Category Archives: The Boy

The State of Autumn

Pretty wiped, actually. Very languid. Not much energy at all. I think it’s partially due to the weather (How much more damp can it get? Can it just rain properly, already? It feels like we’re walking through mist all the time, the air is so wet.), partially due to the intense rehearsals and lack of sleep after them (I’m doing the skating through light sleep cycles thing and waking up a lot these days), and partially due to something I haven’t quite figured out yet. Plus there’s that kid who lives here who gets cranky in high heat or humidity, loses his appetite, and sleeps abysmally. He’s been getting up at five-thirty in the morning, and didn’t nap at all yesterday.

We had a pleasant day with my mother in law yesterday. She had a test scheduled at the local hospital and finished early, so she called us and we picked her up. She took us out for lunch (which the boy did not eat, despite ordering enthusiastically) and even bought us clothes. I took her home with us and plied her with a nice refreshing white wine on the back porch under the new awning. This would be the day the boy wouldn’t nap. He was all right until we went out to pick HRH up around four, and he drowsed in the car for about half an hour. He slept in till sevenish today, thank goodness, so hopefully we’re back on track.

We went out to the luthier this morning and I picked up the new 7/8 cello for a two week home trial. (I have to take it back on my birthday. How depressing is that?) I played it for half an hour straight after the boy went down for his nap, and, well, I don’t know. I liked the first one better; I think it sounded a bit more mellow. (Oh, how I wish I’d had the idea of recording them when I tried it back in May!) The colour on this one is more orangey-red, kind of a deeper version of the one I have now. I preferred the brown-amber of the first one. It has nice resonance, and is easy to play, and feels all right under my fingertips. I haven’t tried the bow yet; I used my own. I’m just not completely in love with it the way I was with the first one. I am, however, completely in love with the soft case it comes with (three handles, including a double handle on the side to carry it like a suitcase! Lots of pockets! Padded straps! So well padded overall that it almost stands up on its own! Extra padding around the bridge! And I got to see an Eastman hard case, the one with wheels, which was so light I thought I was dreaming. It too had multiple handles. I was having a geeky day, evidently, to be so impressed by multiple handles. I also got to see the finish in person, which was important, because all the photos I’ve seen of them made me very wary, as the finish is pebbled and looks almost iridescent. This one was blue, and while I’d prefer a deep green (but they don’t make a darker one) or an ivory or black, I could live with the blue if I had to. Mind you, if I’m going to drop $500 on a hard case, I’ll darn well get them to order the colour I want, thanks. (Oooh! The Z-tek Deluxe model is now available in dark emerald green! Hmm. Duly noted.)

It feels a tiny bit bigger than the last one, too. But then, I didn’t switch between the 7/8 and my full-sized cello when I played it, like I did the last time. I checked the windings: it’s strung with a Helicore C and G, and Larsen D and A strings. It has a really deeply arched back, too.

The A doesn’t blend as well as the last one did. But that’s something that can be adjusted by poking the soundpost. It’s certainly resonant. I’ll post more notes as I play with it over the next couple of weeks.

People requested pictures. Here’s a shot of the two cellos side by side, so you can see the difference in size and proportion.

4/4 and 7/8, June 28 20084/4 and 7/8, June 28 2008

And It Continues…

This morning in the car the boy delivered a creditable version of the chorus to “The Mesopotamians”. He hesitates on Gilgamesh and slurs through Ashurbanipal, but it’s all there. I can’t tell you how hilarious it is to hear a three year old say Hammurabi and Gilgamesh.

He requests that one three times in a row, and “Dr. Worm” as well. He knows three times is the limit, no matter how much we love TMBG.

At some point I will introduce him properly to G&S.

Indoctrination

We had a great weekend, partly due to a financial snag smoothing itself out thanks to HRH’s willingness to do some freelance reno work over the his vacation. It’s astonishing how much better we feel with bills paid and a full pantry.

We also joined the other local coven of our tradition in a Solstice celebration. True to our experience of the gods loving irony, it started to rain as soon as the celebrant invoked the Sun God. Fortunately, we’d gone out that morning and bought a 9’x9′ awning for the back porch, something we’ve wanted to do for a while, so we all sat there and did the ritual anyway. And when it was over and the celebrant spoke a thank you for the Sun God’s presence, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It’s a good thing our trad formally recognises laughter in circle. Then we all had an excellent, excellent barbecue, and I had the great satisfaction of making a salad with ingredients mainly pulled from the garden. The boy woke up from his nap and joined us for the last half-hour, munching happily on hot dogs and showing off his new Wall*E figure.

