Belles Lettres

Last Monday after Family Home Evening Justin thought that marching the troops upstairs singing Eye of the Tiger would help get the bodies moving with a little more alacrity.  We proceeded in file, Justin leading, girls following, Abdiel behind with me bringing up the rear.  Abdiel, of course, was totally into this.  He bobbed his head to the beat half way up the stairs, but at that point his powers of resistance gave way.  He stopped.  He shot his right arm forward, head still keeping time.  He shot his left arm forward.  He flipped his right arm over; he flipped his left arm over.  He crossed one hand to his hip, then the other.  He slapped himself on the side of the head.  Yes, he was doing the Macarena to The Eye of the Tiger, but the muse of fire did not stop there.  He stretched out sideways on the stair, still convulsing to the beat, but at that point the music subsided.  We were all laughing heartily.

Thursday we experienced for ourselves the impetus behind such works of art as 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Spellbound, and Akeelah and the Bee.  We arrived around 6:30 pm at the school gym, early enough to see large crates of clementines, Costco-sized bags of pretzels, pyramids of water bottles, and industrial sized boxes of granola bars being set out for easy access.  Taken together with the Spelling Bee

plaques on the walls of the hallway, I wondered at the ways elementary schools decide to allocate their budget, this school obviously making a really big deal out of their Spelling Bee.  To keep the story of the night a little shorter than the night itself, let me skip ahead two hours and forty five minutes.  The snacks have devolved into plastic wrappers and orange peels littering the ground. The youngest youngsters have passed into that state of hyperactivity that sends shivers down every parent's spine who even contemplates the bedtime battle that awaits him.  The once tidy rows of chairs now look anything but as weary adults stretch out their legs or hang limply over the backs of the chairs in front of them.  Parents have marched off in a huff; the National Spelling Association has been consulted; disillusioned spellers have been carried off, wailing, by consoling posses of family members.  And still the words continue.  "Rorschach.  R-o-r-s-c-h-a-c-h.  Rorschach."  "Whippoorwill.  W-h-i-p-p-o-o-r-w-i-l-l.  Whippoorwill." Julia made it to the last five.  It was 9:20.  The first little girl spelled.  "That is incorrect."  The next little girl spelled.  Correct.  The next little boy spelled.  Correct.  Julia walked to the microphone.  "Synecdoche.  S-y-n-e-c-h-d-o-c-h-e.  Synecdoche."  "I'm sorry, that's incorrect."  A tie for 4th place!!!!  We couldn't have hoped for a better outcome!  We could have our dinner hours back!  Our breakfasts!  Our car rides!  She had done as well as she could have done without having any further spelling obligations!  Go, Julia!

For Valentine's, I gave Justin a book of 17th and 18th century Italian arias and six singing lesson dates with our professional musician neighbors.  Friday night was our first session.  I record it only so that when we are performing duets at the Scala we can recall the exact date that our illustrious careers began.

Saturday we and 30 potatoes worth of homemade french fries joined the Suttner clan to celebrate my sister's 27th birthday.  The evening culminated in reenactments of favorite literary scenes.  Someone volunteered that they especially appreciated the humor in Don Quixote, but reenacting the many scenes of bludgeon might be rather painful.  The candidate suggested a blanket-toss instead; our readers may recall the scene:

"The innkeeper, upon this, seized hold of Sancho, who said that since his master did not pay, neither would he.  For he considered the same rule held for both.  Now, as ill-luck would have it, there was a company of merry fellows at the inn, who were only too ready for a frolic.  They came up to Sancho and pulled him off his mule, while one of their number ran and snatched a blanket from the innkeeper's bed.  In this they placed Sancho, and began to toss him aloft in great glee.  Sancho's loud cries brought Don Quixote galloping back, but when he came to the inn-gate it was closed and he could not enter.  He saw his squire go up and down in the air with such grace and agility that, if his anger had let him he surely would have laughed outright.  All he could do, however, was to sit on this horse and cry out to them to cease.  But none the more did they cease from their laughter and labor, nor the flying Sancho from his complaints, until from sheer weariness they left him."  

Apparently our merry fellows had a higher frolic threshold.  We didn't leave off until even the smallest tikes had done their representation of Sancho.  Good times.