So, it's been a while, no? 2007 came to its proper conclusion, January has come and gone, and here it is, almost the end of February. The mind reels.
So much time, and yet I can recall so little of what has happened! A shame, really, but it comes with the territory of having two kids, I reckon. I have a sinking feeling from time to time that part of my brain escaped with the umbilical cords.
First and foremost, I must conclude the extended saga of Evan and his Grammy-nominated, NYT-featured CD. It . . . wait for it . . . WON THE GRAMMY! How exciting is that? So exciting. Now you can say that you know someone who knows someone who won a Grammy. It feels good, I'm sure. Here is the news straight from
grammy.com:
Field 25 — Album Notes
Best Album Notes
- Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings From The 1890s
Patrick Feaster & David Giovannoni, album notes writers (Various Artists)
[Archeophone Records]
- Classic Chu Berry Columbia And Victor Sessions
Loren Schoenberg, album notes writer (Chu Berry)
[Mosaic Records]
- John Work, III: Recording Black Culture
Bruce Nemerov, album notes writer (Various Artists)
[Spring Fed Records]
- Off The Record: The Complete 1923 Jazz Band Recordings
David Sager, album notes writer (King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band)
[Off The Record]
- Ricky Jay Plays Poker
Ricky Jay, album notes writer (Various Artists)
[Octone/Legacy Recordings]
Take that, Chu Berry!
Let's see . . . well, I must post the obligatory video of Ella's Christmas show. Her class sang "The Reindeer Pokey," a Christmas-themed variation on "The Hokey-Pokey." Ella was fabulous, if I may say so. Please try to ignore my commentary--the sound of my voice is not pleasing to the ears.
Well . . . that was a fiasco. Sorry to get your hopes up, but there will be no video of Ella today. After repeated, extended attempts to get the video uploaded, it looks like a lost cause. You'll just have to imagine Ella and fifteen or so other four year-olds putting their horns, hooves, and sundry other body parts "in," and then turning themselves about.
Went home to Chapel Hill for Christmas, for the first time in forever. It was great fun. All the bros were home, too, so it was a full, drunken house for the week. Good times. Dan saw fit to fly his XBox and entire
Rock Band get-up with him (cross-country from LA, mind you). And thank goodness that he did, because I kid you not that it is the greatest game in the history of all time.
The week started out on a bit of a sour note when Dan first got the kit hooked up and we were greeted with
the infamous red ring of death:
photo via wikipedia.comI seriously think that Dan was about to cry. The image of his reaction is still etched in my brain: He was all red-faced and sweaty from climbing behind various pieces of furniture, and you could tell he was just so excited for us to play the game (he'd been talking it up for weeks beforehand), and then this! Damn you, Microsoft!
Dan was determined not to let the one ring rule us all, and he actually went out and bought another XBox. (Ah, to be young and flush with expendable income!) It was well worth the effort, I assure you (not the least of which is because the effort was not mine).
I was relegated to bassist duties (except during The Police songs, when Dan just
had to be Sting), but I definitely tapped into my inner
Kim Deal and rocked that bass out! Kevin didn't get too involved in the shenanigans (too much rocking for the old man, I guess), except to sing a killer version of
"Wanted Dead or Alive":
Ella, I am pleased to announce, totally rocked out. Two of her new favorite songs are "Roxanne" (she loves to scream, "Put on the red light!") and, my personal favorite, "Gimme Shelter," by the Stones. Luckily, she thinks the lyrics are "Yeah, hear it, it's just a shot away," rather than "War, children" or "Rape, murder, it's just a shot away," but it's still hilarious to watch her sing it. (Even better, apparently she chose to regale her classmates with the tune during free sing in her music class at school.)
Ella rocking the guitar:
Luke rocking the mic (shirtless and pantsless, to boot):
But I think my favorite mental image has to be of the time when my mom decided that she wanted to be the singer. Since she is most familiar with the Stones, she, too, chose "Gimme Shelter." I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that she sounded
exactly like Patti Smith singing it:
It was awesome.
Here's a picture of all the grandkids together. That's Hodges, Ella, Luke, and Hayes:
In other video-game news, my knee gave out while I was pitching in
Wii Baseball. I have since started exercising again!
Other non-video game-related highlights of the week in NC included getting my hair cut (thanks, Farah!) and seeing people from high school. Blasts from the past, those. My favorite was Andreas, one of my fellow Latin survivors (six years!), who looked like he had just stepped out of a time portal from 1995. I think he was still wearing his same leather jacket from high school. It was awesome and hilarious and entirely odd in that it made me feel just like I was in high school again--of course, I was recounting the entirety of high school with my friend,
Melissa, at the time that he walked into the wine (ugh!) bar. (My high-school flashbacks were probably not mitigated by the fact that I had spent that day going through boxes of my stuff from the attic. For the sake of my own sanity, I avoided the box full of letters, though, choosing to leave that sitting alone in all of its glitter-bedecked Tide-box glory. I can handle only so much nostalgia in one sitting.)
And, finally, here is the picture that we would have used for our Christmas cards (with a bit of cropping), had I actually had the unlaziness to send out Christmas cards. So . . . Feliz Navidad!:
