We started dating the kids again. I took Éa to the Creamery, where we shared a vanilla cone. We then headed to Schlow Library for a storybooks, violins & pajamas event put on by four undergrads in the Downsborough Community Room.
(My five favorite ice cream flavors are currently Meyer Dairy Grape-Nut, Creamery Death by Chocolate, Turkey Hill All Natural Vanilla Bean, Meyer Black Raspberry, and Turkey Hill Mint Cookes ‘n Cream Frozen Yogurt.)
On a different, sadder subject, Rich Biever told me today in a reply to an email inquiry I sent him about his production of Les Misérables that he lost his job at the State Theatre and that LES MIS is therefore not happening.
It’s a disappointment to me, but a relief to Carla.
S. Wimmer & Son came over today to have a look at three problem areas in our plumbing: toilets that won’t flush, a kitchen sink drain outlet that’s busted, and a water heater that’s fritzy.
It turns out that “if it’s yellow, let it mellow” is a surefire way to stop your toilet from working. But with the modern chemistry available to plumbers, at least we won’t have to have two new toilets installed!
After the make-up concert for the snowed-out Choral Society Christmas concert, during the second half of which I had no high notes to speak of, Janet joined us for dinner at Harrison’s, where we continued our quest to eat at all the restaurants in College Township. All the food was tasty, but either the ambiance or the value leaves me wanting. I’m not sure which.
Further evidence that I just need do what I want to do: I felt lighthearted and happy when Carla and the kids returned from hanging out at Peters’ house and I was just wrapping up my Saturday to-do list.
By why should a list of tasks weigh on me so?
Anyway, we capped an evening of work on the Choral Society website and a watercolor portrait from a photo of Éa with the perfectly oneiric, rightly acclaimed, but not all that entertaining Un chien andalou. We’re nearing the end of the silent film era in our quest to watch our chronological way through the BFI Sight & Sound 2012 Critics’ Poll.
Without an interpreter, my workday with Alexander Amelchev and his family visiting would have been a drag. As it was, with our Svitlana Budzhak-Jones in tow, we had a great time touring the factory, eating lunch at Retro Eatery in Philipsburg, playing at Discovery Space, and eating again at Happy Valley Brewing.
At the risk of sounding like a monster, I must report that today I lashed out in anger without warning at Sullivan by throwing his flying paper dragon hard at his upper chest after he flew it past my face a few times while I was trying to master parts of the above Choral Society piece.
He was astonished and on the verge of tears. Thankfully, I realized my error immediately, apologized quickly and profusely, and embraced him. He forgave me without hesitation.
In the end, it’ll be a good example to him of how to deal with sin. But aie, that look on his face.
I’ve got to get back to rehearsing when no one is around.
Carla was sworn in as a councilwoman today. I am proud. I only wish I wasn’t in a sprint toward completion of the State College Choral Society website so I could celebrate with her more appropriately. As it was, she walked in from the (very) cold night, all smiles and beautiful, thinking she did great (because she did). And I was tracking with her and happy for her for about five minutes before I begged off so I could get back to website work. Sigh.
Brave New World is an excellent book so far. And there are effable things I think I’m learning from it, too. What strikes me tonight is the power of something close to hypnopædia: I ought to make use of the apparent fact that if you repeat something assuredly to someone frequently enough, they will believe you.
The above leaf dates from thirteen years ago. Kris sent it to me yesterday. A lot in me has changed since then. And a lot sure hasn’t. :)
Speaking of things changing in me, I relapsed into not trusting Carla to by my ally today as the weekend time she was spending on her first council meeting stretched into its third or fourth hour this morning. DON’T DO THAT.
On another note, one of the several reasons I’d like to stick hard to my bedtimes is that I want to put a tad more thought into this journaling. I won’t be leaving much for posterity if I rush through this.
Nevertheless, it’s 10:36pm, and I need to get to bed.
Carla and I disagree about the overall merit of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012). It comes down to this: I want an artist to do these adaptations. Peter Jackson is more like the captain of a theme park boat ride.
We shared another New Year’s Eve and morning with the Potters. We started at at a fundraising soup dinner held by the folks in the basement of the University Baptist & Brethren Church building. It’s the Potters’ home congregation. At dinner, I missed an opportunity to inquire about Josh’s faith. Other times will come. And gosh, does the pastor’s son know how to make a caramel cheesecake.
