The Grammacello Years

Christmas Expectations

2008-12-18T00:50:00.003-05:00

My "baby", aged 27 has arrived and has now zoomed off to spend the night with a friend, taking my car.-how normal- he'll be back in the morning.

The halls are decked.

I will see step kids, my kids, good friends and a kind hubby. I will lead a beautiful formal concert (the cello part) this Sunday which will be spectacular.I will hug my dogs and cat.

Then I will go to Seattle for a week to see grandbabies-who are now 4 and 7-not babies!

I feel tired, but also excited, thrilled, more than ready.

BUT
O God I want my baby boy back. I just want to see him, whatever he might be- babe in arms, funny schoolboy, ravaged schizophrenic- I will take anything. Please, please let him walk in the door with one of his wonderful Mom hugs.
Just one. Just once.

O Shawn, your Mommy loves you. I love you so much.

In the picture: Shawn aged about 6 and his adored big sister, Jenn, about 8, Christmas 1980

And Then There is Real World Shopping....

2008-12-15T01:16:00.002-05:00

bleh.
I thought I would drop into the local Zellers because I wanted P.J.'s for my daughter for Christmas and there are a lot there. But maniacal hordes had picked over everything, and although it wasn't all that crowded, I sort of got hypnotized-I spent a couple of hours in the end. I did get what I wanted (more or less) but I was SO SORE that I had to fall in bed and sleep for a couple of hours as soon as I got home. I don't know what this is really about-well, it is about the fibromyalgia-the pain is, but why is it such an extreme reaction?? It makes me vow to stick to the web shopping! I don't seem to be able to do much in a week-end before I need to crash.
How could pain this bad be "just" fibro?
Off to bed!!!!

Late night shopping

2008-12-11T03:08:00.006-05:00

See the two of us in the letter

Just as we were in real life?

Oh, my heart.......

It is interesting how things change. We don't really notice day to day as we are such adaptable creatures...I guess for a 59 year old I am a pretty early adapter- I follow blogs. I am keeping again, I hope, my blog. I look everything up on Google. I like Firefox, not Explorer- How do I know any of this really? No one told me..it sort of seeps in.

My Christmas shopping is pretty much done- most of it at 2 AM in my room here.Imagine how much difficulty I would have had finding two Ninja costumes- for a 7 and 4 year old -if I had had to go to a store. And find them I did have to do!

["DEAR GRAMMA I WOULD LIKE A NIHGA MASK THANK YOU XOXOXOXOXOXO"]

It took a lot of time and a phone call to Kansas to check on the sizing, but the Ninja outfits are on their way to Seattle where I will wrap them two days after Christmas and make a little boy and his sister happy. Think of the implications- I doubt I could have found them ten years ago, even when I had more energy to run around in malls. Or even now- I wouldn't have begun to know where to look.

I would feel even more computer savvy if it hadn't taken upwards of three hours trying to down load that picture....

Two Years, Three Months, Twenty Days Later

2008-12-04T00:35:00.003-05:00

So. I have been Reading on line.
Lurking.
Dressing up as Grammacello for my Hallowe'en
Concert, along with 30 kids.
Living my life, as we tend to do, but at the same time,
Having A Crisis.
One of my students found this blog and read it. Asked me why I don't I keep it any more?
I have been thinking about this.
Here's the thing....
My tiny perfect life by the lake didn't work out in a big way....Let's see-I'm still married, still teaching, dogs all fine, ditto kids and grandkids. But WHEN: the neighbour from HELL moves into the townhouse next door, reports your innocent cello teaching to the town, after digging up the information that you must be in a detached house to be legal, a small but salient fact that NO-ONE else seems to know, including the 22 other teachers you work with, most of whom are doing the exact same"illegal" thing, you scoff, (at first) ultimately pay $35,000. plus in legal fees fighting, decide to beat a strategic retreat- [note omission of about seventeen million explanatory details here]move to a detached house not on the lake, sell the townhouse (thankfully!)and regroup, it kind of takes something out of you. Like 2 years, three months and twenty days to get to a place where you feel able to crawl out from under the rock -the one that fell on you-
You have been teaching from home for 31 years, now, albeit in a different city where it is, by the way, ALSO illegal, although you were never caught....
Anyway, where you feel slightly more able to put anything of yourself out there.
I still read the blogs of some of my commenters. Have found others as well. But don't even comment. Just hide, licking my wounds and wondering how it is possible to have been SO badly de-railed on the trust front, not even able to comment.
In the world of crises it is way down there- I know this in my own story even, as I am a Mom whose son has died, I know grief. And crisis.
But the last two years have been very hard.
I am changed- in ways hard to articulate.
I am going to post this. Then I will go around and say "hi" in comments to some people with whom I had begun forming some tiny, tentative connections, two years and more ago.
I will see what happens.

