Rosie's Party

The party for Mummy P. could not have been nicer and she was pretty much there, although I don't think she actually heard anything anyone was saying or singing. The Little Bear and brother Schmeckl made their home into the most inviting place on the planet. We swam, we ate, we sang, we celebrated and got to be together and say wonderful things about a grand old lady without anybody having to die first. This is a 'way better way to do it.
 

 

Isabella met her cousins Lila and Madison for the first time. They had a great time together. They are the fourth generation cousins. All the third generation cousins, that is, grandchildren or grand-nephew/nieces of Mummy P. got to see each other and catch up after a long time. It's hard to get this family in one place. Only the two eastern cousins weren't there.

When he and Ducknik landed in Oakland Airport, they could not escape the excessively loud piano music being played by a very young Chinese boy who had set up an electric piano next to the baggage claim. He was probably some kind of prodigy but he was mangling the living beJesus out of poor Debussy. Maybe he was five years old.

You couldn't escape it until your suitcases came down. And it was a busy day, it took a long time. The kid was like those preachers with the bad megaphones in front of the BART stations on Mission Street. And yet people applauded after each piece.

Maybe he was blind? Or developmentally disabled? Or an autistic genius? He did look kind of strange.

But who would place their five year old in an airport baggage claim and have him perform mediocre Debussy? For what? Is this about celebrity? Are we supposed to listen to this child play piano and then LIKE him on Facebook? Then, what happens? What a sad thing to do to Clair de Lune.

Once upon a time, Mummy P. really knew how to play Clair de Lune. She played it like it is supposed to be played, on a real piano, in a real house, with a white carpet and a little boy pulled up on the carpet under a chair dreaming about the world that song suggested to him.

That boy got to live in that world for awhile. He discovered that celebrity was not something worth fighting that hard for.

For him, music exists for the moment when it has meaning. The rest is fluff and Facebook.