Birthday Celebration

Every year, for my birthday, I would ask for german chocolate cake.  It sounded exotic, and I liked chocolate.  It was not that I was a fan of coconut, or that the combination was the perfect melange of flavors.  I always liked it far better in concept than execution.  Nevertheless, every year, Mom would ask what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday, and I would answer: German Chocolate!

Fun fact for the day: German Chocolate cake was originally German's Chocolate cake.  It owes its name to an American chocolate maker named Sam German, who developed a formulation of dark baking chocolate that came to be used in the cake recipe.
 
German worked for Baker's Chocolate Company, and developed the dark baking chocolate used in the recipe in the mid-1800s.  (Aside: my sister lives in the old Baker's Chocolate Company manufacturing plant - recently renovated into apartments.) When the Dallas Morning Star published the recipe in the 1950s (submitted by Mrs. George Clay), Baker's shared the recipe across the country.  The sales of Baker's chocolate went through the roof. 

Eventually, the  __'s was removed from German's Chocolate cake.  And the folk etymology of German Chocolate was born.

Today, my co-workers sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  Nicole made me a German's Chocolate cake, and everybody was delighted to get a treat.  It just happens that there is a long break between the most recent birthday (mid-June) and the next one on our list (early September). So we celebrated my birthday.  I smiled real big.  It was not difficult to act pleased that my birthday was being celebrated.

Only thing was, my birthday is five months away.  Or seven months ago, depending on your approach.  That's the issue about being born on the 28th of December: people struggle to celebrate your day for a variety of reasons:

1. They are tired of having parties
2. They are tired of giving gifts
3. They are broke.
4. They have eaten stuff that is bad for them for a month.  Or more.
5. They are not in the office (or school - this has been going on for a long time), since they left before Christmas, and are not coming back until after the new year.

So last week, when Nicole asked whether there was anybody - ANYBODY - who had a birthday to be celebrated, I spoke up...

"You can celebrate mine."

She looked up, and asked "When is your birthday?!"  I explained that it was during the holiday break.  "And I didn't make you cake?" 

Um.  No.

"OK, then.  We are on for next week! What kind of cake do you want?"

"German Chocolate!"

She complained loudly about the fact that German Chocolate cake is too easy.  Nicole is an artist.  Her cakes are works of art, and require complicated techniques and fresh ingredients.  Something that can be made by a kitchen-savvy eight-year-old is well below her level of expertise. 

But she made it all from scratch, and the result was spectacular.  Light, fluffy cake, layered with coconut-and-pecan flavored icing.  A lovely cake, one that reminded me of my birthday cake from childhood. 

Being celebrated is a nice thing.  And for a chaos muppet like me, it is especially sweet when it is unexpected.
 

Flop Sweat

I lied to you.

In a post back in January, I promised I would host a sazerac party on June 8.  And I would play the banjo.  Shaking hands and all, my stated goal was to play in front of (and, hopefully, with) people by early June.

I did not.  Not only did I not play, I ducked the countless queries of friends, asking if it was going to happen.  I hoped y'all wouldn't notice, and that it would fly under the radar.  But....

But I did keep practicing.  Maybe not as intently as I would have for a proper recital.  But I love playing, even when I do it badly.  Which, as it happens, is quite a lot of the time.  I work on scales some, because the books say that it helps.  I play the notes of some songs I like, way under tempo, just like the books say to do.  I play the few tunes that I know well enough to play (almost) at tempo.  And then I just play around with the instrument.  My practice sessions are never long; there are always other things going on in the house that take my attention.

But I practice.

And this week, I played out in semi-public for the first time.

Every couple of weeks, I hold a non-denominational (I first wrote 'demoninational, but that seemed to communicate a very different kind of meeting) service over at the retirement home across from my work.  We have some songs, for which I download muzack on my ipod, we have a scripture and a homily.  Simple service.  I have told them for months that I would - someday - play some hymns on my ol' banjo.

This week, for the first time, I did.

Six seniors showed up and I pulled out my banjo and started playing.  A couple of months ago, I found a "three chord hymnbook", and started working through the ones I know from my childhood.  There are a surprising number of hymns that fit the category.

And most of them are pretty bloody:

There's Power in the Blood
Are you Washed in the Blood
Alas and did my Savior Bleed
Nothing but the Blood...

After an opening prayer, and the brief tuning session, I started out.  I had printed out the words so they could sing along.  And dove in. 

