So much for the laundry

The problem with stumbling across a Band of Brothers marathon on the History Channel is that, suddenly, your whole day is shot.

That said, I can't quite reconcile the fact that one of my favorite characters is played by one of the New Kids on the Block.

Well, it's a post, anyway.

Oh. Hello! I…sort of forgot I had a blog. But G reprimanded me last week for not posting recently: “SOME of us use your blog to procrastinate at work.”

Um, yeah, that’s what I use it for, too. Which also why I have not been writing. My work days have been packed from top to bottom. No time for blogging or, you know, reading People.com.

(Know how long it’s been since I’ve had a spare minute to read People at work? I somehow managed to totally miss that Jen and Ben had their new baby. ON JANUARY 6. I just found this out last week. I saw “Seraphina Rose Elizabeth Affleck” and was like, eh? who? what? So I’ve been in a hole, is what I’m saying. But I digress.)

Spring is here, which I know because in the last week I’ve found holes or runs in three pairs of pantyhose and tights. I never run my hose, so clearly this is the universe’s way of saying enough already with the winter clothes!

Anyway, I have done one or two other things in recent weeks, which I shall recount for you now.

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Finally saw Slumdog Millionaire a few weeks ago. I enjoyed it. However, I find that the much-hyped “best movie of the year” type films rarely live up to said hype. Not that they aren’t good—even great—but I’m frequently just a tad disappointed. I felt the same way about Juno. (The exception to this is Little Miss Sunshine, which was completely delightful.)

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I discovered an almost-new canister of Country Time pink lemonade in my cabinet and consumed the whole thing in the course of a weekend.

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Normally I’m a novel person, but I’ve plowed through three non-fiction books—Blink (Malcolm Gladwell), 1776 (David McCullough), and A Year in the World (Frances Mayes) in a row in the last few weeks, plus the John Adams HBO miniseries. I cannot say enough about how good it is.

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Last weekend I went to see JS compete at the National Trumpet Competition in Fairfax. It was fun. He, as usual, was incredible. The judges obviously agreed, as he got 3^rd place in his division.

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I had the good fortune to pick up the wrong bag of chips at the store, which led to my first experience with Ruffles Baked Cheddar and Sour Cream. They are entirely addictive, yet not all that unhealthy! You know, as potato chips go.

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In the course of exactly one day—specifically, Friday, March 13—I went from two planned trips this summer to about seven. Which means I will probably not be getting that new TV just yet.

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Lots of wedding-y fun these days, too. Bridesmaid dress purchased, hotels booked, flights researched (WHY THE HELL IS IT SO EXPENSIVE TO FLY TO ATLANTA?!), showers and bachelorettes scheduled, hours-worth of music listened to and scripture researched for Jules, and one oboe player tentatively booked.

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How great have the little teams been in the NCAA tournament so far?! I was so proud of American and ETSU in their first round games against Villanova and Pitt. In the interest of full disclosure, though, my bracket would have been completely busted if ETSU had won—I have Pitt winning the entire tournament. We’ll see.

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Oh, and I still have not taken my Christmas tree down. Not because I’m trying to hang on to the holiday season, but because keep forgetting. At this point, I barely notice it. And yes, I realize how ridiculous this is.

A Christmas Miracle

Holy Pete, ya’ll. I totally forgot to tell you about my Christmas miracle. I was saving it for an Epiphany story but overshot the 12th day of Christmas by…um…58 days. Oops.

Ok, so. The story begins on a cold December afternoon in 2004. I am at a shoe store with my mother, where I am searching for a pair of black boots for my semester abroad. They must be versatile—for wearing with suits, skirts, and jeans—comfortable for walking, and without crazy-tall heels. I find them. They are on sale. They are delightful. Mission accomplished.

Cut to late January, approximately nine days after arrival in London. My boots and I are at a supremely Eurotrashy, um, coffee shop near Leicester Square, where my friends and I have been dragged by one supremely aggressive roommate. It is hot, horribly crowded, and you can’t hear yourself think. Someone steps, hard, on my left foot, crushing the toe of the boot. The damage, though cosmetic only, is seemingly irreparable, though they are otherwise pristine.

Sad boot.

For five years, I wear them anyway, upwards of three days a week during the October to April chilly period. I have them reheeled annually and resoled twice. Shoe polish provides temporary luster, but the boots are past their prime. A looong way past it. They start to look rather worn and beaten—in no small part due to the oddly-creased toe—but I love them to much to replace them. Casual searches for new pairs only reaffirm the perfection of the originals—real leather, versatile, comfy, a pleasing and unexpected patchwork pattern on the leg shaft. Gosh darnit, I’d traveled Britain and Europe in those boots. We have HISTORY.

Historical Boots -- See how the toe is all mangled?

Fast forward to December 21, 2009, nearly five years to the week after the purchase of The Boots. I’m at church, talking to my mother and Mrs. O, my old piano teacher, when across the room I spot, beneath a blue choir robe, a pair of boots that look remarkably similar to mine. “Hey!” I exclaim, shocked. “Those are my boots!” Mrs. O looks puzzled. I explain the Saga of The Boots.

“I have those boots. I never wear them. Do you want them?” she asks.
“The same boots?”
“Same boots.”
“Probably not actually the same boots. I got mine five years ago,” I respond doubtfully, not wanting to get my hopes up.
“I did too, and they look just like that. Anyway, they’re eight-and-a-halfs. What size do you wear?”
“EIGHT-AND-A-HALF.” I hardly dare to believe that such a thing might be possible.
“Are they Liz Claiborne?”
“I think so.”
“What color is the lining?”
“Red?”
“Mine are purple.” Oh, piffle.
“Maybe they are purple, I don’t remember, I never wear them.”

