Ghost Stories Are Not For Me

Last year we finally did the American tradition of camping out in the back yard. Or in our case, the front yard.  It had been a really rainy July, but we finally had a few nice weekends in August to set up the tent. 

The first time the kids camped out along with Dova’s BFF.  They loved making scary faces with their lanterns.

The next weekend, we piled into the tent as a family.  I took out a book of ghost stories and picked a story that was marked as mildly scary.  We didn’t want the kids to have nightmares on our little campout.  The story was about someone or something coming to the cabin door and knocking.  Afterward, the kids were not impressed at all with the story.  It wasn’t a bear or terrible monster knocking at the door, just someone they knew trying to scare them.  So off to sleep we went.

Except I was the one having nightmares.  Our cat kept scratching at the outside of the tent and I kept thinking it was someone trying to slash the tent and kill all of the occupants.  I was dreaming whether or not I should wake Doug up.  I kept kicking myself for not bringing some sort of weapon into the tent.  The lanterns might suffice to knock someone out, but not if Doug is sleeping!  Should I wake him or not????

It didn’t help that it was freezing cold all night.  After waking up with no slaughter around me, I later learned that the temperature dipped down to 42F.  In August!  Needless to say, there will be no more scary or even mildly scary ghost stories for this mom.

Good thing August comes around once a year as this draft is a year old!

Left of the Blue Wall

Adam and Dova enjoy a ride in my car.

Last month Doug started working again.  This has turned our household upside down, so be thankful that you aren’t hearing about that!  One of the changes is that I am now in charge of sending the kids to camp or school in the mornings.  Morning commutes had been my quiet time where I reflectively choose which podcasts or music to listen to.  When I had picked up the kids in the afternoon, we listened to The Beatles or other music the kids wanted (within reason).  So how will my peaceful morning commute change with kids in the car?

On our first Monday commute together, I put on the usual NPR Sunday Puzzle podcast with Will Shortz.  I shouted answers at the radio as I always do, solved the weekly challenge, and explained the answer to the kids.  They were quite impressed that mom solved the challenge (so was I, this rarely happens in real time).  Then I put on a sure crowd pleaser, NPR’s Krulwich on Science.  We were all enthralled by the piece Have You Heard of B-flat.  So much so that when we got home, we pulled up the song by Josh and Adam and played it over and over.  Eventually, I ventured into more traditional NPR Stories from the Story of the Day and Technology podcasts.

I continued to put on my choice of podcasts or music in the mornings and the kids were fine for the most part.  Imagine my surprise when I heard Adam request on the ride home, “Can we listen to more NPR?”  What?  Is this a 9-year-old boy speaking?  How did I luck out like this?  I absolutely hated listening to NPR as a kid.  Then again, the podcast format allows us to easily skip over stories that aren't interesting to us.

I’ve waxed poetic over my favorite podcast, WNYC’s Radio Lab, many many times.  But I never got Doug to listen to it, so I didn’t have much hope for the kids.  Until last week.  We started listening to the Radio Lab Shorts and finally a full length episode, Words.


Dova at age 3 in front of the blue wall at the Eric Carle Museum
 
In this episode, Charles Fernyhough described an experiment where a rat is placed in a white rectangular room with a biscuit in one corner.  If the rat is spun around and disoriented, he has a 50-50 chance of finding the biscuit in the right corner afterward.  If you take one of the four white walls and paint one blue however, you should be able to find the biscuit using the blue wall as a navigational tool.  Even though rats can see color, they can’t make the relationship between the colored wall and the location of the biscuit, so they still only find the biscuit 50% of the time.

It gets interesting when Elizabeth Spelke’s research showed that children can’t make a relationship such as “left of the blue wall” until the ripe old age of six!  They proposed that language itself allows us to make this relationship.

Here I am in the car with my 6-year-old Dova and 9-year-old Adam, both mesmerized by this show.  I have seen the transformation in Dova from age 5 to age 6 where this cognitive linking begins.  Last year, I tried to start her on piano lessons and she could not connect the notes on the page to something that her fingers needed to do.  This year, she finally got it.  So I was really excited that she had finally started to think as Charles Fernyhough explained.

After listening to the podcast, I asked what she thought of the episode, especially the segment on "Left of the Blue Wall".  She just looked at me confused and said, "But what does that MEAN???"  So close, yet so far.  Adam and I just shook our heads.  A few days later, I asked her if she understood “left of the blue wall”.  She waved her left hand and said, “You mean on this side?”  Whew.  Still, I won’t be putting her into white rooms with one blue wall any time soon.

i am music

(The best self-portrait of my painted arm was from my iPhone...)

I'm still reeling from BlogHer this year, heck, I'm still reeling from BlogHer last year!  One of the most inspirational moments came during the awesome BlogHer '10 Voices of the Year Art Exhibit and Art Auction curated by the fabulous kirtsy chicks, benefitting gulf coast restoration.



I first saw the inspiration for painting words on a body through Karen Walrond's photoshoot (Chookoloonks) of Jenny the Bloggess being painted by Katherine Center last year.  At BlogHer, I was painted by DesignMom and co-founder of kirtsy herself, Gabrielle Blair.


Gabby (Lover) painting my arm, photo by Fairly Odd Mother.

At first I didn't know what words to use, so Gabby helped by asking what has inspired me recently.  I replied that I was starting to take violin lessons.  She immediately came up with "i am music" and it fit perfectly.  Sure I am a wife, mom, software engineer, and sometimes photographer and writer, but what inspires and energizes me?  Where do I turn when I'm happy or sad or frustrated?  It is always to music, through playing or listening.  Music pours from my body when I'm at the piano.

And what's this about learning a new instrument at the age of 43?  I had taken violin lessons for one summer when I was 13 and hated it.  The reason I hated it was probably because I was just a beginner and I was already fairly proficient on the piano (I played Chopin's Revolutionary Etude Op. 10 No. 12 that summer) and flute.  Why learn a new instrument from scratch when I already had two under my belt?  (I wish I could go back and tell that smug teenager that I should've continued).  My violin teacher told me that I was his best student, but I just sloughed him off with my bad attitude.

In my twenties, I was convinced that I should play the cello (technically violincello).  I loved the idea of wrapping my body around an instrument.  I rented a cello and took lessons for about six months.  I wanted to become good enough to join a community orchestra.  But playing the cello gave me problems with pain and cramps in my hands, so in the end I gave it up.

Last year, my friend George decided to take up the fiddle (which is exactly the same as a violin, just different music) even though he had no musical training whatsoever. I picked up his fiddle and played around with some tunes.  It was kinda fun.  This year, he convinced me over an instant messaging session to take his old fiddle to try out.  I was pretty skeptical about having any extra time for it, but I was instantly hooked.  So much so that playing the violin/fiddle dropped my blog posting rate to record low numbers.  Playing the violin feels completely natural to me, including the bowing.  It is like I had played it in a previous life and was always meant to play it.  A stupid teenager attitude prevented it all before, but not anymore.


iPhone pic by Adam.


Beautiful Canon 5D pic by mswlogo (actually his wife).

I'm still clearly a beginner and may never be any good, learning at this age (just ask Doug with his earplugs and wincing).  But those moments of "wow, that almost sounded like real music" are well worth it.  I've even recorded piano accompaniments for my violin playing.

And now the violins are multiplying.  We are planning to start lessons for both kids and have rented or borrowed three more violins.


From front to back, my full size violin (yes I bought it), Adam's 1/2 size, Dova's 1/4 size in a year or two, and Dova's 1/8 size which she will be starting on.

And the violin provides many awesome photography opportunities.