Today

Went to the aquarium today with S & her adorable family. Except the teenager, cuz she was busy. Didn’t seem to slow anyone down though. It was good times. Last time the two of us had been down there together was on our long driver’s ed trip when we had to park beneath Pike Place Market. M2 came home & decided to play “mermaid” in the sink after all those neat sea critters — starting out with a long piece of yarn as the “mermaid” and when I said, “no yarn in sink!” she switched over to her ponies & nekkid barbie doll.

P managed to distracted the girls at the gift shop long enough for “Santa” to buy a few tiny stuffed octopi for “the Santa Box” this evening. See, in our house, Santa comes every day in December. You know, to check in on who’s naughty & who’s nice… And if all good girls & boys have done at least one good deed (defined as going out of your way to make some one else’s day a nicer day without being asked, loosely) then Santa leaves a little treat. Yesterday it was neato pencils. Today it was an octopus. Sometimes it’s as simple as a candy cane or a hershies kiss or Santa over-ruling us saying no dessert. But typically it’s a little thingy-thing… Hells yes, it’s outright bribery to keep the insanity of the days leading up to Xmas as minimal as possible. I don’t kid myself otherwise.

Tim The Cat is comfy in my lap. I am tired. Not as tired as the girls though. We watched Mythbusters, then there was something on one of the PBSs with vacant but pretty ladies with beautiful voices & a small crazy dancing lady with a violin & a Celtic-ish theme. It promptly charmed both of them, so I let them watch it. Until 10. Because I’m insane. Thems gonna be tired & cranky tomorrow… The PBS people were annoying and fawning. They seemed particularly impressed by the fact that apparently all the pretty ladies had “perfect pitch.” Absolute, or relative? Presumably active, vs. passive. Meh. They were pretty ladies with pretty voices. Whatevah.

Speaking of which, the solfege for guitar is driving me crazy. I understand that it might be useful in conveying stuff to other musicians who are also versed in solfege about relative pitch stuff, but the practice of applying it while playing is just… annoying. And the fact that it’s not relative, but static for guitar is further annoying & doesn’t add any flexibility. And, in fact, it kind of actively messes up my sight reading because I look at the line, my finger goes where it’s supposed to, I stagger over what I’m supposed to be identifying the note as verbally, (it’s a C, goddamn it! C!!! “Do” this!) and then I’ve lost the time on the metronome. As if jumping 8th notes from 69 bpm to 94 in the space of 4 exercises isn’t enough. Practice. And breathe. It takes a long time to come back to it all after not really playing at all for over a decade & not playing classical for dang near two decades… I guess I should reread the stuff about solfege & make sure I understand it correctly. I mean, I understand it, but how it applies to what I’m doing.

I’m rambling & it just hit midnight. I’m taking my music theory book to the bathtub to skim while I warm my bones so I can sleep…