Archive for December, 2008

While I’m flitting about Chicago this week with my parents and the boys, Tom is working a music convention downtown. It’s actually a very well known music convention, so I’m not going to link to it here; I don’t want this post coming up in a search yadayadayada. Let’s just say it’s a Very Well Known music convention if you teach band or orchestra, and it’s always held in Chicago the week before Christmas. There. If you’re dying to know what I’m talking about, there’s enough there to manage a Google search.

But I digress.

If you recall, I have a fairly strong music background. I have several music degrees getting dusty in a box at home, I taught middle school band for a few years, and flute lessons for a gazillion years. Growing up outside Chicago as an eternal band geek, I’ve gone to this convention more times than I can count. I go to concerts, breakout sessions, hit the exhibit hall to try new flutes…I’ve done it all. Nowadays I especially like going to see old friends and colleagues. Living so far from Illinois, it’s really my only time to reconnect with these people.

But there is something I noticed when I started going as a first year band director that I never noticed when I attended as a high school or college student. There is an unspoken hierarchy at the convention. I’ve never heard anyone ever speak of it, but Tom notices it as well. Maybe it’s just us.

On the very tip top are the Big Names. Well-known college directors, the ones music students travel to study under. Also consistent high school directors whose bands have hit the big time (large national parades, for instance), and outstanding composers. The military bands.

Then there are the lesser well-known names. The names ring a bell, but you have to think hard about how you know them. These are mostly smaller colleges and less well-known high schools, less well-known composers.

Then high school directors as a whole.

They are followed by female high school directors. (No, it’s not right, but this is my sense of the whole week).

Spouses are next.

Male middle school directors.

Female middle school directors.

If, for some reason, they are there, general music teachers fall here.

Then college students, followed by high school students.

Attending as a spouse (of a band director) I was further up the hierarchy than as a female middle school band director. Sad, but true. These days, attending as a spouse of a non-band director, I’m actually further up the hierarchy than ever before.

Today I’m at this convention for the day. I get to go to concerts, attend breakout sessions, and hit the exhibit hall to get info on Suzuki violin; my days of trying new flutes are behind me. I get to reconnect with old friends and colleagues. My favorite part of the day? Trying to decide what to say when someone asks what I do. Because after all these years, after the thousands of hours of flute practice, after all I’ve done…I’m not doing it anymore.

Perhaps I’m lower on the hierarchy than I thought. Former musician is below them all.

One of the best parts of my parents living where they do is we can walk to get to good ethnic restaurants. One of the worst parts of my parents living where they do is that we have to walk to get to good ethnic restaurants…in five inches of unshoveled snow, a brisk wind, and teeth chattering cold.

I’m not entirely sure when it happened, but my oldest son has become a weather wimp. A down and dirty wuss when it comes to snow. Dude, you live in Colorado. Forty-nine of the fifty states believe it snows there all the freaking time. I went out and bought heavy duty weather gear for you and your brother because I KNOW. I grew up here; you don’t go outside in the winter without hats, gloves, scarves, those toe warmer things that you snap and they get warm and you stick ‘em in your boots and go “ahhhhhh….” Your idea of winter is me making you wear socks when there’s snow on the ground.

Walking to dinner last night, A kept up a running commentary about the cold. The snow. The wind. The cold wind blowing snow. Then he tripped over a curb and landed in the cold snow. Then it was just a running commentary about the cold. How the cold was numbing his nose. His ears. His lips so it was hard to talk. Dude, pull the neck thingy over your face and quit talking, your lips will warm up.

He complied. And then, lips held tightly together to keep them warm, continued his diatribe about the weather. Only my son.

The reward at the end of our two block walk was Thai food. Glorious, hot, fragrant Thai food. Give me a hot bowl of Tom Kha soup and I am one happy camper. Give me anything made with coconut milk and I’m a happy camper. The bonus to the dinner was that A ate. Ate heartily. Always good to see him eat, gives me hope that he won’t waste away to nothing. But for him to eat Thai food was doubly satisfying.

But all good things must come to an end, and back out into the night we went. Really, A, shut up already. Yes, it’s cold, yes, it’s snowy. But, for Crissakes, your father just pulled the “when I was your age I had to walk to school in weather like this and it wasn’t just over the back fence” line. Dude, this afternoon you’re going out and shoveling snow. Yeah, your grandparents live in a condo and it’ll probably all be shoveled by the time you get out there, but I’m sure I could find a few sidewalks for you.

And if you do a good job, I have some leftover green curry here to warm you up.

