Playing By Ear as a way of life
I need to decide whether I’m going to get my wisdom teeth extracted or not. My dentist recommended it, but they aren’t causing me any pain right now, and I could theoretically live my whole life with them (just barely) although I might regret having them later on when they start to rot. And I have to get a couple fillings in them anyway if I don’t get them out. So I’m leaning toward the surgery. The nail in the coffin (so to speak) might be this very calculation:
The novelty of Christmas wore off. So, the only Christmas tradition left for the Abbotts is to go lookin’ at Christmas lights and watch the people at the mall.
Kyle, Luke and I have a Thanksgiving tradition. We take a walk up the hill and make a big loop ending up at Noah’s Bagels downtown for breakfast. We play “come up with a joke on the spot,” where if it is your turn you have to come up with a joke which is then graded by the others. One means don’t even think about it and ten means get David Letterman on the phone. Of course, we usually fancy our own jokes but Luke came up this one which I thought was pretty darn good. Kyle wasn’t impressed. Here it is:
Sherlock Holmes [we've been watching a lot of him recently] and Dr. Watson are outside looking at rocks. Dr. Watson picks up a rock and says, “Holmes, look! This is an igneous rock!” Sherlock strokes his chin and says, “Oh no, no, no! Sedimentary, my dear Watson!”
What would you give it?
As you may know by now, we have our morning tradition of going to the beach to do yoga, tai chi/Karate, and finally a dip in the water and a nice thermos of cocoa and a croissant (the croissant isn’t in the thermos with the cocoa mind you) afterwards. Today we were gonna go down but we heard about the red tide.What’s red tide you ask? I dunno. (actually, I do but it’ll take a while to explain) But it makes the sea look like it’s filled with Anjeo Tequila. Apperantly, it’s the strongest red tide we’ve had in 20 years. Also apperantly, lots of surfers get sick and get sinus stuff ‘n all that stuff. Of course, that didn’t stop us from going down!… Continue reading ‘Sea of Death’
We can’t learn to be who we are not, nor unlearn to be who we are. The only path is to learn who we are. Knowing who we are, our ‘original nature’, allows us to make the most of life with a minimum of wasted energy and time. I heard someone say recently, “don’t push the river, it’ll flow by itself.” I’d rephrase that a little, “We need not push the river, it’ll flow by itself”. Ruthlessly knowing our needs and fears helps with this by helping us know the benefit of resorting to no action.
For years, we didn’t watch many movies. Why? Well, the theater is really expensive, and most of our movie rental picks, since we do prefer comedies, were duds. It’s hard to get a really good comedy without something being dorky or a “Comedy-Drama,” which has no real humor besides maybe somebody spilling a coffee in the beginning.… Continue reading ‘Movie Madness’
In any good story, the protagonist will eventually enter a period of challenge where his conviction and steadfastness is tested. In my new system for Getting Things Done, which I introduced in an earlier post (and digressed upon later) the challenge was more like a full-body slamdown.
I call this period The Collapse. What happened?
… Continue reading ‘Luke’s New “System”, Part 3: The Collapse’
I want to play fiddle. With our method I am able to pick out melodies very easily. But the problem is that I have neck trouble and holding the fiddle under my chin is a no go. I put it in my gut but that seems to limit the mobility of my fingering hand. So I felt I needed to come up with … Continue reading ‘Fiddle Holster’
For the past year, we’ve been going to the beach for swimming. It’s been a really long time since we’ve been in a pool. There’s two things we’ve gotten used to by swimming in the ocean: 1) It’s salty so when we are in deeper water, we’re a lot more buoyant and it’s easier to stay afloat, and 2) It’s stone cold so we’re used to just jumping in and bracing it.
Brothers Kyle and Luke, and parents Leslie ("Mama") and Carl ("Papa"). This is our family blog.
This has been our main project for over seven years: helping folks to learn to play music.
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