Winter Break

One initial purpose of this blog was to prevent me from forgetting all the little things that I do that break the monotony of everyday life. I am displeased to announce that over winter break this blog has miserably failed to do this. So now in a bleak effort to remedy the situation I will write as much as I can about everything I can remember doing in the past few weeks.

On Friday, December 14 I attended my brother's orchestra concert. As always they gave an absurdly good performance for a middle school orchestra, though the experience was somewhat dampened by the middle school kids hiding in the back of the theater who think that it's okay to be loud during a performance.

Wednesday the 19 and Thursday the 20 were Northwood's winter concerts, which opened with a great example of Mr. Case's eloquent speech: "Hello, my name is Mr. Case!" (But we still love him.) The lower ensembles Wednesday night sounded better than I can remember them ever sounding prior, leaving me quite impressed. Thursday concluded with a suite of music from Home Alone which put me to sleep, though more likely the fault of the music than of the performers. The Philharmonic also played relatively well the second set of Malcolm Arnold's English Dances, which I am fond of. Other highlights of the evening were a gorgeous arrangement of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel by the Chamber Singers, and six movements of Vivaldi's Gloria by an alumni choir. But the most memorable segment of the evening was a wonderful performance of David Maslanka's Give Us This Day by the Wind Symphony, which unfortunately came first on the program. The concert series was fantastic overall and it is reassuring to see that the new instrumental directors are living up to the legacy of the first few.

Starting December 20 I was blessed with the task of caring for Claire's cat Shako while she was in Northern California. Being responsible for the sustenance of a living thing for an entire week and not seeing it even a single time is a bit odd. The only evidence I had of his subsistence was the gifts he left for me in the litter box.

Christmas Eve, which was held at our house for a much-appreciated change, lacked the extravagance of previous years. Only two of my relatives came to eat dinner with us. Dinner itself was a feast on Costco lasagna, a testament to the changing trends of modern life...

Christmas #1 was a triumph: I received a new camera, which is why the rest of this post will actually contain pictures. Other spoils include these lovely band scores (Not pictured is Samuel Hazo's Exultate). Though you probably cannot read it in this photo, a disturbingly hilarious disclaimer adorns the front of the Rhapsody in Blue score: "GERSHWIN is a Trade Mark of Gershwin Enterprises. GEORGE GERSHWIN is a Service Mark of Gershwin Enterprises. All Rights Reserved."

Christmas #2, which was at my Aunt's house, began with the horrors of the Electric Snowmen Holocaust. The rest consisted of sitting on a sofa for two people with three people, listening to my uncle talk about Japan, listening to my cousin talk about The Beast, and watching Nolan in his native habitat.

We then proceeded to my Grandma's for Christmas #3, which consisted mainly of taking pictures of people taking pictures and a dinner which was basically Thanksgiving #3. I also wound up with a hilarious abundance of Reese's Fastbreaks and Sun Chips:



My arteries thank me daily for having only scratched the surfaces of these.

On December 28 I went to Phillip's house. He had a giant cookie that said "Happy Birthday" except it wasn't anybody's birthday so we can assume that it was half price on the reject rack. The picture to the left shows the cookie's remains after Charles and I cut some fun shapes out of it. The main entertainment was Phillip and Cassandra sorting through his ridiculous mass of coins (yes, those are all quarters), which Austin and Charles did not consider to be entertainment and consequently left early. After this ardor our boredom was cured by our discovery that Phillip gets the Game Show Network here in Irvine. We saw a lovely commercial with a horrendously terrible CGI fox who was allegedly good for small business. Dinner was Round Table's new monstrosity, the Meat Ulti-Meat pizza, with a name so hilarious that we could not resist making Phillip burst out in laughter as he ordered.

On Saturday, December 29 Claire and I took the train and the LA Metro to see Wicked at the Pantages. I made the mistake of making eye contact with the hobo on the subway and he asked me for money. The theater of course was very nice and the sets and performance were amazing but it is definitely not my favorite musical. Afterwards we ate dinner at this place on Olvera Street whose name I still do not know.

I spent New Year's Eve with Claire; we watched Amélie, a wonderful film we watched in French last quarter, which I had given to Claire for Christmas. I ate this amazing See's Candy with butterscotch, and I demand more.

I think I have almost reached my limit in terms of how much I can rip out of myself at the moment. I am resisting all the cliché within me, urging me to write some grandiloquent ode to the new year, but I will relent enough to say this: as Claire said to me last night, it will never be 2007 again. But I have yet to decide whether this is a good thing or not. The timeless inner conflict: "Yes, I've had enough of this, let's move on" against "what I wouldn't give to do it all again."