This is the first Santa picture with my boys. Yes, A is seven and J is four, and this is the first Santa picture. See, A had a bad Santa picture experience when he was about 20 months old. How bad? You couldn’t tell who wanted to be there less, Santa or A. We tried the next year. Didn’t even get to the lap. I gave up. My son was obviously freaked out by the Man in Red, so why push it?

This year Tom surprised me with this picture. I was off doing something else and he ran errands with the boys at the mall. He had it all planned out; he made sure they were clean and reasonably matched, he took the hairbrush, he made sure they were well-fed. The boys did it! They told Santa what they wanted for Christmas (Wii), they were polite, they smiled. Yes, they were in desperate need of haircuts, but I don’t care!

I have a wonderful Santa picture of my boys. It’s a small thing, but it’s the best Christmas gift they could have given me.

And…we made it. Unfortunately, exhaustion last night caused me to pass out early, fully clothed and with glasses still on, thus preventing a post. My posting streak since November 1 has been broken, and I’m okay with that. Mostly. I was too tired last night to really care.

It is freaking freezing here, somewhere around 10 F. Once it’s below freezing, the actual temperature really doesn’t matter, it’s just damned cold. My handy dandy local weather toolbar tells me that it’s -2 in Denver right now. We’re all miserable. The difference is that in Denver, 100 year old records are being smashed. Here, it’s just Monday.

We broke up the drive in from Des Moines yesterday by stopping at the new Legoland Discovery Center west of the city. And I was reminded why I won’t return to Legoland in San Diego. If you’re an adult, not for you. If you’re a teen or tween, not for you. If you’re a boy celebrating your 8th birthday, totally for you, have a ball, we’ll see you in a few hours, no you can’t have the $500 Lego Millenium Falcon.

(We interrupt this post for lunch. A Chicago hotdog, no bun, fries and a diet coke. Urp.)

This week will be a whirlwind of museums, food you can only get in Chicago (see aforementioned hotdog), and the music convention I’ll be attending at the end of the week.

There was more, but Wordpress apparently no longer does automatic backups and it already ate half this post. So instead I’ll take a wee break and enjoy a cookie from the gluten-free bakery down the way from my parents’ house.

• Are you even allowed to purchase a pickup truck in a color other than red in Nebraska? I mean, if you walked into a dealership and wanted to see, say, a white or a blue pickup, would they even have one? Do buyers of red pickups get to join an exclusive “red pickup in Nebraska” club? Is there a discount? A tax break? Do red pickup owners go around and haze owners of silver pickups?
• Wow, they grow everything in Iowa! Corn, soybeans, windmills. Looks like it’s going to be a great windmill year! They’re growing big and strong; lots of promise in those windmills. Can’t wait to see what harvest looks like!
• To the douchebag truckers on I-80 who were playing “let’s get side-by-side on the highway and slow 20 mph below the speed limit”: you are total pricks. If you’re that bored driving a large and potentially dangerous vehicle, spring for Sirius/XM and listen to Howard Stern or something. But that was juvenile and stupid…and we especially hated you because we were the ones with the hungry kids who had to pee. Thanks ever so much.
• Tide To Go is a miracle potion. I’m pretty sure it can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and create world peace. It certainly saved my blue jeans after a day in the MomVan.
• The economy really is in a jam (really, Jen, watching 24 hour news didn’t make that clear?). We passed an outlet mall today, on a Saturday, less than 2 weeks before Christmas…and the place was nearly empty. That ain’t good.
• P.F.Chang’s is my new BFF. The chain has a gluten-free menu, so we were able to have dinner here in Des Moines without worry. And it was darned tasty, too. Hey, if A ate shrimp, it must have been good. And he drank half my decaf ginger peach tea. Hot tea. Come to think of it…who is this kid and where is my son???

Tomorrow we head off to Chicago with a long-promised stop at Chicago Legoland if the boys continue to behave (they’re about to blow it farting around falling asleep). Hopefully we can stay ahead of the storm on our tail and get to my parents’ before it gets bad.

T-minus 20 hours and counting.

Today I start packing in earnest. (And go to a school meeting regarding the new second grade teacher. And drop Rosie at a friend’s house. And shovel off my desk. And and and…)  Packing is not my favorite thing in the world to do. First there’s laundry. Then there’s figuring out what everyone is going to wear for 2 weeks. And let’s not forget checking the weather forecast non-stop so we don’t freeze/swelter. Then there’s the over packing. Also the car entertainment backpacks. And making sure I have everything together for Rosie. And the winter car kit. And gluten free food, ’cause there’s not much A and I can eat in rural Iowa.

It’s Packing Roulette! Step right up! Ladies and Gentlemen, spin the wheel, spin the wheel! Will Jen forget something benign, like socks or toothpaste? Or will she forget something that will frak up her vacation, like prescription medicines or a Christmas gift? Step right up!