Andrea Pratt

2006-08-12T01:32:00.000-04:00

I saw this beautiful piece on Andrea's webpage. I like to work in these clear primary colours myself, and HOUSES! I am a Cancer, and(whether or not there is anything to this stuff: I am both a skeptic and a believer) my very favourite place to be is home. I dream of houses; I draw them; I photograph them-they are an archetype in my life.

Plus I just LOVE this painting- the sun, the moon, the rain- I looked at some of the small art "house" paintings but....they weren't MY painting!

And so, dear reader, I BOUGHT it!

Since delivery won't be for a while due to a number of circumstances, I can dreamily wander around my house, mentally putting it"here" or.....maybe "here"

What a thrill! You MUST look at her sites if you haven't done so already.

small art
colouring outside the lines

Daisy!!

2006-07-30T01:41:00.000-04:00

Daisy checks out the marina scene before she spies the camera.

Poor sweet photogenic Daisy. I found her online at Petfinder.com a year ago January. It said she was "calm, gentle, good with other dogs".........

John tries to set up a group photo....

(HAHAHAHAHA) and not recommended for kids or cats, since they didn't know about that.
The first thing she did when we met her, at a foster home in Detroit, was say to Frankie, "I adore you", and to John, "Let's go home now."
So, we did. She didn't peep at all on the four hour drive, or indeed, even move. As it turns out, she was terrified. When we got home though, she walked in the house, saw Sophie the cat, went up and touched noses and that was that re: cats.
With kids, well, a two year old once sat on her in the studio and she wagged her tail- she LOVES all people-and has mastered Frankie's heavy head lean into the human leg trick, guaranteed to win over everyone.
But DOGS? WTF?
After she bit the ear (and drew mucho blood) of a neighbour's (admittedly nasty, badly behaved aggressive, uncontrolled- bites small kids- schnauzer) TWICE, and began growling, and then going ballistic at random passing dogs-on-leash on walks, we began to, um, reassess the "good with other dogs" part. The way it stands now:
She must be leashed at ALL times- she may like, or hate, a dog and will attack with no warning, or not, as she sees fit- she might, instead wag her tail and want to play- it is all hit and miss, to the human eye. So after we tried a dog psychologist- mainly to placate the owners of Bootsie the schnauzer, who has since died of old age, by the way- we leash her when she is outside 100% of the time and we have all adjusted. But her own pack? She adores the cats, worships Frankie and mothers Chiwee- taking anything he does, from tail biting, to being climbed on, to sharing a dish, in stride. She is very loyal to her own pack.

She tries to hide behind the legs of some random strangers on the pier

But, she has a weird phobia, about cameras...... They TERRIFY her- she shakes like a leaf and runs away- it is all a mystery-it isn't the flash per se: even seeing the camera in my hand triggers it. As a result, we have very few pics of her. So the other night I decided, after several months' hiatus, to try again. It was marginally better, as in, she only ran to the end of the leash and asked the people sitting next to us on the dock, to adopt her, LOL. At least I got a few and then I couldn't do it to her any more.
Camera put away, Daisy, returns to her own pack,
exhausted by the trauma of it all, where Chiwee
gives her a reassuring kiss.

Some day-to-day news, in pictures

2006-07-23T21:20:00.000-04:00

SUMMER ALGAE

The "sand" that appears to be on the beach in this photo is actually washed up algae that has dried in the sun. This is one of the few minuses of living where we do- it can get very stinky after a storm has washed a lot of it up and it hasn't finished drying out. But, our old house had constant traffic day and night streaming by the front door. I will take the stinky lake-(this shot is only yards from our door)-which is only a hot weather phenomenon, any day. Apparently, it is all over several Great Lakes- Erie is worst, then Ontario and Lake Michigan has it too. It grows offshore, from the bottom, breaks off in wavy conditions, washes onshore and rots. It is not dangerous in any way, though, just odiferous.Here, I am checking out the swimming possibilities for the big dogs. Some days the water is quite clear, beyond the wash-up.Sometimes the wash-up washes away entirely and all is idyllic, as it is in spring and fall.

UPDATED PICS OF CHIWEE THE WONDER DOG

JUST SO SOULFUL!-deceptive, however, as he is actually a tiny tornado that seldom stops.

For reference, the toy dog, which he carries around a lot, is from Ikea and is about 2 inches long. Clever Chiwee is learning to read, heh.

