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Yesterday Stephan wanted to go to Supertarget on the train to get an electric teakettle. Since he would get desperately lost without me, I went to make sure he didn't die.
First off, he didn't really know where Supertarget was, but he had kind of vague directions to the other side of the Reliant stadium, so he thought we should get off at the train station right before it. We had a pleasant walk down nonexistent sidewalks to the next train station before we realized that wasn't it. So we got on again and went to what he thought was the next one, so we could get around the huge complex of convention centers and sports arenas, but ended up at Fannin South, thge very last train stop on this end. All to the better, I thought; for there was Sam's Club, and if anyone had an electric teakettle, it would be they. Plus, we were both unreasonably hungry, and Sam's has huge hot dogs and huge drinks for $1.50.
At that point Stephan's phone burst into the Brundisi from La Traviata (we did that periodically throughout the day thereafter), and it was Ben and Lynn, who had tried to go to the Galleria to buy a dress for Lynn's recital. They made the mistake of taking the bus that had "Galleria" on it. Ben realized after 50 minutes on the bus that they were at the airport and that really wasn't where they wanted to be. So they got off, and were now lost at some point between the airport and their departure point at Rice. Fortunately, they could name cross streets, so I called my mom and she straightened it all out; she had a Sam's card and Stephan didn't, but she also had several spare electric teakettles (don't ask me), and we were hungry, so we would go to Sam's and eat and she would rescue Ben and Lynn and then come get us.
Somewhere during all this Stephan remembered he had a photoshoot for the Gilbert & Sullivan at 4:00. He was only 20 minutes late. Mama came roaring up in her oh-so-cool beat-up minivan of useful Doom, and we were on our way to the Galleria, where we missed no fewer than five preferable turnoffs due to evil traffic, and then, blissfully, we dropped Stephan off to deal with his irate Light Opera enthusiasts. I spent the next four hours watching movies with mama.
One Airplane and one Freaky Friday later, or almost one whole Freaky Friday, I jumped up to get myself better reception as I received a few calls from Stephan, who was hungry again and had no plans for (campusfoodless) dinner on a Saturday night. He suggested I call Reggie and people, cause I had mentioned he wanted to improvise or do a photoshoot this weekend, so his company might not be completely unattainable as usual, and Stephan felt like going out and being social.
I called Reggie, and his mom said he was at the symphony. Stephan was hesitant, because Ben and Lynn had just left for the symphony on their first real date ever and made it clear that he wasn't exactly welcome, but I figured it would be all right if I went with him and we found other people and left them alone. Blissfully unaware that there was a performance that night, I had been about to miss Saint-Saens's coolest piano concerto and a Franck symphony, which I was interested in hearing. It was ten till 8:00; the concert started then. And Stephan was hungry. How to juggle the schedule?
Mama didn't want to eat downtown, I wasn't partifularly hungry, and the concert was started. We got Stephan and mama some JackintheBox and zoomed, once again in the beatup minivan of useful Doom, to Jones Hall, where we were in time for everything but Ravel's Mother Goose, which I have not heard (so I don't know what I missed) and Stephan doesn't like (so he didn't mind missing it). Ben and Lynn found Stephan (walked right past me) at intermission and chatted amiably, contrary to the impression they'd given earlier. I made the circuit around the performance hall and the bar and the lobby perhaps eight times looking for Reggie before the second half started, and I ran into several Symphony Chorus friends, but no more PVA people. I called him, too, and more times after the concert, but he must have fallen off the face of the earth.
Stephan was not impressed with the Franck as he was with the Saint-Saens; his evaluation was that if Franck's career had peaked in the early 30s he would have been a wonderful Broadway composer. I am less discriminating in my tastes, as we have long established, and I found it very entertaining and uplifting and I was filled with ambition to practice and/or write in order that I could express my own upliftment.
We took the train back, and I was almost completely shifted while waiting for it to get to the station; I took my shoes and jacket off, climbed the railings, and jumped on and off the seats. Stephan threatened to disown me for bouncing in a public place, and he really wanted coffee and ice cream. I figured the best way to get that was get off the train at Rice, get his fancy coffee from his room, and go to my house to make it and get ice cream. So we did.
