately is suggesting that saturated fat might be good for us, help us lose weight, etc., but this takes a hard look at the data and shows some important facts about preventing heart disease.

This piece, first published in the Washington Post is about the problems in public education in America at this time, and it's sort of a *duh* in that it points out that the main problem is student poverty.  Probably 95% of all public school teachers would have said that, but it explains the problems well and talks about how our current legislation *made by law-people, not teachers* is not helping matters.

This article is from the NY Times, and it's called "How to Think about the Risk of Autism."  I was interested in it, since autistic spectrum disorders seem to run in my family.  The big point of the article, I think, was to compare what we know about different autism risks from a research/scientific perspective with what the media has reported about these various risks.  For example, in 2013-2014 newspaper articles, 256 articles mentioned that genetics are a risk factor.  And in fact, it turns out that the genetic risk factor runs between 2100% and 8300%!  That is huge!   Zero articles mentioned damage to the cerebelum at birth, yet that is a 3800% risk factor, also HUGE.  Lots of other good info, too, but here's the clincher:  406 articles mentioned the risk of vaccines.  406 articles, people, that's a lot.  But there is NO statistically significant risk factor associated with vaccines known at this time.  None.

This is an amazing personal piece written by a Christian man about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child, and how that, along with confusion about his own sexuality has shaped his life, and how he is learning lessons from the mess, and how he sees his identity in Christ, and does not want to be pigeonholed.  It's really beautiful and heartening.

Finally, I wanted to share a paragraph from another something I read, and sorry I don't want to post the whole thing.  Not that I don't want to give the source credit - I'll give the author's name - but I don't want to offend 95% of my readership unnecessarily by the other content of the piece.  The writer is Candace Watters.  It's making me think, because if I don't take this attitude, then maybe I'm believing the wrong gospel:

The Gospel changes your motivation for missions. You stop wanting people to be more like you, and you start wanting them to be like Christ. The Gospel makes you humble. 

Baby errands, baby cognition, baby playground

What is the most efficient method of going to the post office, or running any other errands?  There isn't a good way.  Today Anne and I went to the post office to mail a box on our way to trio rehearsal.  It was only a block off our route, so from that perspective it was efficient.  But getting the car loaded wasn't efficient - baby, car seat, baby in car seat, backpack of toys, diaper bag, violin, music stand, directions, music, box to send, wallet, fold-down exersaucer, sling.  Get to post office, and I shouldn't leave baby in car for safety reasons.  I shouldn't leave violin in car for insurance reasons.  Have to make choices.  I choose to unstrap baby, stick her in sling, and take in baby and box.  And then restrap baby afterward.  There's a reason I pretty much prefer to do most of my errands on foot with the baby in the stroller.  And thankfully I can - Target, Rite Aid, Joann's Fabrics, Staples, Post Office, and many, many more are all within a short walk.  After teaching, she and I ran some more errands on foot with the stroller.  It wasn't raining, so it was much more pleasant than in the car.

I signed her up to participate in a cognitive study at UW next week.  This is the sort where they put a little cap on with little electrodes or something of the sort (not up on my EE terms) and put her in a high chair under a detector that looks like those old fashioned hair dryers.  They said that 50% of their subjects end up deciding not to participate.  I don't know which 50% we'll be in when we get there, but we're practicing putting on a little cap and putting stickers on the face for the next few days so maybe it will seem fun and not weird and we'll be able to help out the progress of science.

She's been looking longingly out the windows the last few days at the kids playing outside, so this evening I took her out and set her on the gravel playscape.  She was beside herself with delight and crawled all over the place in the middle of kids playing ball and climbing on the red thing and picked up gravel and grinned and grinned and grinned.  I'm feeling a lot of hanging outside with the other moms coming on for the summer.  My Spanish was good enough to meet a three-year-old today.  I will need a lot more to be friends with the other moms on the playground.

A Gig in Gig Harbor

...Actually, it's technically on Fox Island, which is a bridge away from Gig Harbor.  Today was my first paid day of teaching there.  Started with two students - a book 3 and a book 4.  Two more are coming my way in May.  Looking for a few more.  Anyway, here's why I don't mind the drive:

What you're seeing here is views out the windows of the room I am teaching in.  I can see this view AND teach the student simultaneously.  Apparently when it's less cloudy, one can also see the peaks of the Olympic Mountains out these same windows.  Rather grateful to the family who lives here for inviting me to teach in their space.  Mind you, they're getting a referral discount on their cello lessons, and if cello students can be found in the future, they'll also be getting in-house cello lessons rather than having to drive to Kent.  We're all happy.