Here are the things I discovered.

ToC seems to reflect heavy reliance on the Broadman Hymnal

1. When you only play three chords, you limit the range you sing.  When every song is in the key of G (C and D7 being your other chords), the song will be pitched too high to sing.  Or too low.   Necktie tenor, or gravel bass, there is no middle ground.
2. The volume you use singing to yourself on the couch in your living room does not cut it in the chapel.
3. After an hour of trying to project your voice in the gravel bass register, there is no voice remaining. 
4. Nervousness as an adult no longer only expresses itself in shaking hands (as it did when I was kid at the piano).  Flop sweat, apparently, is a real thing.  The room was perfectly air conditioned, and I was drenched through.  By the second song.
5. Missed transitions are not the end of the world.  If you just sing a little louder (in full voice gravelly bass, see #2) and wait for it to come back around on the banjo, it eventually will.
6. Playing with people that love you means they enjoy the music, and forgive the errors.
7. Playing for people who are retired means that if you are really bad, they can always turn down a hearing aid. Or two.
8. Old tunes that I recognize are likely to be Baptist tunes.  Which, it turns out, are not necessarily recognized by everybody. (This is important when you are trying to get people to sing, ESPECIALLY small groups)
9. I gotta do this more, and,
10. I am terrified to do this more.

It was fun.  It was hard.  That kind of nervousness is exhausting. 

I sat down with the banjo the next day, knowing what I needed to work on.  Where my weaknesses were.  I know myself well enough to know that I should not try to get them all covered at once. But I played with a different focus.  How do I make transitions?  What do I need to do to capo up to a key I can sing to?

Something changed, though.  I struggled with every part of my practice.  Things that were easy yesterday are too important to enjoy/take lightly today.  Because I am a performer.  Looking forward to the next adrenaline rush, the next mistake, the next flop sweat.

The next chance to make music for others.   

 

Crying over Paper Edges

After two years in Brasil, I came back to the US and was enrolled in Mitchell Road Christian Academy.  The transition was pretty tough. 

It was January, so I was joining a class in the middle of a school year.  I knew nobody.  The rules were unfamiliar (stand up when an adult enters the room, ask permission to go to the bathroom, etc.)  It had been two years of being the only student in a correspondence course  And now I was interacting with students in a classroom setting.

Yeah.  That's right.  When I left in the middle of second grade, kids would bring in stuff for show-and-tell.  In fourth grade, not so much.  As the new kid, I already was a little out of the social center.  With two years missing from my social development, I was immediately pegged as the weird one.  The weird one who brought in cool stuff for show-and-tell, but strange nonetheless.

There were many differences that I was facing.  My class in Brasil included a banana supershake break, a feature that was strangely absent in regular 4th grade.  As the only student in class, I was able to fit in all of the day's lessons in 2-3 hours.  That was not the way that MRCA worked.  PE in Brasil was done outside of class, with bb gun in hand, or swimming in the river, or canoeing down the agarope.  

If it happened today, my parents would be arrested.

My poor teacher - Mrs O'Connell - had her hands full - even more so than she realized.  One day, she took a show-and-tell item away from me, and sent me to the principal's office.  Apparently 4th-grade teachers get a little nervous when you bring a huge Buck knife to class - even in 1980. I cried the whole way to the principal's office.  And I cried again, at the end of the day, when I picked it back up.  And then for good measure, I cried again, when I showed Mom.

On the playground, I understood none of the social rules.  Flying solo in the classroom didn't prepare me for changes in social cues and interactions there.  More tears, nearly every day (which did nothing to help my social standing.)  And kids are always kind to the new, strange, weepy boy, right?

Right.

Mrs O'Connell's class also had a rule that all assignments had to be turned in on paper with no torn edges.  No ripping the page out of the spiral-bound notebook and handing it in.  If it was torn out, you had to cut the edges.

Her handing my homework assignment back and telling me to cut the edges off, that was just another straw on an already overloaded camel.  I broke down in sobs.  Again.  Mrs. O'Connell reached for the box of kleenex.  Again.

Unsurprisingly, for that six weeks my report card had decent grades, except...

Call me Ishmael

Call me Ishmael.

 

A friend loaned me a record once.  Yes, that old-timey grooved vinyl frisbee that made scratchy, skippy music.  The album title is not important, but what I did with it next was. 

I put it in the hatch of my Toyota Corolla.  In South Carolina.  In July. 

