Lydia Archives - Page 38 of 48 - Ramblin' with Roger

Treadmill of my own design

I mentioned recently that I performed in a concert on Sunday, November 18, singing with my church choir a bunch of songs about St. Cecilia. Then a concert on Sunday, November 25, with people who had sung with organist Don Ingram in the past, singing the Christmas section of Handel’s Messiah in honor of Don’s 80th birthday, a benefit for his church’s organ fund.

So the logical thing to do on Sunday, December 2 would have been to do nothing. Instead, I ATTENDED TWO concerts. The first was actually An Advent Processional with Lessons and Carols at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, from 2:30-4:05 with The Wife; we saw a number of people I knew.

Then we rush back, and while my wife is taking the child sitter home, I call the College of St. Rose’s box office to see if there are more tickets for the 5 p.m. performance of “It’s a Jazzy Christmas” at the Massry Center, but all I got was a recording. So we hightail it to CSR, and not only are there more tickets to go with the two comps, we can get one that’s right next to ours.

The show featured a great jazz trio in the tradition of Vince Guaraldi’s groups, playing some Charlie Brown Christmas tunes and other holiday favorites. It was regularly interrupted by this story about a character, shown on a video screen, trying to steal Christmas, which was all quite goofy. There were puzzles for kids to solve, but 1) not enough time/light for most to solve them and 2) no incentive for them to do so. Our sense was that it was enjoyable enough, but if we had spent $50, rather than just the $10 for the Daughter’s ticket, we would have enjoyed it far less. Still, the guest vocalist who sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” was excellent, and there were milk and Freihoffer’s chocolate chip cookies before the show.

Next milestone: the Daughter’s performance in the Nutcracker on Sunday, December 16. Yesterday was another practice, and tomorrow is the dress rehearsal.

Then some major holiday the week after that.

Oh, and I’ve been going to rehearsals for some church play in March, but more on that down the road.

The only time I get to go grocery shopping is late at night (no longer my strength) or early in the morning. I like going to the 24-hour store at 5 a.m., when the staff is stocking the shelves. They play music that one doesn’t hear during the day; the last time I left humming Lola by the Kinks.

The Lydster, Part 104: The Medical Episodes

“Osgood-Schlatter disease typically occurs in boys ages 13 to 14 and girls ages 11 to 12. The condition usually resolves on its own, once the child’s bones stop growing.” The Daughter’s eight and a half, ahead of the curve.

Thrice in the past month or so, the Daughter has awakened in pain.

The first time, she had been experiencing right knee pain for a week, building into something she could not bear any longer. Her mother took her to the doctor that afternoon. She has Osgood-Schlatter disease, which is less a disease than a syndrome.

It “can cause a painful lump below the kneecap in children and adolescents experiencing growth spurts during puberty. Osgood-Schlatter disease occurs most often in children who participate in sports that involve running, jumping and swift changes of direction — such as soccer, basketball, figure skating, and ballet.” My daughter was participating in soccer and ballet.

“Age ranges differ by sex because girls experience puberty earlier than do boys. Osgood-Schlatter disease typically occurs in boys ages 13 to 14 and girls ages 11 to 12. The condition usually resolves on its own, once the child’s bones stop growing.” The Daughter’s eight and a half, ahead of the curve.

The second time, on a Thursday morning, she complained that she was having trouble breathing. Her mother had already gone to work, but Lydia hadn’t gone to school yet. She was having an asthma attack, or “incident”, as the ER doctor at St. Peter’s Hospital said. They gave her oxygen, and a couple of medicines, including a steroid which was she was supposed to keep taking for five days, but resisted because of its taste.

The following Sunday morning, she complained of chest pains. Back to the ER, this time the three of us. After eliminating some sort of heart problem, it appears she pulled a muscle in her chest, probably a function of asthma. A heating pad and pain killers were the treatments. (This is why, church people, I missed choir that morning, but made it to the end of the service.)

I’ll be happy if we can avoid physicians for a while…

The Lydster, Part 103: In as a clown, out as an angel

She’ll be performing on Saturday, December 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Egg.

What a strange weekend we had in the middle of last month.