When everyone had gone home and the boy decided to go inside to play, I asked him if he wanted to watch a new movie and he was very interested. So I put my new The Sound of Music DVD on (hurrah for gift cards), and he watched attentively through the opening scenery shots, whispering, “Do you hear that?” when the wind picked up. He was entranced by the swell of music and Maria running through the grass. “She is happy!” he said. “She is running, and singing!” And he kept watching, asking questions now and again, and I’d explain what people were doing. (Upon seeing the nuns in church, he whispered, “Do they talk?”. “Not in church,” I whispered back. “They do talk!” he said, beaming, when the scene in the courtyard started.) Once in a while his attention would wander during longer stretches of dialogue and he’d start playing with his trains or Wall*E, but whenever someone began to sing his eyes would snap back to the screen and he would be still. After the “Do-Re-Mi” sequence (also riveting for him, partially due to the children, partially due to the music, and partially due to the many different architectural and decorative details in Salzburg) I thought I heard him humming ascending three-note phrases while he played but I dismissed it.

Then we reached “The Lonely Goatherd” sequence and as the opening music played I said, “Liam, I think you may recognise this.” He’d already recognised it on the CD earlier in the week. And when Julie Andrews began singing he said with great delight, “This is the Muppets song!” (Episode 217, of course, is where he first encountered Andrews and this particular song. I love the Muppets in general, but the delicious irony of having Andrews sing “The Lonely Goatherd” with a bunch of puppets is positively exquisite.)

He sat in front of the screen and watched raptly. When the sequence was over he said, “Can we watch it again?” So we did. And a third time, too. He mumbled something under his breath at one point, but we didn’t catch it. It wasn’t until we said that we really needed to watch the next song that he let the film continue. He watched “Edelweiss,” which wasn’t as visually fascinating but nonetheless familiar to him, being one of the lullabies I used to sing to him when he was very small, and then started playing with his Wall*E again, moving it along the back of the chesterfield.

And then we heard it clearly: he was singing “oh-de-lay-lee, oh-de-lay-lee, oh-de-lay-lee-ooh,” and making Wall*E dance.

I looked at HRH, and HRH looked at me: we both had idiotic smiles on our faces, trying not to laugh. “Your heart must be ready to burst out of your chest,” said HRH, “judging by what mine’s doing.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said.

“You’re so blogging this, aren’t you,” he said.

“With great delight,” I said.

We also heard him do a rough approximation of the beginning of “Edelweiss” too before the ballroom scene, by which point he was on HRH’s lap. “I need my cello!” he exclaimed upon seeing the chamber orchestra, so I got it for him and he played it (matching the rhythm quite well, too) before he strummed the lowest string so enthusiastically that it slipped off the bridge, so I put it away.

And, irony of ironies, I stopped the film at the wedding because it was past his bedtime.

I wonder how long it will be before he asks to watch it again.

Entertainment

According to the ongoing preschooler-provided narration coming from the next room, there is some sort of Tragik Drahmah going on in the Isle of Sodor, AKA the train set laid out on our coffee table. There’s lots of “Oh no!”, “Thomas, are you okay?”, “Help, I am falling!”, “You did it, yaaaaay!”, and “AAAAAH! UUUURGH!” done in a fake whisper-scream, accompanied by the clunking of wooden trains and the click of magnets and the occasional train whistle as enthusiastically rendered by the boy.

And then I heard him say, “Oh, James, what has occurred?” I missed whatever James may have said in reply because I was too busy trying not to laugh. Someday I will teach him about five-cent words, ten-cent words, and twenty-five-cent words, and when it is appropriate to use them. But not today.

Difficult Times

Not long after I finished Maggie’s farewell post yesterday, Liam woke up from his nap and stumbled into my office, slightly wild-eyed.

“I can’t find Maggie-cat,” he said.

My heart, which had already gone through the metaphorical wringer while writing the post, broke again.

“No, honey,” I said. “That’s because she’s dead. She’s gone.”

“I’ll look for her later,” he said after a moment, his face brightening.

The halves of my heart each broke again. The lump I’d been coaxing away reappeared in my throat, and I almost reached for the dangerously low supply of Kleenex.

“Maggie’s not coming back,” I said. “She died. People don’t come back the way we want them to when they die.”

He backed up until he hit the wall behind him, staring at me. Then he brought his hands up in front of him, sort of cupping them.

“We can get a new Maggie-cat?” he said hopefully.

