go figure (life in the D.C. Area) v.1.1

Another driver amazes me with her multitasking prowess! Stopped at a red light while taking the kids to school / camp, I glanced over to the right to see a woman who was plucking her facial hair as she drove up to the intersection. The light turned green after a moment or two, and we all proceeded on to our destinations with the grooming continuing as well. We headed to Peter’s preschool & Emma’s crafts camp in our vehicle, and Wackos-R-Us for the other car.
EWWWW!

hot

The temperature around my home has reached or neared 100 degrees F for the last several days. If you add in the always-oppressive Washington DC area humidity, you come up with a fairly uncomfortable environment in which to breath and exist. The home air conditioner is cranking around the clock, but it is not able to keep up with its demand. Fans spin to supplement, and we are trying not to think about it. We have a community pool which is great, but it is actually too hot to spend any time outside – even poolside. Even my roasted coffee supply is beginning to dwindle, and my home coffee roasting hobby/obsession is strictly an outdoor event – performed using a 500 degree convection oven. Given the weather outside, I’ll conserve my coffee stash and roast another day!

a rare oboe gouging machine

When Engelbert Brenner passed away in 1986, his family made me the recipient of his entire “musical estate”. I own and cherish Mr Brenner’s Loree oboe & English horn which he played daily in the New York Philharmonic. These instruments are probably about 50 years old, but still play beautifully – especially the English horn. It is truly magical.

I also own, and use, all of Brenner’s reed making tools. There are hand-crafted knives, scores of mandrels, shaper tips, files, plaques, bocals, and calipers. I remember some of the word-of-mouth stories behind some of this equipment. I remember names like Wally Bhosys & A. Wales made some of these tools for him, but the piece of equipment that really stands out as being unique are the oboe & English horn gouging machines. They look like no other gougers I have ever seen. These gougers are made of (I guess) nickel, stand on their own little ornate legs, and are of significant weight. These gougers were hand-made for Brenner by none other than Mitch Miller’s father, who was a machinist. Mitch Miller, known for “Sing Along With Mitch” from the 50s was a classically-trained musician – an oboist, and reportedly a good one. I do not know how many gouging machines he made, or when they were manufactured. If anyone has any information about Mr. Miller’s gougers, I’d love to learn more.

katrina and mac

All American parents are familiar with the author Norman Bridwell’s work – he’s the creator of Clifford, The Big Red Dog. PBS plays the animated cartoon daily, and my kids can’t get enough Clifford.

A few years ago, the department store Kohl’s was selling four different stuffed toys of Clifford characters. We bought one of each, and Emma was fond of them all. About a year later, Emma decided to take the blue greyhound character Mac with us on a family trip. She bonded with Mac on that trip, and Emma and Mac were inseparable. Mac went most places with Emma, and certainly was held in tight embrace as Emma drifted off to sleep each night.

Then the unthinkable happened, and another unthinkable almost happened. Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast, shattering thousands of lives immeasurably. Our family wanted to help in some way to comfort and help the affected families of Katrina’s wrath, so we gathered clothing, toys, diapers – anything that a shattered and displaced family might need to get through their tough time. Items were gathered and stacked on the bed, and finally loaded into plastic bags, soon to be delivered to the (local high school) relief collection center.

Then the words came that sent chills down to our bones; “Mom, Dad – where’s Mac? I can’t find Mac!”. It didn’t take long for us to realize that Mac’s last sighting was on the bed, next to the piles of goods to be sent to Katrina survivors. The mad dash began – Kathy tore through bags, looking for Mac, and I did what any guy would do under the circumstances – I went to eBay to see if there were any Macs available, in case Kathy was unable to locate Mac. There were two Macs up for auction that day, both of them just a few bucks, so I bid on one immediately, and after a few minutes of thought, bid on the second one too, just in case I missed out on the first one. I won both auctions, and in just a few days, two Macs arrived at our door. Of course, Kathy successfully found the original Mac in a bag that had not yet been dropped off for donation. So now we have 3 Macs.

