Our Little Corner of the World

Wow!  Five of us had the privilege last night of attending an invitation-only performance of the Moscow State Radio Symphony Orchestra, with Alexei Kornienko, conductor.   The one hour drive to the Krannert Center at the U of I was well worth it.  The evening was filled with music by Tchaikovsky.  While every piece was brilliantly done, we enjoyed the first half of the program better than the second — after all, the second half was four movements aptly named “Pathetique” written during a dark time in the composers life.  While still very enjoyable, it was definitely more somber than the upbeat first half. But the encore number was beautiful and worth waiting for!

It was amazing to watch Maestro Kornienko lead the first piece of the evening - Polonaise from Eugene Onegin, Op. 24.  And from where we were sitting, we could see that he didn’t have any music on his stand!  He knew it so well and was completely in command of the musicians.  I just liked watching him lead.  But our favorite number of the evening was Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, especially the first movement of the 3 that were played.  The reason it was so amazing, besides being the only number of the evening we recognized, is that the first movement alone lasted about 20 minutes and the pianist, Alexander Sinchuk, was beyond compare.  I have really never seen anything like it.  At times his hands were moving so fast and he was playing so many notes, all over the keyboard, that it was amazing to me that he was still playing the right notes!!  Savannah’s eyes were huge!  We had great seats, sitting in the side balcony right over the orchestra with an unobstructed view, allowing us to look down on the piano to our right.  (We were sitting towards the back of the stage and had a perfect view of everything going on!  Amazing!!)  Russian born Alexander Sinchuk is only 21 years old and has won first place in numerous piano competitions all over the world.

The whole evening was brilliant.

Imagine here the photo of a bra.  Not surprisingly, I was unsuccessful in my attempt to find a picture of a bra, alone, without the sexy model.  This post is about bras only, not the busty women wearing them.  That said, I guess I could have taken a picture of my own bra, but thought better of it.  Besides, it’s probably too small to show up on film.

Onto the point of this post…

Miss Sadie innocently posed the following question:  Mom, what are those things for that people wear on these things (pointing to her chest)?

Me:  Oh, you mean a bra?

Sadie:  Yes.

Me:   Well, some girls have really big… um… things and need a bra so that their back doesn’t hurt.

Sadie:  Oh.  Then why does Savannah wear one?

In order to save Savannah any embarrasment, I won’t post my answer to that question.  But really it was the next question that got me.

Sadie:  Then why do you wear one?

What do I say to that?  Let’s see, how about:

• “peer pressure!”  or
• “to make my…um…things look bigger because obviously I need all the help I can get.”   or
• as my mother-in-law once so eloquently said, ” ‘Once you hit 40, you just roll ‘em up and tuck ‘em in.’  And you have to have a place to tuck ‘em into.”

But I thought better of it so I just said,

“I don’t know, honey.”  (But thanks for asking!)

Sadie: “Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Who is the hairiest of them all?  Daddy!”

My to-do list was sitting on the table and one of the items said something like,

“Do such-and-such, etc.”

Soren saw it and asked, “Mom, what does e-t-c mean?  Does it mean eat the cookies?”

No Soren, it doesn’t.

But it should.

My brother Rob, a.k.a. HR (Handsome Rob), has been asking when I’m going to start blogging again.  I think of  things I could post rather frequently, but somehow I never manage to sit down and actually post them.  And now it’s been so long that I don’t even know where to start.  So I’ve decided to roast pay tribute to the only person who seems to miss my ramblings — Rob.

Rob is significantly younger than I.  In fact, Rob turned 5 right after I started my first year of college.  I recently came across this note that he sent me at school:

Awww.  Isn’t that so cute?  He must have forgiven me for the haircut I gave him only weeks before school started.  Mom was in the hospital having baby Jeffrey so I thought I’d help her out by cutting Rob’s hair.  I’d never given a haircut before, but how hard could it be with clippers?  Did you know that you are supposed to attach an extension on the clippers before you begin?  Did you know that your subject will be bald if you don’t?  Um, yeah.  Rob was bald.  But hey, that much longer before he needed another haircut, right?  Sadly, I have no photos of that event.  Fortunately, he’s had great hair ever since.

As if great hair wasn’t enough, Rob is very stylish as is demonstrated in this never-before-seen photo:

Is that classy or what?  Even from a young age he has demonstrated an impeccable fashion sense.  Today you’re more likely to see him in a cardigan sweater or a frightening clever t-shirt.

Another great quality is that he loves loved cats.  We had a cat which was the runt of the litter and rather ugly and so we named him Yoda.  Rob loved Yoda!  And from the photo, it looks like feelings were mutual.  This is how they slept pretty much every night:

I’m wondering if Rob’s love for cats ended when Yoda ran away one year on his birthday.

Oh, and Rob is very talented/clever.  That can be aptly demonstrated by this amazing hat he created.  Again, his sense of style leaves me speechless.

Rob is the self-proclaimed “favorite uncle” to my kids.

It’s obvious they love him!

Rob is also an ultimate frisbee pro, killer bunnies champion, and amazing family historian.  It’s no wonder we put up with him love him as much as we do!

Having served a mission in Scotland, and being on the Isle of Lewis during lambing season, I grew to love sheep.  They had the right of way on the roads and it wasn’t uncommon to have to wait for a little lamb to finish eating before Mom and baby would move out of the way.  I remember eating at a member’s home one Sunday after church.  We were having a nice roast, which I assumed was pork, when I announced, “After serving on this island, I will never be able to eat lamb again.”  An uncomfortable silence followed before our host announced that the roast was, you guessed it, lamb.  Oops!

Enjoy the following video of some pretty amazing sheep — or maybe it’s the sheep dogs that are talented and several sheepherders with an awful lot of time on their hands.

Here’s a photo journey of some of the more memorable events that have occurred over the past several weeks in our little corner of the world.  Mouse over the photos to see a brief description of each.

Not pictured:  Jeff replacing the radiator in the van, Spencer reading the entire Harry Potter series in 2 weeks, Savannah’s awesome piano recital, Sam’s entertaining Choir concert, Savannah’s clever choir concert/musical, Soren’s cute kindergarten music program, getting rid of ants in the kitchen, finding and fixing the leak that caused our floorboards to buckle, etc…