Column

Beginners hit sour notes on way to perfection

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Parents and grandparents sometimes debate which musical instrument is the most painful in the hands of a beginner.

Our nomination for first place is the violin, with drums coming in a distant second. Sure, drums can rattle the windows, but only a violin can peel paint from the walls.

The xylophone, also under our roof years ago, was the instrument least likely to make me consider spiking the gravy.

Neighbors contend that a beginner on a clarinet can strip hair from your ears. Others claim the oboe takes first place.

My personal stint in music was at the piano. I took lessons at a conservatory and was in a recital with more advanced students when I was quite young. My piece was “The Lost Bear,” which had a repeat in it. I was nervous in front of all those people and kept taking the repeat.

I wondered if I would ever get Lost Bear home, or if Miss Wanda Casey, the most patient teacher ever, would be compelled to walk on stage and close the piano lid on my fingers, which would have been applauded by the audience. Lost Bear finally made it home and I never played in another recital.

A friend who is an excellent musician says that a French horn produces some of the most beautiful sounds on earth.

Our twin granddaughters took up the French horn last fall and sometimes bring them to the house because what’s a little more noise at Grandma’s?

Their grandma on their daddy’s side attended college on a music scholarship and plays French horn in community orchestras. Their daddy’s side has a deep bench of musical talent.

When our side joins their musical side for birthday parties and they sing “Happy Birthday” (we are smart enough to not sing but just mouth the words) their harmonies are so beautiful it can bring you to tears.

If our side were to sing, it would bring their side to tears. But for entirely different reasons.

The sounds coming from the French horns in our family room sound like a momma cow delivering an extremely large calf that is breech.
Just when you think it can’t get any (choosing my words carefully here) louder, another granddaughter acquired a French horn as well.

And now there are three. Three cows delivering calves in breech position.

Nearly every instrument is painful in the beginning. I’m not criticizing; I’m just learning endurance.

The three French horns were here again recently, practicing the song they began learning several months ago. Even wearing my bright orange headphones for ear protection, I recognized a few stanzas that sounded positively lovely.

The road from beginner to beautiful may not be as long as I thought. If all goes well, the calf should be delivered soon and their musical piece performance-worthy.

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I came, I saw, I took a selfie

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True confession and this is embarrassing considering the times we live in, but I can’t take good selfies.

There, I said it. That’s a load off.

I think it’s because I’m short and short people have short arms and long people have long arms. You need long arms for good selfies. Good skin without age-defining wrinkles helps, too.

It is always a struggle to get the camera exactly where I want it. When I do get everything and everybody in the frame, it then becomes a lengthy process of elimination. Is that beige blob covering most of the image my thumb or my hand? Do I switch hands or turn the phone?

After lengthy experimentation, moving the camera higher, lower, sideways, to my left hand, my right hand, then back to my left, everything is finally in position. No blob is present. I take the picture, accidentally squeezing buttons on both sides of my phone, thereby turning the phone off.

Maybe Apple is trying to tell me something.

I try again, now laughing so hard at my own inabilities that my body shakes as I take the picture, subsequently capturing an image of my nostrils in front of a gorgeous waterfall.

And I wonder why the fam runs when I offer to show them vacation pictures.

Look, this is my left arm and shoulder at the Pacific Coast.

Here’s my forehead in front of the Capitol.

Sometimes a stranger sees me struggling and kindly asks, “May I take that picture for you?” Translation: “Woman, let me take that picture for you before you hurt yourself.”

And, no, I don’t want a selfie stick because I just end up whacking people in the head with it—most often myself.

Selfies have become a mainstay of popular culture and personal history. I came, I saw, I selfied. It’s wonderful to document the places you visit. But these days it’s hard to know if people are visiting to see the sights, or just there for a selfie against a good backdrop.

I read an article saying if your boyfriend won’t pose for selfies with you, you should dump him and red flag him on dating apps. It also said if your guy refuses to take hours of Instagram-worthy photos of you, that is a sure sign he is a narcissist.

Yep, the man won’t take 2,000 pictures of you frolicking in the surf until you are waterlogged, but he’s the one with the problem. The writer suggested trading him in for a dog.

I hate to point out the obvious, but dogs can’t maneuver cell phones.

Well, at least not as well as I can.

Then again, maybe they can.

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Foggy outlook for paint colors

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In case you hadn’t heard, the Pantone color of the year is Mocha Mousse. Mocha Mousse is a scrumptious light milk chocolate. I’m not sure I could have it on the walls and resist a deep dive into my dessert cookbooks.

