Music Memories

            I knew I had the right book when I saw “Bill Grogan’s Goat” in John Thompson’s Modern Course for the Piano:  The Second Grade Book.  A few weeks ago when I was sorting through the two boxes of old music that came with the piano I had just purchased, I was sure to put the beginner books in the piano bench.  Tonight I pulled out the Thompson book and started at the first page.

            A flood of memories washed over me as my fingers remembered the notes I had taught myself in elementary school.  I remember the clunky sound of our old upright player piano, which was long past the capability of staying in tune or sustaining any notes.  I remember carefully reading the instructions on each page and following the fingering.  I remember being puzzled when I tried out the sustain pedal and it did not sound any different.  I remember being sad that, according to my mom, the pedals did not work anymore.  Thus, I never learned to use them.

            It seemed a normal enough activity at the time, but now I marvel at my determination that I could teach myself to play just like my mother before me.  An elementary physical education teacher and divorced mother of four, she simply could not afford piano lessons for any of us.  If I remember correctly, I was eight years old when I started my quest.

            I eventually learned to play everything in the first eighteen pages, one song past “Bill Grogan’s Goat.” I worked on some of the later songs, but they were too hard for untutored hands.  And I never took piano lessons, though in college I took two semesters of harpsichord lessons just for fun. 

            So, tonight, as I worked my way through the music my fingers and my heart remember fifty years later, I felt homesick for those long-ago days when I was perched on the piano bench and my feet didn’t reach the floor.  If Mom were still alive, I’d be on the phone right now to tell her all about this evening of music memories.  

Stray Phrases

            Stray phrases for writing have passed through my mind of late, all at times inconvenient to record them and see where they lead.

            Looking at my decrepit front yard yesterday and comparing it to the other lawns on my street, I was reminded of an old commercial, to which, of course, I had new lyrics.

            Here are the original lyrics:

            My dog is better than your dog / My dog is better than yours / My dog is better ‘cause he eats Kennel Ration / My dog is better than yours.

            It is entirely possible I have skewed the original lyrics, but for those of you old enough to remember this commercial, they should do.  Here are my new lyrics:

            Your yard is better than my yard / Your yard is better than mine / Your yard is better ‘cause you used fertilizer / Your yard is better than mine.

            I am trying my best to remember another fleeting idea that passed through my sleepy brain just before I got into bed last night, but unfortunately, since my brain cells were under the influence of Ambien at the time, they did not retain the phrase for me.  I even remember thinking I should write it down, but didn’t because I was so sure I would remember it.   

            My doctor tells me not to feel guilty about needing to take Ambien every night in order to sleep, but that does not keep me from getting groggy.  Perhaps what I thought was a clever idea really wasn’t.  At any rate, you are spared from reading it.

Confessions of a Former English Instructor

            I ate the whole jicama, and I can’t even pronounce it.

            I love the unaccompanied flute solos of French composer Charles Koechlin, and I do not know how to say his name.

            I’ve always loved Kate Chopin’s short stories, but her characters’ names are beyond me. The same goes for Russian novelists such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, but for them I have an additional problem:  I cannot keep track of who’s who in Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov.

            I mispronounce English words even though I was a college English instructor.  The time a student corrected me on the pronunciation of hyperbole was embarrassing, to say the least.

            And, if a person’s name is foreign to me—well, I always give it a German twist.  That does not work well for Japanese names, or Spanish names, or any names other than German names, for that matter.

            Writing is safer than speaking, because even if I cannot say a word correctly, I can usually spell it if I’ve seen it.  Even onamatoepia.

           

            

Complaints

            I’m getting tired of her.

            She sleeps a lot and leaves dirty dishes in the sink.  She wastes lots of time on silly YouTube videos.  She forgets to plug in the Chrome book and spills crumbs on the couch.  Her tossed Kleenex don’t always land in the wastebasket.  She spent two days in her jammies, and one day she didn’t even wash her hair.

