Category Archives: family

score

Went to the Costa Mesa Goodwill with the family on Friday night. Probably a weird way to spend a weekend evening. But we’re just weird that way I guess.

Funny we ran into another Turtle Rock Mom there–we both admitted that the Goodwill was the last place she expected to see Irvine folk. We both compared our ‘scores’–what fun. My two treasures: A Brand-new-in-the-box Le Creuset-style crockpot (complete w/French instructions and cookbook). And a like-new brightly-colored wool coat (which I wore to the symphony last night and it kept me perfectly warm). It’ll match the funky scarf that I crocheted last year. I think it might be just the thing for me to wear to China in November, too. Oh, and I also got a cute spring dress for $3 (sort of 50’s style w/an A-line skirt).

John got me an awesome made-in-Italy pocketbook. It’s so beautiful I’ll have to find an appropriate outfit to wear with it. He also scored some brown cords (his favorite style of pants). He wore them yesterday, too, and is already on his way to walking the backs of the hems threadbare.

All in all we spent about as much $$ as at Taco Mesa for dinner [and isn’t it so handy that Taco Mesa is right across the street from the goodwill?!].
🙂

finale



Another night with the Pacific Symphony. Carl St. Clair conducted–his long gray hair flying all about as he leapt around on the podium. I told John that in some ways he looks the very caricature of a conductor–his movements so exaggerated, his whole body leaping dramatically around the stage. But he remains a complete joy to watch.

Tonite was all-Tchaikovsky. The first piece his No 1. concerto in B flat played by a recent Van Cliburn silver medalist. Beautiful & breathtaking.

Then at intermission E and I made the mistake of getting in line for hot chocolate (for her, not me) after using the restroom. It was about 50 degrees and windy in the stadium and E was freezing in her fleece. It seemed the right thing to try to get a quick warm beverage for her. Big mistake, tho. As a result we missed the final call for seating and had to sit outside the stadium (where we couldn’t see a thing!) for Swan Lake. We entirely missed the ballet performance. I was crying as I pleaded with the usher to let us in. To no avail. [FWIW: John had never seen ballet close up before. I think he was a bit shocked. He said the male dancer in his body-baring tights had muscles where he didn’t know muscles even existed…And to think that I missed all of that–Sheesh! 🙂 ]

But fortunately we were able to take our seats for the finale: the 1812 overture complete with cannon fire and fireworks. There was a full moon and the cannons were shooting off adjacent to our seats. They shook the whole amphitheater. It was awesome. Cannons rock! The moon had risen and was just barely visible through the red haze of the display overhead. John tried to take a quick picture (the moon is the glowing white thing in the pic above), but it’s almost impossible to capture that kind of scene on film–the shutter speed too slow, the fireworks exploding so quickly.

What a great end to a great season. I fear it may be years before we can afford orchestra-level season tickets at the symphony again. But I am so glad for these summer concerts and hope to be able to squeeze in a few individual performances again soon.

It seems, in a way, a frivolous thing to pay the outrageous prices of the Pacific Symphony (or any other local symphony, for that matter). Especially when the same amount of money could be used for more important things. I tell myself that I could just buy a CD and listen to it real loud and pretend that I am hearing it live [and then I wouldn’t have to put up with our neighbors who fiddle with plastic bags during performances, or fight for parking spaces, or cry in front of ushers who won’t let me back in after intermission].

But the CD just can’t compare. I want the real thing: the cannons, the tights, the conductor, the family, the summer, the stars, the fireworks…the memories.

$$$

So the first day of school went great. The kids came home full of stories and were so happy to have been reunited with friends.

So…now is the hard part. The part where I fill out 17 different forms for each child (all with same mundane information–where are database geeks when you really need them?? John, HELP! Calgon, take me away….). And I also pull out the checkbook and start writing. Checks for PTA, checks for workbooks, for field trips, for class holiday parties, for science teachers and PE teachers. And for music (and E has just announced that she wants to play the cello like her big brother, oh my!). I’ve been putting off the inevitable all afternoon. Avoiding the process and playing on my computer.

Now E is hanging over my shoulder and begging me PUH-LEASE to do the forms because if I don’t then she will get a pink slip and that would be like the end of the world on the first day of school, and armaggedon will happen right here in my living room if I don’t get those forms done RIGHT NOW! ARGH…..

first day

Isn’t this a great first-day-of-school pic? C was really fidgety/nervous because he didn’t really want the other boys in his class to see him posing for a pic with his baby sister. E seemed to be trying to hide the fact that her braces have lavender bands on them now.

All in all, very grown up kids. Very cute.

essay

Here’s an excerpt from E’s “What I Did This Summer” essay. It’s amazing to be that an 8 year-old wrote this:
“The remaining three kittens were so cute! Two of them were black and white, while the other was grey. One of the black and white kittens had a black nose and a black spot underneath its mouth that made it look like it had a black tongue and was always sticking it out, but you wouldn’t guess that she was taunting or teasing you because she was very shy and rarely left her mother’s side.”

from the mouths of babes…

Last night E told me that I’m building a house. I looked at her, puzzled. She replied:

“Well you have AROOM and you have an Outhouse, so I guess you should just go ahead and get the whole house.”

