Growing like a weed

For several months it seemed like every time we looked at Thomas he was taller, which was mysterious because he eats almost nothing. In fact, convincing him to eat is a daily struggle that almost seems too much for the two of us. Yet, there has been material evidence of Thomas' growth this past year: he has moved from the boy's clothing department into men's (which is more than annoying because his jeans now no longer cost $9.99 but $29.99) and his shoe size went from a men's size 8 to 10 1/2. Finally today we pulled him off his computer long enough to settle the issue once and for all. We pressed him up against his height chart, which we have has since he was a mere wee toddler, and saw this:

No doubt about it, Thomas is 5' 8 1/2" tall and not even 14 years old. What's in store for us?

RIP Eunice (1997-2012)

On July 25th, 1997, Jami and I were driving from Morrilton, Arkansas to our place of employ, UCA, in Conway, Arkansas, and about to get onto the Freeway (I-40), when Jami (who was driving) screamed "KITTEN!" and swerved off at the last minute. It transpired that her eagle eyes had spotted a kitten at the side of the road. We found it near a box near a gas station where it had been unceremoniously dumped. We took it home, bathed it, picked off a disgustingly large number of ticks, and named it, or her, as we realized, Eunice, in memory of my Great Aunt. Here is that Kitten:

Eunice never was the sharpest tool in the shed. A year later her status as the baby of the family was usurped:

A year after that, we moved to Michigan and she vanished into the basement for nigh on a decade. Her only companions over that time were Thomas (when he came down to practice music) and various grandparents, on whom she solicitously checked in the wee small hours, to see if they were really sleeping. She grew fat and greasy.
Then, for no apparent reason, she emerged a couple of years ago, a startlingly slimmer version, and we assumed she was on her last legs. She was transformed: no longer the startled loner who ran and hid, hissing, under things at the approach of humans. Instead the incredibly friendly cat who zoned in on anything you might be eating until you howled and hurled things at her. Well, it turned out her last legs lasted longer than we expected. However, in the past week she had shrunk to a mere shadow of her former self, frighteningly skinny, and very wobbly on the pins. So today, she met her end. A gentle soul whose innings was a good deal longer than the person who dumped her in a box could have expected.

Bassoon Camp Finale

Today we picked Thomas up from Bassoon Camp. We arrived at noon, expecting Thomas to meet us at the cafeteria so that we could eat lunch together. After that, the plan was that we would load up the car with his luggage and then head over to the Music Building for a concert. However when we arrived he was in line "for seconds" (having already eaten with a giant gaggle of young bassoonists) and his luggage was already packed, his room was cleared and he had already checked himself out. He then made a vague sort of gesture to us and headed back to his table of teenage woodwinders and we were left by ourselves, completely confused by the bewildering system of not-quite help yourself, not-quite get served cafeteria food options. We finally did figure out how to get food. But by then, Thomas had left us far behind, heading back to the music building with the kids. Eventually we did track him down in the Music Building and force him to reveal a bit of what he has been up to these past few days. Here is a bit of a peek into his secret, double-reed life: Here Thomas sits in the "reed room" showing us where he slaved for hours a day, morning and afternoons, this past week, whittling on bamboo to make reeds. Here is the board that shows various progress and other things that...well, I don't know what it all shows. But Thomas has 1 finished and 6 nearly finished, that much I can see. Here is Thomas and two college counselors, playing in a trio (three other bassoonists finished their trio of pieces just before them--themes from the Harry Potter movie, puh-lease!). These guys played the Rumpole theme, which pleased Simon and me because we just finished watching the whole Rumpole series and every time it started and we listened to the bassooning, one or the other of us would say, "Thomas should play this!" And now he has! (Using, in fact, the one reed he completed.) By the way, I asked Thomas what bassoon seat he was and he said casually, "First." I was impressed and told him so. He shrugged it off. (This is after, if our readers remember, him being too anxious to get out of my car a mere 5 days ago because he was so terrifed of the audition for bassoon seat assignments). He then said, "Well, you have to keep in mind that none of the other kids have the benefit of the FIM." I told HIM to keep in mind that none of the other kids are 13 years old but are 16 or 17 but, to Thomas, age is just a number. On the way home we asked him if he got along with anyone in particular. It seems that everyone there liked Thomas, but Thomas did not particularly like anyone there. "They talked to me and I responded to them." was how he put it. The problem, it seems, was not that they were not nice--they were all very nice--but that they were...silly. They were all into planking and owling. Simon and I are with it enough to know what planking is, but "owling" was new to us-it seems you bug-out your eyes and pretend to be an owl. An innocent enough activity but, I can imagine, the humor would get old pretty quickly for someone like Thomas. There was also a lot of "bassoon humor"--running around, yodeling "baSOOON", and other shenanigans like that, stunts that Thomas found rather inane. And to think he was the youngest by several years. That's the problem with madcap high jinks--they're really just tedious and stupid.

