Imagine...

... if this were Mohammed.

OMG (literally!)

Have you talked to God today? Because I like totally texted him earlier and haven't heard ANYthing.
THIS seems awful $illy to me.

Things that went well...

Moving! Except how did I end up here, surrounded by tons (literally tons) of random crap I only vaguely remember wanting badly enough to buy which I must now find the energy to arrange fetchingly around the townhome? Is "townhome" more pretentious sounding than "townhouse"? I caught that from the realtor-speak we endured lo these 4 months.

Auditioning! It really did go well, didn't it? It's funny how you prepare and prepare for five little minutes and it's hard to even quantify how it went unless you totally screw it up. But I didn't. Screw it up, that is. They liked me, they really really liked me. More than the others? Who knows, bring me my martini. I'm playing for another one of them on Thursday evening and then the REAL audition is October 10th.

The Weather! It's 15 degrees warmer than usual in these here normally drippy parts. It makes me much much less grumpy (yes it DOES, Jonathan. **Smack!** I warned you not to sass me!!). It also makes the transition to our new terrarium easier since the view out all these windows is lovely. Nice of them to put in those maples whose leaves seem to ignite.

Toby's transition to Standing Baby(tm) and Cries When Told "NO!" Baby(tm) is complete.

What have you been up to?

We're moving. And practicing. And trying to raise a non-homicidal person. Pictures are always the easiest form of blog joy.

Saving my Marriage

J hated that the exposure was off on that tram pic. I loved the pose, so I posted it anyway but his head exploded when he saw it so here's a better one. Hopefully he won't hate my guts now.

Six-Toothed Wonder

I thought of myself as incredibly clever, naming this picture "T-spoon and saucer". Aren't I a hoot?



We also put together his highchair booster seat dealy so he can learn to entertain himself while we eat. He is practicing tapping his baton on the tray to get the attention of the orchestra, which will really only happen in his first made-for TV movie: Classic- How Modern Classical Came to Dominate Pop Music back in 2007.


Portland is getting a new tram. Of course, it's practically free and will be incredibly practical for the average man on the street. We figure when he's really old- like, 30 or so- Toby will look back at this old timey picture and marvel at the simplicity of life back in the first decade of the second millenium.


That is all.

Hold me.

Should I be frightened?

Toby bites, mostly (I thought) experimentally, thoughtfully, absent-mindedly. But lately, when I shout NO BITE! (why DO we talk Tanto to children?) he pauses to consider, looking deep into my soul before... laughing. It's a short little Hum of a laugh, almost a reverse-sniff-through-the-nose laugh, like an overworked IT guy hearing a joke he's heard before.

Can an eight-month old be sadistic?

Uh... Not that I know of?

Today was sucky.

I was asked if I am pregnant. By a woman. In a group of female church leaders. Granted, 5 of the 8 women there WERE actually pregnant and I guess maybe she was being funny but I don't know her at all and I felt like I had been slapped or perhaps had farted in front of all these ladies I don't know. It made me get all hot and red.

I also went to weight watchers and paid them to learn I have gained one pound despite paying them $80 and running a 10K on Sunday. I did NOT swear aloud= some kind of Godly brownie points, damnit.

Toby was a peach all day, though. He woke up from his nap smiling and when I put him on the floor he just looked up at me and laughed. Come to think of it, he often laughs when he catches sight of me... hmmm.

Candy from a Baby

First, go here and look at the pictures.
Then, maybe look at this article if you like.

The kids are amazing looking without that craptastic shiny-waxy effect she's using. What is that, the annoying-greeting-card filter on photoshop?

Ethically, I think she's a genius. She isn't hurting them. A lollipop?! Jeez louise, if these complainers are parents they realize the tyranny of childhood results in several of these meltdowns per week if not per day. It's part of the human condition. While it would be cruel to leave them in this state for any length of time or to induce it by damaging them for real, this ain't like that. I imagine they come away with a lollipop and a six-thousand dollar pic. The parents should be the ones bawling over that fee.