I giggled at her insight. AROOM is my reading/writing group (it stands for A Room Of Our Own Making–an allusion to Virginia Woolf that’s highly appropriate for our all-female group). Outhouse is what we call the group of liberal Mormons that we meet with every Wednesday night [The name came from a funny discussion about a year ago that we had about “in-house” versus “out-house” intellectuals. The name seems to fit our ragtag group of Mo’s pretty well and has stuck ever since].

I’d never thought about the group names in relation to an actual architectural structure. But, in a way, it’s apt. For, as a result of these groups I’ve found a community of friends to call “home.”

schedule

Well, this will be a big week for our litle family. This is the week that John will start back to school. He’s been waiting for this day for a very long time. He’s finally going back to study a subject of his own choosing (religious studies), and not a study that is practical (MBA) or highly employable (japanese politics and economics).

This evening as we planned our week John and I realized that once the kids start school it will take a miracle for us to be able to get everyone where they need to go. With one car, four busy schedules, and a Long Beach commute, well, it’s mind-boggling. There will be sacrifices (bus rides, missed gymnastics practices, no time for visiting w/professors, babysitting, etc?). There will be stress.

But I think it will be worth it.

To me, it’s far better to be struggling towards a lofty goal, than to be wandering aimlessly without one. I am keeping my fingers crossed, keeping a prayer in my heart, and hoping for the best. For all of us.

tap

Tonight our family enjoyed a night of movie music at the OC Pacific Symphony. They showed clips from famous musicals on a large screen above the orchestra as they played the accompanying musical score. What fun!

The evening began with the music from 2001–the opening scenes with “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” I forget how powerful those scenes are until I hear them again. My familiarity is, of course, aided by the many replays of such scenes on Sesame Street. 🙂

Then they played some music from Brigadoon (lovely) and the dance scene from “Singin in the Rain.” E wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help but hum along. I found that I’d forgotten just how lovely Gene Kelly looked in that movie until I saw him on the big screen (probably my only chance ever to see it on anything other than video or DVD). Following that was a passionate and tragic waltz from Madame Bovary (accompanied by breaking glass–the foley artists must have had fun with that one).

The big finale was the ballet scene from An American in Paris. Though there’s a part of me that’s rather repulsed by the over-the-top stylization of such scenes, my love for Paris and my fondness for the score, and the thrill of the big screen made it a great experience. Again, Gene Kelly blew me away.

Somewhere in the middle of the show–I think during Singin in the Rain–a forgotten memory resurfaced. When C was 3 I found a pair of boy’s tap shoes, sans laces, just his size at a yard sale. I bought them and threaded some old sneaker laces through the eyelets and presented them to C. I don’t think there was ever a more delighted 3 year-old as the moment that he put on these shoes and stepped out onto our linoleum floor! It was a good thing we lived downstairs because we discovered that C could really DANCE. He danced loud and he danced long in those shoes. By the time he grew out of them they were just the right size for his sister to shuffle around in and so we had a reprise of the fun with her. When we moved from 306 University Village we left behind a kitched covered with black smudge marks–eveidence of many hours of fun.

So funny that I’d forgotten. A part of me hopes that I have C on video somewhere tapping. Tho I’m sure he’d be mortified–especially if he was wearing one of his favorite dancing outfits, the one with the cowboy hat on his head, his striped t-shirt and his winnie-the-pooh underpants. Back then I wondered if I had another Gregory Hines or Gene Kelly on my hands. He had such rhythm and passion in those little feet of his! But a part of me was really afraid of having a tap dancing son–what would that mean? Would he be a starving artist, would he dance in STOMP, or Riverdance, or ??? Would he be gay? Would he be teased and ridiculed by other boys??

Now I’m sure that C has no plans to hit the stage. Though he enjoyed the symphony tonite he didn’t seem overeager to find a new pair of tap shoes (despite John’s encouragement). But a part of me wonders if his early incination was naturally squelched as C moved on to other interests, or was it a subcounscious effort on the part of us, or of society, to channel him into more ‘appropriate’ pursuits?

alone

The kids are at Aunt Suz’s again. So I’m home alone today. Thus, I’m about to shut all the windows so I can dance around naked to my favorite LPs (you know, the dusty Duran Duran, Police, and Huey Lewis records that rarely see the light of day)…

In reality, I will probably polish off a scrumptious burrito from Taco Mesa and then lie around this afternoon in a post-burrito stupor as I contemplate the piles of books in the hallway that need a new shelf to call home.

PS: You know you’ve been married a long time when you have an evening sans kids and neither your nor your spouse can think of much to do other than hanging out at Barnes & Noble for the evening and reading books about traveling to China.

P.P.S: Yesterday we adopted out the rest of Aunt Suz’s foundling kitties. All night I was thinking of them and wondering if they were enjoying their new homes. Kittens are so magical! We had complete strangers lying on the floor of our LR baby-talking the little critters. So endearing. So sweet. So happy they have new people to love them as much as we have.