Mocha Mousse is encouraging because, for years, the chosen colors primarily have been neutrals. There was Drift of Mist (gray), Gale Force Winds (gray) and Snowbound (snow sprayed with automobile exhaust). Then there is the entire fog category: Nantucket Fog, London Fog, Ice Fog, Morning Fog, Pacific Fog, Coastal Fog and Foggy Day.We can’t seem to shake the bad weather.

Sometimes we think of downsizing, but before we could sell our house we’d have to replace all the original solid oak hardwoods with gray manufactured wood-byproduct flooring and slather all the walls in assorted colors of fog. I depress myself just envisioning it. 

When our youngest daughter and her husband moved into their first house a decade ago, she asked me to stop by and help choose paint colors. She had 200 paint chips taped to the walls. “They’re all gray,“ I said. “They all look alike.” 

“No, they’re not alike,” she said. “Some are gray with blue undertones and some are gray with yellow undertones.” 

I only saw gray, grayer and grayest. They ended up choosing Agreeable Gray, a very popular color at the time.

They painted the entire downstairs Agreeable Gray. They found it disagreeable.  

They repainted the entire downstairs. A different shade of gray.

She paired it all with dark blue and white accents and it truly snaps. Plus, gray doesn’t make you think of fattening desserts like chocolate mousse and is wonderful for camouflaging children’s grimy handprints.

I’ve often wondered who comes up with all the clever paint names. A press release said the names are chosen in “one long, continuously flowing conversation among a group of colour-attuned people.”

If they are colour-attuned, why can’t they spell it correctly?

Our front room has more windows than any other room in the house and is painted a bright, cheerful yellow. It is the color of rich, creamy Irish butter. When sunshine streams in through all the windows, it is like lounging in a very large comfy croissant.

The press release announcing new colors said that coming up with color names is a rigorous process involving specialists, marketing pros and lawyers.

You know who they’re missing, right? Cooks. Cooks and chefs.

We need more butter.

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A birthday bash at the burger joint

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We blew out all the stops to celebrate the husband’s birthday with a last-minute meet-up at McDonald’s. Do we know how to party or what?

Three carloads. Five adults. Six kids, all girls.

If we squeeze six into the bench against the wall that spans two tables, and grab extra chairs, we can make it work.

Kids squirrel around as adults take food orders. Somebody shouts there are discounts on the phone app.

Phones come out, kids finish shouting their orders and the birthday boy says he’ll take a burger, fries and a frozen coffee caramel-laced drink, which the menu board says has 590 calories. I suggest he share the drink if he wants to see another birthday.

Orders are complete and the phone apps won’t link to the store.

Someone approaches a worker. She disappears, reappears, disappears, reappears and the connection issue is eventually fixed.

After a very lengthy wait, the food arrives. They got the french fries and iced coffee right, but everything else is wrong. Chaos ensues at the tables. Fries are involved. And ketchup.

The husband passes his frappe down the line to me. I take a slurp and a 6-year-old across the table wants a taste. She likes it and refuses to relinquish it. I rat her out to her mother, who says, “Oh, caffeine doesn’t bother her,” and goes back to a conversation with her sister.

Well, I’d like it to bother me, but it’s gone now.

Someone says the recently remodeled restrooms are really cool. Six girls peel off to check it out. We are in the farthest corner of the store but can see the door to the ladies room swing open and hear someone scream, “WHOA!”

They don’t come back and don’t come back. I check on them and the restroom is, well, a nothing burger. They return to the table.

A hush falls as Grandpa opens his cards. There’s not a Hallmark in the bunch.

The last card he opens is from the one who finished off his frappe, the kindergartener with round cheeks, big eyes, legs swinging under the table, the one who screamed “WHOA!” opening the door to the ladies room.

The group is stunned to see money in her card. It is a green bill rolled tight and taped next to a self-portrait of her and Grandpa.

No one wants to ask the denomination of the greenback, and it would be rude to rip the bill off the card.

We wonder where she got the idea. Maybe she got it from her aunts and uncles who give nephews and nieces a quarter for every year old they are.

Thank goodness she didn’t try to give grandpa a bill for every year old he is.

She sits quietly, either uncomfortable with the attention or still thinking about that hand dryer with the roar of a jet engine in the ladies room.

The silence passes, everyone gathers their things and their people and says goodbye.

When we get home, Grandpa carefully unrolls the bill. It is a one. One to be remembered.

 

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When collectors and cleaners collide

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I say that I am married to a collector because packrat sounds unkind. My husband comes from a long line of collectors.

When they closed out the farmhouse his father lived in all his life, the lead auctioneer kicked off the three-ring, two-day auction under the main tent bellowing, “Ladies and gentlemen! The same family has lived in this house for 103 years! As near as we can tell, they never threw a thing away!”


