Today was the really, truly, official beginning of Geneva\u2019s Great Musical Adventure!\u00a0 In only a few months of immersing herself in piano, learning to play many songs by ear as well as composing some music of her own, she made the bold choice to leave her beloved MoezArt Theater Company and pursue piano lessons.\u00a0 Well, this afternoon I drove her downtown to the home of Will Buthod, our fantastic new organist at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral, to have her first lesson.\u00a0 Though I\u2019m always a bit iffy about downtown, Google maps did not fail me, and getting there was a breeze.\u00a0 It was early afternoon, and very quiet around his highrise apartment complex.\u00a0 I was unsure of where to park, and after driving around the block once, I settled on a metered spot across the street kitty-corner from the building, scrounged up enough change for an hour and 10 minutes just to be on the safe side, and then we marched across and began searching for the correct door.\u00a0 Thankfully Will was downstairs and saw us wandering, came out and hailed us, and thus we learned for future reference both the right door, as well as where to park inside under the building.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be honest \u2013 I\u2019m a little scared of apartment buildings of that size!\u00a0 I\u2019ve lived here in Phoenix for going on 16 years but I\u2019m still small-town at heart.\u00a0 I was glad he was there to walk us up to find his place.\u00a0 As we walked down the hall, I realized there were no numbers on any of the doors \u2013 I wouldn\u2019t have known how to find it!\u00a0 Once we arrived at his wee loft (one of those cool, modern, very efficiently designed types of living spaces I\u2019ve been posting on Facebook lately) I took a seat on the couch, Geneva sat down at the piano (he has a cute claw-foot wooden stool with a spinning adjustable seat) and the learning began.<\/p>\n
It was a terrific first lesson, including many basics, a tour of the inside of the piano, and even a recitation of the musical lineage of which Geneva is now a part, traced all the way back to Johann Sebastian Bach!\u00a0 I\u2019m very excited for Geneva \u2013 Will is an exceptional musician, highly skilled in every genre, and I think he\u2019ll be able to both inspire and challenge her, and teach her the skills she needs to make whatever kind of music she wants throughout the rest of her life.<\/p>\n
On the way home, we stopped off at Staples so Geneva could pick out a special notebook to use for her lessons.\u00a0 Before I could stop the engine at home, Paul was outside and waiting for me, and hopped right in the passenger seat as Geneva got out.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Megan, who had been waiting beside him at the front gate, came to my window to ask for instructions on what to make for dinner.\u00a0 I had cooked up some beans earlier in the day, and had her fix some rice to go with that, along with Paul\u2019s stewed jack-rabbit.<\/p>\n
That settled, I drove us to the Verizon store so Paul could have his new \u201cdumb-phone\u201d set up, and I could get my number transferred from my dead smart-phone to his smart-phone.\u00a0 So now we have one fewer smart phones, and our bill will be $30 less per month.\u00a0 When this phone is ready for an upgrade, I will downgrade back to a dumb-phone and save us another $30 a month.\u00a0 It\u2019s absolutely ridiculous to spend that much for two smart phones!!\u00a0 We can use the money better, and we certainly don\u2019t nee the distraction.\u00a0 It is just too easy to become one of those obliviots who sits there with their head in their phone when they could be experiencing the blessing of real fellowship with real live people right next to them.\u00a0 Nope, from now on, as long as we still have the choice, I think we will be sticking with \u201cdumb-phones\u201d.<\/p>\n
Finally home again, the girls set up the table, and it was a delight to taste the delicious meal that resulted from Paul\u2019s first successful hunting trip.\u00a0 The rabbit only yielded 1-1\/3 pounds of meat, so servings for the seven of us were small \u2013 but hey, we\u2019re trying to reduce our meat intake anyway, so it\u2019s all good.\u00a0 I will say that it was very lean and we all agreed that it tasted a little like liver, with a beef-like texture.\u00a0 Next time he brings some home I will try slow cooking instead of pressure cooking, as he did this time; that will undoubtedly make it more tender.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was the really, truly, official beginning of Geneva\u2019s Great Musical Adventure!\u00a0 In only a few months of immersing herself in piano, learning to play many songs by ear as well as composing some music of her own, she made the bold choice to leave her beloved MoezArt Theater Company and pursue piano lessons.\u00a0 Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,91,163,28,598,166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-family","category-food","category-in-the-kitchen","category-music","category-netties-world","category-piano","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8431"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8446,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions\/8446"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.adoptedjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}