Four hours later, the record was destroyed.  Warped beyond any ability to even pretend that I hadn't destroyed it.  The next week, Jack asked me if I had liked the album, and I had to admit that I had never even listened to it.  And I showed him the results.

What was it that I was supposed to do?  Shrug my shoulders, and say, 'It wasn't really my fault'? Give it back to him?  Offer him a protection plan to avoid future meltings?

Of course not.  The right thing to do would be to buy a new album to replace the one I destroyed. 

Remembering this episode yesterday, I realized that I have come up with the perfect, just, and equitable solution to the problem of the OPM data breach. 

Amnesia

When I was five years old, I walked into my next-door neighbor's house. 

"Crorey?  Are you OK?"

I did not understand the question.  The nice lady asked me what had happened, and I couldn't tell her.  She told me I needed to go to my own house, and I didn't know where it was.  Or, for that matter, what it was. She walked me next door, and handed me off to my mom.  Who I did not recognize.

With no idea what had happened, mom took me to the emergency room (not my only visit during my childhood years, a fact specifically shared to astonish nobody who has ever met me).  The doctor examined me, and had no real explanation to give. 

"It is just amnesia.  Something happened, and he has lost his memory.  He'll most likely start remembering things in the next couple of days."

Sure enough, as I did my sleepwalking routine through the next few days, I re-learned my kindergarden teacher's name.  I re-learned my address.  I re-cognized my parents and my baby sister.  I learned the names of my school friends and my neighborhood friends.

I had forgotten everything.  It remains one of the most bewildering feelings of my life.

We have all recently seen evidence of false remembering in the media.  Brian Williams lost credibility as a news reporter when he re-told the stories that he had participated in, embellishing and re-creating the event to put himself closer to the action than was actually the case.

My family has a long and storied history of doing just that.  The re-telling gets different and different until the original subjects no longer recognize themselves in the story.  In response, my family has two different (pre-programmed) responses:

1. The family motto ("never let facts get in the way of a good story" - which doesn't really sound better in Latin*) and, 
2. "This is MY story, and I am telling it MY way.  When it is YOUR turn, YOU can tell the story YOUR way!"

I don't mean that Brian Williams gets a pass for revising his story.  I just am saying that I know how it happens.  Especially when you tell stories over and over again.  The rhythm of the story, and the truth of the story, is not changed by changing the players. 

We all do some revisionist history for the past. The dead, particularly, are subject to intense memory whitewashing.  Richard Nixon, Michael Jackson, Dean Smith, Roger Goodell (OK, that last one is just wishful thinking) - all had reputations that got burnished after they died.  And how many artists have their work increase in value after they are dead?  In contrast to the words Bill put in Brutus' mouth, often the good that men do often does live on after them, as people tend to forget the evil.... and leave it interred with their bones.

It is a human fact, that our memories are malleable.  We remember things differently.  We forget things.  We intensify some memories, and let others dim.  And sometimes we remember things long forgotten.

Seven years later...

"Mom, you remember that time I fell off the stone wall and hit my head?"

"Um.... no.  I don't remember that.  When did it happen?"

"I don't know.  I just remember it really hurting. I don't remember what we did afterwards about it."

It took Mom a while to put the two memories together, and realize that I had described the event that had led to my amnesiac episode.

Stolen from Watterson

*numquam diffidens impediant bibamus?  numquam adducantur intercedi bibamus?
 

Escape Artist

"If you could help me out, I'd appreciate it."

A buddy of mine had a weekend away planned, and no place to board the dogs, and he asked me if I could go over and feed them twice a day.

I am glad to help. His golden retrievers are delightfully loving creatures, who love nothing better than to play and romp and get ears scratched.  Attached to the end of the message, however, was a warning:

"Just don't leave Reilly alone outside too long.  She is a bit of an escape artist."

Day 1, everything works great.  I feed the dogs, they are glad to see me, I make sure their water is filled, and let them out.  I check on Reilly a few times, just to see where she is.  She is wandering the property a little, scoping the joint.  I see her with nose to the bottom of the gate, sniffing the air of freedom, and call her back. She comes, but with at least one glance backwards to do one last recon view. 

Day 2, everything works great.  I spend a little extra time with the dogs, hanging out and scratching ears.  It is a pleasant morning, and I have the day off from work.  I watch Reilly as she heads to the other side of the house.  There are multiple barriers; stairs and fencing and under-house excluder screens.  She spends a fair amount of time just looking, though.  I call her back to join us in the backyard, and she comes.

