By the way, if you wanted to do something for my kid’s music teacher, she’s got a request up on DonorsChoose.com. I think it’s about time to get another yarn-for-donations raffle going. Hmm.
Well, Emily had her debut in the musical theater tonight as a member of the chorus. She’s in the pink shirt with the two braids. She’s the tallest one, as usual. The third and fourth graders were off to the sides of the stage, while the fifth graders played the actual parts.
Right: Check out the Wells Fargo Wagon! I wondered how the heck they could afford all the stage dressing, since our school is, we shall say, dirt poor. Then the principal mentioned she’d seen the same production at another school last week, which makes me think that the district shelled out for the rights to Music Man Junior as well as the settings. She also said that our production put theirs to shame, which I totally believe.
Left: sign definitely not needed. The music director stationed this teacher at the back with this little baby. The reverse side says “SING NOT SHOUT.” Emily wasn’t supposed to have the solo she did, but she decided to sing a line along with the soloist. Nice and loud. And she sounded great. I don’t think anybody noticed, but she was fabulous.
Link to an AVI of a bunch of eight year olds singing Meredith Wilson – IF YOU DARE!
Upon coming home, she immediately popped in the DVD of the Music Man which I had cunningly left sitting at the edge of the coffee table. She’s singing along with the songs now. She’s going to be a star, I tell you! A star!
And now, if you’ll pardon me, it’s time for the star’s bathtime and jammies.
Tomorrow night, Emily’s school will be doing The Music Man. I assume they’ll just be doing selections from it, since I doubt they have a pint-sized Robert Preston ready to sing “The Sadder but Wiser Girl.” They will, however, be doing Iowa Stubborn, 76 Trombones, the Wells Fargo Wagon, and Pick a Little Talk a Little.
Apparently they’ve got the stage dressed as River City, complete with a Wells Fargo wagon and horse, “a big orange ball” for some reason, and hats for the kids.
Emily will have two solos – well, duets, since they pair the kids up for the solos. In Wells Fargo Wagon, she’ll be singing, “And once I got some grapefruit from Tampa” and also “Oho the Wells Fargo Wagon keeps a-coming!”
I spoke with her music teacher, who says that in rehearsal, the kids are really more shouting than singing. For those not lucky enough to enjoy this gem in person, I point you to two things:
First, this list of terms used in the Music Man with which you may be unfamiliar.
Second, this audio rendition of David Sedaris reading “Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol” in which he takes on the persona of a drama critic skewering a local elementary school production of A Christmas Carol. Heh.
As for me, I’ll be running the video camera. First karaoke, now Broadway musicals, tomorrow, Hollywood!
Emily’s reading “The Wizard of Oz” in her advanced reading class at school. She has really, really taken a shine to it. Just now I heard her playing with her dolls:
Doll 1: “MY JOINTS NEED OIL!!”
Doll 2: “Sounds like Shauna’s in trouble!”
Doll 3: “We have oil!”
All dolls: “Yay!”
I loved the Wizard of Oz as a kid. I remember reading all the books in the sixth grade, and getting teased for it by some kids in my class, who weren’t real big on reading and I’m sure thought that the Wizard of Oz was baby stuff. At the time, their teasing bugged me, but I wasn’t about to stop. I’ve got all 14 of L. Frank Baum’s books in paperback on my shelf, and no amount of de-cluttering will get me to part with them.
That is, I thought I had all 14. Lo and behold, I’m missing book 1. Yep, I don’t have The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I don’t think I ever bought it. I have no idea why. It’s an appalling lack. I’d like to have it, but I settled for getting a big illustrated copy from the library for Emily. Maybe one of these days I’ll get a used paperback and we can go through the series.
My friend Laura and her youngest boy came over today, and it was great. Emily’s cornucopia of Playmobil stuff was fun for him to play with. Afterward, it looked like Godzilla had rampaged through TinyTown, but that’s what I expected. In years past, this would have been a big issue for Emily, but I took a chance that she could handle the chaos upon her return, and she’s doing fine at rearranging stuff the way she wants it without being upset because it was messed up to begin with. Excellent progress. Of course, she did also come up to me later and say, “He didn’t play with my Groovy Girls, did he? I don’t want that.”
Emily’s been extra cute lately with the holidays getting her all worked up. I went just now to get the video camera to record some of this for posterity, but the battery’s completely drained. Something to fix before this weekend’s cookie bake at her paternal grandparents’. This is a new tradition on that side of the family – my husband’s mother heard about the one we have on my side of the family, and loved it so much they started their own. So come this weekend, there’ll be a dozen people staying overnight in a three bedroom house. Should be cozy. My husband’s family is great, but that’s a lot of people for an introvert to be constantly around. Wish me luck! 🙂
I’m considering discontinuing the kits for a week or so. I want to be sure as many of my existing hat orders as possible are knit up in time for Christmas. It looks like there’ll be no problem getting everybody who should get one by Christmas theirs, but I’d like to get more people done. I find I can either spend my time in the mornings winding yarn or I can spend it knitting.
