All play and no work...

I’m pretty good at my job.  This is because my job is not hard.  I answer the phone, put some pieces together, and, voila, you have a visit scheduled.  If being the CEO of a company is like putting together a 1500 piece puzzle of the White Album, I’m assembling one of those 4 piece preschool puzzles.  You know the kind—where you fit the shapes into the matching holes on a flat, wooden slab.  I don’t claim to have the intelligence of a CEO, but I’m not stupid either.  I put together that puzzle pretty quickly.  This leaves me with a lot of extra time, which is why I can keep a blog, write long emails to friends, and study recordings at work.  I’ve asked for more to do, and continue to do so, but they seem to think that they’ve given me enough to handle, and I don’t want them to cut my hours.  This is a balance I’ve worked hard at achieving in the 6 months since I started here.  And let me tell you, it’s exhausting trying to look busy when you’re really not.

Today my supervisor came over to my desk.  This is almost always not a good thing.  It means something bad has happened.  Something catastrophic.  Catastrophic is when you forgot to get rid of the extra spaces and you get a blank page that feeds through the printer after your document.  Catastrophic is when a co-worker called the computer maintenance guys without coming to you FIRST (even though you’re not the go-to person when it comes to technology).  Catastrophic is when a guest has to wait an extra 30 seconds for a counselor to become available to take them to their appointment.  I’m all for efficiency and customer service, but she’s taken heads off over these one-time occurrences.  So I braced myself for crisis-management.

“I see we had another record month for visits.”  Her opening statement was a surprise.  Yes, we did, but she’s never acknowledged that we’ve had record highs for each month since I was hired.  She seemed pleased and continued, “I’ve been looking over the reports and it seems like there’s a real difference between you and…another person.”  (This would be my predecessor.)  “The numbers went up right after we hired you.”

I caught my breath.  Was I about to be complimented?  Really?  I let myself hope for a few seconds.  Not that a compliment would change the way I do my job, but it would demonstrate that my boss is semi-aware of what I do and doesn’t think I’m a total idiot (which is the attitude she usually assumes).  There was a long pause and then she continued happily, “This is because I fought to have a full-time position.  Since you’re working full-time we can get these visits scheduled and now I have PROOF if they try to tell me otherwise.”  And then she walked away, content in her self-satisfied victory.

Poof.

So, apparently I am a machine that schedules visits and, because I’m here for a few more hours a week than my predecessor, we are setting new records of visits.  I couldn’t help but smile as she walked away.  Because, you see, she wasn’t able to explain why I am sitting here, in the middle of the afternoon, work done, writing in my blog.

A pat on the back

Also, I would just like to say that I am very proud of myself for writing 4 entries in one week.  Way to live up to those New Years resolutions!  (Let's not talk about yoga...)

Where is it? There! Where?!? THERE!

VWH and I are currently in the unique position of sharing our living quarters with another individual.  This is the first time in our marriage that we’ve tried it out and, for the most part, it’s been very successful.  Our piggy bank likes it too.  I don’t think we could have done it with anybody else, but our roommate is super laid-back and a really good cook.  There have been many plusses to having her around.  The dishes are magically clean by the time I arrive home from work, dreading doing anything other than putting on my PJs and eating dinner.  For the sake of protecting anonymity (although this seems entirely pointless as I’m pretty sure that the only people who read this blog know all of our names), we shall call her Candice.  Why Candice?  Probably because I’ve been emailing a Candie all afternoon at work and it was the first name that popped into my head.

The three of us have pretty cool relationships.  VWH and I are obviously fairly close.  J  Candice is one of my dearest friends.  We both try to keep it real and avoid the drama we experienced way too often in college with other acquaintances.  We enjoy chatting and watching movies and hanging out.  Candice and VWH have a lot of similarities too.  They are both trumpet players.  This automatically infers a bunch more similarities.  They know how to put on the suave, sophisticated trumpet player personality.  “Why hello.  It’s very nice for you to meet me.”  They understand that you have to be gutsy and give your all if you expect to have any success with your instrument (or life).  But the most important similarities they share, as it pertains to my life, are that they are forgetful and they lose stuff.