Emma was in her glory, and had named the other two Macs Hac & Pac. We made name tags for each dog’s collar. Then the sport of eBay Mac-hunting really took off in our house. I would scan eBay daily, just waiting for Mac to show up, and if it was silly-cheap, I bid, and won it. 4 – 5 – 6.. finally 8 blue greyhounds! (Tac, Sac, etc.) Emma loves her huge greyhound family, and sleeps with them all every night – but ONLY MAC – the original Mac is cuddled in her arms. He is, and remains special.

i just walked to dallas, and man – are my feet tired

Almost exactly three years ago, I purchased a good-quality treadmill and started a ritual – one that I hoped would change my life.

At 245 pounds, I was well on my way to serious health problems. My blood pressure was up, my stamina was down, my breathing was labored, and I had just become a father again, so there was little sleep happening at our house too.

OK, it wasn’t just that I had enough of the excessive weight, I had my physician lower the hammer on me – do this or else! Looking at my young children, and remembering that my father had died at age 29 of a sudden heart attack, I did not want my kids to have to say to their friends “my father died”. I never liked saying that as a kid, but I said it plenty – it just came up occasionally.

Overnight, I changed many lifestyle choices – eating much healthier foods, taking in way fewer carbohydrates, and walking as close to every day as I could. Due to a back injury, running is quite painful, but I do walk at a fast clip on my trusty treadmill; uphill all the way, increasing the speed every 10 minutes. The wall mounted TV/DVD in front of me keeps my mind off “the burn” and I walk, and I walk. Assuming I walk for 30 minutes (maybe around 1.5 miles) each day, & I do this 300 days per year (I think that’s a low estimate), I have walked approximately 1.350 miles – roughly the distance from my Virginia home to Dallas, Texas.

Three years ago today, I wore 42″ waisted pants – today I wear size 33. Three years ago today, I thought how much better I felt after taking my ritual walk. I still feel this way after tonight’s walk.

“Howdy, partnah – where’s the nearest diner? I’ve walked a long way & could use a #1 club.”

of pizza, custard and diners

They say you can never go back to your youth. I grew up in Ocean County, along the Central New Jersey shoreline. Now I know New Jersey has its stereotypes (thanks, Joe Piscopo!), and it’s a very crowded place to live, but there are three dining experiences that haunt me and call me (with a Joisey accent) to this day.

1. Pizza. Chicago has thick pizza – California has fancy-schmancy pizza – and the rest of America has Dominos & Pizza Hut. “Dat ain’t pizza”. New Jersey & New York City are the only places on earth that make the real deal. (I’ve had pizza on the banks of Venice’s Grand Canal – good, but Dominic’s of Lakewood, N.J. tops it – really!)
2. Frozen Custard. You may call it soft-serve ice cream, but along the Jersey Shore, it’s different – richer, denser (made with egg, I think), and better! Kohr’s makes this amazing swirl of orange sherbet & vanilla custard – “to die for, dahling”.
3. Diners. New Jersey & Long Island, NY are lined with diners - shiny, roadside palaces with display cases filled with cheesecakes and eclairs. The menus have everything from meatloaf to lobster. The number one club is always a triple-decker sandwich of turkey, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and served with fries – not 16 fries, 3,000. The milk shakes come to the table in the Hamilton Beach mixer’s steel blending vessel. Diner coffee is also the best cup of plain-old American-style coffee available – nothing fancy, but darn good.

Hmmm – it’s 11:15 pm – if I race out the door, I can be at the Regent Diner by 3:15 am. Hope they have cheesecake tonight! Oh – don’t get me started on bagels!

her friends are such bratz

My daughter had a birthday party a few weeks ago. She invited a slew of her best friends – neighbors, schoolmates and long-time companions. A great time was truly had by all, but even weeks after the big event, my daughter Emma continues to bask in the memories of her special day. Here is a drawing she did this morning. It contains her (girls only for this drawing) invited guests, but drawn in the style of Bratz. I have included an image of a Bratz doll for reference. I marvel at the mind and imagination of Emma.

