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The Monday Morning Epistle |
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14 Jan 2008 |
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Mary & I are such a vibrant, exciting couple! After making birthday plans that included a movie and dinner out, we spent the evening flopped comfortably on the couch in front of the NFL playoffs instead. As always, we split the pampering duties: I enjoyed a big steak & eggs breakfast upon returning home from church, and later in the day Garion helped me bake a chocolate birthday cake for Mommy…with chocolate frosting, chocolate ice cream and chocolate sauce. Monkey-Boy insisted on cracking the eggs by himself, which became a battle of wills between 5 year old enthusiasm and 46 year old restraint. Luckily, both cats and the dog helped clean the collateral damage off the kitchen counters and floor, and so far nobody has complained about ‘crunchy’ cake. Garion's reward for helping with the cake was the opportunity to finish off the frosting container, and he spent nearly 10 minutes diligently ferreting out each tiny morsel of gooey chocolate. By the time he was scraping bare cardboard for the second or third time, his face was completely smeared with chocolate, and he had traces of frosting in his hair and both ears! (I let Mommy clean him up…) This was also the weekend to pack away the Christmas tree and décor, during which I made an interesting discovery about outdoor Christmas lights: what takes hours to put up…comes down in minutes! I had successfully managed to avoid outdoor lights for nearly two decades, but finally ran out of excuses last December; consequently I spent several hours perched precariously on top of a ladder trying to clip lights to the gutters over the garage. We also put multi-colored lights on the medium-sized pine tree in our front yard, which is how I learned that pine trees are rarely as neatly symmetrical as they appear in pictures. Either way, I now appreciate all of the jokes and urban myths about men and outdoor Christmas lights, and I'm overjoyed that it will be 11 months or so before I have to worry about them again. Last Tuesday was my first piano lesson in over 35 years, as I belatedly continue what my parents unsuccessfully started when I was in grade school. After several months of haphazardly searching for a piano teacher, I finally connected with Owen, who recently retired after 20+ years in the Air Force band. He and his wife are active members of our parish, and I suspect that I'm one of his only adult students, as my first ‘free half-hour introductory lesson’ lasted over an hour. Since I could already read music, we spent most of the hour eagerly exploring basic music theory; it must be a geek thing, because I find the mathematical relationships between various keys and chords absolutely fascinating. I was initially worried about not being able to find time to practice regularly, but Mary came up with an ideal solution: the 15 minutes or so in the morning while she finishes up her makeup and Garion is still getting dressed. So now the entire family is tortured every morning as I practice chord inversions and happily stumble my way through simple pieces of music. I can only imagine that somewhere in heaven, my mother and grandmother—both of whom were graced with musical talent—are looking down on me and thinking “It bloody well took him long enough…” KidBit: Garion was sitting at the breakfast table next to Jacob, who was reading book of comic strips. Jacob kept reading bits of the dialog out loud and after the second or third time Mom asked Jacob to read quietly to himself, Garion chimed in with “Yeah…put your headphones on!” 
PotW: A ‘cuddle-puddle’: Heather & Zoë nestled in the top of their kitty-condo.
2008.01.21-21:35 |