Week at a Glance

When I was in violin making school, the students used to joke about the instruments we were making.  We would take a tiny, technical thing that we had completed and say, "Week at a glance," meaning that the finished scroll or the perfectly shaped arch or the precisely thinned piece of maple represented a week's worth of work, a week of our lives.  It was satisfying work.

Now, my weeks can't be taken in with just a glance.  There are too many moving parts.  I don't have much handiwork to show for my time, but the project I'm working on (raising a family, I guess you could call it?) is much bigger than a violin.

At any rate, last week marked the anniversary of 9/11.  Araceli was born six weeks after September 11, 2001, and she is intensely interested in the events of that day.  Her painting of the Twin Towers of fire hangs in our hallway.  Her closet door is covered with pamphlets from the field in Pennsylvania that we visited to see the memorial last summer.  I am so glad we went there!  There was a sign on the turnpike, and we felt like we couldn't pass it up.   The memorial is haunting, and Araceli loved being there.  She has a goal to visit Ground Zero in Manhattan, and she has the official visitors guide in her room.  I think that somehow, the raw horror of that day and the days following seeped into her in utero as she soaked in amniotic fluid awash in adrenalin and fear.  It's interesting to contemplate what effect those events could have had upon my unborn baby.  We'll never know, but Ari has a weird connection to 9/11.

 Golda finished her driving hours.  Hallelujah!  I am excited to get her on the road to...wherever she wants to go!

 Rental season at the shop. I have some violins like this one, junkers with good bones.  I could fix them up, but I would rather sell them for cheap.  They're good violins.  On the other hand, I have seen some garbage lately.  Garbage, in violin terms, is shiny.  It is new.  It was purchased on the internet for cheap.  It is so crappy, it is not worth setting right.  These instruments are referred to as "VSO's."  Violin-shaped objects.  I hate them, but I try to fix them if I can because I want kids to have a chance.  I just fixed one this morning that had a completely flat bridge.  That's fine, if you always want to play on all 4 strings at once.  Just a word to the wise:  Ask an expert before you buy a musical instrument.  Don't buy one for 90 bucks on ebay and then take it to a violin shop and say, "I don't know anything about violins, but..."  Yeah.  If you don't know anything, why did you think you could buy a good one?

Also, while I'm complaining, don't buy your child a cheap-o piece of junk "so we can see if he sticks with it."  He won't.  He'll be frustrated and fail.  And it will be your fault, because he could have succeeded if you would have rented a decent instrument for less than you paid for the bad one.

Also last week, visits to Nana.  That always helps me get rid of my negative feelings toward humanity.  Nana is coming up on 98, and she is finally to the point where it's not safe for her to drive.  It's a very sad transition, so my mom makes sure she has someone to visit her every day.  Most of the family lives too far away to just drop in, so the close ones keep tabs.  Nana has two calendars that she checks against one another, because she has become very forgetful.  She has good neighbors, and good support at church, but we're planning a new system where someone takes her a ready-to-eat lunch every day, because she forgets to eat.  She enjoys Little Caesar's pizza or a bagel or whatever it is.  If you go see her, please take Sweet's Orange Sticks!  She is convinced that they don't make them anymore, and she is quite disturbed about it!

 I went with bare feet the other day because sometimes you don't have time to go back in the house to get shoes, and Nana went into her closet and found me all of these choices to keep my feet warm.  I took the turquoise socks, and I LOVE them!

Ptolemy wiped out coming home from school, so he had a scab on his forehead for school pictures.

 Look how clean Ari keeps her room.  And her closets are all organized!  She is amazing.

 Ruby in her teaching studio.  She finally raised her prices to $8 a lesson.  It's still ridiculously cheap, but it's a good job for a high school student.  Ruby has been teaching for 5 years, and she does it with confidence.  She is really good.  She kept her prices at $5 for so long, because she didn't want to price anyone out.  She loves her students, but you have to learn not to sell yourself short, too.  Her time is valuable, and her expertise is hard-earned.

 Emily found a groupon for a dance preschool here in Kaysville at Emily Jane.  It was $25 for 4 classes, and the class is 2.5 hours.  Wow!  Can't go wrong with that, although I feared for the teacher when we all left our 2-year-olds with her in an empty studio for that long.  When I came back, the teacher was not even frazzled.  I don't know what they did in there for that long, but Tziporah loved it.  I might be sad when it ends!

 Jersey just watches Tizzy like, "Dude, you're crazy.  Get a grip!"

 On the way to (one of) Tizzy's ballet class, this guy puts out free produce.  I picked up a few tomatoes and peaches, and it made my day.  What a kind thing to do for people!

 Tziporah's post-modernist art installation, entitled, "Nihlism."  Meanwhile, I was working on my crock pot creation, entitled, "Way too much curry, where did the potatoes go?"

 Rereading this.  Inspired all over again to raise decent, thoughtful kids who are aware of others' feelings, aware of their own use of time, and mindful of the vast wealth of knowledge that exists in the world for them to discover.  Let me know if you want this book.  I am finished with it.

 I did see Scott last week...Friday night after group guitar.  I took Ruby home from group, got in Scott's car and went right back to Salt Lake.  The restaurant we went to was reaaaaaally good. Spitz on 3rd South.

And that's...a week at a glance.