Luke the wonder cat

People who have known me for more than a handful of years know that I was lucky enough to be owned by Luke. Luke was a black & white cat that adopted me in 1982 and kept me for about 18 years before his nine lives were up. I did not choose Luke, he chose me. While visiting the kennel that was sponsoring a cat adoption event, the technician released a half dozen kittens on the floor for me to see, and this one black & white guy immediately leapt from the floor to the chair – to the counter – and to my shoulder. Cat search was over. Some people are cat people, and some people are dog people, and some people just don’t like animals, period. Luke was a cat that thought he was a dog, fetching on command, responding to my calling of his name, and walked at my heel around the yard & home. Life-long confirmed cat hating dog people liked Luke. Life-long cat owning/loving people often confided to me that they wished they had a cat like Luke. We all have met people that can charm anyone – Luke was that – just in a cat suit. Without written permission from Luke, I lived in a variety of homes & settings with other animals – a German Shepherd and two Shih Tzus (they’ll be featured in a future Oboerista entry). In addition to living in my homes, Luke was a frequent extended-term guest at my mother’s home in New Jersey while I was on concert tours and vacations. He even took charge of college roommate Laurent’s apartment in Philadelphia a few times. Yes, he was extraordinary & made sure that as many humans knew it as possible.

talking in the right key

My son, Peter turned three last month. He had not spoken his first word as of his birthday. Funny thing, this early human development. Both professions and casual observers have been quick to place a label on his development.

Perhaps he hasn’t needed to communicate verbally – if he wants something to drink, he simply grabs a parent’s finger & drags one of us to the fridge. Maybe he wasn’t able to. Who knows. There’s one thing that I have discovered that Peter can do, and it’s rather startling; Peter has perfect pitch. For those of you who are not musicians, and you might not know this term, it is the ability of one to identify any pitch and reproduce it accurately. For example, the famed openening of Beethoven’s Fifths Symphony is G – G – G – E-flat. You can play any other notes that are the same intervalic relationship – the major 3rd, but ONLY G – G – G – E-flat is correct – and perhaps only someone with perfect pitch would notice that it sounds like Beethoven 5, but it is WRONG. Peter has been humming beautifully for months, and when he hums Beethoven’s 5th, it is ALWAYS G – G – G – E-flat – he’s never wrong. {yes, my 3 year old son loves Beethoven & Mozart, and runs around the house humming their melodies constantly – REALLY!}{OK, he throws a few Barney songs in there too }

A few days ago, Peter saw a sunflower on TV, and said the word “FLOWER”. It was his first word that had a clear meaning and was repeated every time he saw a flower. He also asked for a snack a day or two later… “Wheat Thin”. When Mickey Mouse is spotted in the store or on TV, he says “Hi-ya, Mickey” or “Hi-ya Minnie” for Mickey’s gal-pal. He knows the difference. In preschool, he said “Ice Cream” as they made construction paper ice cream cones. Guess what – every one of these words or phrases is two-syllables … EVERY ONE!

Is there a label for that?

is it september yet?

My kids have been out of school for about 3 weeks now.

My daughter is entering 2nd grade in September, and really loves school. Without the structure of a school day, she becomes bored and uneasy very quickly. Oh, we try to keep her entertained & stimulated, but school is school, and home is home.

My son is three, and attended pre-school this past school year. He began his summer session this morning, so he is back with his friends and beloved teachers.

Emma will begin her summer structured activities next week, but it is not school. The fact that Peter has returned to his actual school setting is very upsetting to her – the jealousy monster has been released.

For a three-year-old that only speaks a half-dozen words, he has completely figured out how to bother his big sister, and really gives it to her at times. It reminds me of cats and dogs wrestling just because they’re expected to do so.

Is it September yet?