me: “what do you want to read before lights out?”
odin: “the dictionary!”
we take turns giving each other random words and time each other with a stopwatch to see can find words faster and then read the definition.
it’s a fun game and with almost every word both of us learn something new.
he’s looking for “zenith” on this round. for now i can usually beat him, but i don’t think that will last for long.
frida turned 6 months old a few days ago so we got her a very special gift! a trip to the vet to get spayed!
she thought she was going to “doggie daycare” and was very excited in the car on the way to the vet ( though quite vocal in telling us that we “forgot” to feed her). she was not so happy when she came home. hi. ho. she’ll be happy frida soon enough.
i’m sure it’s a form letter, but the note from the vet on “frida’s big day” was a nice touch, though her ears are down the in picture which means she had figured out that this was not going to be A Fun Day when they snapped the picture.
i remember odin’s first piano lesson eight and a half years ago given by his great aunt on a piano in maine that had seen generations of family playing. since then, i’ve slowly been teaching odin how to play, waiting for his hands to get bigger and his concentration and attention skills to get developed enough to make proper lessons fun and not A Big Drag.
five years ago we got a piano and i taught odin scales, and intervals and simples chords and he soon could play twinkle, twinkle little star ( i remember his amusement upon realizing it was the same notes as baa baa black sheep and the alphabet song ).
odin just walked up the piano, banged out the riff to "smoke on the water" and walked away. me: "did you just make the up?" odin: "yup."
— Eric C Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) August 20, 2011
and it wasn’t too long before he was playing parts of the the pink panther theme and the imperial march by ear or “inventing” the smoke on the water intro or making up pieces that sounded like something brian eno would compose.
odin is playing piano, making it up as he goes along. reminds me of brian eno, a la music for airports http://goo.gl/YHlHJ
— Eric C Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) November 12, 2010
it’s been clear that his hands have grown along with with his attention and concentration and now is a good time to leave behind learning my chicken scratch transcriptions of school songs and get some proper lessons.
Odin ( teaching himself a tune on the piano, humming): "through the field the beggar goes, weary feet and tattered clothes…"
— Eric C Snowdeal III (@snowdeal) November 22, 2012
today he had his first lesson. he loved it, absolutely loved it, and can’t wait for the next one. i’m sure in no time at all he’ll be teaching me a thing or two.
we’re still working on the kite aerial photography rig but having a aerial photography set-up that didn’t depend on a windy day that wasn’t also threatening stormy weather would be awesome.
after playing offense and scoring a goal, odin is back on defense while playing against la crosse who they’ve beat once and lost once in overtime.
“maintain your self control.” easier said than done!
as one does as a hockey parent, i sat in the opponent’s penalty box. it offers a great view of the game. you’ll note, there’s a player in the box. i have to admit it was a bad call 🙂
odin moves the puck down the ice. viroqua had more shots on goal but their goalie was too good and they lost. la crosse is conference 3 team ( viroqua is conference 4 ) so they should feel proud at beating them once and almost beating them again in overtime in previous games 🙂
william gibson famously said, “the future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed”. hopefully china’s smog so thick you can only see the rising sun on LED screens and industrialized animal cloning is just a dystopian blade runner-ish future that doesn’t get evenly distributed ( and goes away altogether ).
someone on obama’s team must have said, make the flags bigger. it’s politically analagous to the request to “make the logo bigger” often heard in marketing. “make my logo bigger” cream that apparently works on flags too.