Hey, she could just offer to let them play with some flowers and then yank them away...
What did you think of it?

Prayer

I am trying to figure out how to be Christ's. It used to be it was easy for me to get chatty in prayer, driving around the Baltimore beltway. Everyone prays on that thing.. Anyway, I tried the Christian Siruis channel today and SHOCK! that new safe for the whole family poorly-played-pop schlock just ain't getting me there.

~From the Imago Dei site~
The church of God is those called to be saints who call upon the name of Jesus Christ. (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:2)
{I "call upon the name" mostly when I am late, when the kid is fussing, when I'm tired and need to play a passage right before I quit, when I wanna finish a mile without wussing out. Whining at rather than calling upon.}

Prayer is essential to and inseparable from the new life brought by Jesus Christ. Without it, no one has ever placed a valid claim on the name Christian. The Bible tells us to, "Be constant in prayer." We understand this to be so fundamental that the church of God can be defined as those who "in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ." Imago Dei desires to cultivate a great understanding of the freedom prayer offers to every believer. This comes first by understanding what God's Word teaches us about prayer, for God is himself the designer of this wonderful communion with him and the one calling us to participate in it. "Seek the Lord," God invites. And again he says, "Call upon him." (Isaiah 55:6) Gathering for prayer together is how we as a community of believers can share in this communion with God. We get to develop relationships with one another at a very authentic level as we listen in on, agree with, and are encouraged by each other's prayers.

Psalm 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.

{I would so totally get away with life as a Christian in name only if it weren't for prayer. No way to fake that.

This week at Imago this lithe chick (well she was.) spontaneously walked up to the front left of the stage while we played and started dancing. I could not stop staring at her. She looked pretty natural doing it, not Napoleon Happy Hands Clubesque or anything, but it made me SO UNCOMFORTABLE. I think I may prefer to see some one cry or writhe around (writhe, lithe, blithe). Anyway... she can dance her faith in front of hundreds of people and I can't even pray well alone in the shower.}

This isn't her. She looked way cooler, but this is generally the face of liturgical dance, right? Everyone church of a certain size seems to have one of these around Easter.

There needs to be a movie.

from Runners World interview of Karnazes:
Three midrun hallucinations he recalls to this day: 1) Small roadside animals, during his 350-mile run last October, which were invisible to the people traveling alongside Karnazes in a car. The animals looked to Karnazes like possums, raccoons, and skunks, but only at first. "Have you ever read Maurice Sendak's children's book Where the Wild Things Are? They started morphing into little Wild Things." 2) Glowing snake eyes advancing upon him in the darkness, during his September 2000 199-mile run to Santa Cruz, which was designed as a 12-person relay but which Karnazes decided to run alone. The snake eyes turned out to be the headlights of distant cars. 3) The 19th-century gold miner he watched cross the road in front of him in the middle of the night the first time Karnazes ran the Badwater Ultramarathon. "Typical '49er. Beard, gold pan in his hand, and mumbling. He was saying--" Karnazes affects a hoarse, desperate whisper--"'water!' So I poured some from my water bottle into his gold pan and heard it sizzling on the ground, and I realized it was a hallucination." Pause. "That was a good one."

What a person such as Dean Karnazes puts on his To Do list after he finishes running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days: "Okay. I want to run from California to Hawaii." Pardon? "Check this out." Karnazes gets up, walks carefully upstairs to his office, turns on the computer, and calls up a photograph of a man wearing a wet suit, atop ocean water, inside what appears to be a giant hamster wheel. "That's me," Karnazes says. "It's called a Hydro Bronc. It's inflatable. I actually caught a wave in it while running." He says he figures the run to Hawaii would take a couple of months, with a boat alongside in which he would spend the night sometimes, the way people do when they windsurf across the Atlantic. Wait. People windsurf across the Atlantic? Karnazes nods distractedly, and says, "Look, here's another device I recently came across that I think would let me do it faster," and pulls out a magazine photograph of a small person-powered hydrofoil that shoots forward when its rider jumps up and down on one end. He studies the two pictures--hydro-jumping to Hawaii, hamster-wheel running to Hawaii. He hasn't made up his mind. "I also want to climb Mount Everest, eventually, but starting in Katmandu, and not using porters or oxygen or animals to transport stuff," he says. "And this is something not that far off--I want to paddle around the Farallon Islands, on a big board, surfing style. It's about forty miles." The Farallon Islands are in the Pacific Ocean, 27 miles off the San Francisco coastline. They are inhabited only by researchers. They're known as a feeding region for white sharks. "Big ones," Karnazes says. He looks very happy. "Yeah! Lots of big sharks."

Here's the link to the article.

Must've sounded like a Jay bird...

The other day as Toby was fussing himself back to sleep I entered that not awake, not asleep but dreaming sort of state and had the oddest thought. I thought from the sound of his cry I could tell that Toby was gay. And then I had to try to show him I still loved him and everything would be okay (he was still only 7 months in the dream) even though I was sad he would have that particular challenge.

Could have beeen that one butterfly I ironed-on to his onesie when he was tiny...

No such thing.

You knew it wasn't yours.

Made for me alone as I waited, passing the time watching my sweet innocent infant son make lovely shapes in the air with his hands, it embodied richest perfection.

Placing yourself slyly between me and those in command as I asked after it you hollowly announce, "I thought it was extra."

There is no such thing as a homeless, unwanted, abandoned Grande Fat Free Latte, lady.

Meanwhile, back on the laptop...

Here's a couple places I've wasted time on the internet in the past few days. Don't worry, I'm getting lots done in the real world, too. Just today I practiced, had Starbucks, ran and messed up the kitchen. I even had time to teach Tobias how to wave, sort of. He sticks his hand in the air, mostly palm up, in the direction of things as he considers them. It counts.


Dean Karnazes is insane. Now you can join him.

Want to write a novel? I actually met a man tonight who said he's writing a sci-fi novel. Wonder if he knows about this?

I would make one of these for four total babies I know if I had an extra couple of weeknights... maybe someday soon.

I slack. I'm a slacker.

HI!
Whew, excuse the long pauses all summer around here. Time has crept away and then taken off at a gallop somewhere out of sight.

I'm getting ready for auditions. Did you remember I play the viola? I had practically forgotten. The other day I was lamenting that it was turning into September without my permission and that that meant the symphony's sub auditions were coming around. The whining went something like this: ...and they're probably already passed and that guy I'm supposed to play for probably thinks I'm a total flake and I'll never play anything good here and my thighs are too fat. Then J went and looked it up and found that there are two Real Salaried Positions up for grabs and that made my bottom lip tremble and real tears flow.

So I'm buckling down, getting with it.

Right now Ein Heldenleben (German for "sucky long nosebleed-piercing high meandering passages that shouldn't be played when others are present") is kicking my butt. Really, as a serious, credentialed classical dork I am required to appreciate the whole Strauss/Wagner compendium. Blech. Even Mahler gets on my nerves. They come out with a great moment here and there, but it's like garage-sale, thrift store music. You have to go through a lot of the same old junk to get to the rare treasure.

So, we're running the Pints to Pasta 10k because beer and spaghetti are my friends. If you have a cattle prod, could you stop by on Sunday? I'm a tad (snort) undertrained.

the great deride

There's this one mom I know with a 20-month-old boy I had in passing (out of earshot, of course) called the Monster. I'm bad, and it will certainly come back to get me, so don't hate on me now. I saw the mom/Monster today and they were in Jekyl mode. (It's Hyde that's the scary, right?) She was smart and funny and paid attention when the boy was boisterous so he wouldn't become insufferable. His nose was cleaner this time, too.

