Poem by Heather Dixon

I kind of moved on from posting a favorite poem or two during my stint in SLC, but I think it's time to rekindle the poetic content of the blog.

This is one of my favorites, and not just because it was written by my uber-talented S-I-L Heather.

The narrator is the second-chair flutist, and it's best categorized as a dark humor genre.

Enjoy!

Trisha McNair

Trisha McNair was our flutist, first chair,
and made sure that everyone knew it.
She'd whine and she'd rage at the turn of each page
and always made  second chair do it.

She'd pout and she'd fume if you played out of tune
or if you squeeked out a wrong note
If you messed up her song 'coz you play a sharp wrong
expect Trisha to lunge at your throat.

"You'd better not slip or mess up on this trip!"
she said, as we packed stuff away.
"I want to hear the crowd holler and cheer
when I reach my cadenza's high A!"

Trisha McNair said that she didn't care,
grabbing  my window seat on the plane!
"Flutists," she said, "gotta keep a clear head."
And she pressed her nose, hard, on the pane.

Moscow was grand, agreed the whole band!
Except, of course, Trisha McNair.
She hated the food, she'd bellow and brood
'bout the weather, hotel, and her hair.

On concert night, the stage shiny and bright,
Trish began her "Concerto for Flute."
...When through the door burst a  Bolshevic Horde!
screaming, "DON'T YOU DARE MOVE OR VE'LL SHOOT!"

Blam! Blam! Hard and loud! They surrounded the crowd!
Big guns at the ceiling a-shootin'!
And when the dust cleared, and old man with a beard
emerged, grinning. "'Allo! It's Rasputin!"

"I'm back!" he delared. The band huddled down, scared.
"And I'm going to make you all pay!
Now, girls and boys, don't you  dare make a noise!"

...And then Trisha hit hard her high A.

Most famous musicians have lofty ambitions.
High goals! For a stars they're a-shootin'!
But  I got first chair 'coz of Trisha McNair;
who staunchly refused to stop flutin'.

Link to Heather's Blog

Becca turns 8

Becca is the happiest child I've ever known. Her excitement for this particular birthday is so contagious. She tells us she's been waiting for her 8th birthday since she was six :)

Cake:

 

Presents:

 

 

Tommy licking the frosting off the candles and sticking them back into the cake:

 

Happy Birthday, Becca!

Pinewood Derby

I've had a string of disappointing pinewood derby failures in my life. I can remember the first car that my father and I worked on. It was a streamlined yellow racer that had Bert from our Sesame Street Fisher Price set as its driver.

I lost every race until another car had a wheel fall off and then I won once. Win is an exaggeration - I finished third out of four.

The next year (learning that we needed more weight) dad put a bolt in the middle of the car. Once again - zero wins.

So when Steven got to do the only race of his Cub Scout career, I was very excited. We went with a non-conventional design of a wrecker with a toy ambulance full of bee-bees on the back.  We finished last in every race - one of our wheels fell off.

I was thrilled when they announced a Pinewood Derby Elder's Quorum Activity. Now this shouldn't be any different than a Cub Scout Derby (because the dads are making the cars anyway) except that instead of the customary rules and weight limits, this race was a NO HOLDS BARRED MARQUIS OF QUEENSBERRY RULES with a full 1-pound weight limit.

That's right - one pound weight limit.

Getting a car made of pine up to one pound is trickier than we thought it would be. As we had freedom in design we eventually settled on a school bus.

Using a router, we hollowed out the middle and filled it with bee-bees, loose change, and all the fish sinkers I could find. We still only got to 15.7 oz, but I thought that we would be competitive and hopefully not break the wheels.

Knowing that we'd had trouble with the wheels before, we opted to cut wood to make removable axles. This would allow us to remove the wheels if the wood failed when driving the nails. We went through four axles to get two we liked.

Before mounting the wheels, Mary did some extensive detail work on the paint job.

After a touch with the blow dryer, we mounted the wheels just in time to get to the race.

The competition looked pretty fierce.

But we had our eye firmly on 3rd place. Let's keep expectations semi-realistic. 

Tommy was excited

Steven and Anna were excited . . .

. . . to eat cake.

Our first race was coincidentally against another yellow school bus.

(There goes the most unique car trophy)

We narrowly won. (For those scoring at home, that was our first win even in an individual heat.)

Between the races we were feeling pretty good about our little bus. 

Until we ran up against the Loveland Racer. It had the mechanism from one of those pull-back cars on its rear wheels. That was a bit of an embarrassing defeat. 

The rocket car vs. the socket car was a tight race. 

A narrow defeat to a red and white speedster made our chances at a trophy pretty slim.

But a win against a natural stained car kept our hopes alive.

We ended up with a trophy for . . .

. . . Best Looking Car!

There is something strangely ironic that the first and only Pinewood Derby trophy I have is pretty much because Mary is wonderfully talented.  Thanks Babe!

(A 3-3 record in heats made us pretty happy as well.)

Soccer Goalie = No Fun

I'm a big fan of soccer. I enjoyed playing even before I spent two years in the greatest soccer nation on earth. Being in Brasil for the 1994 World Cup was amazing. You could hear the a roar reverberate over the entire city as if it were one giant stadium.

I enjoy playing defender. I enjoy playing midfield. I even enjoy playing on the attack even if I'm not fast enough to be very good. The one position that is pure agony is goalie.

Goalie has to be the loneliest job in the whole world. The midfielders are always fighting for position. The attackers are waiting for a hole in the defense to open up. The defenders are on their toes waiting for the ball to sneak by. But the lonely goalie just waits and waits and waits. Everyone on the team has matching uniforms except the goalie. In the World Cup the goalie uniform is the fanciest. In youth soccer, it's just a dumb yellow jersey. It's the stamp of the social outcast.

One nice thing about being goalie is that you have time to contemplate what a great nation we live in. And think about all the things you have to do after the game. And you can imagine what name you would give a puppy if your parents would let you have one. And you can . . .

. . . oops! Let one get by. That's why I hated goalie.

You're Invited

Our Sweet Becca is getting baptized. Everyone is invited!

Saturday, May 1st
1:00 pm
White church by our house (300E 600N Brigham)
Yummy food after at our house.
RSVP so I'll have lots of yummy food for everyone.

Becca is so sweet -- she's been excited for months.

Ellie turns 6

It's not every year that our April Fool gets six inches of snow on her birthday.

Easter Eggs

What is it about decorating Easter Eggs that makes me feel like a full-blown artist. My visual art credentials up to this point in my life consist of "can draw a mostly straight line."

And yet every time we get the cups and dye out, I feel like I may as well be painting the Sistine Chapel.

Notable first:
Thomas is our first two-year-old that didn't drink the dye water. (Eww)

Recommendation:
If you don't want to be wearing glitter on Easter Sunday, forget the glitter pack in the dye kit.