Driving to Thing 2's middle school this morning, we were intercepted by a glittering string of light brown floss, floating on the wind, impossibly thin and supple, without weight or form, as though freed from a coffin...Fascinated by its movement, I stupidly drove straight into the writhing mass. For a moment I was cofused by its form as it resembled what might be near-historic impossibility, a gutted cassette tape, which went extinct in 1988!
A TAPE? A real TAPE? Nonsense!
And yet, there it was, caught on Jiminy's (the new van has a name!), antenna and flapping dangerously close to other cars' netherbits with their spinny things and the so-and-so and the pudding pops and what have you.
Something in my head stupidly thought 'oh no! We have to haul in the relic before it gets caught in the catalytic converter of the car(s) behind us and twists up in a knot of improbable strength and proportion, sucking us and the cars behind us into a daisy chain of twisted metal that, somehow, has snagged the tape in such a way as to send it reeling through the radiator grills of all involved vehicles with just enough traction to play 'Take My Breath Away' over and over again until the last cylinder stops spinning the only functioning timing belt and we all die!'
Because y'all, it could happen.
And thus it was that Thing 2, at his mother's insistence, spent a good 5 minutes hauling in through the passenger window a VAST amount of shiny brown tape, a complete archeological find as far as he's concerned as he is not familiar with 'the tape' except the there's a slot for it in Jiminy's dashboard and so the concept needed to be explained a while ago. He has never played a cassette in his LIFE, people, and CDs are almost as quaint as antimacassars!
Nevertheless, in it came, a source of small amazement and a full smack upside the head to this older mama that what she used to think was too cool is now viewed by my kids through the same filter as I looked at the 1950's of MY parents' generation.
And so it goes, y'all. We are born to be replaced, and that's becoming more and more fine with me. I'm comfy down here in this ol rut, anyhow.
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Being that I'm seemingly all about the reveal lately, let me tell you something about my lovely Thing 1's band concert tonight.
It was enjoyable. It would have been MORE enjoyable if the band director didn't bury my baby in the last row of the back row of the kind-of-small band, but such is the way for all trombone players, and thus it was with him tonight.
Nevertheless, the selections chosen by the director were perfect for the band, challenging, and ended with a real bang ('Abram's Pursuit,' Holsinger 1945, but not quite as fast as in that vid). Even if I could only HEAR my kiddo, I knew he was there, and that's enough. From my days as a 'buried in the back' horn player, I know that some of us aren't as flashy as a flute player, but as necessary to getting the job done as the glitz holding down the front row.
So proud of him for sticking with the trombone. It's 'his thing,' and long my it be so. And thing 2 as well! In a couple of years they'll be able to sit in the same GROUP and play together, and then I will be that lady in the corner with the tissues and the bawling and the proud and, if lo, they only still made them, the pudding pops.
Well, maybe not the pudding pops, but certainly the puffed-upedness and the joy of seeing my kids being taken where nothing but music can take them, together. RAPTURE!
Oh dear, have I just predicted something?
Tiff out.
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