It's so easy to look at other parents and deride like you've never derided before.

Sometimes I worry that my careful parenting is approximately 85% for show. If I knew no one could see, they wouldn't be able to tell, would I be feeding him frosting from a can, loaning him the barbeque tools for entertainment and heading off to soak in the tub with a bowl of martini, dry with extra olives?

He's not old enough for me to be petty with him, so I guess it just comes out when I get busy comparing myself with his friends' moms.

***

My friend is having a really hard time right now. Remember that first friend I made where we had Starbucks together and the world began to revolve again for me right there at the Mall? She has two little girls and the elder is having a seriously tough time keeping it together. Her marriage is strained (I don't know him), and I don't know if there is anything to say that won't just be ridiculous.

The girl seems to me to have classic OCD. She's got some repetitive compulsions and wild sensitivity to anything she considers out of whack in her environment. When she's calm she is sweet and engaging- she's four.

Pray for her, or if you don't play that way then round up the good juju as my other friend says, whatever works for you.
***

How do you people stomach chicken? I threw out four breasts last night that had been open in the fridge for a few days and by early afternoon today I thought perhaps I was going to have to call the feds. I totally retched- and I am not a retcher. That smell- how can a smell encompass slime and just be so sweetly wrong? Seriously, you eat that? Nast.
***

I've been sewing. I made sheets for these two pack n' plays we just got off Craigslist. Why mess with a crib when he's been playard-ing it thus far? We figure we can put him in an actual bed in a few years, just skip the crib all together. No danger of falling out, no slats to get stuck between.

By the way, I am a sucker. When the chick yesterday said she was selling for a single mom I totally believed her and felt guilty for getting it for five dollars less. Retarded. Craiglist is like a garage sale, you gotta put an extra couple bucks in the price to bargain with, right? They didn't have to say yes, right? I'm not totally evil, right? Do you think she's eating beans from a can while we went to Red Robin tonight and I even had a beer while my husband held the child like a damned Rockwellian fling?

Letting your Yes mean Yes.

We can all take a lesson from the producers and creators of Snakes on a Plane. Promised... and delivered. We laughed, we hooted, we witnessed the requisite use of M**f**'n by Sammy our man. I wonder if Mr. L. Jackson is the type to be called Sammy. Unlikely.

Dude, I'm just saying, what other things might benefit from a more straightforward moniker? We thought Speed 2 should have been Bomb on a Boat, but Crap on a Stick works equally well.
The Doctor of Musical Arts degree should at the very least be subtitled Debt in a Bucket.
Craigslist = Crack that's Good for You.
My Jeep = Purrrr. Sorry, got distracted.

Moving j-wards. Again. We lied.

Here's our new place, a townhome about 10 miles south of downtown Portland. It's near a big 'ol park, surrounded by suburby neighborhoods positively filthy with sidewalks. I think it'll be great with a bratlet.

It's our way in on Portland's market- they can't keep our type out forever, right Pa?!

We are not hiring movers, despite what I said that one time involving the word "never".

Oh, man- Tobias is awake. It's only 1:20, he should be asleep until at least 3:30, if not 6. Wish us well.

Salem ho.

This isn't my image, but it gives you the idea.

There is a certain slant of the trees on the drive down to Salem, part of the trip where I start to feel particularly relaxed. My parents are just far enough away that nostalgic road-trippiness sets in. It's like that point in a workout where you're thinking louder than your body can complain, like a ripening.

Today at pretty much exactly that moment (somewhere near Brooks) there was an enormous flock of starlings over I-5. It looked like a screen-saver; "undulating" came to mind. They're a nuisance animal, but it was striking. The variety of shapes and opacities- it was a great swath of sheer black fabric.

In just the same spot on another trip I saw a funnel cloud of straw bits twist four stories over the semi's (tractor-trailors to you easties) below.

While we're chatting about my own personal Bermuda triangle, here's a picture of something magically cutilicious in a hat on a boat in Montana.