Tag: Lydia

The extra Paul McCartney tickets

passion

paul-mccartney-out-thereAs I have noted, my daughter and I saw a certain musician at the Knickerbocker Arena* in Albany on July 5, 2014.

I really wanted to see this show, so I went to some secondary seller online site to get Paul McCartney tickets. It wasn’t until the transaction was complete that I realized that I had made a purchase for the Pittsburgh show two days later. The layout of the Consol Energy Center looked quite similar to the Albany venue. I don’t know why I had it in my mind that the Albany performance was on the 7th; I even initially wrote that in my review.

A month later, a friend of mine gave me a lead to get better tickets for the Albany show, and at a cheaper price. I bought two MORE tickets for the 5th. I figured my wife, my daughter, someone else and I would attend.

But when I offered my wife the opportunity to go, she seemed rather indifferent. “Yeah, I guess so.” It wasn’t really the enthusiasm I was looking for, whereas my daughter was psyched. I suspect the amount of money I had now spent might be driving my need for more passion.

In the end, I gave the more expensive pair to a couple at church. They have had season tickets for the Albany Symphony Orchestra for several years. When they couldn’t go, they would offer them to my wife and me. This seemed like a way to pay them back.

Steel City

But what to do with the pair of tickets for the July 7 Pittsburgh show? At first, I contemplated going, but I didn’t want the expense of flying there or taking the time required to ride the bus. I attempted to sell them online without success. Yeesh, I couldn’t let them go to waste.

Finally, on either July 3 or July 5, I searched for a radio station in the Pittsburgh market that I thought had the right playlist; don’t remember which one. I called them up and asked if they could give away two Paul McCartney tickets for the July 7 show. Naturally, they were suspicious that this was a ruse. But they said that if I had them, they could and would give them away. So I emailed them the electronic tickets.

That was my story that I needed to share on the eve of Paul McCartney’s 80th birthday.

* The arena in Albany has had a few name changes. After the Knick, it became the Pepsi Arena, then the Times Union Center, which it was in 2014, and now the MVP Arena. So I just call it the Knick.

Lydster: scrub a street of Albany?

most artistic

Most Albanians – i.e., people from Albany, NY – know, the city has been holding the Tulip Festival every May since 1949. This started during the 40+ year reign of mayor Erastus Corning. It is the city’s “signature spring event featuring annual traditions rooted in the City’s rich Dutch heritage.”

We love our tulips in Albany much as they do in Holland, MI. Washington Park is strewn with them every year, different varieties planted at staggered times to maximize the beauty regardless of the vagueries of the 518 spring.

As part of the tradition, started in the Netherlands, young women in costume would ceremonially scrub a street, a small section of State Street, prior to the celebration. It’s a bit kitschy, I know, but I would often watch it when I was working downtown.

My daughter was one of eight people from her high school’s senior class chosen for the task on Friday, May 6. It would involve getting picked up from school at 10:30, participating in a photo session at 11 at City Hall. The ceremony with the mayor is at noon, then symbolic scrubbing of the street until 12:20. Lunch at the mayor’s office, then returning to school by 1:30. We all thought this was rather cool.

But she can’t go. She has her Advanced Placement final in Economics on that very day at noon, and that is inflexible. We’re all a little disappointed that she can’t participate in this Tulip Festival activity.

College

At the same time, we recognize that she had accomplished quite a bit in her high school, despite the very disruptive COVID interruptions and distance learning. In that senior superlatives thing they still do, she won most artistic, which is no surprise.

I’m looking forward to the final decision on what college she will be attending. That is, I can’t wait, so I can clear out my email inbox. She applied to eight colleges and was accepted at seven. They are all in New York State or New England. Since she has to give them MONEY by May 1, this will be determined VERY soon.

Changing up the morning ritual

Quordle

Daily Quordle #51
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I’ve been changing up the morning ritual in the past, lessee, two years. Formerly, I would get up, check the email, and perhaps work on the blog, But at 7 a.m., my wife and I would go downstairs and watch CBS This Morning, now CBS Mornings, to watch “your world in ninety seconds.”

When the headlines were unrelentingly about COVID – the spread of COVID, the death toll of COVID – I sometimes passed on the opportunity to start my day with misery. Presently, I’ve been feeling similarly about Ukraine. I guess I’m more equipped to deal with distress in the evening. Besides, I tend to get enough news from various news outlets during the day.

Instead, I do the daily Wordle. I should note that my wife is MUCH better at this than I am, just as she’s better at Boggle. My daughter is better, too. Wordle has become an odd family bonding experience.

I’ve repeatedly told my wife she’d rule on Wheel of Fortune. We actually have the home game, a consolation prize from when on JEOPARDY! and our comparative scores prove my point. But at least we all still have our Wordle streaks going, unlike some people.

FOUR words

Then I attempt Quordle. The first several times I never got the four words in the nine tries. My mistake was to work it like I played Wordle. I know now to try to expose as many letters by finding three or even four words that hit most of the consonants. I’ve been much more successful.

After wishing my wife goodbye, I go back into the office. The cats want to be fed. I HAD been giving them nourishment at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. But with the stupid time change, if I attend them at 7 and 7, when we “fall back”, they’d be caterwauling to get food at 6 and 6.

This is just one reason that I’m OK with the idea of changing to permanent Daylight Saving Time, even though it’ll be dark on December mornings. I’ve made my feelings about changing the clocks quite clear here. (I’m essentially agreeing with  Marco Rubio; this pains me.)

After finally feeding the felines, I take my blood pressure and my pulse to make sure I’m not dead. THEN I eat. The rest is the usual alternating of email/blogging to music, riding the stationary bike while watching TV (JEOPARDY, 60 Minutes, Finding Your Roots, Trevor Noah, et al), washing the dishes/reading the newspaper to music. This may be altered by a medical appointment, Bible study, grocery shopping, or the eternal “something else,” that unexpected task that sucks up hours in the day.

Lydster: what to write on her natal day

To the degree that I know anything…

Back in the day, I would have gushed about my daughter, especially on her natal day. I might have noted how cute she was, and how lovely she is now. Perhaps I would indicate how much I’ve learned from her almost every day.

Her sense of justice has always been finely tuned. At least a decade ago, when the change from my pants pocket fell onto the bed, my wife would collect it. But my daughter thought my wife was stealing from me and ratted her out to grandma. Now, she is savvy about issues of racism, sexism, and other inequities.

I’m much more aware of looking at food labels because of her allergies, especially dealing with peanuts. She and I react almost exactly the same to everything from ragweed to cigarette smoke, which is to say, badly.

To the degree that I know anything about 21st-century music, technology, changes in language, and a myriad of other things is because of her.

But…

Here’s the thing, though. 1) She’s a teenager. 2) She sometimes reads my blog, especially on the 26th of the month. A bunch of platitudes would probably make her gag. She’s doesn’t think she was cute as a child. (N.b., she’s wrong.) If I say I love her, at best she’ll roll her eyes.

So frankly, I don’t know WHAT I’m going to write that doesn’t invade her privacy too much.

I can say this. She’s applied to about eight colleges. She got into most or all of them. Currently, she’s considering a couple of them and wants to make second visits to both before deciding.

Ah, heck. I’ll write what I want. It’s my blog, and if it wasn’t for her, there would likely not BE  a blog. Here’s a story I’ve told before. When I got one of those baby books where one records her first tooth or first steps, I was TERRIBLE at using it. To be fair to me, her  mother was no better than I.

So when I comtemplated starting a blog, I decided that I would write about my daughter at least once a month. And always on the 26th of the month, because. I might  write about her MORE often, but that was the floor.

Since May 2005, I have managed to write about her every 26th, 203 times in a row if my math is correct. I’ll try to keep this up, but it might be more difficult. We shall see.

(Don’t tell her that I wrote how much I love her. She’d REALLY will roll her eyes.)

My daughter’s musical tastes

The day before a momentous one

hamilton logoI’ve noted that my daughter’s musical tastes include 1990s soul, developed without much input from me, though I approve.

She’s been involved in a few musicals at church, so she knows The Lion King. Her parents have let her know about West Side Story and Fiddler On The Roof. She discovered Grease on her own.

Recently, she’s been playing the Studio Cast Recording to the musical Six, about the six wives of Henry VI. The first song, Ex-Wives, repeats the bromide to remember their fates: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. It could be useful in a history class.

Indeed, her affection for Hamilton, long before I was aware of it, has helped her in that manner. She knows who ran in the election of 1800, e.g. Likewise her knowledge of Assassins, the interesting Sondheim musical about people who killed Presidents, or tried to, has helped. Musicals aren’t history, of course, but they can be useful.

Her father, as noted, gave her Beatles #1s when she was five. So I was amused with one of those periodical articles, this showing up in the local paper, by a guy named Michael Gorelick. His commentary was titled “Fab Four music seriously flawed” The writer says nausea overwhelms him “three seconds after hearing a Beatles song.”

I would disagree, of course, as did at least four readers of the Times Union. But he did say one thing that was true of me. I used Beatles music to babysit my child, unapologetically. Compare Adam@Home.

More of the road trip songs

I’m continuing with songs she picked out on the road trip.

Take On Me -A-ha
No Scrubs – TLC
Stand Up – Cynthia Erivo. This is from the movie Harriet, which she did not see, but her parents did.

Jugaste y Sufri – Eslabon Armado ft. Danny Lux
Lover Is A Day – Cuco
Not Allowed – TV Girl
t r a n s p a re n t s o u l – Willow Smith ft. Travis Barker

Cupid’s Chokehold/Breakfast In America – Gym Class Heroes ft. Patrick Stump. I love that Supertramp album
Redbone – Childish Gambino
Moral Of The Story – Ashe. “You can think that you’re in love when you’re really just in pain.”
Daddy Issues – The Neighbourhood. Hmmm…

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