DISCLAIMER: Both VWH and Candice have given me permission to discuss their faults through this blog, largely because they find it humorous.  Any slander on my behalf has been pre-approved.

Since we moved into “St. Vivian’s” (as we call our little red house) I do a nightly check before bed to make sure doors are locked, appliances are off and closed, and that the stove hasn’t been left on.  This check has proven to be very valuable when our utility bills come ‘round.  I find cereal boxes in the refrigerator and the measuring cups are always buried in the flour or sugar canisters instead of hung up on the pegs.  Often I will see one or both crawling around a room, searching high and low for a book or musical score.  Sometimes the object turns up and sometimes it doesn’t. 

When VWH and I were dating he lost his truck keys.  Just lost them.  After tearing his apartment apart for an hour, we ended up walking to the restaurant for our date.  He never found them.  My initial concern about his lack of responsibility with personal items has been alleviated since we’ve been married.  (Well, really after he got the multi-page listing of overdue books from his graduate school.  A great wedding present.)  I ask him every night if he’s set his alarm.  98% of the time he has.  But for the 7 times a year that he hasn’t we both sleep better.  His library fines have gone down, his hair stays trimmed, and his outfits, for the most part, match and aren’t too wrinkled.  It’s when we’re not in the same establishment for a while that I start to worry.

Like today for instance.  VWH left early for a substitute teaching job before I got out of bed.  He was on his own for food, clothes, and timeliness.  A few hours after I arrived at work I got a text message from Candice.  “Is VWH’s phone supposed to be next to the dryer?”  (I don’t know, at this moment, if VWH is home yet from his day.  Let’s hope the car didn’t decide to break down.)

Candice isn’t free from this either.  She lost her trumpet slides to one of her horns quite a while ago.  She even seems to forget that she’s lost them most of the time, with periodic scans occurring every other week.  I offered to help her the other night and we looked throughout the living room, where most of the trumpets of the house reside and the most likely spot for missing objects to disappear.  Keep in mind that Candice has searched the living room multiple times before I offered to help her.  I got down on my hands and knees to peek under the couch, preparing myself for the “I already looked there 5 times” comment.  Thinking ahead, I attempted to cover my tracks by saying, “Well, I’m sure you’ve looked here already.”  Her response?  “Well…no actually.  But it’s been on my mind.”

Really, the thoroughness and attention to detail is inspirational.

So I play clean-up after these two.  I do so cheerfully, because they really are a lot of fun.  Occasionally the lost items rub me the wrong way when I mentally determine that it’s crossed the line into irresponsibility, but for the most part I can laugh and help look.  We’ll see what happens, but I may end up employing my mom’s strategy with us when we were little, late for church, and missing a Sunday shoe.  “If I find it in less than 5 minutes, you owe me 5 bucks!”  She would always find it too.

Would you please call me Cordelia?

VWH is truly my other half.  I don’t believe that there’s only one person out there for you and if you miss him or her you’ve lost all hope for complete happiness.  If I did though, I’d be pretty sure I nailed it.  I am happiest when it is just the two of us.  Even if that means the two of us are in bed reading different books (him translating something from Latin to English, me…Dave Barry), there’s a peace and completeness that is unmatched in any other area of my life.  We see eye to eye on just about everything.  We read each others’ minds.  We encourage each other and strive to give 100%.

But, as in all marriages, there are troubles.  And this one particular area has been a challenge for us since our dating days.  It involves life-changing choices affecting the lives of other people, so you can clearly see how vital it is that we resolve our differences.  The topic continually crops up and, each time, we realize anew how dissimilar we are.  I share this with you today as a testimony to our imperfections and also as a plea for you to side with ME.  I genuinely think you’ll find that my perspective is sane and “normal.”

That issue is: what beautiful and respected names will we bestow upon our future children?