He loves stuffed animals. When he first came, this toy came with him from the breeder. he was about the size of its head at that point.

This looks like a standoff over a giant bone, but actually, he is 'play bowing'. Poor guy, he wants so badly to play with the cats and they so totally don't get it. Cats are dumb, if you're a dog.

EARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He doesn't need clothes, at least till the cooler weather but I have been web shopping!

She is having trouble understanding him. She studies him in his crate as he sleeps like he was a zoo exhibit.

Life is never dull, with a puppy. In some later post I should speculate on why I came so late to being a dog person. I was well on my way to being "The Cat Lady Of Glasgow Street" before we,( when I was ummmm....49, nearly 50) got our Frankie and look at me now. Interesting......can dogs be a midlife crisis?

Now and Then

2006-07-12T23:01:00.000-04:00

On August the 25th and 26th, both my "kids" are going to be here sleeping under the same roof with me (along with my son-in-law, two grandchildren, my future daughter-in-law, two cats, three dogs and a husband!) On one of these two days my step-daughter, her dog, my step-son and future step daughter-in-law will also be here, although not actually sleeping over, for reasons that should be obvious, as we live in this
house, heh. I really cannot wait!
As I read this blog I am struck how sort of regular and normal it all sounds, as if my life is pretty perfect. I guess it is, now, as it appears to people on the outside. I wonder why I am letting this impression stand, if I am, as I write here.
My life is probably the best and most stable it has ever been, this part is true.These "Grammacello Years" were arrived at with a lot of work of many kinds.
I rememember being at a conference once, when Jenn was 21 and Matthew was 11- we all slept in the same ROOM (at a hotel) and it was the first time I had slept well in 15 months. This was July, 1993 and Shawn had been dead 15 months- the conference was the national Compassionate Friends Gathering. Nothing ever seems normal after a loss like that but a new normal gradually takes shape. It would take so many words to tell that story.

Sometimes I really really really wish that it were a different "now" and that I was posting this;

Here are my 3 kids at Pinery Beach, Lake Huron, summer 1984. Jennifer is 13, Shawn is 11 and Matthew is 3. I used up a whole roll trying to get a good one of all three, but, sigh, kids-you know how it goes.

It makes me cry to write this.

I wish I had him back, to sleep in our bursting at the seams family sleep-over in August.

I just want him back.

"It's MY toy"......."No, it's MY toy"......."and my 'Mom'"

2006-07-01T16:41:00.000-04:00

Even cuter than the puppy.....

2006-06-28T02:20:00.000-04:00

Here is M. my 20 month old granddaughter.(She is as much a going concern as the puppy is, as well.)

We are so lucky with our grandchildren: they are healthy, bright and are being raised by excellent parents.

Isn't she beautiful??

They are coming for a week in August-this is a happy Grandma!

Puppy, other stuff

2006-06-24T16:35:00.000-04:00

Well, this puppy is potty trained to the extent that he understands and doesn't pee or poo on the beds or couches, in his crate- not ever, from the beginning, and in his playpen, which is his safe/contained place on the middle level of the house. He loves to race around in the tall grass;
follows the big dogs on their "East Walk"- (along the path by the lake to the east, which has lake on one side and the back side of two blocks of town houses on the other- i.e., safe from traffic)-This is a loooooong walk for him- sometimes I carry him on the way back. Last night he did his business after watching Daisy do hers, which is the whole point of this 20 minute, twice or three times daily walk.
INSISTS on eating big dog food-1/2 and 1/2 tinned meat with kibble-with the big dogs-and has already learned the sound of a fork in a dog food tin, even from upstairs in his crate, and he
sits, lies down or freezes when we say, "Chiwee, SIT!" This is a big step- we can pick him up to bring him in from the puppy-proofed yard without chasing him all over it- did I mention he is FAST???

Ok, enough with the proud Mama bit. Um, well, one more-When he's playing nearby me, he races over, climbs up my body and kisses me all over my face every two minutes or so and then hurls himself back to play.It is SO sweet!

Soon (in 2 days)it'll be my birthday. Last year we had just moved and John was away at some work thing for a couple of days. I didn't speak to a living soul that day- even my kids forgot to call. It ranked right down there with the suckiest birthdays of all time. So this year, instead of requiring mind reading from all my nearest and dearest I have "asked for what I need"-(therapy, anyone?)

Thus:
John is staying home that day,

my step-kids (bio kids are living far away)will be here so we can all go out to dinner, and

my future d-in-law ( step d-in-law??)volunteered to bake me a cake! In this family, this is a HUGE HUGE deal- not even from a mix or anything!!REAL cooking!

