can i be this old?

last night, an 8 year old friend read me her reading-aloud homework assignment. the last time i fulfilled the role of "homework-read-aloud-listener," i was 13 years old, and the reader was a 9 year old neighbor, friend, and babysit-ee.

he got married on friday.
justin is in the army now, and leaving for germany this week. his bride, ellie, is going with him. :)

we went to their reception on saturday.

his little brother, mikey, is 16. i babysat him when he was 5-7ish.

we met their older sister, her husband, and their daughter, who looked just like mikey. :)
jeff, their dad.


congratulations, justin and ellie! looking forward to staying in touch on facebook! :)

really?

i can't avoid it any longer. i can't hide from it, shield my eyes from it, or deny it. so i will blog it.

you may want to stop reading right now unless you possess an extraordinarily strong constitution, because the news i will share in forthcoming paragraphs is, quite frankly, devastating. it is heartbreaking, and should you choose blissful (though ephemeral) naivety i will fully understand.

-don't say i didn't warn you-

but it is my job as a blogger and self proclaimed social commentarian* to proclaim that which is in front of our very eyes:

RUNFORTHEHILLSTHE19-FLIPPIN-80SAREBACK-GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

now - before you dismiss me as a fearmongering, naysaying, delusive prophet of doom ... i have proof.

googled: 1980s fashion

googled: 2009 fashion

i'm sure that you, wonderfully perceptive readers, see the same thing i see.
they're similar!! and what do they have in common?
pointy pumps
primary colors
puffed sleeves**
high waists
leggings
general ubiquitous fluffiness
supermodels

need i say more? and don't even get me started on the music!

friends, this is bad. many of you have seen this day coming. some, i'm sure, will be blindsided by this blog, and to you i offer my heartfelt condolences.

please, all, consider this place, this speck of space in the interwebz, a place of rest and escape*** from the perfidious phoenix rising again in our culture ... a 1969 haven from medusa's serpentine skinny-leg tendrils ... a hippie commune of peace and love in the swirling, stormy return of the decade of "frantic change, characterised by political and economic decentralisation, especially in countries with mixed and command economies..."****
-ok, i'm done now.

and, um, to all y'all who are into the whole 80's thing ... hi. [waves awkwardly]

*yes, i know it isn't a word. this is my blog and i can make up words if i want to.
**lots of p's, but that's beside the point.
***and commas
****http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s

fake

this is not a real polaroid. it is edited with one of the many softwares that mimic the features of polaroid ... and fail to capture the essence.

i had a polaroid when i was little - my grandma gave it to me, and i loved it. i thrilled to take pictures of legos, dolls, my mother holding a stuffed orangutan -the 3 minute wait was excruciating - until i ran out of film. we couldn't afford to buy more film, so the polaroid sat on a shelf, staring through empty eye at my closet door. like many small objects laden with childhood nostalgia, it disappeared sometime between 2nd grade and high school.

and now polaroids are gone, and i can only make tinted replicas of these childhood images - mimicking the shading and focus, but lacking that which defined the experience.


postscript #1: please pardon the whiny nostalgia - i'm sick today. :)
postscript #2: polaroid is coming back! :)))))

after the weekend...

yes, i know joel is blurry. he is not the subject of this picture. the subject of this picture is the full sink, the remnants of salad, the water bottle that i filled for rehearsal on friday and accidentally left home, and ... vinegar? no idea why that's there.

this is what the house generally looks like after the weekend, at least the parts of the house not visible to my 8pm sunday piano student. he gets a clean living room.

life is busy but so good. we are especially enjoying working together with pocahontas - i had no idea my husband was such a good vocal teacher! you learn new things all the time... :)

christian youth theater is in a financial bind right now, and lots of emphasis has been placed on ticket sales for pocahontas. there is a big incentive for reaching the ticket goal: a party with lots of fun stuff ...
including the spectacle of my husband being given a mohawk.

[sigh] ... yes, i'm willing to sacrifice his hair for a good cause. so, if you want to see pictures of joel with a mohawk on this blog, pop over here to get tickets.

and, if you like, go here for some video of the awesome fight scene our kids our learning with a professional fight choreographer!

random cupcake blog

... it's like a random update blog, except there's cupcakes in it.

so, joel and i have gone insane, but that's ok because most people thought we were a little off before anyway. now we can just say, "we're insane." and it's all cool. until the nice men in the white coats show up.

moving on ...

he's taking 16 credits this term (in addition to his full time job), i am in full swing with my new studio, and we are co-music-directing pocahontas together, among various other projects.

we're surviving the 7 day/week madness, mostly with smiles and laughter, and occasionally with panic attacks or arguments about who should walk across the room to stop the cat from destroying wrapping paper. that was a low point. but really, over all, we're doing quite well.

yes, yes, the cupcakes - i'm getting there.
last thursday my wonderful friend jessica came over and we made over 90 cupcakes for me to take to our neighbors. we had a wonderful time, and delivering the cupcakes was a blast! i had no idea there were so many sweet people in our neighborhood, and i can't wait to get to know them better.

though ... just my recommendation ... halloween is probably the worst time of year to deliver cupcakes to strangers. it takes a special measure of courage to march past a yard strewn with skulls and gravestones to a bloodstained door, insufficiently armed with pastries and a faltering grin.
wait til thanksgiving: much more welcoming.

a walk in the park with a toddler

... and her mommy, who happens to be my very good friend.

sometimes, a walk in the park is the best way to spend a crisp, dewy, sunny october morning.
every moment is a unique discovery.

i totally want shoes that cool. seriously.

the attack of pocahontas

last spring i accompanied christian youth theater's presentation of willy wonka. it was a blast. i had a great time working with the kids, the band, and the music director, jeff, and decided that maybe someday i'd like to be a music director for cyt.

i mentioned this to jeff, and specified that i would definitely want to get some training first ... accompany another show, shadow a music director ... stuff like that, before i'd feel ready.

several weeks passed before a buoyant, theater-ish lady with lovely red hair marched up to me, introduced herself as the director of cyt's next show, and announced that jeff had told her to talk to me about music directing it. i told her that i'd think about it, went home, and told joel that there was absolutely no way that i would music direct a show in the fall.

well ...

so here it is, october, and we just finished our first rehearsal for pocahontas. joel and i are co-music directing - which makes me very glad.

these last couple weeks have been a whirlwind of planning, meetings, auditions, and recording rehearsal cds all night.

i love working with kids, music, and joel. my three favorites.

(by the way, i blame pocahontas for my near total neglect of this blog for the last, oh, month-and-a-half.)

this blog is somewhere in the pile on the left.

warning:
objects in picture are messier than they appear.