I spoke with my sister-in-law the other day.  (She is the recently married one.)  She and her new husband have already decided what they will name their kids, even though they are non-existent beings as of this moment.  They’ve been married for, like, a month.  VWH and I have been married for 3 and a half years, plus 2 and a half years of dating.  And nada.  I kid you not (haha) when I say this topic probably comes up once a week.  We explore it to the utmost each time, exhausting our current list of possibilities before we quit, worn out with the effort of not laughing too hard at the other person’s suggestions.

But seriously, you will see why we struggle when I share some real live suggestions.  As you may already know, VWH has a fascination with the ancients.  (See previous blog entries for hints and tidbits.)  He is fluent in two ancient languages and finds the names of the mighty heroes of yore entirely suitable for a toddler in the 21^st century.  Some of his most recent suggestions included Iona, Crysse (I don’t even know how to pronounce that), Phylla (I thought that was some kind of dough), and…I am NOT making this up (to quote aforementioned Barry), Alphaeus.

I can see it now.  The nurse hands us our newborn son and smiles as she asks for the baby’s birth certificate information.  VWH proudly declares, “His name…will be Alphaeus.”  (Echo, echo, echooohhh.)  The nurse blanches, and then quickly regains composure as she looks at me and asks quietly, “Really?  Are you sure?  How do you even spell that?”

If it’s not an ancient name like Alphaeus or Hercules, it’s what VWH considers “royal and dignified” and what I consider “homespun and backwards.”  Names like Henry, Harold, Reuben, and Alfred.  I don’t want our kids to hate us!  In an effort to stir up some support, I ran a few of these ideas past my mom, who eyed VWH warily and very diplomatically responded, “We’ll love it no matter what you call it.” 

So what if I like the name Aiden?  I realize it’s a little modern and currently pretty popular, but it sounds strong to me and it works on a 2 year old and a 40 year old.  Harold does not work for a 2 year old.  It just doesn’t.  You cannot convince me otherwise.  Feel free to try, but it won’t work.  There is no way I will be able to get away with naming a son Aiden, but at least I can feel justified in my selection.

We have a very common last name.  The most common, in fact.  This poses a challenge in that a lot of cool names all of the sudden don’t work.  I really love the name Andrew, but I’m not sure we can pull it off, particularly since I’m already related to at least one Andrew S____.  (Gee, I wonder if you can crack that code!)

I just want to sum this all up by saying, NO we are not expecting a baby.  And, yes, we have found a girl’s name that works.  But I’m not telling because then everybody critiques and criticizes behind your back.  We both think it’s beautiful and fits.  I’m just hoping we can make it all the way to the birth of our first daughter without one of us changing our minds.  And if we happen to have twins, we may be forced to pull a name out of a hat…literally.

Buuuuuhhh-bump, ba-buumm!

When I was little I didn’t have many great girlfriends.  I had brothers and a few friends here and there, but it wasn’t until college that I really made friends that will last a lifetime.  Because of this, I wasn’t one to fantasize endlessly about my wedding day.  By the time my actual wedding rolled around, I had a lot to learn.  (And only 5 months in which to learn it!)  Thankfully, the day went beautifully, I am happily married to my VWH, and I don’t think it consumed me as much as other brides-to-be.  (My mom says differently, but I refuse to think of myself as a perfectionist and detail-oriented individual…that would mean I’m turning into her.  Just kidding Mom!!!) 

My best friend had a wedding movie named after her.  You may have seen it.  It was called 27 Dresses and starred Katherine Heigl, an actress delegated to cheesy roles about overly-dramatic women.  Anywho, 27 Dresses is about a young lady who is always a bridesmaid, never a bride.  27 times over.  BFF (who is not cheesy or overly-dramatic by the way) has a closet full of bridesmaid dresses, which has proven to be of great benefit to me whenever I needed a party frock or recital outfit.  BFF has actually turned down being in weddings; something I never thought was possible, because she was already in too many others around the same time.  (It goes without saying that I was completely and totally honored that she agreed, not only to be in my wedding, but to serve as my maid of honor.  I must have a little clout.)  I, on the other hand, have been in a grand total of two weddings.  (Not counting getting the chicken pox as a 5 year old and missing my only chance to be a flower girl.  I’m still bitter about that.)  I don’t even go to that many weddings.  I think they’re lovely and grand and would love to participate in more, and I have such great friends, but few of them seem to be moving in that direction.

When I married my VWH I realized that I was entering a much bigger family than my own.  And with both VWH and me being the oldest siblings, there was the risk of a few family weddings occurring within the span of a few years.  We got our first taste of family weddings a few months ago when the first of his 5 siblings tied the knot with his lovely bride.  VWH served as best man and I was bestowed the title of “wedding coordinator.”  (I had visions of Franc in Father of the Bride, planning the wedding of the century.  The bride shattered these dreams when she informed me that “Basically you get to yell at people and tell them what to do.”  Now that I think about it, it wasn’t all that bad…)  The day was just beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  (VWH giving an especially eloquent, tear-jerking toast.)

Now we enter 2011, and boy oh boy, are we in for a year full of satin and tux rentals!  Two more brothers on VWH’s side are getting married this summer.  The first of my brothers is getting married in December.  I’ll be in all three bridal parties and VWH in two.  I also recently found out that one of my dear friends from college may be getting married in August.  I don’t know if I’ll be a part of the party or music, but I most certainly wish to attend and support the bride in any way I can.  So that makes 4 weddings in a year.  I used to wish for my single friends (which is pretty much all of my friends) to find the men of their dreams and live happily ever after.  Now I’m thinking, “OK…well, you want to make SURE he’s the right one…let’s not rush this…don’t you want a BIGGER diamond???

Seriously though, I am SO thrilled to be a part of these beloved individuals’ special days.  Talking with my brother last night and hearing the excitement in his voice almost brought tears to my eyes.  I’m going to be a positive mess when his gorgeous Emily walks down the aisle and his heart’s desire is finally and completely his.  The best part of these weddings is that I have full confidence that they are matches that have blossomed under the guidance of our heavenly Father and will seek to glorify Him.  I’m not sure I could participate any other way.  It makes the dress, shoes, gifts, party-planning and so many other things entirely worth it. 

And the elephant makes THIS sound!

I recently was invited to participate in a Musical Petting Zoo.  Do you know what a musical petting zoo is?  Neither did I.  Upon further inspection it was explained that, no, the students don’t touch a violin bow or feed peanuts to a tuba.  It’s really a chance for young children to try different instruments in a fun atmosphere to whet their appetite for future lessons and musical endeavors.  It sounded like fun and an easy way to earn a little extra cash.  Little did I realize how “whet” the day was going to be.

As a flutist, I showed up expecting to work with mostly girls around 8 years old.  The front office gave me two flutes, one with a curved headjoint that makes it easier for short arms to hold comfortably.  My former flute teacher, who works for the organization hosting the zoo, provided me with my own clunker flute to play so that I didn’t have to risk injury to my personal baby.  I was also given a bag full of antiseptic wipes, sprays, and cloths.  Yum.  It didn’t take a genius to realize that these kids were going to be blowing my way.

My first surprise once the actual zoo was underway was that 8 years old was pretty much the maximum age of any child that walked into my office.  It was more like 4, with several 2 and 3 year olds wanting to try the “fwute.”  And by “try” I really mean, walk in, hear the sound of the flute, stare at me with these big, unblinking brown eyes, and then run away when I asked them any question.  “What’s your name?”  “Would you like to hold the flute?”  “How old are you?”  After a few tykes ran out I had a courageous three year old, dressed in an abundance of pink tulle and no older than 3, gaze up with me with huge brown eyes and answered my first question: “Bella.”  Bella wanted to try the flute.  She was so delicate and doll-like, with long eyelashes that stared at me silently…it was precious.  I spoke to her softly and helped place her hands on the instrument and then gently placed the lipplate under her bottom lip.  I imagined there would be no sound, or just a gentle “piff” as she lightly blew.  She was so petite, her lungs couldn’t have been bigger than my iPod nano.  She looked at me once more with those worshipful eyes, took a breath, and…