What's in a name?

2006-06-09T17:44:00.000-04:00

Ok, my husband just read this and HE has a short guest remark:

"I invented the name of this dog, and it is supposed to read Chiwee,
like Peewee except this is a chihuahua, so it becomes 'Chiwee'."

AHEM: you won't believe it, but until now I thought this man was THE LEAST SUCKY man on the PLANET. You never know! I guess his name is
"CHIWEE"

Baby Chiwi!

2006-06-09T17:27:00.000-04:00

Here he is- our new baby dog! He will be 8 weeks tomorrow and already he has grown noticeably. What a little cutie, and also, what a little character! Aside from being smart-see previous post-he is a little force to be reckoned with. I can see why they call chihuahuas "big dogs in little bodies". There is so much .....'person", in that tiny body, already!

Dog Love Fest 2006!

2006-06-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

Honestly!
I know that I am the proud Mama and all but this teensy tiny guy is AMAZINGLY smart. We have a crate in the bedroom that he is in at all times, except when I am holding him, watching his little weensy behind like a hawk or when he is outside-which is to say, he is not in the crate much of the time. Except all night, since, as he weighs >1 pound, I don't want to wake up to squashed puppy, and when I tried that (first night) he pooped a little in the sheets and let us say it was QUITE the little while until I came across it.....well it WAS a very very small poop......LOL, um, moving right along...

He has selected a corner of the yard and he pees and poops INSTANTLY every time I take him out. EVERY time! and the crate is as clean as the day we got him. Not.One. Mistake.Really! or in the playpen either which is much bigger and is set up for him in the living room. (NO puppy has ever been so indulged and pampered- it's embarrassing. We do have three levels- it is a townhouse...Maybe I will lose 50 pounds this summer, racing up and down about 20 times a day. Seriously.)

But the puppy! He knows his name, looks up and comes, sort of, when he is called by me (in a sickening high falsetto. What is it about cute tiny things and that? In the interests of showing him off/socialising him, I showed him to quite a few students and their Moms and I am here to report that ALL females, even at age five, are hardwired to say "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" with a sort of sinking and then rising inflection- try it---See? we all do it!! that means "Oh.My.God.How.Unbelievably.CUTE!!!!!!CAN I PUHLEEEEZE HOLD HIM??"

He adores the big dogs. Frankie is: "Not ANOTHER dog that you will no doubt love more than me. SSIIIIGGGGHHHH" but he lets Chiwi play with his tail and only casts me hunted looks if it goes on too long. But Daisy! IS A MAMA DOG! Has A Puppy! A real live baby! Whom she is trying to pick up by the scruff of his neck-ever so carefully!- so far succeeding only once for about one second- Chiwi is FAST!-and whose bum she wants to wash!- but he scuttles like a little bug and so far she hasn't connected much. She is working hard on her technique though which involves sort of stick handling him with her front paws to make him run in a straight line- it's a hoot!They are SOOO gentle with him, except when Frankie is "guarding" his latest cookie- which is often. He-this is his favourite game- waits on purpose for any four legged being-feline or canine-to walk within 20 feet of the cookie so he can growl unconvincingly and then WOOF a huge satisfying bark. The cats roll their eyes at this and Daisy has mostly learned to ignore it as well. Frankie is pretty well perfect in other respects-(he was a Zen master in his previous life)and is a hardly-any-bark and absolutely-no-bite, ever, dog, and almost 10 years old.) So no worries. But Chiwi is a fresh victim and today,the couple of time he strayed near the object of Frank's obsession, and Frankie growl/barked, he popped about 2 feet straight up in the air and beat it like hell! BUT! tonight: as the three of them had their bedtime snack-yes yes, throw up if you must-and Frankie went to stick his nose in Chiwi's bowl, as is his custom (with Daisy), this 7 1/2 week old baby growls and then barks at HIM. Frank backs up in UTTER disbelief! looks at me: "Mom! That puppy is PICKING ON ME!"

Both big dogs also are shoving their giant heads- how did they suddenly get so HUGE? in my lap whenever I fuss over Chiwi, so it is dog/Mama lovefest 2006 around here!!

Really, though, he whines only to say he has to go out for a pee and poop, does it EVERY time, going to the same place, and has had NO -that really is NO accidents, in or out of the crate since Saturday, before I really had the system tweaked. Isn't this amazing? How can all of that be going on in a little head the size of a plum??And what incredible control. I am astounded.

