Remembering the Symphony

They guys -- both sons and my husband -- went on a Boy Scout "camp out" this weekend. Quotes because the troop went to Schlitterbahn, an enormous, old, and truly wonderful water park in central Texas. They pitched tents at a genuine BSA camp near by, but ate all their meals at the water park so as to maximize fun time. So "camping" is term loosely used.

So K and I were at the house by ourselves this weekend. We had talked about what to do with our Girls Weekend. She suggested we go "motoring" in the MINI, but she quickly abandoned that idea when I mentioned a drive through scenic countryside that would also go very near a LYS I wanted to visit. That, and she wanted to have a classmate over for a play date.

I quickly jumped on "play date" because she suggested a girl who...how to put this...I think is a good match for K. The girl seems sweet, K never reports any conflicts with her, and I've met her parents and they seem to have the same values and lifestyle as us.

Last year, K had two good friends that I could never quite embrace. One was a girl I actively disliked -- she was petty, domineering, and manipulative. And, worse, the only time K didn't seem stressed about their relationship was when she was outmaneuvering, out manipulating the girl.

The second girl, the third of the disturbing little threesome, was nice enough but I couldn't connect with her mom. The girl was the grand daughter of a major sports celebrity, and dad had some considerable wealth from managing the franchises in grandpa's name. Her mom and I tried to connect for the sake of the girls' friendship, but we just couldn't find common ground. For one, I work full time and she never has. We had gone to the same university but she was into the sorority scene and I was an engineering major. We agreed that it was important to expose our kids to the things that would be important in later life -- but for her that was golf, tennis, and not pressuring kids too much about grades, and for me that was scouts, tae kwon do, and making sure my kids had challenging coursework.

So, I jumped on this opportunity to encourage a friendship with a sweet little girl whose parents are both professionals, who seem to have similar academic goals for our kids, and who have a hectic evening schedule that rivals ours. And that took care of Saturday DAY.

At piano lessons on Wednesday, the teacher and I were talking about upcoming Houston Symphony concerts and how we'd like to attend that weekend's program. As we left, K jumped on that idea -- "let's go see that, Mom. It sounds really fun." I agreed, we'll do it.

On the internet next day: cheapest seats were $45. I regained my breath, clicked "buy", and we were going. And on Saturday, I treated her to the whole thing -- dressing up in our best, getting dinner near the symphony hall with other concert and theater-goers, then claiming our seats at the hall.

They opened with Beethoven's 1st symphony -- good enough, but mainly interesting for historical perspective. The next piece was to be a modern thing, written in 1998 by Kevin Puts. K was already fidgeting, so I decided to start our intermission early. The bartender had a little sister about K's age, so he made her a very special Sprite with pink stuff and cherries. And we watched the Mr. Puts piece on the CCTV they had in the lobby (I actually liked it, but it was...modern.) Then we explored the hall a bit -- found all the bathrooms, talked about the 2nd balcony that had been closed off when they rejigged the ceiling for better acoustics, checked out the gift shop.

Then back to our seats for the Emperor concerto.

And what a treat that was. The pianist, Garrick Ohlsson, was wonderfully expressive, with tones ranging from silver bells to thundering cavalry. The orchestra was spot on with timing and phrasing. And, of course, it was Beethoven at his mature best, and there's not much in the world that can be better than that.

And I remembered why I love going to symphony, even though I haven't been in a few years. In a hall, you hear every note, every nuance -- without fiddling with the volume nob. And somehow you're part of it, not just a passive observer.

Ohlsson, for his part, was a very gracious showman. On his third call-back, he sat back down at the piano and played an encore -- the adagio from Beethoven's Pathetique. As it turns out, this was Kathryn's favorite part. When I told her that being able to play something like that was why I had started taking piano lessons again, she she said that she, too, wanted to learn to play pieces like that "so that when you and Daddy are making dinner at night, I can play something nice for you to listen to." How could she know that was the perfect thing to say?

Oh, and I got some knitting done. While watching the girls swim on Saturday, I got to within about an inch of starting the toe decreases on E's camo socks. And I finished the heel turn and gusset decreases on my Dunes socks. I really like the way the eye-of-partridge heel stitch shows off the shading in this nearly-solid yarn:

And I putzed around in the garden a bit. This guy seemed to be enjoying the flowers too: