A new career.

For Isaiah that is. He is now a computer programmer. Unfortunately, he is not very good at it yet, despite being more experienced than I would like him to be.

This is why I haven't posted in a while.

A soul at rest

Today I've been working on a new piece. It's atonal (surprise, surprise!), and strangely enough, falls very naturally into a strict 7/4 meter. This is the first time I've worked with an irregular meter, and I'm falling in love with the fluid forward motion it gives to the piece. Come to think of it, this is also the first time I haven't struggled with the rhythm. It simply flowed out smoothly. For the first time, I actually have a legible first draft.

More significantly, though, this is the first time that a piece of mine has not been expressive of tremendous pathos. It's simply tranquil and a little bit playful. The sort of thing that I always found impossible to even play without infusing it with all sorts of extraneous emotions.

Thank you Jesus, for your peace.

Quickening!

September is getting to be very wiggly. It is so different having just one baby in there. There's a much more direct connection. I feel her squirm within me, and I feel that it's her. Last time, I would feel a kick, and have to sort of analyze and try to figure out which one it was.

Singleton pregnancy is a new experience for me... I like it!

Everything's just ducky

Well, "guck," to be precise. The bathtub is a wonderful teaching opportunity, and a few weeks ago, they started calling their beloved rubber ducky "guck."

Now Nathan calls everything "guck." He has begun pointing to things, and gleefully exclaiming "guck!"

Here I thought he'd learned associated the word with the object. It turns out he's associated it with the action of pointing.

They're such delightful little people, and I love them more by the minute.

Carbonated sugar water

We've been spending a small fortune on fast food lately. I'm working on getting menu-planning and homecooked meals under control, but in the meantime, as a small step in the right direction, I'm trying to kick the soda habit. It's a total ripoff... and I don't need the caffein... but when it all comes down, in a moment of thirst I'd rather be ripped off than drink water.

So it was that on my last trip to KFC, I found myself ordering a medium Pepsi despite all my good intentions. It wasn't very crowded, so I let the pickles doopa about while I enjoyed my meal. As I watched my rambunctious boys drag chairs from table to table about the dining room, I saw another exhausted mom stumble in after her two boys. They were every bit as energetic as mine, but being considerably larger, had a much greater capacity for mischief. Their mom was obviously quite worn out trying to keep up with them. All four kids had a great time playing together, as the mom became frustrated trying to figure out what her sons wanted for lunch.

In the course of their explorations, the younger boy, about 7, grew bored with the pinball machine and turned his attention to the soda fountain. One by one, he poked his finger up each of the taps, pausing to lick it off before proceeding to the next one.

Our budget is much indebted to that little boy. Just thought I'd pass this service on my readers. =)

A little less wise...

...but oh, ignorance is bliss!

Yesterday I had an impacted wisdom tooth removed. The world is much brighter today. My sons are once again my darling wuggies, no longer the monsters they were the first half of the week. ("What? You want milk?!? But I fed you yesterday, you little...")

The whole experience was a surprisingly good one. The doctor was very good with the psychology of pain management. He gave the anesthetic a little bit at a time to minimize the pain, but when it came time for the final shot, he told me that this one was going to hurt. And he poked me, to show me precisely where it would hurt. Sure enough, it hurt... but I was ready for it. Then when it came time for the actual extraction, he poked first my nose, then my jaw. "See, pressure doesn't hurt. But it's quite easy to fool yourself into thinking it does." Because he had been honest in telling me when something was going to be painful, I could believe him when he told me that this wouldn't hurt. And so I ignored the sickening crack, and it didn't hurt. I'm so used to doctors and dentists trying to reassure you by lying about how it isn't going to hurt a bit.... which is really rather terrifying. In stead of giving you the reassuring thought that it isn't going to hurt, it produces the idea in your mind that you are in the hands of an untrustworthy torturer, and who knows what he's going to do to you. Honesty is really refreshing. Anyway, if you ever find yourself in need of an oral surgeon in the Whittier area, I can highly recommend Dr. Brian Chung.

Besides, he has everything all decorated with surf boards, flip-flops, and In-N-Out ads. How cool is that?

Tootti Flutti

Nathan and Isaiah have been making great progress on the recorder, practicing a good deal. Now it seems that Nathan has decided that having figured out how to make a nice, consistent tone, it must be time for him to start working on some moderately advanced articulation.

And so he wanders about the apartment all day, mumbling "du-gu-du-gu-du-gu-du-gu-du-gu."

Silly boy. He should start out by cleaning up his single tonguing.

Oh, how I love September...

We have a very important meeting tentatively scheduled for September 20.

Meanwhile, this is a time of great personal growth, both for me and for the family at large.

Share the Luvs

Actual testimonial displayed on an actual box of actual diapers...

"I like your diapers, especially how they hug the baby's legs. My granddaughter uses them now. We are passing them down from generation to generation."

h

Failed Epics

I recently read LeRoux's The Phantom of the Opera. It utterly blew me away with its exquisite, delicate interweaving of good and evil, love and hate, light and darkness. The supernatural mysteries with their quite rational, human, explanations all swirling about the mysterious supernatural power of that ordinary human phenomenon we call music... I was in a daze for about a week, just relishing the beauty of the tale. I have certainly read better novels, but that is among the best stories I have ever experienced.

Thus it was with great disappointment that I pulled out Andy's old soundtrack from the musical. It's... a musical. A good musical, full of delightful, charming songs. Broadway at its best.

But the Phantom, after all, haunts the Paris Opera, not Broadway. Whatever the merits of Webber's score, it is not music of the soaring beauty that drives men mad. His songs are the songs of a wonderful evening's entertainment, not the songs of sirens. And as lovely and lucid as the performance was, it lacked that inexplicable genius which forms the entire theme of the story. Sarah Brightman has a gorgeous voice, but I am not entirely convinced that she has heard the Angel of Music.

I was pontificating to Andy the other day, voicing my complaints against the predictable love songs written for this delicately unexpected romance, and the bombastically forceful overture with absolutely no harmonic interest to justify its sweeping pretentions. As Andy responded, I realized that this conversation was treading on very familiar territory. My husband, as usual, took pity on Webber, the composer, the man. Was I saying that this man's greatest work was a failure? Well, no... it's really good, just nowhere near good enough to justify the subject matter.

My mind flipped back to a similar conversation we'd had a while back about Michael Card. I absolutely love his Ancient Faith album. He beautifully draws out the poignant stories of individual men as they weave in and out of the grand story of redemption. It's absolutely breathtaking.

I am much less impressed, however, with his album based around the book of Revelation. He seems to be rather over-reaching himself, trying to paint a sort of grandeur that he simply does not have the tools to paint. As a result, the overture in particular winds up coming across as bombastic rather than profound.

Although it wasn't Andy's favorite of Card's album's either, he was almost personally hurt by my harsh critique. Was I saying that Card is a failure? Of course not--just that he should stick to approaching the Great Story via the small stories of particular men. But Andy still thought that I was being a bit harsh to tell someone that they should stick to the little stuff, leaving the big stuff for people like Bach and Handel.

I still think I'm right in a sense. It's not just about the skills of a particular composer, it's about the capacities of a form. The music in a Broadway musical can only go so deep. It must be easily accessible to the general public, and it cannot build up much of a macrostructure, being necessarily broken up by dialogue. A musical can do a lot of things, but it cannot produce the sort of music that the Phantom is about. In the same way, I really do think that a ballad is well suited to tell Abraham's story, probably better than an oratorio could. But to sing about Revelation, you probably need an oratorio.

Nevertheless... at the end of the day, would you rather be Milton, your life's work a failed epic, a deeply flawed poem reaching for magnificent grandeur, striving to explicate the deepest mysteries of God and Man, and failing...

....Or Steinbeck, with his really excellent, practically perfect novels.

Cannery Row is just about flawless. Mack's complaints in the intro to Sweet Thursday notwithstanding, I can't think of any room for imrovement. Funny and endearing and poignant and tragic, it gives humanity and dignity to the lives of the bums and whores and drunks and loonies in a tiny close-knit community on the Monterey Bay. It's a fabulous book.

But then again, I suspect that Handel was overreaching himself too, I just don't know enough to see it.

And aren't we all failed epics?

