Scout Moves

I have a full day ahead. Eustacia has asked to come home for the weekend, not because she misses her parents, mind you, but because she misses her cats. So, I'll leave here mid-afternoon to go fetch her. Between now and then, I have some work projects to tend to and some practicing to do before tomorrow morning's rehearsal. This is what goes on in my horn case while I'm busy playing through music. I'm sure my horn is the only one with valve slides covered in cat hair. I also have written a piece for Small Town Newspaper that I will obsessively polish before submitting. In case you're interested, or even if you aren't, here is a link to my piece in today's edition. It's even got a couple of comments from online readers. I don't write on subjects that warrant much online commenting like last night's speech delivered so masterfully by Barak Obama. Any place that subject appears this morning, you'll find all kinds of opinions for or against. But...

I got a call from the manager of my local grocery store. He introduced himself and said he was looking over his list of frequent shoppers. I said, "I shop at your store A LOT!" And he said, "I KNOW!" He justed wanted to thank me, and he said that if I ever needed anything, I should feel free to ask. I wasn't sure if I should be embarrassed or impressed. It's not like I'm a glutton and stop by every day for a cart full of chips and dip. I just like to cook, and there are only two stores in town to give my grocery business to. The other one is a fine store, but it's got a crappy parking lot, and I don't think they always organize their stuff logically. For example, I was there the other day looking for a roll of parchment paper. My main store keeps it with the foil and plastic wrap. This store put it way down at the other end of the aisle for no apparent reason. And they don't sell organic chocolate. Try to find a bar of Green & Blacks ther...

We haven't been to the lake house for a while, at least not long enough to use the grill or pull weeds. Sometimes the place looks slightly abandoned. We spent a little time there this past weekend, though. Husband pulled a few weeds, and I washed the linens and dusted a little. Husband opened up the back door to the deck, and the noise startled the biggest chipmunk I have ever seen. The thing scurried the length of the deck and ran under the grill that sits in the corner. I didn't see it actually leave the deck, so we thought it might have gone inside the grill and not just under it. A few weeks ago, husband found a bird's nest on the grate of the grill, so it's not unreasonable to think a chipmunk might hide in there, too. When husband tapped on the top of the grill with a broom handle, out ran the chipmunk and down into the grass. Very carefully, husband opened up the lid of the grill, still using the broom handle, and we discovered a nest that could house a baby elep...

...or nerves, in this case. I hate that. Since I made such a big, hairy deal about playing principal horn in the upcoming orchestra concert, let me tell you about last night's rehearsal. We usually have three to four rehearsals for a concert, but because this is a simpler "pops" performance, we only have two, and last night's was the first. You never know how many people in your section will be there for any given rehearsal because people have other things to do, especially people who play in local orchestras. They are often music teachers with marching band practices to run in the evenings, or sometimes they also play in other groups that rehearse or perform the same night. I have learned to show up for a rehearsal knowing I might be the only horn player. It's happened before, which I really hate, and I was just hoping it wouldn't happen again last night of all nights. I tend to play more confidently when I am in a full section. Of the four of us, there were ...

I stopped by the dry cleaners a couple of days ago to pick up a load of shirts, and my friend the owner was there. She isn't always. She showed me her custom-decorated finger nails with glittery crap that represented her soon-to-be-born granddaughter. This woman is really funny and always seems to be running on adrenaline. She asked how I was, and I said I was fine but that I had sent my last kid to college and was in a kind of mourning. She hugged me and then talked about how sad she was when her daughters left for college. She couldn't wait for her son to leave, though, because he was such a handful. So many mothers of sons have said the same thing to me, and I'm beginning to be grateful I have daughters (not that I wasn't already). While we were commiserating, another customer came in, and Hyper Dry Cleaner hugged her, too, and told her she looked great. Turns out this other woman has cancer of some kind and is in the middle of a series of chemotherapy treatments. Sh...

...although it's hardly an act. Here's what happened. I was sitting here minding my own business and waiting for the music to arrive for an upcoming orchestra concert. We begin the season with a pops concert in the park on the Sunday before Labor Day. It's always a lovely event with the seats and the hillside filled with people. The conductor wears a summery white tuxedo jacket, and we play light music people can hum to. This music is never so difficult that you loose sleep and fingernails in preparation for it, so it can be fun. The first chair player of every section is called the "principal," which could mean he or she is the top player, and it could also mean he or she is like the disciplinarian principal of your school days. I remember learning the difference between "principle" and "principal," and my teacher said to remember that your school "principal" is your pal. I am digressing, but the principal of our horn section is both...