She was extremely annoying before she realized she was sick with something or another, all that moaning and groaning about the pain.  Naturally, she did not realize she needed to see a doctor until after business hours.  By then, she was reduced to lying on the couch muttering, “Oh God, oh God,” and wondering if she would become delirious from the fever.  Or maybe she had already been delirious the two sleepless nights before when she was chilled to the bone and never once considered she might be running a temperature.

            She started to get a little less tiresome when she finally picked up a book again.  She knew it was a good sign that she could concentrate to read rather than staring off into space.  After another day, she finally took care of those dirty dishes.  She realized that she was beginning to walk instead of shuffle and that the dizziness had subsided.  She tried her hand at a few simple household tasks.  But she wasn’t ready to do her taxes yet because her brain still felt more unreliable than usual.  She finally got so sick of reclining in the recliner that she walked into her messy office, sat in her office chair, and wrote these words:

          “I’m getting tired of her. . .”  

What To Do?

            Something didn’t sound right.

            Turning away from the sink, I saw that the toilet had flushed but now was filling with water.  I lifted the lid, took a closer look, and panicked.  Hastily setting the tank lid on the floor, I watched the inexorable rise of water, almost to the rim now. 

            I took a guess and pulled up the chain.  Wrong move.  The water became a fountain, spilling over the brim, cascading onto the tiled floor, following gravity down the two inch lip between half bath and bedroom floor.  I immediately dropped the chain, but the water kept coming.  What to do?  What to do? 

            A long-unused bit of information found its way to my shrieking brain, and I reached behind the chain to pull up the float.  The fountain ceased, but the spilled water kept its quick course into my bedroom on those beautiful hardwood floors.  I let go of the float; the flood renewed.  I grabbed the float and tried to think.  Clearly I needed help.  Hoping to wake my son at the other end of the house, I hollered as loud as my post-bronchitis voice would allow but to no avail.

            There I stood in a good half inch of water, watching it fan out into the bedroom.  What to do?

            And then I remembered the water turn-off valve, you know, the one at the back of the toilet.  I thought back to my garden-watering days on Whidbey Island and my brother’s words:  “Righty, tighty; lefty, loosey.”  Maintaining my death grip on the float with my right hand, I bent down to turn the valve to the right with my left hand.  I turned and turned and turned and finally it was off.  Gingerly, I let go the float and nothing happened.

            I had already slid the throw rug to the bathroom threshold and tossed my bathrobe on the bedroom floor. Now I raced to the hall closet for towels to mop up the mess.  As I cleaned up the lake under my bed, I noted that it had been a long time since a dust mop had visited those nether regions.  Once the hardwood was dry, I made quick work of the bathroom floor.  And then I called the plumber.

            Five hours and $120 dollars later, I started a load of sopping wet towels in the washer and counted my blessings, the chief of which was that the toilet had flushed completely before it became a fountain.

A very late Christmas 2014 letter . . .

On Thanksgiving Day, the decorating and gift-wrapping were done.  On December 11, I celebrated an early Christmas across the street with my family.  On December 19, the Hemmingers left for Christmas with Shawn's family in Minnesota.  On December 21, I got sick with the flu, which morphed into bronchitis.   Today, January 2,  I'm still sick. 

But I have great news to share:  Dana is expecting!  Her due date is my 60th birthday.  Something tells me that additional babysitting is on my horizon . . . It has been such a blessing this past year to be a part of my grandchildren's lives.  Benjamin, now 5 1/2, enjoys his second year of four-year-old pre-school and has lost his first two baby teeth.  His smile and hugs light up my life.  Joelle, who turns two in February, started out by calling me "Diva" just once, and now has settled on "Gandma."  She is going to be quite the talker. 

In addition to full-time teaching (special ed. language arts), Shawn helps pastor New Expression Church and is working on graduate credits to get his permanent teaching certification.  Dana stays busy with home and children--and she self-published her first book this year, Reflections from Holland:  A New Mother's Journey with Down Syndrome. 