Someday there is redemption and wholeness. But woe to him who has safely buried his treasure.

Sold

I always thought the whole Baby Einstein hoopla was pretty silly. So when my sister-in-law gave the boys some DVDs for Christmas, we weren't tremendously sad about the fact that we do not have a DVD player. But... the lack of a DVD player also means that we can't watch that spiffy salsa dance instruction video Andy checked out of the library, so we borrowed Chris and Sheri's laptop to watch DVDs on. Of course, once there's a DVD player in the house, you cannot escape the necessity of watching the DVDs...

And they're wonderful!

They are actually really beautiful, setting the movements of everyday toys to music, incorporating rhythm and grace into the elements that make up a child's experience. They integrate aesthetic appreciation into a child's natural wonder and curiousity. They are very tasteful, being geared toward the simplicity of a child's comprehension, rather than toward the crudity of a child's taste. The boys are enthralled, and I, a classically trained musician, am not above delighting in its beauty.

Another wonderful thing is that they invite human interaction. The DVDs call themselves "digital board books," and indeed, the boys and I had lots of fun pointing out everything on the screen. The videos are so low-key that there is plenty of room for mommy to be involved.

All in all, I was very excited to see such a wonderful use of the available technology. The technology was used in such a way as to conform to a child's developmental needs, rather than conforming a child's development to the technology.

Meanwhile, moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, we watched a decidedly mediocre childrens show on PBS the other day. We watched it, not because we were particularly fascinated by the plight of the lazy, unmotivated insurance salesman, but because the advertisement at the begining of the show informed us that it was funded through the No Child Left Behind Act, and I was curious to find out what it was that they had deemed a higher priority than sufficient textbooks for underprivileged schools.

I am rather bewildered...

Zen and the Art of Kitchen Floor Maintainance

We have a lovely Zen garden in the kitchen.

Yes, the boys got into the sugar.

I always did think Zen gardens were pretty sweet...

Waiting...

...and waiting...

It seem's that Andy's boss was bragging about him down at headquarters, and landed him an unsolicited interview with The Head Honcho. Thanks to our wonderful neighbors, Andy was actually able to attend said interview, unhindered by the ill-timed accident our turtle-mobile attended immediately prior. Andy hit it off smashingly (no pun intended, thankfully!) with the Head Honcho, and walked away with the offer of a full-time position. Not only will he be teaching lots of math classes, but he will also be working with a very cool visionary math/philosophy guy on curriculum development. Perfect mentoring environment---and they'll even pay for his credentialing!!! Adequate salary, great benefits.... All in all a blessing from above.

The only problem is... we don't know when the job starts.

Can't make any plans, because any day now, they could call him in...

Can't choose a new pediatrician until we know if we're going to be on Blue Cross or Medi-Cal...

Can't actually hire the mother's helpers we've lined up, or tell them they can start looking for a different job...

Uncertainty---it's the gift that keeps on giving.

*cue Jeopardy theme*

Title I

Andy's job at the charter school in Whittier pays an excellent wage, but it's been a struggle to collect enough hours to make ends meet. Thus it was a huge answer to prayer when Andy's boss told him that through Title I, the school had funds set aside for remedial tutoring for students with low test scores. In all, his boss estimated that there was probably around four hours a week of semi-private math tutoring for Andy to do--at $30/hr. that's a sizable chunk of rent!--and sent him to talk to The Title I Guy. But the Title I Guy had a few reservations. Andy hadn't been there too long... wouldn't want to pile on too much responsibility all at once... maybe he should wait until he'd settled in a month or two...

<>So Andy waited a month or two, and got himself thoroughly settled in, as the students got further and further behind, and parents began to wonder where the promised tutoring was. Finally Andy's boss had a little chat with The Title I guy, and with great hesitation, he at last relinquished The List. This was a list of epic proportions. Five pages long, and nearly as wide, it contained the names, contact information, and test scores of every underachieving student in the great state of California who was, or ever had been, enrolled in the Gorman system. Our eyes grew wide as we gazed upon The List--a veritable gold mine brimming with gainful employment. All we had to do was sort through and find the students who lived near the Whittier site, and then sort them into groups of 2-4 students at the same level, coordinate everyone's schedules, and we would be all set.