But not before giving one more backward glance to scope out the overlap between the security cameras.

Day 3, everything works great.  Late in the afternoon, I go by, and let them out, and everything is fine.  A little later, however, I have an odd thought.  I text my friend: "Is either of the dogs thundershy?"

"She is very much so," came the reply.

The Bo-Hunk.  With Mr. Frog.

I fielded a call twenty minutes later from my friend's wife.  She explained that with the 4th of July fireworks, Reilly would likely be a little stressed out, and that they have some anti-anxiety meds for her, if I wouldn't mind giving it to her.  Sure - I understand the anxiety that can accompany fireworks, and would be glad to help out.

Day 3, part ii: Everything is not so great.  Bo - the big happy lummox, meets me at the door with a toy.  I accept his present, and try to figure out where it came from.  It is a piece of plastic, ripped from the door.  The vinyl insert grill is now a slimy gift.  And the place where it came from has some light blood streaks down the side. Neither dog appears to be in distress, so I just set the chew-toy on the counter.

Doggie gums, apparently, heal pretty quickly. So no harm done.

I let them outside, and then back in. I find the pill pockets and - a couple of text back-and-forths later - I find the meds.  I give her the pills, and open the door for one last pee break before closing up shop.

Reilly heads under the deck.  I follow her, just to see what escape she is contemplating.  She is not there.

I look around the yard.  No Reilly.

I look down the side yard. No Reilly.  I look under the house - no Reilly. Behind the garage.  No Reilly. Down the alleyway, past the stairs, over the fence.  No Reilly.

I go out and enlist Kathe to help.  She looks at the backyard, and asks how she could possibly get out.  The best I can tell, she completely cockroached her way through the wall.  Turned sideways, and slipped through the crack.

No, Reilly!

I am frantic.  This is the beloved dog of my friend, and I lost her.  She escaped, just as the fireworks are starting.  I call my buddy, explain what happened, and ask where she would go. 

An hour or three later, I get texted directions to where I can go and pick up the dog.  Someone has called and told my friend that they have found a very happy escapee.  I arrive.  She hops into the car, circles twice, and is asleep before we can drive the five blocks back to the house. 

And as I lead her up the stairs to the house, I catch her, looking around, casing the joint.... plotting her next escape.

Freedom

My dog is racing up and down the house, on patrol against the obvious threat.  She barks like crazy, announcing to all of us that there is considerable danger. 

"EXPLOSIONS!"

Her cousin is a little less vigilant, but he is also a nervous dog, and so if she is worried, he is there to support her in her worry. "EXPLOSIONS!" he repeats.

About the third time through the house, I stop her - mid-headlong sprint to the back door - and pick her up in my arms. 

"Lucie," I say  to her.  "It is okay.  I've got this."

She wiggles to get out of my arms.  Distressed about the fact that we are oblivious to the threat that firecrackers present.  I pet her gently, and speak to her in confident tones.  "Sweetie,  you have got nothing to worry about.  I'm on alert.  You can let it go."

Forty five seconds later, she starts to calm a little.  The fireworks have taken a break, though, so I don't know if she trusts me, or whether she has just gotten over the fear of the threat.

I hold her.  I talk to her. 

And she stops quivering.  Her breathing relaxes and she begins to release the tensed muscles.  She trusts.  We wait through the next barrage, and I hold her - firmly and loosely.  She tenses a little, but looks up at me.  And I pet her.  Tell her she's a good girl.  And that I have the situation firmly in hand.

And she lets it go.  She is free of the worry.

The Fourth-of-July fireworks have been continual for the past twenty minutes, intensifying in every way.  Now Lucie is sitting back with Kathe in the den.  She is a little vigilant, but not concerned.  Because I have reassured her that it is all ok.

I hold out hope that this is kinda how God sees my worries. 

I fret about things over which I have no control.  I bark my worries, I let everyone know that there are things to be alarmed about.  I race around trying to put out fires that I don't understand.

Meanwhile, God is waiting to put his arms around me and tell me, Crorey, my dear child.  Don't you know that I have it all under control?  Don't you trust me?  Why are you worrying and fretting and preparing for battle? 

Trust me. Let me handle the worrying.  Look up at me.  And know that you can trust in my love.

And you will be free.

Tonight, the neighborhood fireworks taught me a real lesson about freedom.