Fancy classical double-reeding

Here is some tootling featuring all the double reeds, bassoons and oboes. Although the kids were making reeds during the week as well as attending music theory classes as well as a few elective classes, they were playing music together and these songs are the result of their collective efforts. Almost all of the kids are playing with reeds they made this week, including Thomas. (Simon seems to have been doing strange neck stretches during the song as the camera swings wildly off-course for a short bit.)
[Simon was doing no such thing! He was just capturing the fanciness of the Central Michigan University concert hall. This can also be achieved by giving you the photo at bottom.]

Star Wars Cantina

All the double reeds, all bassoons and all oboes, played four pieces together. For each song, one bassoonist got to play a contrabassoon which, apparently, is a real treat/challenge since it is twice as long as a regular bassoon and, therefore, takes twice the air as a regular bassoon to play. Ordinary high school bands and orchestras do not even have contrabassoons in them because they cost so much (about $25,000). Of course professional orchestras feature contrabassoons and Thomas's teacher, Dean, very proudly announced to Thomas about two years ago that he finally splashed out and bought himself his OWN contrabassoon. The amazingness of this announcement was lost on Thomas until Dean then added the fact of the price tag of the typical contrabassoon. Since then, Thomas has had a troubled relationship with contrabassoons--both longing and fearing them. This is the last song in their set and features Thomas on the contrabassoon. I don't know if the experience lived up to his expectations, but somehow I expect that a roadtrip to a storage unit in a distant state in search of a contrabassoon in the not-too-distant future is not a complete impossibility. (It's Simon videoing and, again, I have no idea why he felt the need to show off the sound shells during the middle of the song.  I think he thought they were really something special.)

The original (well, as close as is available on YouTube - it doesn't actually go on for ten hours...)

Ready for Grandpa

Check.

Check.

Check.

Check.

Oh. Ah. Might need a bit more time...

Frederick models the latest in pool accessories

Thomas goes to college

Thomas's bassoon teacher, Dean, suggested that we enroll Thomas in a week-long Summer Camp at Central Michigan University called Bassoon Reed Making Camp. Thomas was less than thrilled with the idea, not because he did not want to learn how to make bassoon reeds-- he actually has wanted to learn how to make his own bassoon reeds for a long time as Dean has been hyping the "art" of reed making for years, telling him that, when that time comes, Thomas would get to whittle bamboo with REALLY SHARP KNIVES of his VERY OWN, a prospect that thrilled Thomas no end. What Thomas dreaded was the idea of leaving home to go to CAMP, because CAMP implies "rooming with strange kids," "fun activities," "educational opportunities" and "much more"--which is exactly what this camp is, too.
Dean spent last week working with Thomas and introducing him to his very own tools, including a blade that looks like those old strap blades barbers used to use--frighteningly deadly. For a brief, few minutes Thomas seemed actually keen to go but this morning he was squealing with fright and, as we drove closer and closer he got more and more scared. I have no idea what he thought would happen to him once we got there, but it was obviously the worst. Here is the CMU Music Building were we had to check in for camp:


Here is the lobby entrance to the building, where he had to sign in, get a camp t-shirt and decide on his elective classes as well as audition for a chair. (That is, this would settle what level bassoon music, of the many bassoon players, he would receive.)


After dealing with all that, we headed over to the dorm rooms, here, to check into his room and drop off his luggage and laptop. This is where he will eat all meals, hang out in the evenings and sleep. He will share a room with up to 3 other boys. Since we arrived early today, we were the second in the room so only one other bed was picked out. So I don't know yet if he will have only 1 other roommate or if the other two beds will get filled up, too.