Some of you in the blog neighborhood have started sharing photos and stories about your first car, so here I am to join in. I don't have any pictures, but I can describe it to you. After several months of marriage, Husband and I were in need of a second car but couldn't afford one. Along came a helpful couple who were gracious enough to give us one, a 1978 Datsun B210. It was a tiny car with two doors and a hatchback. The back seat could have held a loaf of bread but not much more, and the whole thing smelled a bit like a dirty garage. Husband drove the car we had bought ourselves because it was a stick shift, and I only drive automatics. That meant the Datsun was mine, my very own first car. It was brown, and all the finish had warn off, so the thing became known as The Turd Car. I loved The Turd Car. It didn't have power steering, but I could handle it because it was so small. It didn't take much upper body strength to maneuver it around corners. Those old cars needed...

Daughter No. 1 and I have been playing backgammon lately when we are together, and when I get all my pieces in my corner of the board, I say "Mommy's home." We think it's funny. Well, Mommy has gone to the city for the day. No. 1 lives in Columbus where she goes to school, and since she has finished for the summer, I spent yesterday visiting her. First, we drove to German Village, an old section of town that consists of narrow brick streets and old houses and shops and galleries. We had lunch here: I had a sausage sandwich with German potato salad, and we were both grateful we didn't work there like the poor servers who had to wear dowdy German frocks. Then we went to the Book Loft, the best book store ever. It's a sprawling shop with 32 rooms on at least three floors. The photo is of the gardenlike entrance where bargain books are kept in good weather. Inside, you walk from room to room in this maze of book shelves, and each room has its own music playing. Th...

We delivered Eustacia to her college dorm on Saturday, and let me tell you—that was no fun at all. She'll be fine, but her poor mother feels as though she's missing a limb. Is this a phantom pain I'm feeling? It must be. Sunday afternoon, No. 1 went back to her school in Columbus, and husband left for a three-day business trip. I had such big plans to clean out Eustacia's room and get it organized and vacuum in corners that haven't been cleaned in years—if you have ever seen her room, you know what a big undertaking this all would be—but when I found I was the only person in the house, that was the last room I wanted to be in. I kept busy with other tasks instead...laundry, some sewing, a quick trip to the store for salmon and raspberries, and skimming the leaves and bugs from the pool. While I was puttering around, Turner Classic Movies was devoting the day to Gene Kelly, and the string of his great musicals kept me sufficiently distracted. I started with An Americ...

I was out doing a little shopping yesterday for things like a French press coffee maker so the guy who gave me a hard time for drinking coffee from a drip maker can shut up. I also had Eustacia's trumpet cleaned, and the shop owner said it was the filthiest trumpet he has seen in 35 years, and how did my kid ever make noise with it. Then I bought a few little things Eustacia might enjoy in an initial care package of sorts. I picked up a fun umbrella, a striped tin full of colored pencils, highlighters shaped like cats, a water bottle, Jelly Bellies, and a sewing kit. Then I bought a book entitled 1001 Things Every College Student Needs to Know . Here are some of the important things: You need to know... •it doesn't matter if you were popular, a Goth, a geek, or a cheerleader in high school. You're now a freshman. •you're moving into a dorm built fifty years ago, not a condo built last week. •what the word moderation means...and exercise it. •college isn't about fi...

Here is a story using 700 words. I have told parts of it here before , so skip over what seems familiar. My youngest daughter is getting ready to pack up for college, and she wants a new bike to ride on campus. She has had a bike in the past, a series of them, in fact, but she hasn’t had one since she has been of adult height. So, we have had to go shopping. I have been thinking I’d like a new bike myself, but given the hills and narrow roads near my house, I doubt I would ride one very often. I’ll confess I have one already—it’s sitting in the basement with flat tires and cobwebs and patina building up on the frame because I don’t ever ride it. But still, the idea of a new bike is appealing. I am not all that steady on something with two wheels. My parents never saw my learning to ride as a priority, so at the age of six I taught myself on the neighbor’s little red bicycle. I practiced on the thing for hours in the front yard, starting at the sidewalk and ending with a crash into the...

Today is last-minute-shopping-day for Eustacia. She's got all the big stuff like beddings and quite a few of the smaller things like extension chords and tissues, but she needs some other stuff like shampoo and crayons, or maybe pens would be more appropriate. While we shop and pack up the goods—the kid could fill a Goodwill store with her clothes alone, it seems, at least when I try to lift up one of those storage boxes—you can look at some photos from our visit to the lake last weekend. There is a great restaurant at a nearby marina, so we took the boat there for dinner on Friday and then relaxed at the house for part of the next day. I had a band concert Saturday night, so I couldn't hang around for too long. Here is No. 2 on the way back to the house. Boat froth. The setting sun. This little guy followed us for at least five minutes. I thought he would land at one point, but he got distracted and went to bother someone else.