The next day, I go to Mrs. O’s house. The boots are sitting in their original box, looking like new. The soles have no marks on them. They are THE SAME BOOTS. THE EXACT SAME BOOTS. And she gives them to me. And lo, I am overjoyed, and there is much celebrating throughout the land.

The! Same! Boots! but not crushed.

“This is like Christmas!!!” I exclaim. And it is. Since it's, you know, three days before Christmas.

And that, my friends, is my Christmas miracle.

Snow day!

Look who was on my windowsill this morning!


Okay, he was on my windowsill, but he's apparently camera shy. So he flew to the tree.

On memory and Mahler

Not surprisingly, I have many, many memories associated with music. The earliest dates back to preschool—singing “Bluebird, bluebird, through my window” in music class. But the one that’s the strongest, yet the most vague, occurs whenever only periodically, as it did tonight, as I listened to the London Philharmonic Orchestra perform.

I only stayed for the first half, because I wanted to hear the Mahler, and then the soloist. Now, I like Mahler. I’m not nearly as familiar with his work as with many other composers, but his symphonies are phenomenal, and the man could write a hell of a horn line. But tonight the LPO opened their concert with the Adagio from his unfinished Symphony No. 10, and as far as I’m concerned it was a big fat FAIL.

Weirdest. Piece. Ever. I did not get it. I did not like it. It was unlike any Mahler I’ve ever heard, though that’s not really saying anything.

But then. Leon Fleisher took the stage for Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, and somewhere in the middle I was yanked into the past. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but you know that feeling of intense nostalgia—not the wistful or melancholy kind, but just a vague feeling deep in your memory somewhere? Mozart does that to me, particularly when played by orchestra or piano.

Mozart is the earliest classical music that I remember hearing. I doubt that’s true, since I started dancing in The Nutcracker at age four, I think, so Tchaikovsky probably came first, but it seems like the oldest memory. I think it’s from when Dad performed the role of Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte with the opera workshop at the university. I was pretty little, but we went to see him, and I vividly remember sitting in the dark theater and hearing the music. (Also, there were tights involved, and makeup to make him look elderly. A man in tights was just too weird for me to comprehend at that age.)

Anyway, this happens periodically, where I get that feeling.

Also, apropos of nothing, Leon Fleisher is just adorable. He’s 80 years old and vaguely leonine in aspect, and he sort of sings along with himself as he plays. It’s very endearing. But the most amazing thing about him is his story.

In 1965, after during a wildly successful performing career—which began, by the way, with his New York Phil debut at age SIXTEEN—he was struck by a rare neurological disorder that left two fingers of his right hand immobile. The gifted artist was suddenly unable to perform, though he continued to perform the repertoire for left hand only, as well as conducting and teaching. But then, nearly 40 years after the illness struck, medical science caught up with him, and his affliction was cured. Do you know how? Botox. Seriously. He began getting botox injections in his arms and hands, and eventually regained the use of his hand.

And there he was tonight, backed by one of the world’s great orchestras, and you would never know that he had a 40-year hiatus from the piano. Just goes to show that you can lose everything, or seem to, and you may have given up hope—heck, you may have given up hope DECADES ago—but hope is never really lost. Just ask Leon Fleisher.

Dog Blog

It’s Wednesday. Dad is in Israel, communing with Moses and ancient demoniacs. Mom is at home worrying about tornados dropping a tree on the house (a seemingly irrational fear until you learn that this has occurred on two separate occasions, though not by tornados). I am watching hockey and mentally packing for my trip home this weekend, where G and I will party it up with Mom on her birthday.

We will also possibly get a dog. Not for me, unfortunately—I need to keep reminding myself of that—but for Mom and Dad.

Speaking of dogs, can we please talk about this?

May I present to you….the Komondor. Is this not the awesomest looking dog ever? I mean, look at him. He clearly has an affinity for reggae—check out the dreadlocks!—and I bet I could train him to keep my wood floors clean.

Although then I would probably have to clean the dog more frequently. Perhaps there’s a flaw in my plan.

I got completely sucked into the Westminster Kennel Club show last night, though I only saw the Toy and Working classes, followed by the Best in Show. And during the commercials, they showed about a zillion of these Purina ads about pet adoption. Pleading eyes peer adorably out of cages, and my heart breaks, and then I inevitably waste two hours looking for alternative housing with a fenced yard, until I get distracted by something else, like cupcakes or the Daily Show.

I want a dog. But you all knew that.

Couldn't have said it better myself

This is sort of a "Heard" post, but it's more like "Read" or "Received," because it was not verbalized so much as, you know, text messaged to me. From B, who was all the way in yonder Seattle during last night's uber-harrowing game.

9:58 PM: Trailing 23-20 with 2:24 to go, Ben Roethlisberger and Santonio Holmes have completed three passes for 40 yards, progressing from the Pittsburgh 12-yardline to the Arizona 6.
B [via text]: !

10:00 PM: Second and goal on the Arizona 6, Roethlisberger lofts one into the corner and Holmes lands--barely--with two toes in the end zone. TOUCHDOWN! Or was it? Officials review....and....it's good! The Steelers regains the lead, 27-23, with 35 seconds left, and I about have a heart attack for the fifth time in 20 minutes.
B: !!
Me: That's an understatement.
B: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!