What do Stevie Wonder and Thomas have in common?

Both have played the Whiting, Stevie playing it last night to coincide with the Oscars.

Trying out new looks

 As you can see, I have been allowing foliage to flourish on my chin, it being chilly and all.

 Here's a closer look.  You can't see the weird asymmetry of white hairs, though, which is perhaps fortunate.  Anyway, like dear old Dad, I have very wiry hair, and GOD does it get itchy.  I finally couldn't bear it and it had to go.  (The worst part is where it over-hangs the upper lip so that you can actually bite it, and if you trim it it looks as if your lips have been badly photoshopped on top of the beard.)  But I thought, why not see if there was some as-yet-untried facial hair variant that was "me" while I'm about it.  So:

 "The Lemmy" (may he Rest In Peace).

 "The Village People" (Person?)

 "The Victorian"/"The Used-Record-Store-Employee."

"The Middle-Aged Tribble."

Unwelcome neighbours-to-be

There have been mysterious goings-on in the old video store next door for a while now. There's a little hole in the wall above our compost heap and you can see that there's a light on inside. People were up on the roof fixing wires. Steam rises from a heating unit on the roof. What can be going on? You hardly ever see people parked outside, and since somebody smashed the window a while back the windows and door have been boarded up (lovely), so you can't see in. Well, rumours abounded, and as we were hearing them from Jimmy we mostly discounted them, but it turns out that, as this document that came in the mail indicates, some dickweeds want to open a "Medical" Marijuana (spelled with an "h", which I haven't seen in print since things from the 50s) dispensary there. This despite the fact that (a) it's way too big, (b) there are quite literally about 10 within a mile radius (mostly on Dort, along with the strip-clubs, motels that charge by the hour, and a giant place where you can sell blood plasma) and (c) this is a residential area, not zoned for businesses. Jimmy is very excited, as you can imagine, but us not so much. Of all the things that could have gone in that building... We may even be pissed off enough to go to the meeting.

Purty

As indicated in yesterday's post, we finally had a nice snow storm, and one that continued through the night. It was that wet, heavy kind of snow, too - perfect for snowmen and also heart attacks for those who shovel. So I decided to pay Jimmy $10 to do the drive. But he ended up being SO SLOW that I had to do at least half of it myself. Anyway, here are some pretty scenes (apart from Captain Haddock at the end) of branches laden down with their mashed-potato burden.

Make up your @#$%ing mind, weather

Windy with weird warmth

Just as we thought Winter had finally kicked in, we got a strange wind that ushered in +50 degree weather (yes, that's Fahrenheit - we aren't in the Gobi Desert).  It took down branches everywhere.  The ducks must've been very alarmed in their hut at night when things like this were falling:

For scale (note slippers modeled on Wallace's (as in "and Gromit")

All right, so that's not too terrible, but there were entire trees elsewhere in the neighbourhood, honest!
Anyway, proof of warm weather - Frederick walking with no coat and no snow to be seen:

Chillaxin'

Winter finally came

It's been incredibly mild until last week when, of course, our central heating went out. It's since been repaired (at ungodly expense of course) but it remains damn cold. Proof:

And the results are....

No copper (didn't even know having copper in your water was a bad thing until all this water crisis business started) and 1 part lead per billion--which is as GOOD thing. Not as good as 0 of course but better than the 40,000 parts per billion (four times toxic waste levels) other people in this town are dealing with. So there you go. (Unless of course we can't trust the state of Michigan water analysis tests....)

Water Sampling

As posted earlier, a bottle for collecting a water sample was dropped off at our house a while ago. Finally, yesterday, I got around to filling it up and this morning I dropped it off at the water department office. By now, everyone is familiar with the water tower image that has graced pretty much every single newspaper in the world. Here is the rest of the place. Here is the door to the office. Two women (both wearing full head covering) were, as far as I could tell, the only people working in the place. One was swamped with phone calls and the other swamped with checking in and cataloging water sample bottles. Here is the side of the main building with a lot of doors, each with a sign that informs the public that they are not to enter there. A dumpy building surrounded with giant chunks of rusting metal. I was given a card with an EPA hotline and told that I can check there for results in a week or so ("Just look for your address.") The Flint Water Department is also required to mail us results with explanations but she didn't expect that to happen for 4 to 6 weeks. Stay tuned for the low down on our water.

LAST EVER Honors Percussion Recital until the next one in April, and that other one in May. But then we are DONE!

This was the first HPQ recital for this year and the first time it was held in this small room with fancy wing-back chairs. So the audience got to be up close and personal with the instruments, which I very much preferred. These aren't in order, as this first piece is the last one they performed. I am sorry that Thomas is tucked behind a fellow percussionist for much of it as he is leading the song (he does the first chorus and they do the traditional response on other instruments). It is called Bahrah:
This is a really nice piece, not only because the boys have to stretch themselves and work with many different instruments each, but because it is composed and published by Thomas's first percussion teacher Alyssa Smith. It is called "Lapse of Reason." Thomas seems seriously concerned that the rain stick is going to do something cheeky like fall onto the floor.
I like this piece, too. It is called "Spanish Dance." I will admit that, a dozen or so years ago when Thomas started working on the xylophone before getting promoted to 2 mallet, then 3 mallet and then (!) four mallet marimbaing that I would have said I didn't care much for marimba music. Now I know how WRONG I WAS!
Each of the four boys had to perform a solo number. Thomas is here performing "Canticle I". Apparently there are many other Canticles that COULD have been performed. During this piece you will hear a young wannabe percussionist (about 10 months old, I would guess) whooping with impatience during the quiet bits. During the loud bits he would stand (with the help of a male caretaker) on an adult lap, gaping with sheer joy at the explosive noises. Since there were many quiet moments, he was often noisy (as you will hear) and refused to be silenced. Finally, when then number was over his mother (pink faced with embarassment) lifted him up and carried him off--right toward the drums! His eyes became saucers(!!!!)---until he realized that she was not walking him TO the timpani but PAST the timpani...to the DOOR! When he realized what was happening he said sadly, "Uh oh!" (sounding very much like he had heard that phrase many, many times before). Thomas claims he gave the babe the "evil eye" but a careful watching of the video tells a different story entirely.
This was actually the first song of the show, and is called "Raspberry Tango". As Rob, their tireless teacher, quipped, "It's neither a tango nor obviously about raspberries. But there you go." He's right, there they go.

This is, in fact, the town motto