Nailed it.

Naturally, I was raised in a family of the other extreme. If you dropped your napkin on the floor at dinner, by the time you bent over, picked it up and sat back up, your dinner plate could be gone, scraped, washed, dried and put away.

My philosophy is that there is a place for everything and everything has a place — and it better well be there.

My husband says he is married to a woman who is highly-organized and efficiency-driven because extremist sounds unkind.

Being it is the start of a new year and fresh starts, I gently broach the matter of thinning out our every-growing accumulation of clutter—I mean treasures—by mentioning the Swedish Death Cleaning method.

My voice is soft and calming and the giant box of construction-grade trash bags is hidden behind my back. I explain that the idea is to remove the burden of decluttering so after you’ve moved on (and I don’t mean to a store-n-lock), only the essentials have been left behind for your loved ones.

He says that’s fine for people who are Swedish, but he’s not Swedish.

I say I’m not Swedish either, but Swedish or non-Swedish, we all face death and then our kids will face our collections of clutter.

Typically, this is when he experiences a bout of sudden hearing loss. This occurs frequently when you’ve been married as long as we have.

A few days later, I casually mention the Four Box Method where you take four boxes, label one “keep,” the others “throw away,” “donate” and “sell,” and divide your goods accordingly. It is touted as a good method for when you don’t have a lot of time.

He says he can slash the time on the Four Box Method by knocking those four boxes down to one—“keep.”

I then suggest the 12-12-12 Challenge. You declutter by identifying 12 items to donate, 12 items to throw away and 12 more that need to remain in the home.

He says he has already identified the things that need to remain in the home—everything.

I am digging through papers in our safe deposit box, the bulk of which are expired home and auto insurance policies. I ask why we need to keep policies no longer in force. He says he needs them so he can compare the rates from year to year.

I tell him I can give him comparison rates for this year, the next year and every year after that: Every single policy will be more expensive than the year before.”

He acts like he’s not impressed, but I see him chuckle in the reflection of an old mirror—as I drop it into a large black trash bag.
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Headstands are so last century

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Saturday morning began with a video text of one of the grands doing a wild gymnastics routine on an exercise mat in the middle of their family room. She was lunging, flipping, and cartwheeling (barely clearing the sofa, the tv and a younger sister’s head), all to the soothing strains of “Who Let the Dogs Out?”

The antics culminated in a headstand. There may have been more. We couldn’t tell because her legs wobbled toward the camera and the video abruptly ended in a blur.

“Typical weekend?” I messaged back to our daughter. “Your Uncle Bob and I used to have headstand contests during family holidays in Ohio.”

“When was that?” came an immediate response. I detected skepticism oozing through my phone.

I began thinking. If she, our youngest, was a toddler at that time . . .  I would have been about . . .  and the year would have been about . . .

I need paper for this one. I subtract my approximate age (circa. the Headstand Era) from 2025, borrow from the tens, subtract, borrow from the hundreds, subtract and carry down the hundreds and thousands columns.

The year was 1988. “That was ages ago!” I exclaim.


The kind soul I am married to (and did not participate in the contests) simplifies the matter saying, “It was last century.”

Realizing one of my more notable achievements is now “last century” was like having the wind knocked out of me.

Funny how we spend our early years yearning to be older, dreaming about the freedoms and privileges that come with age. Then we are older, enjoying the freedoms and privileges of age, which look a lot like work, taxes, marriage, parenting, meal prep, grocery store runs, car repairs, health concerns, teen concerns, looming retirement and cooking dinner 967 days a year. Then one day, we realize we are on a speeding train that will not and cannot stop.

Time is a wily rascal. Some days drag like a slow crawl through mud, while others pass rapid-fire like lightning bolts. The speed of each day may vary, but the calendar pages keep time to a steady beat.

Recent news reports say that 20 percent of people in their 20s and 30s are prematurely feeling the onset of middle age. Stress over job security, relationships, debt and retirement years are making them feel older than they are.

Whether you feel your age or not, whether you can do a headstand or can’t, one thing is certain—the clock is ticking.

One of the last books Billy Graham wrote before he died was “Nearing Home.” It is a good read in any season of life. I copied one of his lines on the inside leaf of the book. Graham wrote, “Growing old has been the biggest surprise of my life.”

So, seize the day – and brace yourself.

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Snow problem, new weather terms are chill

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“Stay tuned for a weather impact update,” says the man on the television.

I have problems with the word impact and not just because it’s one of those words that can be both a noun and a verb. Impact always reminds me of when my brother was a toddler and shoved a red hot up his nose. The red hot was impacted and our mother had to carefully remove it. The episode was traumatic and it wasn’t even my nose.

According to which network you listen to, or which app you use, our weather impact this week will be 5 inches of snow, 6 inches of snow or two tons of red hots.

Personally, I follow a local amateur meteorologist on Facebook named Stubby. He has a good track record. Stubby predicts 8-13 inches of snow. He says—and I quote—“We are about to get our backsides kicked.

How can you not love a forecaster who frames weather impact in such easy-to-understand language?

About midafternoon, family texts began flying about which impact report to believe when one of our girls texted that her husband said if we get 13 inches of snow, he’ll run around in the street naked.

I said to let us know if he does and I’ll call the police so he can get his five seconds of fame. Of course, we all knew he was kidding.

I’ve noticed that weather terminology changes faster than the weather.

“Wind Chill Warnings” are now “Extreme Cold Warnings.”

“Wind Chill Advisories” are now “Extreme Cold Weather Advisories.”

The National Weather Service people want us to know that cold can be dangerous even without wind.

I’m going to miss “Wind Chill.” It was a term loaded with fear and drama that could send chills racing down your spine. Or maybe that was just the cold.

The word “hard” has fallen on the trash heap as well. “Hard Freeze Watches” and “Hard Freeze Warnings” are now plain old “Freeze Watches” and “Freeze Warnings.”

When these snow event warnings are issued, I’ve never grasped why everybody rushes to the grocery and dives for the eggs, milk and bread.

If you truly thought you might be snowbound, wouldn’t you want something more substantial? I’m thinking a side of beef and large bags of carrots and potatoes.

Hold on. A friend just called and asked if I could drop off a dozen cage-free brown eggs before the storm. Again, it’s probably just me, but I’ve never thought of scrambled eggs as a cold-weather comfort food.

In any case, the weather forecaster, I mean the meteorologist, on television is saying it will be dry until the first flake, which will not fall until tomorrow morning. I am looking outside as he speaks, watching large flakes pirouette like ballerinas.

Clearly there are no windows in the television studio.

Good morning, Indianapolis!
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Red-flag warning on kids and smart phones long overdue

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We have smoke detectors that warn of fire, dashboard icons that warn of low fuel and dying batteries, and health hazard warnings printed on every pack of cigarettes.

In 2024 we were given a clear and resounding warning for smart phones. It came in the form of a thick book titled “The Anxious Generation” (How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness) by Jonathan Haidt. The book has been tagged a top book by the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times, and awarded the Nonfiction Book of the Year by Goodreads.

When I read the book, I underlined paragraph after paragraph and tagged page after page with Post-it notes. I became hooked on underlining and tagging in a book about becoming hooked.

Haidt thoroughly—and chillingly—connects the dots between the horrific rise in mental illness among adolescents and teens, and the rise in popularity of social media on smart phones. He makes an iron-clad case that social media is inappropriate for children and that puberty is a vulnerable and impressionable time, particularly for girls.


Social media platforms are designed to be addictive. A dopamine rush kicks in when users receive likes, comments and new followers. Like Pavlov’s dogs conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, users keep coming back for more.

Haidt points out that the problem is not just what social media does, but what social media keeps people from doing. Compared with their counterparts in the 2000s (prior to the common use of all the screens), today’s teens are less likely to go out with friends, less likely to get a driver’s license, less likely to play youth sports and more likely to be alone on their phones. Some teens sleep with their phones, texting throughout the night.

It starts early. Who hasn’t observed toddlers, in airports, grocery carts and strollers, mesmerized by moving screens. Not that the tykes are scrolling on TikTok, but the brain patterning for rapid flashing, constantly changing images is being imprinted.

Not long ago, I saw a clip of a basketball game featuring a halftime contest where mothers lined up on one end of the court and their babies, who were still crawlers, were lined up about 10 yards away. It was a race to see which babies would get to their mothers first.

How did the mothers entice them? By waving their cell phones. The little critters’ eyes lit up, they smiled from ear to ear and laid tracks.

What sets Haidt apart from simply screaming “Fire!” is that he identifies concrete ways to douse the flames:

Say no to smartphones before high school. Flip phones are fine in middle school for safety and staying connected, but no smart phones.

Say no to social media before age 16. Our friends down under in Australia just passed a law to that effect. Once kids are through adolescence and capable of more mature decision making, they are less likely to become addicted.

Haidt also makes a case for phone-free schools. Finally, he points a finger at adults. Warnings to kids have no power if they are of the “Do as I say, not as I do” variety. Adults of every age and generation are powerful influencers when it comes to cell phone use.