“No, love,” I said, sitting on the floor in front of him. “Gryff is our new cat. Maybe someday we’ll get another cat again, but not for a long time. And it wouldn’t be the real Maggie-cat, even if it looked like her.”

“I want my Maggie,” he said piteously, much softer than he’d spoken before.

“I know,” I said. “I do, too. But she’s gone now.”

He bent forward and leaned his head against my shoulder. We stayed like that for a few minutes.

“Hey, guy,” I said. “You know what? In your toy box at Grandma and Papa’s house you have a stuffed Maggie-cat. When we go over this afternoon, why don’t you ask if you can bring her home? That way you’ll remember Maggie every time you look at it, and you can hug it and give it pats and tell it how much you love her.”

“Okay,” he said, brightening up. And when we got there the little stuffed black and white cat was sitting on his bed. He caught it up and asked me if we could bring it home, and I told him to ask his grandmother. She told him it would be all right if I said yes, so he carried it with him to the dinner table, brought it home, and slept with it. It’s gone to the caregiver’s with him today instead of Bun-Bun.

I wish I had a stuffed Maggie-cat to fill what Phnee referred to as the Maggie-shaped hole in my heart. But both Cricket and Nixie curled up with me when I watched the Carlo Rota Othello last night (which was an excellent adaptation with very good performances), something they rarely did because Maggie was always there first. I’ve been preparing to say goodbye to her for over three years now, and I’m handling her loss much better than I expected to. There are moments, though, where I expect to see her, or I think about something she used to do, and I remember how much I love her, and I have to stop what I’m doing. She was so much a part of my life.

Thank you to everyone who called or e-mailed or left comments to the farewell post. Your thoughts and condolences are deeply appreciated. I know so many of you loved her, too.

Party!

Huzzah! The first kids-only (except for their parents, and the grown-up kid!) birthday party has come and gone, and not only are we alive, we’re pretty darn pleased with it all. The boy behaved beautifully, from the moment he jumped up with excitement and exclaimed “My friends are here!” when the door bell first rang, to the hugs and thank yous as he opened gifts and then again as each friend left.

This year’s masterpiece, designed and decorated by HRH:

(Do you sense a theme to this year’s party? Invitations, thank you cards for the little gift bags given to each attendee, and yes, he was even wearing a Totoro t-shirt I made for him using a transfer.)

Note to self: morning birthday parties with a bit of lunch for the kids = awesome idea. Perhaps next time I should make a third pizza or a second foccaccia, too, and not burn the front edge (first time I made pizza in the new oven, argh… at least now I know to do it at a lower heat). The boy is now napping soundly, and will be able to play with his new toys once he wakes up. He already made me assemble the play shopping cart and roamed all over the house with it on the way to bed for a rest (including two bathroom trips).

It was fun to play with little friends we don’t see that often, but there was also a touch of sadness, as Liam’s friend Arthur is moving to Windsor with his parents on Monday. They were the last to leave, and the boys gave each other a couple of very sweet hugs. We’ll miss them.

I’m thankful the rain held off so everyone could run and jump and play outdoors. We ended up taking the food outside, too. All in all, a good morning. Now that it’s over, I’m not quite sure what to do for the rest of the day. I didn’t sleep very well last night, but I’m restless and can’t settle down. I would eat cake, except my last solid meal was thirty-one hours ago and a piece of foccaccia, three cups of tea, and a square of cake haven’t done much to fill the gap.

And I have to admit that I actually did make cookies this morning, because there was so! much! frosting! left over. In the shape of threes, naturally, following through on the ones and twos I made for the previous birthdays. Liam helped me frost them.

Thanks to everyone who came out, especially those with other commitments weighing on them in the form of packing, sick kids, and other birthday parties to travel to. We appreciated everyone’s company!

Party Minus Twelve Hours

Well, here I am, writing my now annual night-before post. There is cake, but no icing yet, as HRH is designing the cake illustration this year and I had no idea how much icing to mix up. I have wrapped a couple of small gifts from us for the boy (one home-made, two actually separate parts of the same gift). There are small, adorable home-made gift bags to send home with small guests. There are a pile of balloons in the bathtub, hidden by the shower curtain. (There is nowhere else to safely store them overnight.) I have just finished printing thank you cards for those who have gifted the boy, but who are not small children and thus will not be here tomorrow. There’s not much else to do, as I’ll be mixing pizza dough and chopping fruit tomorrow morning. I’m not doing cookies this year, or extra cupcakes, since I am not feeding a small army. Small people, yes, but not large numbers.

HRH has just finished the design, so I am summoned to the mixing bowl.