I know there is a sad lack of adorable pictures here, but Daisy's biggest issue is her camera phobia and wherever I am with Chiwi, there also goeth the big dogs, like burrs stuck to my pantlegs.
I can't do that to her-it would be cruel- she trembles for 1/2 an hour just at the SIGHT of my camera, never mind a click or, horrors, the flash. So, for pictures, when Daddy gets home tomorrow night I will get him to take the big guys for a long walk and go nuts!

Watch this space!

Friday is new puppy day!

2006-06-01T00:55:00.000-04:00

Well, I feel nervous and expectant and excited. "Chiwi",pronounced "Chee-wee"-our new baby chihuahua, who was named by the supposedly reluctant husband, within 1/2 hour of me gingerly bringing up the whole puppy idea-LOL-, will come home Friday. He will be nearly 8 weeks old. Part of me is apprehensive since our dogs at present are so laid back -if you sleep in till 11:30, so do they- if you want to take a nap for three hours, they are on. It is a bit like when I had my third kid 8 years after the second one- what I dreaded, was the coming loss of sleep. Ah well, I need to toughen up, I guess- in cello term time my schedule is all over the map- early, late, early and late, random days off, extra huge days on- I always cannot wait for the summer weeks off but at the same time I know I do badly with the lack of structure. Psychologically, it is not the best situation for me. Ideally, I should put the puppy (and myself) on a strict schedule. We will see.
And, I have never house broken a teeny tiny one before. Cats train themselves- we have had lots of baby kitties- but our dogs were 5 months or so(Frankie), and adult of unknown age(Daisy) when we got them. They were both already perfectly house-broken.
I have not lived to regret these two dogs though- I can't imagine life without them now.I worry too much.
In other news, Matt went back to Dalhousie today to start his summer job, and he and Rachel, his GF of 5 years will start grad school in September. They called and are moved into their apartment. My baby!! It really really really goes SO FAST.
Shoulder hurting so I will save the Great Cuban Rabies Scare for next post.

And WOW my lovely Belinda Ninja soaps arrived. What a treat!They will make great presents and using one is like a present to myself, every time I wash my hands. Thank you, thank you, poodle lady!

Cooking, and puppy pics

2006-05-24T14:02:00.000-04:00

I don't really like to cook. In my early days as a hippy-ish Mama we were vegetarian, and mostly whole food types.My kids didn't much like the non dairy stuff so we ate a lot of eggs and dairy. Then I had Matt, split up with the father of my three kids and was on my own for over six years. As my older kids became teenagers, we started down the fast and slippery slope back into eating meat. I was busy and they were tired of standing out in the crowd. Then John and I got together and things got REALLY complicated- not just in the kitchen, of course....
Anyway, at that point I was teaching about 40 students, across four dinner hours, John and his Jennifer, "our" #2 daughter, my step-daughter, decided that they REALLY liked the vestiges of vegetarian cooking that still went on and both decided to not eat meatat all. Jennifer #1 (mine) was eating meat again by then- but, interestingly,
is now raising her kids exactly as she was raised as a younger kid- all natural, NO meat, healthy hippy-ish lifestlye-interesting, eh?Anyway, we also had Chris and Matt, little boys at the time who both loathed all the vegetarian dishes- they fought a fair bit but were very united on this point- THEY only wanted meat and potatoes type stuff. Only Shawn and I ate everything. Since I was usually teaching at dinnertime anyway, and no matter what I made, SOMEONE said "YUCK!"So I gave up cooking, gradually-not on purpose exactly-but by the time all the kids were gone I had stopped cooking, except for a turkey twice a year or so, in favour of buying ready made things amd microwaving them- a feat that John performed.
Ok, here we are, settled into a new life and a new place, just the two of us- John still vegetarian by the way, except for BEEF(????) go figure. I am pretty sick of our diet which is bread and cheese as often as not.
Then, along comes "Supperworks".
What an excellent idea!! I still teach across a lot of dinnertimes, but how easy is this system?

Lookee: supperworks!!

Thaw it, assemble it, cook it and it is an excellent home cooked yummy entree, with all the planning, shopping and even chopping and sauce making already done. I am in heaven! You can go there and assemble it yourself, bring it home and freeze it OR, like I did, have THEM do even this part and deliver, to the door, the already assembled and frozen meals. We haven't eaten this well in....forever and I feel virtuous and domestic, although I probably should feel lazy and guilty, but, maybe, I will gradually re-acquire my cooking genes, and actually get back to real cooking. But,actually, why? We can afford it- the joys of all 4 kids finished with undergrad work as of last year- and I would rather do other stuff. Plus, I am still teaching a LOT so there is still the dinner hour thing.
Anyway, the Supperworks idea is such a screaming success- the owners are going to franchise it and they just won a $50,000 award for innovative new business ideas
that a lot of people must agree with me. And it all started right here in my town!
Tonight's menu: curried chicken with pinapple rice, or the leftover Italian bean and pasta soup.
Topic of conversation: The new puppy that I have reserved with a deposit and that John doesn't want because he doesn't like change of any sort, or small dogs. Wish me luck.

