a 4-year-old +

a microphone +

an amplifier +

an effects pedal +

a rainy day +

a dad with musical-mad-scientist tendencies =

what I heard when I got home from a work event Sunday afternoon

The longer explanation: Jim has a bunch of musical equipment so he can record his own songs and tinker with the sounds of the guitar and his voice. He doesn’t do much recording anymore but he still has all of his stuff. I’m not sure how, exactly, they got from here to there, but Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. I opened the door to hear the sound of my daughter’s suddenly very deep, very echo-y voice resounding through the house. As Jim pressed various buttons, Eliza was doing play-by-play on an imaginary baseball game.

Please also note that now that it’s fall, we’re apparently back to having The Child Who Doesn’t Change Out of Her Pajamas All Day.

File under “One of the best reasons to have kids is to mess with their heads”

I have a number of moles on my face. Eliza likes to amuse herself by pushing them to see what noise I will make (a variety of beeps, bloops, and honks, with a full-bore organ chord when she pushes three or more at once).

The other day, she was playing this game to the point of boredom (for me, not her) and became obsessed with the mole on the end of my nose.

“You know,” I told her, just to amuse myself, “That mole means that when I get old, I’m going to turn into a witch.”

She gave me an exceedingly skeptical look, but didn’t pursue the matter until tonight. We were talking about various Halloween-related witches, and she said, “So, when you’re a grown-up lady, you’re going to turn into a witch ’cause of your mole?”

I said yes, of course.

***

Word Choice

Eliza at dinner: “Well, I certainly ate almost that whole taco!”

***

Dessert Hyperbole

Tonight for dessert Eliza and I made Apfeltaschen, basically apple turnovers made from a German cookbook. (Shout-out to Grandma Texas who handled a mid-recipe “wait, which one is baking powder in German again?” phone call.)

It was made with one of those murderously sticky doughs that they want you to roll out, which drives me cuh-raaaay-zee and I always just sort of end of mashing everything around with my hands instead of a stupid rolling pin. The end-product turned out quite well though, with the exception of two that stuck to the tinfoil a little when I tried to remove them.

When I served dessert, Eliza sized matters up and declared, “I don’t want a destroyed one!”

Then, when there were 5 left over and I said they would be eaten tomorrow night, she explained, completely in earnest, that she should take care of two of them so that tomorrow, there would be one for each of us.

Dinner Dance

After dinner we repaired to the living room to DJ for Eliza. She only likes fast songs. Yesterday, she harassed Jim to such a degree about picking songs that were fast enough that he, the architect of her musical tastes, finally said, “Dysfunctional English men who make a lot of racket — that’s all you like!”

The Small Person was unmoved and yelled for more Who songs. She finally conceeded that Beethoven was OK.

One of her favorite albums, currently, is Sgt. Pepper’s. In case you are wondering, Lucy is a girl who flies. We have no plans to correct her. She is also amused by that Ringo song where he sings, “Nononono, I don’t smoke that no more.” The concept of smoking anything, let alone something mind-altering, is so foreign to her that we can play songs with drug references with impunity right now. (I did have a moment of panic when she asked me, “Mommy, what are they saying?” during the Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire. I muttered something about Sacks of fire and changed the song.)

I find her attention to music, and the things she notices, astounding (and completely bragworthy, feel free to look away). Jim has an album of Beatles mash-ups, where sections of different Beatles songs are transposed into other songs, sped up, slowed down, and just generally stirred into a big Beatle gumbo, which we listened to this evening.

The kid, she will sit there and tell you, “Oh, that’s the sex-o-phone* from …. and the drums from ….” and, “Oh, here comes a funny part that’s going to make you laugh, Mommy!” She hears and appreciates things deep in the mix of songs that I hadn’t heard in dozens of listens and will comment upon them, stuff like little subtle keyboard fills or weird buried background vocals. When we played her Beethoven, she pointed out the ways in which it was similar to a Nutcracker song, and the thing is, she was right — the rhythm and tempo WERE the same in the piece she had in mind.

She has not only favorite songs but favorite versions of songs and can articulate why she likes one over the other in many cases. The William Shatner version of Lucy in the Sky cracks her up, but the original Beatles one is the one she really adores. And bless my feminist heart, one of her favorite musical groups is The Pretenders, and not the mooshy twee mid-period stuff, but the stripped down early stuff and the hard Bo Diddley/punk beats of the most recent one.

Now if only I can work on that Van Halen obsession. That one has me a little worried.

* I have no plans to correct her.

***

With as much dancing and hopping and traipsing about as gets down here, accidents are inevitable. And so, several times a day, we hear a loud crash or thud, followed by a pause, followed by, “I’m okay!!!”