Joseph moved here from Colorado Springs at the end of June and lives with me.  He continues work on a B.S. degree in I.T. with a software emphasis.   

I've self-published two books this year (Three Corners Has My Cat:  Caregiving in Alzheimer's Time  and Random Reflections;  2008-2013) and have settled into life in Bartlesville.  Oh, yes, I still miss Whidbey Island, but this has been a very good first year in Oklahoma.  At Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, I serve on session, assist with worship, sing in choir, play my flute, and write for our newsletter.  I'm on the pulpit supply list for Eastern Oklahoma Presbytery, and have started speaking for Stonecroft Ministries again. Various opportunities to play my flute in concerts have popped up, and I am looking forward to playing with the Bartlesville Symphony Orchestra in the January 17 concert, filling in for another flutist. 

In April and again in July, I spent two weeks on the island, enjoying family and friends and church and the magnificence of nature.  In May, I attended the Oklahoma Writer's Federation writing conference in Oklahoma City.  Later that month, I enjoyed a visit from a good friend from Grinnell College days.  And in November, I took the train to Austin to spend a weekend with longtime friends from my high school days.   

All that makes it sound like I'm perpetually busy, but really, I am not.  My idea of a full day is to have something scheduled for part of it (go to Bible study . . . visit a friend . . . attend a rehearsal . . . volunteer at The Journey Home hospice).  I am irretrievably spoiled by the slower pace of retirement and looking forward to my seventh year in the slow lane! 

Blessings to each and every one of you in 2015, 

Janis 

I knew there was something I forgot to post . . .

December 12, 2014

            “Pretty!”  Joelle carefully touched the Christmas bow on one of the shiny packages.  “Pretty!” She touched each package with her right pointer, clasping her juice glass to her body with her left hand.  “Pretty!”

            As Dana read the Christmas story from an illustrated board book, Joelle wriggled out of her arms to touch the presents again.  “Pretty!”  Shawn lay on the floor with Benjamin tussling his hair.  Joseph sat on the couch surveying the scene.  I sat on the floor, half-listening to the familiar and precious story as I watched the wriggly activity of my two grandchildren.

            Once Benjamin received the sock monkey Dana got him, he was perfectly happy.  He wandered about the room and down the hall twirling his newest treasure.  He only became upset when his parents tried to involve him in unwrapping his presents. 

            Unexpectedly, Joelle did not try to unwrap hers but was content to watch Mommy do it.  When the box of plastic food toys was opened, she descended on it, grabbing items to carry around.  And when the kitchen set appeared, she ran right over to it and began taking the hanging utensils down and opening doors.  At the very end of the evening, once Shawn assembled the shopping cart, she busily loaded it with her plastic groceries, baby, and Benjamin’s furry Elmo ball.

            Benjamin did enjoy the spinning gears, but he ignored the Elmo flashlight and only briefly tolerated the fuzzy Elmo ball.  Joelle was enchanted with it all, and really liked the flashlight show on the wall in the darkened room.

            Joseph made appreciative sounds over the new khakis, shirt, and video as well as the earphones.  He laughed and closely examined the jumbo package of hot sauces.  Shawn was delighted with his super hero T-shirts, pruning clippers, and eagle pens.  Dana was totally surprised by the Lord of the Rings DVD set, appreciative of the muffin tin and cookie sheet, and liked the decorative notepads.  Shawn and Dana expressed delight over the card offering each one a free massage at Wellness for Life.  I was happy to see a long-wanted copy of Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling, a Bath and Body Works lotion, and a magnet Christmas picture of Benjamin and Joelle.

            Thus went our early Christmas—after a delicious pot roast and decadent chocolate lava cake.  I thought about how blessed I am to be with my family—and I also wondered why I do not remember well the general mayhem of small children and establishing family traditions.  I rather enjoy not being a manager of the mayhem!

            Joelle’s initial comment—“Pretty!”—sums up our early celebration of Christmas rather well.  It was pretty awesome.