Puppy

2006-05-15T23:22:00.000-04:00

So. Have you ever noticed that there are things you have at some point in your past said that you would "NEVER" do that, by golly, at another point in your life you find yourself doing the exact thing that you swore up and down you would never do?
I have two big dogs, 85 and 65 pounds. I have always said that I would NEVER get a little dog. So why is it that I find myself looking at, get this, chihuahua puppies?
As a matter of fact, I used to be a cat person, and at age 47 I had never had a dog, except one as a child who was small and very hairy.
Watch this space for more dog news....or not.
Today my Belgian waffle maker came!! My husband laughs and says the the batch I made tonight ready for the morning will be the first and last batch I ever make. We shall see. I REALLY like waffles.But then there was the bread maker, ahem.Remember those?

Kids

2006-05-13T00:10:00.000-04:00

Well, they are never too old to act like kids- at least in their parents' house. My "baby" Matt, who will be 25 in a couple of weeks was using my computer to check something- HIS was paused in the middle of some game and, since he didn't like the size of the text and the icons et al, he just changed them to the teeny tiny miniscule setting. And since he is mr computer whiz of all the world, who fixes all the computers of everyone he knows, by REMOTE ASSISTANCE, no less,(he is worth his weight in gold on that score so I shouldn't be complaining, should I)....anyway, he did it in some obscure way that I can't find in order to fix. So I sit here, peering- he has gone off in my CAR, of course....

Actually, I like the opportunity to complain. It is wonderful when he is here sleeping under my roof (on a months visit between his year teaching English in Japan and grad school)

My middle child will never ever again sleep here or anywhere and it never ever gets any easier.

Cello Camp thoughts

2006-04-29T05:03:00.000-04:00

The Toronto Music Garden

There are lots of music camps available to kids and a smaller number for adults. I have taught at, been the director of and/or attended so many in my life that I have entirely lost count. In my old city, for some years now, I have been running an in-house "Cello Camp" for my (kid) students only, and some years for their siblings, as well, at the farmhouse, in a semi rural setting, of one long time student family.
I don't really miss it now that I have moved. The last few years were quite chaotic, mostly due to the extremely unstructured nature of the family hosting the camp. The kids had a GREAT time, but it was really getting to be way too much for me physically and emotionally as well, oddly. For some years it was a real ...high...almost for me. But it gradually became less so. Beware going into therapy on a long term basis- it really does change your life: what once seemed fun, a sort of manic high in fact, meaning the unstructured, boundary-less-ness of it all, in the end killed my enjoyment of it. And, I never made any money doing it- the numbers were too small and since I never cut corners with the quality of the music part of the program, it was very very expensive to mount. All in all I was glad when I knew it was my last year.
Now, in the new city, for some mysterious demographic reason, I am teaching quite a few adult students (as well as kids) and quite liking it. So, I decided to have a camp for them! The overhead costs will be almost nil - no craft supplies to buy or lifeguards to hire and there should be no discipline issues, either! Or over-involved parents! And I don't need to hire a second teacher!
So! We will have private lessons, plus a two hour group class each day and COOL extra curricular activities: The Toronto Music Garden as a field trip-- designed by Yo Yo Ma (have a look at http://www.harbourfrontcentre.com/noflash/visarts/musicgarden.php ; sailing on Lake Ontario- one student has a 30 something foot sailboat; busking cello fiddle tunes on the town pier; and a closing BBQ and swim at another student's place. Planning will be minimal and I will actually make some money. AND have some adult-ey fun-not that I don't adore "my kids" as in students, but this is a change. The adults are so appreciative and work so hard.
I will still be teaching a week at the local large music camp, too, just in case life gets too easy. But I don't have to plan or run that one: just turn up and teach. All in all, it looks like a nice July, since I have the other two weeks off.
So tonight I spent about eight hours designing a brochure, which is totally superfluous as seven people are already signed up. But it is fun to play on the computer like that, This is the only way I can learn anything on the computer: by trial and error and trying this and that. And the brochure looks pretty good. I wish I had a colour photocopier..........NO NO stop her.......
It was a fun, absorbing evening's activity. The only trouble is, it is, erm, 5:08 AM and I am still wide awake. Luckily tomorrow is Saturday. I see naps in my immediate future..........Now I am thinking about a camp t- shirt..........LOL
TIME FOR BED!