It makes me laugh every. single. time.

Before the dropping of the Sword of Economic Damocles or whatever it is that I’ve taken to calling Jim’s lay-off, we decided to live high on the hog in the form of concert ticket purchases. These evenings out together were supposed to be anchored, in many cases, with little overnight or weekend-long vacation jaunts. Those mostly got cancelled, but we weren’t about to give up our tickets, and wise we were. We enjoyed the last of our purchases last night south of Boston; a little Irish band called U2. Or is that a band of little Irish men called U2? But more about Bono’s wee-ness later.

We were visited by the Benevolent Gods of Music. I have sacrificed my hearing to them; they had better pay up! Seriously, I don’t even bother with earplugs anymore. My official position there is, “That ship has SAILED, boyfriend! Now bring me my ear-trumpet because I can’t hear a thing you’re saying!”)

We (meaning Jim and our friends TT and RG) arrived partway through Snow Patrol’s opening set and learned that, in fact, I actually know a bunch of their songs. Once again, I am accidentally hip!

U2’s stage is in the shape of a circle, surrounded by a ring-shaped catwalk, the idea being to allow as many people as possible to get as close as possible, with a lot of the equipment suspended overhead. Even though we arrived too late (or so we thought*) to be inside the crescent-shapes pit, we were pretty happy with our spots.

I was standing there minding my own business when this tall dude came running at me, all “Sensei!!!!” It is very alarming to receive hugs from people addressing you by Japanese honorifics. Turns out I cannot recognize my own students if they are not in a gi. Whoops. Eventually we all got sorted and made appropriate “Woo!” noises.

This is me being amused about my random karate encounter, with a side of U2-related anticipatory bliss:

Then, 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start some other dude Jim knew slightly ran by saying something about letting more people into the pit, so we bolted in the direction he had come from and walked around to the back of the stage and around the corner and on and on and I kept expecting someone to say, “Where do YOU think you’re going, Missy?!” But they never did.

Then the wee leprechaun came on:

He sounded really good. He can’t hit the high notes anymore and I annoy Jim all the time by picking apart bootlegs and explaining to him which notes Bono changed because his voice is shot, but he (Bono) makes the whole increasingly-wrecked-gravelly-voice thing work for him. He was very raspy, but he seemed to be having a ball.

He has some of the oldest rockstar schtick in the book, pulling girls onstage and whatnot. Except last night during one of the songs he pulled this great big gorgeous strapping girl (well, she was probably 5′7″) out of the crowd, who scooped him up and carried him around for half the song like he was a featherweight damsel in distress. That, my friends, is a man who is confident in his masculinity.

I don’t have a picture but here’s a clip of a great bit of stage-craft where he and the girl are on opposing bridges that swing toward each other at the end of the song.

Also surreal was the song that interpolated live music with this crazy disco remix during which Bono suddenly morphed into, like the BEST aerobics teacher ever, with the hand-moves and the exhortations to move and such.

We were on Adam’s side of the stage:

Dude is the bassist in the biggest band in the world and he’s a slacker compared to all the others. A master of the rockstar pose, though.

Larry looks more or less as he has for the last 30 years. Dude has a Dorian-Gray style set-up in his attic, I’m sure of it:

I’ll spare you the song by song recap and say merely that I was DRENCHED by the end of the show from all the singing and dancing and I totally have concert-crick-neck. This is my 9th U2 show and I’d put it in the top 3.

*FORESHADOWING!

First, Eliza and I had breakfast. Girlie has a thing for decaf vanilla chai with a dollop of honey and a splash of milk. She’s such a coffee-house poseur.

Then, we humiliated the cats:

We were going to dress them up for Halloween, but since the hat test run concluded with Barney writhing on the floor all “getitoffgetitoffGETITOFF!” I think they are going to have to sit this one out.

Then I went for a run. It was 45 degrees when I started and a good 20 degrees warmer, by my estimation, by the time I finished 1 1/2 hours later. During that time I ran laps around the reservoir, which is frankly the only acceptable location I can think of said activity, particularly since I was greeted by a blue heron on one side of the water and by a white crane-type birdie on the other. The day didn’t have the transcendent beauty of the run I did 3 weeks ago, where I ran to the reservoir from my house and came into the watery clearing to be greeted by a mystical foggy landscape that would play well in a fantasy novel. It had its own beauty today, though, in the way the wildflowers unleashed their scents as the day warmed them.

On a more pedestrian note, I found that greeting the same walkers and runners over and over became progressively more awkward. This is a big strike against lap-running, particularly in a place where there is no agreed upon direction for running the thing. I do not understand the people who run clockwise. The feng shui of the place CLEARLY demands counter clockwise. But whatever.