The euphoria of the concert wore off uncannily quickly; we plunked around on the piano (he seemed impressed with some of the bits of the opera that I can still play) and I picked up the bass and plugged it in and turned the amp on and demonstrated how easy it was to find the roots of the chords he was sightreading (he had mentioned at the symphony how surprised he was his ear training's improving, cause he could actually analyze some of it while it was going by). I also discovered how easy the bass was to play, but I was getting steadily more shifty and had to go to the garage apartment to let some out, and then go sit on top of the car.
I found him at the piano again, and I sat on the rug while he looked through some of the music that was on the bench. He found Dve Nevesti and since it is only the words there I halfheartedly singsonged them to him, but mama came out from watching TV and suddenly we had a full-on demonstration of Bulgarian vocal production. He seemed impressed, if a little blown away. I don't blame him. I went and got mama's recital tape to show him how it should reall have four people with alternating drones; that was the beginning of a night of hilarious humiliation.
He was keen to hear the tape, since he had heard that she did Carlisle Floyd's Ain't It A Pretty Night. Well, she had, and she had suffered when the orchestra wouldn't follow, but she did it. And Venga! Jaleo, the crazy Spanish clapping/guitar/violin/sax folk improv. And Evelyn, A Modified Dog, her Frank Zappa selection. And Lover Man, the jazz standard which features my dad going improvisationally crazy at the piano.
She got me back. She put on the DVD of my senior recital, and we had to suffer through all of my songs and Rebecca's duet before he finally realized it was 1:30 and he had to be up tomorrow (today). So we were driven back to our lovely little entrance, and I went off to bed. But not to sleep for hours.
My mind was cycling through states with the music I played it, and it took an hour of Billy Joel to get it out of Adagio for Strings. I still don't know what's up with me. I have a Ling takehome exam and a theory assignment to do before I go to Roger's and have the second-to-last rehearsal before his and Debby's wedding. Well, that should be fun. Hopefully the improvisation was not planned for this afternoon.
Oh, I have a job. Maybe I should do that today. Nah, tomorrow they're less likely to have sports articles.
First off, he didn't really know where Supertarget was, but he had kind of vague directions to the other side of the Reliant stadium, so he thought we should get off at the train station right before it. We had a pleasant walk down nonexistent sidewalks to the next train station before we realized that wasn't it. So we got on again and went to what he thought was the next one, so we could get around the huge complex of convention centers and sports arenas, but ended up at Fannin South, thge very last train stop on this end. All to the better, I thought; for there was Sam's Club, and if anyone had an electric teakettle, it would be they. Plus, we were both unreasonably hungry, and Sam's has huge hot dogs and huge drinks for $1.50.
At that point Stephan's phone burst into the Brundisi from La Traviata (we did that periodically throughout the day thereafter), and it was Ben and Lynn, who had tried to go to the Galleria to buy a dress for Lynn's recital. They made the mistake of taking the bus that had "Galleria" on it. Ben realized after 50 minutes on the bus that they were at the airport and that really wasn't where they wanted to be. So they got off, and were now lost at some point between the airport and their departure point at Rice. Fortunately, they could name cross streets, so I called my mom and she straightened it all out; she had a Sam's card and Stephan didn't, but she also had several spare electric teakettles (don't ask me), and we were hungry, so we would go to Sam's and eat and she would rescue Ben and Lynn and then come get us.
Somewhere during all this Stephan remembered he had a photoshoot for the Gilbert & Sullivan at 4:00. He was only 20 minutes late. Mama came roaring up in her oh-so-cool beat-up minivan of useful Doom, and we were on our way to the Galleria, where we missed no fewer than five preferable turnoffs due to evil traffic, and then, blissfully, we dropped Stephan off to deal with his irate Light Opera enthusiasts. I spent the next four hours watching movies with mama.
One Airplane and one Freaky Friday later, or almost one whole Freaky Friday, I jumped up to get myself better reception as I received a few calls from Stephan, who was hungry again and had no plans for (campusfoodless) dinner on a Saturday night. He suggested I call Reggie and people, cause I had mentioned he wanted to improvise or do a photoshoot this weekend, so his company might not be completely unattainable as usual, and Stephan felt like going out and being social.
