Chop City - Part I

No, not the chinese food... my horn chops. I've been putting this post off until I had enough time to reflect on the process of auditioning. Two in one month. The second was today. I'm exhausted. My chops, though, are on fire. Both auditions were personal bests for me.

After the first round of my first audition, I thought that I had become someone else. I think I played one note poorly. That's never happened to me before. I'm strong on musicality, weak on technical prowess. I nick notes all the time... The second round was rough, though, more like what I might have expected from myself. I didn't win the audition. I think I got second or third. The standings are still unclear. But I was extremely happy with experiencing what it's like to do well at an audition. It definitely helped boost my confidence for future auditions.

The second audition was a long shot for me going into it. I was underprepared. Two weeks of work on that amount of music (three excerpts I had never even heard before!) was not enough time for me to really dig through all the layers and gain enough confidence in my preparation. One excerpt, in particular, was really giving me grief. It was the last one that we had to play in round one, and I didn't pull it off. On a different excerpt, I played one note weakly when I ran out of breath towards the end of it. And I nicked a couple of notes on other stuff, but not memorable enough (to me). But in spite of that, I was extremely pleased with my ability to focus on playing well and use the incredible, nervous, audition energy productively. My chops felt really solid.

Nevertheless, I didn't advance to the second round. Looking back, I wasn't really out of my league. I might not have won the audition with more preparation, but I might have advanced to finals, and perhaps gotten close. The guy who won is terrific. I'm very happy he won.

Auditioning stinks, but there are some really good things that come of it. More on that in Part II.

Early Mid-Life Crisis

For some, mid-life crisis happens around 40. A red corvette might be involved. Maybe a jump from a perfectly able aircraft. Perhaps a marathon (or a triathalon) is required. But it's a right of passage. We all make it, if we're lucky enough to exist that long. Mine might be occurring early?
Maybe I did this because I wanted to draw attention away from the gray.
Maybe I was tired of being taken too seriously.
Maybe I felt compassion for those judged too harshly.
Maybe I needed to be my red-obsessed son's hero.
I'll admit, I've gone too far.
We'll be taking corrective measures soon.

Calm

Do you need a break?Do you need to work on your blog?Do you need a shower?

Even the best mothers know there is bliss to be found in a bag of popcorn and "Jay Jay"

Harlan was inspired...

Harlan read my poem last night which probably inspired his email today:

Someone had written the Cendant Internet Engineering group, asking what the zip code was there. Someone else (Mark, mentioned momentarily) said 02142, and I corrected them by memory to 02141. Mark insisted it was 02142, when Tanya wrote:

> [...] according to USPS it was 02141.

And then I wrote to the group my haiku:

Boo-YAH... take THAT, Mark!
Oh two one four two indeed
Utterly whack, yo

It may be that it's the first haiku to use "boo-yah", "whack", and "yo". :-)

--Harlan

Summer 2007

Sliding down
Splashing contests
Spraying plants
Soaking brothers

Warm fun with summer sun
Green, green grass to cut and smell

Playing tag
Pushing trucks
Plucking weeds
Picking berries

Shiny smiles and sticky fingers
Small, bare feet to wiggle and run

Bearing fruit
Beaming joy
Borrowing time
Bonding hearts

Open arms and moist eyes
Our precious souls to learn and love

The Golden Rule

Harlan: "What did you learn in school today?"
Joel: " Respecting yourself, Respecting others, Respecting the envirnment [sic]."
Harlan: "Oh? What can you do to respect others?"
Joel: "Don't do mean things to babies, or they'll grow up to think that's the right thing to do."
[...]
Joel: "Don't kick a baby in the face."
Harlan: [suppressing laughter]
Joel: "Don't poop on a baby's head."
Harlan: [unsuccessfully suppressing laughter]

Doggonnit!

There was a day when Mabel was our only child. When people came over to visit us, I'm sure we were annoying. We'd actually compare our dog to their kids. And sometimes Mabel would win the Best Kid Award. I mean, she had some pretty impressive tricks when compared to some 1 year-old humans... (would sit on command, could stand up, cleaned the floor, didn't need diapers, etc).

Before Joel and Jamie came along, Mabel would have been the highlight of this blog. Oh, how times have changed. I realized about a week ago that Mabel hadn't even been mentioned, yet. And it took me another week to get around to mentioning her. I think she knows she's been demoted. Yet, I think it happened gradually enough that I can't point to a particular moment or time when she seemed to protest it. She's always been the Omega dog in the family, so maybe it was a relatively easy transition. Or, since her sleep has been just as affected as ours by the new kids on the block, she's too tired to worry about one-upping them.

Alas, she's as patient as ever. She loves us still. She remembers her tricks, even without frequent practice. And, like us, she lives for the kids' bedtimes when she can resume her place on the couch curled up between us.