The Lydster, Part 99: Her Father’s Daughter

We’ve been singing “Build Me Up, Buttercup” together.

For years, part of the running shtick between my wife and me has been this: I ask her a question. She responds to the question. Then I ask the question again, because, while I have some information, I often don’t have the ANSWER. I must say that, early on, it used to drive me crazy. Now, I just recognize it as just the way it is.

Here’s an example from a couple of months ago. I had seen some fresh strawberries in the refrigerator earlier, so I asked her where they had gone. She replied, “Well, I was going to make strawberry shortcake, but that fell by the wayside.” Puzzled, I was about to say, “Oh..kay, honey…but where are the strawberries?” which was my actual question. But instead, Lydia said, “But mommy, where are the strawberries?” I had a VERY difficult time not breaking into uncontrollable laughter. Lydia reacted the same as I did. And worse, she knew it.

We also do a lot of singing together. She has a CD of cover versions of a wide variety of songs, from pop tunes to patriotic songs. We’ve been singing “Build Me Up, Buttercup” together. But “Take Me Home, Country Road” is usually her solo performance.

Of course, there are things that Lydia gravitates towards my wife’s interests, such as watching/participating in figure skating or sharing conversations about clothing and jewelry. Still, I’m happy about when she and I connect.

The June swoon

The big thing, though, was that the Daughter had not one, but two dance recitals.


This has been the busiest June I can remember. I was in charge of the Friends of the Albany Public Library annual meeting, which involved arranging for the speaker, planning a dinner for 20, and getting a plaque made, the latter two of which had more complications than I need to go into here. But it ultimately went off successfully. The best part is that I discovered an old-fashioned drink called a sidecar; I loved it!

Our church is in covenant with one of the local schools, and one Saturday, that meant putting together a playground, which entailed, among other things, clearing a field of weeds and a tremendous amount of trash. Here’s a brief news story.

I attended a comic book show. Went to at least three parties, with another two this upcoming weekend. I’m not even counting visits to the dentist and eye doctor.

The big thing, though, was that the Daughter had not one, but two dance recitals. The first was at her public school, where she was a new recruit in something called Step. A couple of weeks later, her ballet school was having its annual recital. That school’s founder is one Madeline Cantarella Culpo. One of her grandsons is Michael Culpo, a Division I basketball player, while one of her granddaughters is the new Miss USA, Olivia Culpo; she is understandably proud.
***
Why I am getting so much spam on this site, over 300 per day? The filter catches it, but it’s still tedious to remove. And most of it is of the bad spam variety, from companies selling electronic cigarettes, payday loans, or “pantyhose covered female foot fetish,” filled with suspicious links and unreadable text. Whereas GOOD spam is: “Helpful info. Lucky me I discovered your website by chance, and I am shocked why this accident didn’t happen earlier! I bookmarked it.” I know it’s a lie, but at least it’s pleasing to the eye.

The Lydster, Part 98: A Poem

The Daughter wanted it published on a Saturday. I’m nothing if not an accommodating parent.

My daughter wrote a poem and wanted to publish it. Isn’t a blog a form of publishing? So with her permission:

Sally Wotsen by Lydia Green

My name is Sally Wotsen

I’m as sick as I can be

I have 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 sting ray stings on my knee

I feel too sick to go to school
so please stay home with me
today.

What is that you say?
Today is Saturday?

Bye, I’m going out to play.

(c) 2012 Lydia Green

She also wanted it published on a Saturday, and this was the first Saturday the 26th since she wrote it a month or so ago. I’m nothing if not an accommodating parent.

Ike, the plan, and how it applies to me

“Dwight D. Eisenhower…once opined that plans aren’t worth a damn, but planning is essential.”

 

Did you ever take those standardized career tests that ask, “What will you be doing in five years?” I have, several times. Looking back, there has never been a correlation between what the projection and the reality looked like.

Heck, lately, even planning ahead a few days hasn’t worked out.

When our library staff planned our presentation for staff training, the highlight was supposed to be the premiere of this video our intern Sam put together of the librarians. It was working fine in the dry run. But the day of the presentation, the disc simply would not work. After about five minutes of futile fussing, our director said, “Hey, we can’t get this to work. So we’ll start the rest of the presentation; Roger will start.” Bam! I’m on! That was disconcerting.

At the end of the month, I have a much more extensive presentation at a conference. I was going to work on it earlier this week. But then my wife injured her foot Monday morning; while it turned out not to be as serious as we feared, the initial amount of blood made the bathroom look like a crime scene. I took a half-day, going with her to urgent care.

Then Tuesday, the Daughter was having a moderate asthma attack and I took her to the emergency room, which took most of the morning. The funniest part of the day is, though I gave them her name, the system defaulted to Baby Girl Green, her name eight years earlier when she was born there; they had to fix the record before they could proceed with services, and this was after we’d been there over an hour. I stayed home with her in the afternoon. I was going to get check some e-mail while she rested, except that somehow, I touched the F2 button on my Dell laptop and disconnected the wireless function, and it took me a precious while to figure out the problem.

