Of Talent And Trees
2005-05-16, 10:02 p.m.

After Daughter�s viola recital yesterday afternoon, I am hereby accepting donations for her tuition to Julli@rd. Not that I�m biased or anything, but my child was the second best performer at the recital. The only one any better was a young teenage boy, about 8 feet tall, playing on what looked like a circus miniature violin, some sort of complicated classical composition that had no business being played by someone still in junior high. Showoff.

We�ve listened to Daughter practice on and off, mostly off, this whole school year. We�ve been to the big school orchestra concerts. Until yesterday, we had not heard other solo performances against which to judge whether Daughter was, in fact, as good as her tutor has told her, or if the lady was just being nice.

Daughter performed. Hubby gaped. I cried. Son behaved. Son behaving during the performance is perhaps the greatest testament to how well Daughter played. The other kids squeaked and squonked and sawed mightily across the strings producing something that resembled music in a former life. Daughter didn�t miss a note. It was smooth, clear, and rhythmic. Very Intelligent Woman�s husband, a musician, turned to us and commented that Daughter has �a good ear� for music. This is a man from whom compliments do not flow freely.

Yep, Julli@rd.

After much whining and moaning, Hubby took Daughter to fly her remote control plane. Hubby did the whining and moaning, because he would rather be indoors reading a calculus book. (Seriously.) True to form, Daughter immediately flew the plane into the sole tree within a half-mile radius. They had to buy twenty feet of PVC piping to whack the thing down. Hubby also had to beat out a long board he had wedged up high in the initial plane-dislodging javelin toss. Daughter gave me a comprehensive list of obscenities her father had hurled at the tree, the plane, the wood, and anything else above ground level� he really should be a smoldering pile of lightning-charred remains right now. It was so bad, the child has decided to sell her plane in a friend�s yard sale later this month. She�s going to try model rockets instead.

Hubby is also chomping at the bit, GroovyGuru in tow, to build The World�s Finest Tree House. �House� doesn�t quite get it; this will be a compound, the Presidential bunker, the bow-down-to-my-leafy-greatness airborne fort. There is talk of zip lines and swing bridges, corrugated metal roofing and crow�s nests, hand-carved tikis, and of course a tire swing. Once it�s built, maybe the kids can kick their dads out a time or two so they will have a chance to play.

Off to watch last week�s recorded �Lost� episode. Maybe they�ll kill off one of the whiners this time.

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