Saturday Night

What a fun ending to our week. We planned to go out and celebrate Grad Student Gillian's birthday with Japanese, which we did. There was a teeny-tiny glitch to the start of our evening, though.

The norm in our family's schedule is that that Spouse o' Mine is ready and waiting for any event perhaps 3.75 minutes before I am set to go out the door. That has been a given for the past umpteen years. Today, however, there was some overtime basketball game to decide what team goes to the Final Four, and contrary to my previous post that I would be following the brackets, I have not. So I don't give a hoot WHO is in the final four. Unless it is my alma mater. But I don't even know where they are in this madness.

So...I was ready and sitting in the chair by the door with my coat in arm, and we were going nowhere at 6:00 p.m. Add to that, that Spouse o' Mine had not taken a shower yet (at this point I was thinking, Forego the shower and let's get going!). College Grad Claire said that she and Gillian would be taking a separate car so that they could meet friends later, and that was fine with us. Finally, Butler beat whomever and that Spouse o' Mine was out the door in a flash. Because we had planned to have Gillian's birthday dinner at the Japanese restaurant at 6:30 pm, for Pete's sake!

I opened our front gate and jumped in the car, and off that Spouse o' Mine and I went! We assumed the daughters would be in close pursuit.

Uh oh.

Nobody knew that Birthday Girl Gillian was fast asleep upstairs. Fast, fast asleep. So gone was she, that when Claire screamed up to her that it was time to go, Gillian awoke and thought it was morning! Morning! Panic! Where were she and Claire going in the morning?!

Well. They arrived at the restaurant not too long after us, but the poor Birthday Girl looked a little askance the first few minutes after they joined us.

We had a delightful meal.

When we got home, I adjourned to the old living room to practice cello. Practicing cello in the presence of that Spouse o' Mine is not a big deal. After all, he practices guitar in front of me. I have to say, though, that practicing cello in front of any of my kids is inhibiting. They have all played their respective string instrument from 5th grade on up to 12th grade. And have played with full orchestras. With guest musicians from all over. And I have not.

So, I am still working on Mozart's Ave Verum. Inbetween "sets " this evening, I pulled out other songs that I have played or want to start on. One in particular that I would like to start on is a very favorite of mine: Handel's Largo. It's a really SLoooow piece. I love it. I loved it back when Grad Student Gillian was in ? 9th ? grade and I thought she should play it on her violin for contests that year.

Ok, Ok. Tonight was a mea culpa night between mother and daughter. I LOVE the Largo. She hated it. And I had to admit to her tonight, that the Largo IS a tremendously difficult piece, and especially that it is played in largo. And that my playing it on cello, in particularly bad musicianship, is even easier than her playing it on violin. And I told my daughter, the Birthday Girl, that this was one of those (many) times when Mom realizes that: yes, Mom was wrong; Kid was right: Handel's Largo was not appropriate back in her childhood.

Wow. I hope that this will never show up on any Momily website.

How could it? Grown kid and Mom and violin and cello issues and parents leaving for Japanese birthday dinner while Birthday Girl is fast asleep upstairs...