Mundane normal life stuff -- Mother's Day party

[xiphias]

So, the Becker side of the family got together at my grandparents' house there. Was fun. I had my guitar with me, since I came there from work (several of the kids in my Hebrew school goofed off by making Mother's Day cards. I did not stop them.)

The kids in my class are really decent human beings. One of the kids -- the most rambunctious kid in the class -- noticed that one of the other students was upset, and he let me know. He was clearly upset that she was upset. They all really care about one another, and do what they can to help each other. I thanked him for letting me know.

So, anyway, the Mother's Day party. I always intend to bring my guitar, but I always forget. I'm the only person on that side of the family who doesn't play piano; I do keep intending to learn, but I haven't. Since I only play one instrument well (and am tolerable on the harmonica, recorder, pennywhistle, and a couple other instruments), I'm really one of the least musical members of the family. My uncle Chuck is probably the most musical: plays guitar, piano, and drums at the professional level, and is a piano tuner and luthier, as well. And, of course, basically any of us can pick up an unfamiliar instrument, and once we comprehend how one makes it make a sound, we can get some sort of music out of it.

But I don't play piano (except to the level that any Becker can instinctively do so), and so I don't get to jam with my family as much as I'd like. Obviously, every house has at least one piano (except mine), so, of course, usually a couple people are sitting at the piano jamming, one taking the top half and one taking the bottom half.

My cousin (the one I go to the gym with) had brought some sheet music, and we were playing around with Sting's "Fields of Gold" and the theme to the show "Enterprise", which we both agreed was a decent song, but really didn't fit with Star Trek. Then we did some stuff with Pachabel's Canon in D, which went smoother when I told my cousin to just forget the piano sheet music because it's not really a piano song, and just riff off of 1, 5, relative minor of 1, relative minor of 5, 4, 1, 4, 5. Which worked much better.

We tried to remember what one particular chord was called; we couldn't, so I said I'd just ask Chuck when he showed up. Turns out that if you take a seventh chord and flatten the seventh, that's called a thirteenth, which I knew once but forgot. I don't play enough music.

Then we had pizza. Because we weren't going to make my grandmother cook for all of us -- that would rather defeat the purpose of having a Mother's day get-together. It was also a party for my grandfather's birthday. He's 79. He's starting to go a little grey around the temples. He's also only working about forty hours a week, now. My cousin Todd showed up with goofy false teeth he'd made. He's in dental school, and his father and grandfather let him play with the equipment in the office, and he offered to make any of us similar buck teeth.

I have a sneaking suspicion that, when Todd graduates, Papa may cut back his hours further, and let David and Todd run most of the practice.

My aunt Liz -- Liz Sweibel -- is a Boston based artist, mainly sculpture, but other stuff, too. She's getting her Masters' degree in Fine Arts from the Maine College of Art the same day that Lis is getting her Masters of Library and Information Science from Simmons.

The Maine College of Art website really, really sucks. Just a comment. It is too. . . self-indulgently artistic at the expense of being usable.

Comments

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely, that.