So, yeah, Project Run a Half Marathon continues. 19 days out from the one I hope to run. Haven’t registered yet because I have a bunch of work stuff on weekends, not to mention karate that I need to logisticize my way around. Of course, since the work stuff potentially getting in the way includes a weekend of hanging out with two celebrities in New York City, I will get out the world’s tiniest violin right now and play it on my own behalf so you don’t have to. It is a measure of my dementia that I consider the Half Marathon a superior use of my time.

After the run, we went apple picking with Eliza’s betrothed*, a totally awesome little boy who is about a year older than her, but who has some sort of mind-meld with my kid. They like the same Beatle (Ringo) and will nerd on for far longer than is strictly necessary about the movie Hard Day’s Night (best scene: John Lennon in the bathtub).

Eliza weighed less than the sack of apple we brought home, and that’s even with the 2 apples she ate while we were still in the orchard.

My friend A, parent of Eliza’s betrothed, titled this photo “Apple of My Eye.” Clever, no?

This one’s nice, too:

And so, Project Jesus Christ That’s a Lot of Apples! 2009 begins. Tonight: Pork chops and homemade applesauce and garlic mashed potatoes, with apple crumb/upside down cake for dessert.

Recipe for homemade applesauce:

Peel and cut up a bunch of apples in a microwave-proof dish. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and allspice to taste. Nuke, stirring occasionally, until the right consistency is achieved. Add a few tablespoons of sugar (to taste).

Seriously easy, makes you look all happy-home-maker-ish. Am a big fan. (Obviously, this is not the canning kind — refrigerate and eat within the week.)

PS: Jim was sleeping, and then golfing, hence the chick-day. He showed up for dinner. I used my time wisely, as evidenced by the fact that we played Kings of Leon at dinner at the (brain-washed) kid’s request. “Play the live version of ‘It’s coming closer,’ Mommy!” she said, to my ever-lasting delight and Jim’s chagrin.

_____

*God, I KNOW, so hetero-normative of me. Betrothed should she choose to fulfill traditional gender roles up to and including an arranged marriage, how’s that?

1. Literally

Eliza’s teacher announced last Friday that the kids can do Show and Tell this Friday. The Small Person, who kind of lives in the state of beside-herself-ness anyway, is more beside herself than usual about this. Over the weekend she was intestinally indisposed, and I mentioned to Jim that she might have to stay home from school on Monday. She overheard this and promptly went into Noooooooooooo-mode because The Show and Tell! It cannot be missed! I spent the rest of the weekend reassuring her that she would DEFINITELY be all better by Friday for Show and Tell. This possibly accounts for the fastest recovery from food poisoning I have ever seen a kid make. She didn’t try to milk it once.

In a move that will be familiar to those of you like my husband, who mocks me for packing for trips 3 weeks in advance, she has selected her Show and Tell items already (a Bear Hunt book and a plastic pull-toy dog named Katzel). This morning, she was in a swivet over preparing them on time, bustling around looking for the appropriate receptacles for each item. She requisitioned an old manila envelope of Jim’s for the book she is bringing, then demanded that I staple it shut for security. When I left, they had been laid out, all feng-shui-like, on one of the side tables in the living room, where they will remain and we are not to touch them until Friday.

2. What she knows

Grandpa Texas’s birthday was the other day and when I mentioned that he likes to read she decided to make him a book. In it, he is attacked by the Evil Sick Monster. He feels bad until he dumps some orange juice on the Sick Monster who then gives up and goes away.

This story was created without any prompting from me. Sometimes I mention that Grandpa is feeling sick, but I certainly haven’t sat down and given her the big scary cancer talk. Kids, man — they pick up on stuff…

3. Phone etiquette

I have got to figure out a way to download the hilarious messages she leaves in people’s voicemail. This is Jim and my favorite thing of late. She left one for my mom that roughly went: “Hi Grandma Texas. We are calling you but you’re not there. (pause for martyred sigh) We will try again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow and the day after that. And if you’re still not there (pause again for sigh) I guess we won’t ever speak to you.”

She’s like a 44-inch, 4-year-old Jewish-Catholic mom. Her kids are SO DOOMED.

4. Speaking of guilt

She does not like the new extended-hours schedule that I have had to take on (since I no longer have child-care issues, work says I have to work all my work hours at work now instead of doing some in the evening from home — a reasonable request, really, but that doesn’t mean I have to love it) any more than I do. “I’m a very godmother, Mommy, and I’m going to make it so you don’t hafta do any work!” Gaaaaahhh.