On Saturday, I took the Daughter to play her first soccer match. She had gone to the practice on the previous Monday night and been assigned to a team in the U8 (under eight) division. But when we got there for her 11:10 a.m. match, we found that she had been moved to the U10 division, and thus on another team. Worse, because the opposing team in their 12:20 p.m. match was initially shorthanded, she was temporarily traded to the other side. She was more disappointed than unhappy by all of this, but she particularly enjoyed being back on her U10 team when more kids arrived. She was a little bored on defense; her teammates kept the ball at the other end of the field most of the time. But she liked being on offense. And we got to see a bald eagle flying overhead.

On Sunday, the Daughter tried out for the Albany Berkshire Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker. Based on her age, she was supposed to be trying out to be a clown. But based on her height, she was asked to wait around so she could try out as an angel, which tended to be a role that slightly older girls get. At the end of it all, she got the role of an angel. She’ll be performing on Saturday, December 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the Egg, a local performing arts venue.

The commonality of these two events was that it took a bit longer than we had anticipated, but ended up with a good outcome.

Living on Anbesol and Advil

The music group called Big Daddy (loved by many, including me) is staging a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 to produce their new album.

As mentioned, I had a root canal a couple of weeks ago, and the pain was far less than the last one I had some 15 years ago. But then I had to have some work done on another tooth, and the mouth discomfort after that one was mighty steady; not a sharp pain, but a constant ache, for which I was surviving on certain medicines.

And it was not great timing. Last weekend, the daughter didn’t have soccer, but the Wife and I did have a wedding to go to, a co-worker of hers who I didn’t know to a guy I knew just as well. The service was at 2 pm in Niskayuna, in neighboring Schenectady County, and it was lovely. The reception wasn’t until 5 pm, in Altamont, in Albany County, a 30-minute drive, so we did what we needed to do; we went grocery shopping. Talk about being overdressed for an activity.

The reception was at a place called the Appel Inn; our friends Marc and Janna had their reception there in November of 1999. We sat with one of the bride’s and my wife’s teaching colleagues, and her husband, neither of which I knew, but they were a delightful couple. But somewhere during this, the throbbing returned and having no over-the-counter solutions, I tried Southern Comfort and 7-Up; singularly unhelpful.

After church on Sunday, we drove to Schenectady to meet my sister Leslie’s bus. She had flown from San Diego, CA to Charlotte, NC back in late September to go to a conference, and visit our sister and niece; then flew to New York City, and visited relatives and a friend; then took a bus to Binghamton, NY to do genealogical research and to attend her high school reunion; and finally to Schenectady.

We are at some downtown restaurant called Bombers, and I saw that the New York Giants football team (my team) was already down 14-0, after only five minutes in the game; sigh. They ended up winning 41-27. But I didn’t see it.

We went to see the 2 pm stage performance of Mary Poppins at the Proctors Theatre, and it was quite good. Perhaps a little long, with too much of the exposition done to the tune of “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” but there were so many WOW moments – the transformation of the park, Bert walking on the ceiling – that we were all impressed. By the time we got back to Albany, though, I was exhausted from pain and went to bed before anyone.

The Sister returned to San Diego on Tuesday, the pain has subsided somewhat, and we’re back to a busy schedule, mostly driven by the Daughter’s activities. Especially on the weekend.
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Jaquandor saw Mary Poppins in Buffalo two years ago.

Says Mark Evanier (and I fully agree): The music group called Big Daddy (loved by many, including me) is staging a Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 to produce their new album. I would like to see them do this and have already backed…but it doesn’t look good. With only two days to go, they are a little over halfway there.

Lyrical revenge

I realized that this was some sort of cosmic payback.

I was at a church meeting recently, which hadn’t really started. I was sitting next to one guy, and it seemed that every other sentence uttered by the others was a cue for a song lyric to pop into my head. It was coming so fast and furiously that I stopped citing the song and would just mention the artist. “Fleetwood Mac!” “Led Zeppelin!” “Jackson Browne!” Indeed, after a while, I only noted every OTHER song I was hearing from the discussion.

It’s fun, but it’s also a curse. I don’t go listening for songs; they just well up in my brain. I used to subject my mother to this torture when I was growing up, but it was a bit of a wasted effort since she usually didn’t know my reference point.

A few days ago, the Daughter was lying on the sofa and said something I thought was funny, so I chuckled. She said, with a straight face, “How can you laugh when you know I’m down?” She was quoting lyrics from the Beatles, and an obscure song at that, the B-side of the single Help.

I realized that this was some sort of cosmic payback.

The graphic above I stole from Facebook and indeed reposted. Someone commented, “I can vouch that it’s true.”

I’m Down – the Beatles (1965).