My personal top story of the day is that we started to learn
Christmas music in band practice; and have our little schedule of two concerts
and two parades that we’ll be performing in this year.
Though we’re not doing many performances, we still have
quite a list of music to learn over the next month or so. There is a specific set of songs we’ll be
doing for each parade; a half-dozen or so songs we’ll be performing at the
school Christmas concert; and an oldies-jazz repertoire we’ll need to have
ready for the seniors’ Christmas party we’ll be playing at the week before
school’s out for the holidays.
That isn’t exactly a problem for me – or really for Michael
and Rowen either – but some of the teens seemed to be a bit daunted when we
were given the folders with all of the songs we’ll be learning. I just really love that we’re going to be
doing more than just practicing every week.
I still mostly keep a low profile when it comes to public attention, and
that won’t change with Michael and I at the bottom of the food chain in the
saxophone section; but it will be nice to have people appreciate and get to
listen to our music.
Let’s take care of the rest of the update from the
beginning.
My morning was more than a little weird. I was on my own for Tai Chi indoors, and had
to deal with Patrick and Scott bugging me by the time I was half-way through my
long-form workout. As Rowen and I
expected, Patrick was very happy about getting her to blow up at him last
night; and was trying to make her lose it again this morning. If he knew about some of the things she’s
really capable of doing, he might think twice before playing his gags and
pranks; but we’d never be allowed to do anything to him anyway – no matter how
much Rowen and I joke about it on days like today.
It had started raining sometime before I woke up this
morning, and while I could have lived without the wet; it did have the effect
of keeping Patrick and Scott from continuing their goofiness after leaving the
house this morning. They were more
interested in getting to school and out of the rain than pestering us; so they
went their own way instead of following Rowen and me over to Michael’s house to
meet up with him. The rain also kept us
indoors all day, and for the second week in a row; Tim sat at a table in the
cafeteria and worked on his assignments while watching the football team
practice in the rain until Michael, Rowen, and I were finished our band
practice.
We went on to the computer store after that for our usual Tuesday
study session; and then Michael and I went on to his house for dinner after
making a quick pit stop at my house to drop off my computer and book bag; and
have a little visit with Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana. Rebecca had Jason over for dinner again this week
too, but this week wasn’t quite as successful as last time because he didn’t
like the experimental entree that Jacob made for us; and didn’t do a very good
job faking that he did. He and Rebecca
had plans to hang out with Jenny, Garth, and some of their other friends after
dinner; but I’m fairly sure they would have found something else to do even if
they hadn’t already made those plans. We
may not see Jason again for Tuesday night dinners either; but we’ll see what
happens with that.
Michael and I liked getting to have the quiet time with his
parents after dinner; and even sent Rebecca and Jason on their way early –
mostly because Jason wasn’t much help with the clean-up anyway. We had our usual Tuesday evening guitar
lesson too, and since we were pretty much guaranteed to get teased about it by
Miranda anyway; we spent a little extra quality time ‘practicing the rests’ at
the end of our music play time. Making
out in Michael’s bedroom isn’t the same as in the lounge at my house, mostly
because we can’t use my wards and shields there; but we still had fun – and the
make-out time was worth getting teased about.
Watching some television and chatting with Michael and his
parents was fun too. With nobody else
around, we spent some time tonight talking about the Inn;
and particularly about dreams for the future – especially once Jake and
Stephanie are finished college and move home again. Miranda and Jacob still really only have
ideas about what they’d like to do, and our family business won’t really have
any involvement in what will happen there, but Ethan, Ehlana, and I have a
pretty good idea about what’s meant to be for Michael and his family; and I had
fun putting my two-cents worth into the conversation tonight.
I really didn’t want to go home when it was time to leave
while wanting to spend some time with Ethan and Ehlana before they went to bed
for the night too. It was still raining
and getting colder out, so Michael and I didn’t spend much time on our front
porch goodnight kiss before I ran home and moved on to the bedtime chat and
snack with Mom, Dad, and the twins. That
took a while – especially since I needed to get the kid-rated version of Dad’s
birthday party at the pub. I’d add the
stories from home after leaving the pub, but there wasn’t much for Mom and Dad
to tell me about that wouldn’t have been rated ‘way, way too much
information’. They both had a really
great time and are still very happy tonight; so let’s just leave it at that and
move on.
Ethan and Ehlana had more stories for me from their
adventures with Grandma and Grandpa, and play day at KidZone; and Dad wanted to
hear about my night at Rowen’s, school, and my evening with Michael and his
family. It was after ten o’clock before
we’d done all of that and tucked Ethan and Ehlana in for the night; and then
Mom spent more than another hour on my Magi lesson before I was able to come up
to my room and get started on my backlog of studies and nightly computing.
Since I was in a Christmassy mood from band practice, I kept
that theme going for my language studies and family business work; but couldn’t
really do that for my archive homework.
For that matter, Christmas isn’t exactly well-written about in any
Sino-Tibetan dialect; but I was still able to practice by translating some English
Christmas stories into Wu and Hakka.
There really wasn’t much that needed my attention for the family
business in relation to the Christmas season this year, so I mostly just
checked up on how everything was going; and sent some emails with suggestions
for little adjustments here and there to accommodate some early signs of supply
chain or retail issues I was seeing while doing those checks.
I didn’t quite catch up on everything I didn’t get done
yesterday, but it’s heading toward three o’clock now; and I knew it was time to
wrap up my work and get the rest of my nightly computing done when I started
running out of energy and enthusiasm by two-thirty. Tomorrow is a work night, and I plan on
staying home and working after dinner too so I won’t need to be up half the
night again. Hopefully I’ll manage to
get ahead on my work and caught up on some sleep too; but for right now, I’ll
settle for a few hours of unconsciousness before it’ll be time to get up and
going again.
Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!