…And this is when I realized it wasn’t all fun and games at the petting zoo.  Sweet, innocent, perfect little Bella’s gentle grip tightened immeasurably around the body of the flute.  Before I could do anything she stuck the entire lipplate in her doll mouth and produced a hideous “shhhreeeeeeeehhhhhhhkkkkkkkk!”  In the process of sending fast air through the flute (instead of blowing across), she somehow managed to soak me in the process.  This is most puzzling as her mouth was wrapped entirely around the top of the flute, with seemingly no leaks, but I still felt the spray of a small waterfall as she continued to make these barbaric sounds as fast as she could draw breath.  By the time I wrenched the instrument away and wiped my eyes, Bella looked at me dolefully, as if to say, “I was in the midst of discovering my life’s purpose and you’ve just put a halt to my creative genius.”  Her parents cheered enthusiastically, celebrating the “joyful noise” their little angel had just made.  Bella handed me her paper full of pictures of various instruments and demanded “Sticker!” to put under the flute.  I gave her the sticker and she tripped out of the room in her little ballerina outfit, venturing on to bigger and better things, like the trombone.  I wiped down the flute (and myself) with antiseptic and braced myself for the next visitor. 

Repeat the previous paragraph ad nauseum and you have my afternoon.  There were Bellas and Ellas and Sabrinas and Serenas and Vivians and Megans and Annabelles.  The line was at least 4 deep all day.  Surprisingly, there were also a few Sawyers, Roberts, and even a Sherman thrown in there too.  I had kids with face paint, and kids with balloon hats, and kids on leashes.  Perhaps the highlight of the whole afternoon was working with Tommy, who was a, a-hem, husky young man around the age of 7.  By this point I had the kids sitting on a chair in an attempt to contain their “enthusiasm.”  Tommy was one of those guys whom you could tell was really interested in trying the instrument, but was determined not to let it show.  He slumped in his chair and shot me this look that clearly said, “Yeah, I’m here, but you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to.”  And at this point the News 10 NBC cameraman walked into my office to capture some precious moments for the evening news.  I encouraged Tommy to sit up tall, like a man, and talked him through the steps needed to produce sound.  He blew, we adjusted, he blew again, I dried myself off, he blew, the cameraman moved in for a closer shot (I’m sure they could see the droplets on my face and sweater).  The fleeting image of my brilliant pedagogy being broadcasted for the entire city to see quickly dissipated as the humor of the situation washed over me.  No, I wasn’t going to be seen as one of the city’s finest young music teachers.  More like one of the city’s most unfortunate souls.  Suck-ahhh!

In retrospect, I actually really enjoyed the Petting Zoo.  This is a wonderful illustration of how much I dislike my current job.  To be sprayed, sneezed, and licked on all day isn’t exactly most people’s idea of a grand time, but I laughed more than I have in a long time.  (I’ll let you know if I still feel that way when I get hit with a case of toddler-induced pestilence and plague later this week…)

I hereby resolve...

1. Continue reading new books every week.
2. Learn about yoga (with the help of our new Christmas Wii).
3. Preserve my sanity during work hours by:
     3a: Listening to my iPod at all times
     3b: Hanging up more pictures of family and friends
     3c: Eternal perspective
4. Take my first orchestral audition by conquering:
     4a: Firebird
     4b: Classical Symphony
     4c: Peter and the Wolf (it just doesn't like my left index finger)
5. Make some new friends.
6. See my tried and true friends more often.
7. Learn how to make homemade Buffalo wings for my husband.
8. Promote the virtues of Curl Keeper to one and all, be it bird or fish or tiny mole!
9. Finish a cross-stitching project OR learn how to knit and/or crochet and finish a project in that area.
10. Keep blogging, of course!

Happy 2011!