Back from the trip...

2006-04-25T03:01:00.000-04:00

It was very tiring to cram six months of contact into four days with a cross country trip on either end as well. I went straight into teaching the very next day. Another time I should leave a buffer day. I was SO TIRED after four lessons that I felt sicker and sicker and then I went upstairs and abruptly threw up -QUITE unusual for me- so I cancelled the rest of that day. It is 5 days now and I am feeling more myself. We had a dress rehearsal and two symphony concerts on the week-end though so it is not a time of year that one can relax.

The children are so lovely- I am so sad to keep leaving them- they love it when we come but we aren't a part of these little lives in any real, lasting way, I fear.
This needs more thought than I am giving it here. I miss then so viscerally that it makes me weep.......

Camera Phobic Daisy

2006-04-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

Poor Daisy! She is our second dog-we have had Frankie since May 1997, when he was about four months old. When we decided to move from our old city- where John still works-he commutes twice a week and stays over there two nights, working here at home one day-anyway, we had the naive idea that if we had two dogs, one would stay in the new place with me and the other would commute with him. Well, of course, they both stay here-even Frankie, the ultimate zen dog would find the commuting life stressful. He is 9 plus years old as well.
Anyway, on January 15 2005, we drove to Detroit and adopted Daisy -we found her on line on Pet-finder. She was advertised as a lab/chow cross, very good with all other dogs but they didn't know how she would be with cats or children.
She lay absolutely still for the hours-long drive home in the car, came into the house and kissed one of the cats on the nose (!)- the two cats are very dog savvy-and that was that- they, all four of them, cats Sophie and Kokor, and the dogs, all pal around, sleep together, groom each other- it is the peaceable kingdom, really.
And, Daisy is GREAT with little kids- she likes to come into the studio and get petted and fussed over by the students and the siblings waiting for them- rolls on her back, kisses them , the whole thing. So THAT is ok.
But dogs? (Other dogs besides Frankie, that is, who she adores?) Well, she tolerates Pippa, our second daughter's dog fairly well, despite the fact that once Pippa bit her when Daisy wanted to check out Pippa's empty food bowl. And Hudson, the lab, who we often meet in the little park in front of our house....
But she HATES all other dogs-we think that perhaps now that she finally has her own pack-she was a stray on the cold Detroit streets, remember-that she feels that she MUST defend us. We have had a lot of trouble with this- the two vet bills that we paid for the schnauzer up the way, even though that dog was illegally off leash both times, the (high) cost of an animal behaviorist who was a total waste of money- not his fault, really. Daisy is her own self, and despite all his suggestions, continues to act like, well, Daisy. So in the end, we have all adjusted to the situation- Daisy stays on leash ALL the time except at the off leash dog park, which is huge , in a conservation area with miles of trails and open fields and woods. But there she wears a muzzle.

One thing we have not made any progress with though, is her unbelievably strong phobia about cameras. The sight of one , the click of the shutter- the flash of course- and she heads for the farthest point in the house. When we go to her she is shaking like a leaf- all over, the way some dogs act in thunderstorms-herself included, but the camera is worse. Yesterday I wanted to take some pics of the house to take on our up-coming trip. When, clicking away, I reached the farthest bathroom, there she was. Guiltily, I took her picture- we have so few of her due to the camera phobia-put away the camera and gave her many treats and lots of love etc- it took many minutes for her to settle down, still.

Here she is, in the bathtub. This may be one of the only pictures we ever get of her!

Going to Seattle, Hooray!

2006-04-09T00:24:00.000-04:00

Malia, Kai, and the Zamboni, October, 2005, in CA

Thursday the 13th of April, 2006, we leave for Seattle to visit "the kids" and grandbabies until Tuesday the 18th. I am getting so excited! I last saw the kids in mid October- Malia was not yet walking or speaking much. Now she runs around and the other day (she is 17 months) she said "Dat boy all done wing!" when the kid on the next swing slid down and ran off. She has this Oh! So! Cute! little raspy voice to go with her big blue eyes and goldy-red curly hair.

Gramma here has been on a mad shopping spree- a pirate mega blox set for Kai, a crown and pink feather boa and magic wand for the dress-up box; lots of little plastic animals for Malia, bubbles, cute china plates-real ones, not doll sized- with loooong-eared bunnies that say "I'm all ears"; eggcups to match.....big velour daisies..plastic chicks that lay candy eggs...tiny stuffed bunnies two inches high...a little stuffed dog dressed in bunny ears and bunny feet and a cat with a ducky hat and ducky feet ....