Empty nest. I'm not sure I like that phrase because I'm not a bird, and what I know about birds makes me glad my babies are human. Did you know that some baby birds will push their siblings out of the nest prematurely, causing them to crash to their deaths, just so they will get more food? Birds regurgitate food into the mouths of their hungry offspring, and they don't mind walking around in their own waste. They also have parasites. Eustacia is leaving for college on Saturday and causing me to be called an Empty Nester. I'll have to think of another phrase if I must be called something at all. I'm still a mother, for Pete's sake, so why do I have to have a new label? I had a dream the other night that we packed the kid up and drove her to her new college. As we were walking through the front door of the dorm, I turned to find her laying face down in a mud puddle refusing to go in. I ran to comfort her, and she declared she did not want to leave home and go to c...

I have finally set up an etsy shop called Home Grown . Because the site only lists items for four months at a time, I posted just a few bags and a few earrings. I've got more, but I don't want to overwhelm the world with my brilliance all at once. It's good to dole these things out in manageable doses. Competition is tough, and there are a lot of very talented craftsmen out there. I just hope my stuff catches the eye of someone who likes reasonably priced cool things.

I was reading Small Town paper yesterday, specifically an editorial by someone from a think tank. His subject was the current political campaign, which seems to be the subject of absolutely everything these days. You ask someone if we're going to get rain, and he will inevitably turn the answer into something about the damn Democrats or the damn Republicans depending on his opinion. In this editorial, the writer suggested that some people think Obama talks down to them. He's not the first to say that. "We American yokels can't speak French or Spanish. We eat too much. Our cars are too big, our houses either overheated or overcooled. And we don't even put enough air in our tires," he says. Obama has also told black men they need to spend more time with their families and take responsibility for them. Bill Cosby and countless preachers have harped on that, so that's nothing new. White men get told the same thing if they put themselves in the way of books or ...

Bah. It's Art Day but I don't have anything to show you except more bags and earrings. Enough with those things already, I think, at least as far as picturing them every week. Maybe I should get back to painting. In the meantime, I made a new friend yesterday. This subject loosely fits into the Art Day category because my new friend owns a small fabric shop in town, and she sells very cool batik material that has so far rendered a very cool reusable shopping bag and will next produce a small purse. I was driving on what I refer to as "the back way" to the mall. It's a winding road that leads from a busy intersection to the outer edge of town, snaking along the river, turning sharply a few times, and then funneling under a narrow and dark overpass that can induce momentary claustrophobia if you're not careful. It was on this road that I stumbled upon a little fabric shop named The Material Girl. I can't imagine how this woman stays in business because her l...

Quite a while ago, Miz Minka pointed me to an interesting photo game using Flickr images to create a mosaic. You go here and begin to create a mosaic with twelve images. It's a bit complicated, but in order to get the images, you must answer the questions copied below. Use each answer as a search word in Flickr and select an image on the first page of the results. For example, for the final question, I answered "Scout," and the image on the bottom right-hand corner was one of the results. I ran into a problem when the school image I selected was shot by someone not willing to be included in the game, so I have had to come up with an alternate. 1. What is your first name? 2. What is your favorite food? 3. What high school did you go to? 4. What is your favorite color? 5. Who is your celebrity crush? 6. Favorite drink? 7. Dream vacation? 8. Favorite dessert? 9. What do you want to be when you grow up? 10. What do you love most in life? 11. One word to describe you. 12. You...

I am now recovered from my trip to New York City and ready to report. Here goes: Husband, Eustacia, and I hit the pavement running Thursday late afternoon, and judging by the sore calves and blisters from crappy shoes, we didn't stop until we got home Monday evening. Hotel. We stayed at the Waldorf=Astoria—posh, snooty, and more than over priced but fun just the same. The hotel name has a double hyphen to make it special, as if the price tag weren't enough. Two eggs any style with bacon or sausage—$20. In the main lobby there stands a two-ton clock from the Chicago world's fair of 1893. Around the base are engravings of various presidents, Benjamin Franklin, and Queen Victoria. There have been some interesting characters living at the Waldorf over the years, like former President Hoover, General Macarthur, Bugsy Siegel, and Marilyn Monroe. Cole Porter lived there for years, eventually becoming a recluse because of health problems and depression. His piano is still on dis...

My dearest Dearest Damselfly at Winged Musings has discovered another personality test . This is what it told me—apparently I am a paradox. Your Brain Usage Profile: Auditory : 64% Visual : 35% Left : 31% Right : 68% Scout, you show a slight right-hemisphere dominance with a moderate preference for auditory processing, an unusual and somewhat paradoxical combination of characteristics. (I question the use of the words "slight" and "moderate" in this case) You are drawn to a random and sometimes nonchalant synthesis of material. You learn as it seems important to a specific situation, and might even develop a resentment of others who attempt to direct your learning down a specific channel. Your right-hemispheric dominance provides a structure that is only loosely organized and one which processes entire swatches of reality, overlooking details. You are emotional in your reactions and perceptual more than logical in your approach, although you can impose structure an...