Anyway, we proceeded through the regular Sidney Friedman Parklet and Allen Street routine for First Night, appreciating the percussive, paper-maché parade emanating from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church building, kettle corn, the ice slide, the ice sculptures, the Christian Science Reading Room’s free cookies and cider, the phoenix in the Borough building, and the sight of the horses and carriages and Vamos' lit-up pedi-cab along the way. All four parents ended up carrying all four children back to the cars.
Today what was supposed to be a prayerful walk through Mom’s neighborhood ended up a reestablish who I am, who I’d like to be, and how to go from point A to point B: Follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes, yet know that God will judge you in the end. Don’t let what you’re not doing distract you from you are doing. (I’m especially prone to be guilty of that last one when the what-I’m-not-doing is the kids. I seem to forget that the best way to get back to the kids is to concentrate fully on what I’m doing.) Whatever you do, do it heartily.
After another Christmas morning, an afternoon wave of sleepiness, and a delicious, heartfelt Christmas feast courtesy mostly of Mom, the Stilson siblings, Felix, and Carla went to see the above movie as our gift to one another. It was a good one, and I hope it’s a small beginning in a new tradition: My siblings and I purposely spending time with one another when we’re around. Carla is much better at that than I.
— Éa, in an arrestingly genuine response to the animal-print pajamas Sullivan gave her for Christmas; she had left us because she paused about five seconds between the first and second parts, and her reply wasn’t accompanied by a smile
I feel a certain loneliness today, a longing for fellowship. It’s probably because Carla is sick and spent most of the day in bed, although it feels like I’ve been missing something for a while now, a need for a best friend with whom I share not only interests, proximity, and mutual affection, but also approach to God, approach to self-conduct, and way of thinking. No friend of mine thinks like I do. Ethan is the closest I can think of. Perhaps I need to drop him a line.
Nonetheless, Carla and I did finally finish Greed (1924) this evening together. It was an excellent film that prompted me to pray, “Lord, please keep us from being deceived by money.”
Above is a drawing of a cardinal Carla did for the front of a Christmas card for the Wendles. She is so good.
She is also pretty sick. Ibuprofen allowed her to enjoy the party at the Wendles’ house this evening while the I and the sick or recovering kids stayed home, ate homemade pizza, read books, and listened to tunes. But boy, did it wear off when she returned home. Lord, may I be a sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted husband tomorrow.
Jordan and Stephen divulged to me on our way up to Philipsburg for DiamondBack Christmas party day that playing vertical music for Keystone was the worst experience in their worship-playing careers. The motif of their report was that the people there were “mean.”
As Carla said upon my report of that revelation later this evening, “It’s good when wolves are wolves.”
I once again got carried away by doing and thinking about the choral society website, to the elimination of much time for prayer. It has encroached on sleep, work, prayer, fasting. This has got to stop.
I’m going to try to make it stop by allowing for bigger swaths of time working on it in the plan for the day.
Carla insisted the four of us go outside in the 6–8 inches of snow after dinner this evening, and I’m glad she did. We pulled the kids around on their sleds, enjoyed the scenery and relative silence, sledded down the steps of the new footbridge and down the hill near Meadow Lane. O Lord, You’re beautiful.
I finished the proactive portion of my Christmas shopping today. All that remains is about seven tasks that are queued up in Remember the Milk. I mention this as the most significant portion of my day today because I’m still not completely comfortable with multi-step, very detail-oriented projects whose deliverable are people I. The discomfort is a lack of confidence that I have thought of everything and am making proper progress. It causes me to ponder over my project management systems instead of getting things done. And it leads to me idolizing and being selfish about my time.
Lord, as usual: Help!
In other news, we discovered last night that Zeppelin is on Spotify. I exclaimed to Carla that this news trumped the handbell concert as my high yesterday.
Éa and I enjoyed the above concert today very much. Plus, we got to see Jimmy Hutasoit, Jo Lash, Joyce Robinson, Dana Carlisle, and a Russell Bloom who heavy-handedly—literally, with lots of downward pressure applied on my left shoulder by his hand—tried again to recruit me to Pirates of Penzance.
Carla thinks I’m goofy for thinking it such a big deal. And I guess I’m not sure why I think it’s a big deal. Maybe it’s because it’s my first medical interaction that I’ve had on my own behalf for a few years, and it’s proactive and preventative, which is rare for me. Maybe it’s because it’s a signal that I’m part of the mainstream of modern humanity, unlike many other parts of my life (e.g. home birth, not consuming a lot).