Sigh.

So my living room becomes the staging area, where I stick everything that needs to come with us. Food and gifts and clothes and books and entertainment and GodhelpmeifIforgetmylaptop.

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I put up a new header yesterday, in case you’re reading this in a reader. Yes, that’s the view from my back porch; I took that picture yesterday morning.

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I’m hoping to continue my streak of daily posting while on this trip. I posted daily in November and haven’t stopped. Yes, the posts in December have been less than stellar, but I’m trying. My creativity drops as my stress jumps. That I have anything up at all is frankly a miracle. I think once I get us all out the door my stress will drop and I’ll be able to write more.

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Time to pack. Deep breath…and let’s spin that wheel!

Hope no one getting gifts from us this year is allergic to dogs. ‘Cause that stuff is everywhere. And since I hate wrapping gifts with a wild passion, I was less than vigilant removing it from the boxes as I wrapped. What is on that hair? It has magnetic properties! Sticks to everything and anything.

One day left til we load up the MomVan and head out. Am I ready? Not by a long shot, cards may go out at New Year’s, but at least the gifts are wrapped.

Next year I’m staying home. Le sigh…

Right now, looking down at my Google reader tally, I have 223 unread posts. Oy vey. That’s a good couple of hours of reading there. And when I have that much reading, I tend to skim…read quickly…save to comment later…and then never do.

I’ve become a lurker.

I don’t want to be a lurker! I was, way back when I first started reading blogs. But then I started one, and realized that comments are blogger crack. You need more and more and MORE. Comments thrill me, and I do my damnest to answer all of them. Might take me a week, but I do try.

So I’ll do better in the next couple of weeks. I’ll be on vacation! My in-laws have wireless! (Seriously, someone check and see if the Four Horsemen are thundering across the skies…) My hope and plan is to read and comment and write and email and, oh yeah, do the family thing too.

I have a crapton of blogs in my reader; my goal is to comment on each one once. If you read here and lurk, leave a comment. I’ll come by. I’ll comment! Gasp! I’ll answer your comment! Pinky swear.

Now back to wrapping gifts/doing laundry/planning for this trip…

Christmas has been the twenty-fifth day of December for, what, some two thousand years or so? I know it’s been that date for the last 35 years, my mom has photographic proof.

So why does it sneak up on me every year? Every November, I’m blissfully oblivious of my previous Christmas Panic history. Oh, I have a handle on everything this year…shouldn’t be too bad… And then Thanksgiving hits (late this year, which only made it all worse) and Holy Crap I have how many days? Compounding the late Thanksgiving is that we’re jumping into the MomVan at o’dark thirty Saturday morning and hauling tail to Chicago. And then Iowa. And then home.

I have three and a half days to:

• finish my Christmas shopping (thankfully Santa got his jolly ass in gear this summer and hid things away)
• get the Christmas card done (thankfully the boys cooperated last night and we got a lovely shot of them in their jammies in front of the tree. Santa hats hid the fact that they’re both two weeks overdue for a haircut)
• pack for two weeks on the road
• type up notes for the friend who is watching Rosie
• go through the boys’ clothes because they are either eating their clothes as they sleep or they’re conspiring to drive me batshit crazy…where are their warm clothes?
• finalize appointments A’s skin patch testing for when we get home (ohpleaseohplease, get us in this year…new deductible Jan. 1…)
• figure out if we’re going to make gluten free Christmas cookies (thinking no…this is not the time of year to try something new…and there is a gluten free bakery down the street from my parents’ house). Ok, decision made…crossing that bad boy off my list…
• send in Campbells Soup labels for the school; need to be in by the end of the month
• everything else I do here on a regular basis

Is it any wonder my shoulders are aching? Pure. Stress. It’s either that or early-onset arthritis, take your pick. It sure isn’t from the snow shoveling I didn’t do this morning.

Bleh. Off to volunteer in the classroom…

I needed a recent (and decent headshot) today, so I grabbed A, stuck the good (ok, good being relative) camera in his hands, and voila! He snapped this. Only the second shot. He’s so good with a camera. Must be me. I must be the one vibrating, if all my pictures are coming out blurry and his are crisp.

Any idea where I can get a good and inexpensive camera a seven year old could learn from and not destroy? Is there a digital equivalent to the Kodak Instamatic?

Oh, and why did I need a headshot? Well, with total props to Kim, who passed along the info that they were looking, I’m now a contributing writer on the soon to be launched Rocky Mountain Moms Blog. If you wondered what I was “contemplating” and “over the moon” about last week on Facebook, yeah, there ya go. I’m excited and more than a little nervous.

Now what? I write. And love every minute of it.

In the morning. It’s been a long day.