Haidt is the giant red flag on the beach, snapping in the wind, signaling the presence of dangerous and life-threatening tides.

We would do well to heed the warning.

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The little house that sat empty and alone

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I haphazardly closed up the little house this year. I hurriedly swept the floors, took out the trash, checked the windows, pulled the Dutch door shut and whispered, “Thanks for the memories.”

Not long after, a fierce night wind pushed the door open. Blowing snow drifted in and nestled in the corners.

Tiny hand-shaped footprints crisscrossed the front porch. With the door ajar, raccoons let themselves in and ransacked the place. They tossed plates and cups, knocked the fry pan on the stove to the floor and clawed at the tablecloth in search of crumbs. So uncivilized.

The little house really is just that. It measures 6 feet by 6 feet and has a ceiling that will graze the head of anyone over 5 feet 2 inches tall. The front porch, which usually holds a red geranium and child-size wicker chair, runs the width of the little house.

We built the little house 35 years ago. It was how we spent a summer vacation not long after we moved back to the Midwest. The husband drew meticulous plans, hauled in supplies and was assisted by a work crew that played with the hammer, colored all over the blueprints and littered the work site with empty juice boxes and yogurt pouches.

Despite all the help, the little house was eventually finished and soon hosting tea parties, secret clubs, bank robberies and foreign invasions.

The years flew, the children grew, the gatherings tapered from often to occasional, and the little house was visited less and less frequently. The life and laughter that once shook the walls quietly disappeared.

More than a decade passed before a second generation brought the little house back to life. Red, white and blue garlands on the Fourth of July, small bouquets of freshly picked herbs in the summer, a pumpkin on the porch at Halloween and every pot and pan filled with maple leaves and acorns in the fall.

A VRBO listing would read like this: Small, aging, rustic cottage. No ‘fridge, heat or running water. Nearest bathroom 20 feet away in the big house. Kitchen fully stocked with plastic food. Decrepit dishware for four and a pink teapot missing the lid. Large chalk wall; no chalk. All you need is imagination.

Now, after a busy summer and beautiful fall, the mercury in the thermometer plummeting and the wind howling, the little house stands bare and alone.

Just when it appears forsaken and forgotten, a small voice asks to use one of those orange electrical cords in the garage. The plan is to lug a space heater to the little house.

And could they cut some evergreens?

And could they use that lantern with the candle in the hall?

And how soon could I deliver a round of hot chocolate?

Once again, the little house bustles with laughter and warmth. At least for one more season.

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Searching through the Christmas lost and found

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The kitchen becomes my primary place of residence the week before Thanksgiving and continues straight on through New Year’s Day. I should probably file a change-of-address card with the Post Office.

The kitchen counter is littered with crumpled dish towels, soiled hot pads and towering stacks of dirty cookie sheets and mixing bowls.

Pots bubbling on the stove have all been seasoned with two shakes of harried and a dash of exhaustion. Cold dirty dishwater in the sink formed a film an hour ago.

I’m looking for something, but I’m having difficulty finding it. It’s not in the kitchen, that’s for sure.

A top-to-bottom search of the family room turns up empty as well. It isn’t dangling from any of the Christmas tree branches. It isn’t wedged between Christmas sheet music in the piano bench or buried beneath the sofa cushions—although I do find a sock, some caramel popcorn and two candy cane wrappers.

I shake a few gifts under the tree and hold them to my ear when nobody is looking. Pretty, but not what I’m looking for.

As the hunt continues, I’m feeling frustrated and flushed. I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s hot in here. I throw open a window and a blast of cold rushes in. The night sky is plastered with diamonds. The constellations are singing and surely the earth is trembling. The magnificence of such beauty is overwhelming. This is what I have been searching for – wonder.

It is the jaw-dropping wonder of a night long ago. The wonder of a peasant couple taking refuge in a manger. The wonder of a young girl giving birth to the King of Kings on a stable floor strewn with straw and air filled with the stench of animal waste. It is the wonder of God stooping low, taking on humble human form.

This newborn baby, fresh from His mother’s womb, cradled in her arms and feeding at her breast, would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

He also would be called the Good Shepherd, Redeemer, Savior, Friend of Sinners.

So many powerful names gracing one tiny baby. It is beyond the scope of imagination.

The wonder of Christmas is not in fabulous meals, piles of gifts, or dazzling decorations. It’s not in parties and festivities or the serenade of Dickens carolers.

The wonder of Christmas is found in the sacred moments of a still and quiet heart. I wish you wonder this Christmas season.

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