And speaking of knitting Jayne hats, here are two more in the Berroco Ultra Alpaca. The orange one isn’t as bright as this picture makes it look. In doing these, I have come to love Berroco Ultra Alpaca. There’s a broad color range at a reasonable price, it’s easy on the hands, and it works up smooth and neat. Definitely a winner. Down side: when I hold it doubled, there’s not quite enough for a 23 and 24 inch size from one skein. I’m waiting for delivery of more olive green and more dijon yellow. I paid out the wazoo for expedited delivery, so it should be here in the next day or so. It better. This is one of those “get there by Christmas” orders I was talking about.
For those who had expressed interest in the Superman/other big name trade paperback graphic novels, I wound up sending many of them as part of a care package to a platoon in Afghanistan via Books For Soldiers. Sorry, guys, they need them more than you or I do. I get the impression that most of the volunteers who send stuff aren’t into comics and sci-fi and so I see a lot of requests for comics go unfilled. I’ve had some good experiences with www.booksforsoldiers.com so it’s something I’m happy to do.
And speaking of happy, my friend Laura is in town! Yay! I’m going to see her today! Double yay! I got, like, five hours sleep last night but I’m still perky and excited about this. I may crash by noon, but for now… yay!
Oh! Let me clarify something. Apparently I worded something badly on my “giving thanks” post a while back. Several people have asked me if my friend is recently divorced and moving to start a new life. I think this is because of the “moving alone under difficult circumstances” wording. No. She’s married and happy, it’s just that her husband moved down first to start his new job. I may have mentioned this before, but they met through us, as she was maid of honor and he was best man at our wedding. Tvini wedding mojo cannot be overcome! These two are locked in! No escape! Mwahahahaaaaa!
Don’t look at me like that. I’m allowed to cackle maniacally on my own blog if I want.
Jayne hats up next for: Dubuque, Chicago, and Cincinnati. Go Midwest Browncoats!
Several of you very generously lent me the foreign currency you had jangling around in your drawers. I wanted to let you know what happened to it. No, not “happened to it” like that, it’s fine, I’ve got it and you’ll get it back!
I took pictures of all the bundles that each person individually gave me so that I could remember exactly who gave me what when it was time to return it. The down side to this, I didn’t realize until later, is that about half of these coins from various nations are of similar size and have Queen Elizabeth on the front. Soo… I’ll do my best upon returning these, and if I get something of yours wrong, please let me know.
On Monday I got in the final bit I’d been expecting, a bunch of Australian currency from a Browncoat Down Under. By the way, Aussies, your money is very cool. I spent that evening doing some research on the internet and parceling the coins out into individual baggies by country, labeling them and writing a little fact about each. A Parisian Browncoat very kindly answered my questions about the 10 centimes coin that my mother lent me. The up side of being one of “Those Moms” as my husband puts it, who includes wheat germ in chocolate chip cookie recipes is that you also go all out for this kind of thing too. Emily didn’t show much interest in this while I was doing it, but I got this note from her teacher today:
“Emily was a big hit yesterday with the “money from around the world.” You would be so proud of her. She stood in the front of the room and shared each bag of currency and told the class where each one was from. She did a great job! All of the other students were like “Wowwww!! Where did you get those from???” She responded to their comments and questions very appropriately. I, of course, was beaming from the back of the classroom, enjoying the positive interaction.”
So a huge THANK YOU to everyone who so generously donated. It turned into a learning experience for 18 third graders and an especially positive experience for my daughter. I owe you all – big!
Thanks to everybody who responded. I want to reassure you that I know that the holidays are a busy time, and that I’m not telling Emily that she’s getting anything, so it will be a surprise when she does. This means that if you flake or have to drop out, you won’t be crushing the hopes and dreams of an eight-year-old child.
Today I sent all the foreign money people have passed along to Emily’s school. I’ll post about that later. But as I was going through my top drawer looking for the Spanish peseta from my high school trip to Spain, I ran across some items which are pertinent to the “mailing stuff to kids” conversation.
This is a letter that my mom wrote me. I was four years old, and she had been sent by the newspaper she worked for to a workshop at Columbia. She was the first woman editor at the newspaper, and she really did have to go. I was staying with family friends, and she very sweetly wrote me several letters. As you can see, they meant a lot to me and I kept them.
This is a card that my dad wrote me. I was fourteen years old and at music camp at Pfeiffer college. Like all of junior high school, it wasn’t exactly the time of my life. The music part was great, but my roommate was a holy terror. One day she stole my room key and claimed she didn’t have it. I stuck to her like glue, silently, not accusing, until she finally gave it back. My folks didn’t know all that – I imagine my parents would have been kicking some butt if they had known – but Dad knew I was away from home and not happy, and he very sweetly sent me this card. As you can see, it meant a lot to me and I kept it.
This is a return envelope that my mother sent with me so that I could write home while I was away at Girl Scout camp. Camp wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t choirs of angels singing either. It probably made me a better person, so I’m glad I went. As you can see, the stamp is uncancelled. That’s right. My parents went to all this trouble, and then I never wrote. Bad daughter, bad!
Anyway, sorry about that, Mom and Dad.
Point is, we all flake out from time to time, so don’t stress to much if you’ve overcommitted yourself this holiday season.
Today, finishing up a Jayne hat for Rochester, NY, then stamping boxes and other assorted Jaynework. My life is all about mail now!