I called Reggie, and his mom said he was at the symphony. Stephan was hesitant, because Ben and Lynn had just left for the symphony on their first real date ever and made it clear that he wasn't exactly welcome, but I figured it would be all right if I went with him and we found other people and left them alone. Blissfully unaware that there was a performance that night, I had been about to miss Saint-Saens's coolest piano concerto and a Franck symphony, which I was interested in hearing. It was ten till 8:00; the concert started then. And Stephan was hungry. How to juggle the schedule?
Mama didn't want to eat downtown, I wasn't partifularly hungry, and the concert was started. We got Stephan and mama some JackintheBox and zoomed, once again in the beatup minivan of useful Doom, to Jones Hall, where we were in time for everything but Ravel's Mother Goose, which I have not heard (so I don't know what I missed) and Stephan doesn't like (so he didn't mind missing it). Ben and Lynn found Stephan (walked right past me) at intermission and chatted amiably, contrary to the impression they'd given earlier. I made the circuit around the performance hall and the bar and the lobby perhaps eight times looking for Reggie before the second half started, and I ran into several Symphony Chorus friends, but no more PVA people. I called him, too, and more times after the concert, but he must have fallen off the face of the earth.
Stephan was not impressed with the Franck as he was with the Saint-Saens; his evaluation was that if Franck's career had peaked in the early 30s he would have been a wonderful Broadway composer. I am less discriminating in my tastes, as we have long established, and I found it very entertaining and uplifting and I was filled with ambition to practice and/or write in order that I could express my own upliftment.
We took the train back, and I was almost completely shifted while waiting for it to get to the station; I took my shoes and jacket off, climbed the railings, and jumped on and off the seats. Stephan threatened to disown me for bouncing in a public place, and he really wanted coffee and ice cream. I figured the best way to get that was get off the train at Rice, get his fancy coffee from his room, and go to my house to make it and get ice cream. So we did.
The euphoria of the concert wore off uncannily quickly; we plunked around on the piano (he seemed impressed with some of the bits of the opera that I can still play) and I picked up the bass and plugged it in and turned the amp on and demonstrated how easy it was to find the roots of the chords he was sightreading (he had mentioned at the symphony how surprised he was his ear training's improving, cause he could actually analyze some of it while it was going by). I also discovered how easy the bass was to play, but I was getting steadily more shifty and had to go to the garage apartment to let some out, and then go sit on top of the car.
I found him at the piano again, and I sat on the rug while he looked through some of the music that was on the bench. He found Dve Nevesti and since it is only the words there I halfheartedly singsonged them to him, but mama came out from watching TV and suddenly we had a full-on demonstration of Bulgarian vocal production. He seemed impressed, if a little blown away. I don't blame him. I went and got mama's recital tape to show him how it should reall have four people with alternating drones; that was the beginning of a night of hilarious humiliation.
He was keen to hear the tape, since he had heard that she did Carlisle Floyd's Ain't It A Pretty Night. Well, she had, and she had suffered when the orchestra wouldn't follow, but she did it. And Venga! Jaleo, the crazy Spanish clapping/guitar/violin/sax folk improv. And Evelyn, A Modified Dog, her Frank Zappa selection. And Lover Man, the jazz standard which features my dad going improvisationally crazy at the piano.
She got me back. She put on the DVD of my senior recital, and we had to suffer through all of my songs and Rebecca's duet before he finally realized it was 1:30 and he had to be up tomorrow (today). So we were driven back to our lovely little entrance, and I went off to bed. But not to sleep for hours.
My mind was cycling through states with the music I played it, and it took an hour of Billy Joel to get it out of Adagio for Strings. I still don't know what's up with me. I have a Ling takehome exam and a theory assignment to do before I go to Roger's and have the second-to-last rehearsal before his and Debby's wedding. Well, that should be fun. Hopefully the improvisation was not planned for this afternoon.
Oh, I have a job. Maybe I should do that today. Nah, tomorrow they're less likely to have sports articles.
