In September we were forced to go full-bore on school and extracurricular activities. Ian decided not to do Cub Scouts this year, but he has joined the after school musical performance group at his school. Maya did this as well in fourth and fifth grade, and the shows were really fun, so I’m excited to see how Ian does.
Right away early in the month, my oxblood lilies popped up. They’re supposed to naturalize and spread over time, and for four of five clumps, I genuinely believe that was happening this year. But for clump number five, some committed critter dug that damned bulb up every single night, washed it off in the water dish I leave out, and then left it sit. I’m guessing raccoon, but I’m not sure what the motive was. Anyhow, that clump is probably done for.
Maya and I went and watched a solo performance by her former music teacher Hannah. It was a glorious hour of music and Maya seemed to be enthralled.
At her clarinet teachers’ suggestion, Maya has joined a youth orchestra, playing oboe. Once a week for 90 minutes, we drive to McCallum High School and practice with the Austin Soundwaves youth orchestra. The participants range in age from 11 to 22 and are guided by some really excellent conductors and musicians. She prefers the more challenging nature of the pieces they are practicing than the things she’s learning in her school’s symphonic band, so going there, while a little daunting, has been fun for her.
On the 16th, we headed down to the Toney Burger Stadium to watch the high school marching band jamboree. Maya wanted to go because she could get extra credit in band (which she does not need). All of us enjoy watching the performances.
On the 20th, we watched Ian perform at the farmers market in the morning. Then we got Maya to a birthday party in the afternoon. And then we scooped everyone up for a trip to New Braunfels to the Brauntex Theatre to watch a Ben Folds concert. Beforehand, we had dinner at Muck and Fuss. Their burgers were really good and they had a neat selection of beers on tap. My only complaint is that the beer came out kinda luke-cold, and on a hot September evening in Texas, serving beer nice and cold is a must.
The show was great. Lindsey Kraft opened, and I think Maya was thrilled to see a woman onstage being saucy and playing the piano. Ben Folds killed it, as always. The kids know many of his songs, so they seemed to have a lot of fun at the show. I think the audience participation caught them off guard. At least one well-meaning (or judgy, who knows) grownup wondered if our kids were going to be all right at the show. Yes. Yes they were. A little cussing and grown-up humor is dangerous and subversive and good for the soul.
The kids had a long weekend that weekend, so we finally let Ian color his hair. He’s been wanting green hair for months now, and we kept putting it off (mostly because we weren’t too sure how to go about it, not because we were against green hair). The place we get our hair cut only had coloring appointments during the day and they took a couple hours, so I took the afternoon off and took Ian to get his hair greened up.
A nice man named Jake colored his hair and was very patient with Ian (and me) as we asked questions, took photos, and worked through the process. At the end, it looked amazing, multi-hued and streaked in such a way that it almost looked natural – or at least as natural as green hair can look. The only bummer is that now roughly three-four weeks later, it’s already mostly gone. We tried our best to make it last, but I guess those sorts of colors fade quickly.
I was rushing out the door one afternoon to fetch Maya from an after school thing and nearly stepped on a lovely snake that had spread itself out on the sidewalk in front of our porch. I am nearly certain he is a Texas Patch-nosed snake. I tried to turn around and get Ian, our resident snake lover, to come look, but that movement was enough to send the snake on its way into the flower bed.
The very last weekend of the month, while Maya was at another birthday party, Ian and I attempted to make Dubai Chocolate. I bought some deep chocolate bar moulds, Sean found the specialty ingredients we’d need, and we followed this recipe. All told, it seemed to turn out reasonably well, though none of us liked it as much as Ian did …. which worked out great because then he could enjoy the bars that he made over several days.
Seventh grade has been harder for Maya to manage than sixth grade was. The expectations have ratcheted up, and the cracks in her “I’ll just remember everything and write nothing down ever” approach are showing. We’ve tried to help her manage her workload, but seeing as we aren’t in class with her to know what she has due when, that’s been a tough task to assist with. This is how we came to issue what may well be the nerdiest warning ever: If you can’t keep your grades up, you won’t be able to participate in youth orchestra.