In other words, all we had to do was endure a nightmare of logistics. But the first step was simple enough. Armed with the Thomas Guide and a compass, we made a list of all the cities within a reasonable radius of Whittier, and then made another list composed of the intersection of The List and our list.

<>Once we had compiled our list of potential tutees, Andy picked up the phone.
<>"Hello, this is Andrew Johnston from the Gorman Learning Center. May I speak with Mr. or Mrs. Smith? ... I'm calling to let you know that Alisha is eligible for some free math tutoring through Title I. ... Well, it's a government program for remedial students ... Oh, I see. ... well, then, in that case there must be a mistake. ... I have no idea, I'm just working off a list my boss compiled from test scores ... well, I guess the list is wrong. ... All right. Sorry to bother you. Goodnight."

<>We hadn't reckoned on the inherent diffiulty of tactfully informing parents that their children need academic help.
<>
I tried the next call.

"Hello, this is--"

"Dad! I've got it!"

"This is Elena Johnston, and my--"

"Dad! Would you get off the phone?! I said I've got it!"

"My husband Andrew is a math teach--"

"Oh! Is this Mrs. Johnston? Are you Mr. Johnston's wife? I'm Amanda. This is so exciting! Mr. Johnston is my favorite teacher in the whole world! I've heard all about you and the twins... I bet they're cute."

"*chuckle* Yeah, they're a lot of fun. Maybe you'll get to meet them sometime when I bring them by. It was good to meet you, Amanda. Is your mom or dad around by any chance?"

"Oh, sure! You wanna talk to my dad?"

"That'd be great."

"Da-ad! It's for you!"

<>Some weeks later, Andy's boss told him about another boy who qualified for Title I. She said that this boy was working at the same level as one of the girls he was already tutoring, so it would work perfectly to put them together. That night Andy called the boy's parents. "Well, Mrs. Davis, if Thursday at 4 works with your schedule, I'm tutoring another third grader at that time, and I'd like to put them together."

"Uh... Jimmy's in fifth grade."

Oops.

Home fragrances

The romantic sweet-almond aroma of amaretto is wafting through our apartment. I do generally like the smell, in smaller doses, but it's rather overpowering. And the floor is enormously sticky.

Looking on the bright side, the wuggies have acheived that important developmental milestone of unscrewing bottle caps.

To tutor two tooters to toot...

Natebug, our resident musical prodigy, has learned to play the recorder at the ripe old age of one year and two days. We've been trying to teach him for some time, but though he would dance when we played, and chew upon it merrily when we handed it to him, the other day was the first that he actually blew. Sometimes he hums while he blows (a very sophisticated, avant-garde technique, that!) and sometimes he just blows a loud, clear, note. Of course, he doesn't quite have the fingering down. As he was blowing, I covered and uncovered one of the holes to change the pitch, and he imitated me. But with his whole paw... the pads of his fingers aren't quite large enough to cover them all by themselves.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm rather proud of my little son.

In other news, and speaking of first kisses, not only is my firstborn prodigiously musical, but he is very cute and extraordinarily kissable. This is not just the opinion of his biased mother.... last night my opinion was quite corroborated by the lovely Brigid Elizabeth. Beautiful Brigid was enthralled with Nathan, grabbing his nose and kissing his forehead. It was very sweet.

I do hope Autumn won't be too jealous.

I found ink.

I even found where I had misplaced the pen.

Now if only I could find the nib that I dropped in the ink...

A Remarkable Discovery

I really enjoy being organized.

Moreover, I am getting a big kick out of my new job as secretary to Andy's tutoring business.

Anyone who knows me moderately well will immediately brecognize just how remarkable this discovery is.

Who'd'a thunk it?

First Kiss

Isaiah had managed to squeeze through all my barriers into the computer corner, and was playing with extension cords. Instead of marching over and pulling him out as I usually do, this time I simply called to him and told him to come to me. Grinning, he toddled over to me, wrapped his arms around my neck, and gave me a big sloppy kiss.

I'm as thrilled as a giddy 16 year old... He loves me!

Happy Birthday!

One year and two hours ago....

God is faithful.