Simon got him a "burner" phone with 120 minutes to call us in case of an emergency and plugged in our cell phone numbers, our work number as well as grandma's phone number. We assured him that if anything truly horrific occurred that we could be up there in 90 minutes to get him. While he was eating breakfast this morning, Simon showed him how to find the phone numbers in the 'contact' list. He nodded indifferently. Later, after we had dropped his luggage off at his dorm room we were back in the music building. Thomas was all checked in and I was free to go. I felt a bit guilty leaving, but there was no reason for me to stay. I asked him if he was ready for me to leave and he said he was ok. He was told to go "warm up" in a practice room, to get ready for his audition. I saw him walk off, looking a bit like he was going to his own execution.
About an hour later, I was driving on the M20, waiting for the I75 on-ramp and my phone rang. When I got my phone out I was alarmed when I saw that the phone call was coming from Thomas. Half-swerving out of my lane, I quickly answered it, yelling, "Hello? Thomas? What's the matter? Are you all right?" I couldn't hear anything but something that sounded like snuffling. Then Thomas said, "I'm fine." "What are you doing? Has something happened?" "No. I'm just sitting alone in a practice room. I wanted to see what you were doing." It seems Thomas had had his audition, (he felt he had done fairly well) and had become a bit bored in a practice room.
Now, about 3 hours later, my cell rings again, and it is Thomas checking in to let me know that they are having a break. He is back in his dorm room and he has about 15 minutes rest time before he is to go to dinner. I asked about roommates--still only 1 other guy (who is not there at the time--when will this mysterious Other appear?) I asked if he had had any fun yet today and he said he had. The other kids are "ok." But there are only 3 other bassoonists. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing as he didn't elaborate.
Thomas and I have talked more today on the phone that we do when we are in the same house.

Basement bathroom continues to take shape

As we approach it we see that the tile floor is now laid:
 
Shower needs fixtures:

Mirror cabinet installed, but toilet and sink need adding:

Thomas's first shave

Recently Thomas has sprouted like a weed (a weed that grows in a dark room, lit only by the glow of a computer screen) and is nearly the same height as Jami. Something else has sprouted, too: a soft, downy fuzz on his upper lip. He seemed rather fond of it, but his parents persuaded him that, if he really wanted to grow a proper handlebar, he had to get rid of the bumfluff that was blocking the path of the true wiry bristles. So I got out a new, super-safety razor (I use "Bump Fighter" brand - very hard to find outside of black neighborhoods, as they were "developed by black dermatologists to combat razor bumps") and filled a basin with nice hot water and persuaded him to come into the bathroom and become a man. All went well as I showed him how to lather up the shaving gel into foam (see our preferred brand below) and smear it over his upper lip, but as the blade was raised to his lips, he got serious cold feet.



I reached out to shave the lip and he simultaneously puckered up (I believe he thought this would make his lip easier to access) and grabbed hold of my arm with both hands. His brain seemed to be sending out conflicting messages.
"What does it feel like?"
I replied that there was only one way to find out, and that it didn't really feel like anything.
"Of course it feels like something! And how do I know you won't cut my lip?"
I showed him how the plastic ridge means the blade doesn't actually touch flesh and there was no chance of him being cut. Then I tried again, and once again the simultaneous puckering and grabbing. "Watch out," I said, somewhat testily, "or I really will cut you!"
"I THOUGHT YOU SAID THAT WAS IMPOSSIBLE!!!"
Realizing my tactical error, I suggested that I demonstrate on his forearm.
"But I like my man-hairs!"
Okay, how about the underside, where there are no man-hairs to lose?
"But what if you cut those veins - isn't that really dangerous?" (said while backing nervously towards the door.)
Finally I demonstrated on my own arm, he tried on HIS arm, and was finally ready for lip action. Pausing only to reapply foam (as, by this point, the original foam had vanished), we were off! I started him off, and he took over and got quite into it. No little toilet paper squares were needed, and as my preferred aftershave is Witch Hazel, no screaming in agony necessary. He examined the result:

 

"I miss my 'tache..." he said, wistfully (but no longer wispily), but there is no way back now...

The 1,000 Islands

We passed this on the way to New York State (it's just over the border in Canada) and I made Thomas promise that we'd go up it on the way back (he was tired and peevish at the time):



And so we did. We didn't climb the stairs (you're not allowed) but instead took an express elevator all 400 feet up. The view is of the "1,000 Islands" of the St. Lawrence River. I doubted that there were truly a thousand, but there are in fact even more, many of them privately owned. Now we know where the supervillains hang out.

Strange fauna can be viewed at this altitude:

It's a long way down to the car:

I'm pretty sure that's the border you can see below.  (Incidentally, apart from the first picture of the tower, all the pictures are acting weird - just click on them to get a sideshow so that you can actually see the whole picture. [EDIT: fixed now])

A new Marimba

Thomas needs to practice on the Marimba at home, so, we unlocked the padlock on our wallets and Thomas's percussion teacher located a reasonably-priced (don't ask) second-hand one online, and it turned out to be in New York State. This is actually a pretty easy drive across Canada (I discovered that my passport had expired when the customs guy pointed it out, but my Green Card was okay) so off we set  Here is the delightful accommodation in the delightfully named hamlet of "Calcium" where Thomas and I stayed:

Here is the marimba when broken down for transport (I never thought it would be reassemblable)

A quick nap:

Proof that Calcium is truly a tourist trap (for no obvious reason):

And here is proof that it could be reassembled (by Thomas, no less):