Too much candy truth to tell, BUT! a dozen Kinder eggs for the deprived Americans! Jenn's favourite Laura Secord chocolate bars (6) and one of those huge decadent cream eggs with a "yolk" in the middle...peeps...chocolate rabbits and carrots...

Jenn asked me to get her some warm slippers and flannelette PJ bottoms for around the house; she is chilly and her feet are freezing in the Seattle rainy season after all those years in California. I gave her 1 pair of pj's at Christmas and she basically wears them all week, washes them and goes on wearing them. I went a bit overboard here- it was end of season clearance on this kind of this stuff so she should be cozy for years to come. I bought one pair of slippers and then another day I saw some I liked better so now she has two pair and, I think, 7 PJ bottoms, (heh!)

Mentioning the trip to various cello Moms produced a big bag of 18 month to 2-T sized hand-me-down-girl clothes for Malia that are gorgeous. And a 12-18 month bathing suit which was proving impossible to track down. This time we are staying at a hotel, 10 minutes from their house, near the Space Needle ,which Kai is longing to go to. We hope to do the harbour boat tour as well and the aquarium, and Pike's Market and the original Starbucks! We are booked at a hotel with an indoor pool so that is a fun way that we can spend some relaxed hanging out time with the kids, as we all like to swim. I am also doing the whole Easter bunny basket thing since we will be there on Easter Day. I have had such fun putting it together! One vital item in seventeen-month-old little girl Malia's basket is her very own Zamboni.....

One time last spring, when the kids were still in Davis (California), where they were for 5 and a half years, Jenn read Kai a book about a Zamboni and he got all obsessed for awhile and really wanted one. Try buying a matchbox Zamboni in the summer in California...or in Canada, it turned out, strangely. So I looked around for months it seemed and in the fall I finally found one at Zellers. This was sent in the mail and then when I was there a while later, Kai and I made a hockey game on the linoleum floor and "cleaned" the ice a lot. This was several months ago now. Well, even though the kids have a MILLION toys, a lot of them wooden, and Waldorf and all kinds of age appropriate stuff for both of them , Malia has decided emphatically that one toy that she REALLY NEEDS to play with is this $2.98 Zamboni (whenever Kai is playing with it, of course!)so all is sometimes Zamboni strife and tears and so Grandma must be a Grandma and get Malia her OWN Zamboni. Grandma, however, now can't remember where she ended up getting the vital item, having looked so many places at the time, but after devoting a ridiculous amount of time musing on this, I DID go to the right place and bought 3 (THREE) Zambonis, which were all they had left. Apparently, one never knows when one might need a Zamboni in this life !

M, my Third Child,(the"baby")

2006-03-31T09:04:00.000-05:00

He is twenty-four and he and his girlfriend have been in Japan teaching English since September. They return in May, and he starts grad school (in physics, yikes!) in September.

They have had enough of Japan, apparently, plus they did not make the kind of money they had hoped to re: paying off student loans.

Apparently, the cost of living is astronomical and they obviously wanted to do some tourist type things while they were there.

They will spend a month with us- hooray, although I will be sharing a car for the first time in a long time! Totally worth it though.
I can't wait!

My first two kids as little ones

2006-03-29T00:27:00.000-05:00

Here they are, in 1975.

J, my girl, is 3 1/2.

Shawn is 1 1/2.

J, my girl is now 34 and Mama of my grandkids in the previous post.

Shawn died in 1992.

Beautiful Grand-babies...

2006-03-24T00:19:00.000-05:00

Kai shows off his Ithaca shirt

Kai shows Malia how it's done......

Serious work at the kitchen table, on a semi sunny day on the West coast. I think these brown overalls were saved from my kids-my daughter likes that kind of continuity. I am sad that I see so many other kids so intimately each week but my own grandbabies I only see every six months or so. We will be there for four days over Easter- such a treat, but it has been three years since they came to see us. I know travel is hard with babies. We live in such mixed up times- I can see these pictures a half hour after they are taken, but months pass without seeing the kids for real. The squeezing feeling in my heart about this could be overwhelming love, or equally overwhelming grief- I can not tell.

Malia is walking and talking since I last saw her- what a dear little voice she has! Kai is coming up to five years old- (in late June.) His babyhood is pretty much over. It feels like scarily fast rapids in this part of the river.

Beautiful Malia