By the time I get to work on Wednesday, I’m buried with more immediate work to do. Oy.

I was struck, though, by this story about newspaper writer Julia Keller discussing her award-winning reporting about a tornado. Her essay, “Lessons Learned”, seems to apply to much of life:

Allow me to quote that well-known prose stylist Dwight D. Eisenhower, who once opined that plans aren’t worth a damn, but planning is essential.

Much of the information gathered for a long series won’t ever be used. Many of our most treasured insights will be revised, then revised again, and finally abandoned. The majority of our felicitous phrases — the kind that makes us pause just after we come up with them and smile secretly to ourselves — will be relegated to the writer’s version of the cutting-room floor: the “delete” key…

Then, when it came time to actually write the damn thing, I had frustration — because, despite the story’s length, a great deal of my reporting had to go.

Yet I could not have produced the series without having first produced the pile of material that wasn’t ultimately used. My plans may have been shot to hell, but the act of planning was crucial.

Eisenhower’s aphorism, then, is terribly apt — or at least it was for me — as I worked for seven months on this three-part series…

So, even though the plan doesn’t always work out, the process of making the plan still has value. I believe this has been applicable in my life, even when those five-year plans have no apparent validity.
***
Are lots of folks I know of dying this month or am I just getting old? (Rhetorical question: DO NOT ANSWER.)

Donald “Duck” Dunn died May 13. Though best known as the bassist for the group Booker T. & the MG’s, or probably, for a certain demographic, the Blues Brothers band, he played on lots of songs for Stax and Atlantic artists such as Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, the Staples Singers, and Sam & Dave, plus many more. Here is Booker T. & the MG’s-Time Is Tight.

An ex-girlfriend bought me Donna Summer’s Live and More for my 27th birthday. Didn’t think it was my thing, but I ended up playing it constantly, especially Side 4, that 18-minute MacArthur Park suite that, I just discovered, is missing from the CD re-release – here’s a live, 6-minute version of the song. Arthur and Jaquandor have interesting takes on her passing this week.

The Lydster, Part 97: One Surprise After Another

The Daughter always seemed to have far fewer birthday parties with her friends than most of her classmates. Oh, there would be the gatherings with family, including her maternal grandparents, and usually a pair of her cousins and an uncle and aunt. But it has been unbalanced. Once a couple of years ago, we did a party at the State Museum with her friends, but that was it.

She indicated a few months ago that she wanted a surprise party; not sure why. But we decided to make it so. First, we had a little gathering the weekend before her birthday with her mom, dad, and grandparents, so she didn’t think we’d blown her off. Then we rented a room at the local bowling alley for a few hours.

The morning of the party, I put together the gift bags for the children attending, distracted the Daughter while her mother sneaked the cake she made out of the house, got her dressed, and so forth.

I also got her to help clean the house based on the rumor that Grandma and Grandma might be staying over. That was actually unlikely, but it was possible that her other uncle/aunt/cousin from southern Pennsylvania, might be staying over.

About a half-hour before showtime, we tell the Daughter we are going bowling, so she’d be wearing socks. As we walked into the room, and people yell “Surprise”, she’s confused and a little frightened; she sees some unfamiliar people, a couple of siblings and parents of her friends, who she does not know. But soon, she has sussed out that this is the surprise party she had requested and smiled broadly.

The kids, and some of the parents, bowled for an hour. Then we had pizza (quite good, actually), cake that the Wife made, plus supplied ice cream. The time was too short to actually open presents, though (or we planned it not so well.) All of my wife’s family went over to our house.

You may recall that the TV set died last month. Well, this was the next day, and my two brothers-in-law said they’d take me shopping – two shopping trips in two weekends, which was unprecedented for me. At least this one was singular in focus. Went to Radio Shack, which had TVs either too large or way too small. Then to Green Furniture – the running joke was that it was my cousin’s place – but they’re out of the TV business. Eventually, we make it to BJ’s Wholesale; one brother-in-law has a membership. We need something that will fit into a 29″ wide and 18″ high space, and we find something. The old TV had a tube; this TV, the screen part was thinner than a sturdy book.

Oh, and that brother-in-law decided that, instead of him paying for the adults bowling (which he had offered), and for his share of the dinner (previously agreed to), he’d just pay for the TV and call it even, or part of MY birthday present! In any case, an unexpected turn of events.

The family gathered for dinner, after which there was a second surprise party, for Lydia’s grandma, who was turning a certain age divisible by five. Among her presents, a certain number of wishes, written by her four granddaughters. Eventually, one of Carol’s brothers and his family returned home; the other brother and his family, with the longer trip, went to his parents’ house.

A glorious day.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial