Lydia Archives - Page 35 of 51 - Ramblin' with Roger

The Lydster, Part 120: What a pain

She doesn’t have Guillain Barre or Lyme disease, but I don’t know what she has.

The Daughter’s last month as a nine-year-old was… interesting. As noted, she’s been rehearsing to be in the church production of The Lion King. The rehearsal for February 23 was very intense, and she did not feel up to going to school that day and missed that night’s rehearsal. But when she was too tired to go the next day, I took her to the doctor. Ultimately, she had a blood test, stayed home Wednesday but went to school Thursday and Friday.

Saturday, March 1 was the Lion King dress rehearsal. Christy, the director, who was featured in this article, had said they could rechoreograph The Daughter’s part. The first time through, she did it as planned, but in subsequent takes, she took the shortcut. I was worried that she’d be too exhausted for the show.

Sunday, March 2: the performance. I wasn’t the only one who commented that she was very good as young Nala, the lion cub. She sang well, she knew all her lines from fairly early on in the rehearsals, and she was definitely one of the best dancers in the show. (Oh, here is King Of Pride Rock/Circle Of Life (Reprise), NOT from the church production.) We went out for dinner with my in-laws, then we went home and she fell asleep on the sofa at 5 p.m.

March 3-7: another truncated week of school. The blood test was negative for Lyme disease and about 14 other things. March 10, she goes to school all day, but by the next morning, she’s having trouble walking. So The Wife takes her to the MD again. Wednesday, March 12, at the advice of the MD and the neurologist, we take her to the ER at Albany Medical Center at about 4 p.m. She doesn’t get admitted until 2:30 a.m., and to her room until 4 a.m. After much poking and prodding and an MRI that lasted an hour before she said, “I can’t do this anymore,” there was only a conclusion about what she did not have: no invasive infection, no Guillain Barre. Out of the hospital that Friday, and she slept 13 hours when she got home.

Next stop: physical therapy. Can this just be extreme growing pains affecting her joints, and the areas above and below, plus her back? I dunno, but I’m hopeful the therapy will make her feel stronger.

Dinosaurs, candy, kissing, travel

It was this red shoestring licorice we bought about two blocks from the school

Got a bunch of questions, great questions. Gracias. I’ve been thinking about them, some of them A LOT, but some are going to require longer answers than others, and I’ll have more time in the next week or two (I hope).

In the meanwhilst, here’s a few from New York Erratic:

Were you ever into fossils or dinosaurs? What is your favorite dinosaur?

Not in any kind of systematic way. I mean they were collectively cool, but I didn’t study them very thoroughly. I got frustrated that several of the ones I knew as a child have totally different names, and theories as to their origins are different. Some are now birds that were thought to have been reptiles, etc. Rather like the planets of our solar system, where I once knew how many moons each planet had, but no longer. I’ll pick T-Rex; always liked Bang A Gong [LISTEN].

Have you ever had your IQ tested? When? What was your IQ?

Yeah, at least a couple of times, but they never told us. Once in fifth or sixth grade, some of my classmates discovered our scores but no names were attached. Someone was in the 140s, and we all figured it was friend Carol (not my wife Carol). There were three or four in the 130s, which we surmised were friends Karen, Bill, and me. But we really had no idea.

Did you ice skate as a kid?

I don’t believe so. I have no recollection of it. And not as an adult except once, and it involved wooing Carol (my now-wife).

How do you memorize skits for plays? (This one is fairly urgent… 😛 )

Repetition, optimally with another person, or persons, reading the other parts. But I HATE doing long speeches, soliloquies because I have a hard time memorizing them. Unless they’re poetic, and I can make a song out of them.
***
SamuraiFrog wants to know:

At what age did you feel like you became an adult?

62. (Not entirely false.)

I suppose it was when I bought a house, and I was 47. Not sure I like this growing-up stuff.
***
Jaquandor, who is in the midst of answering MY questions to him, wants to know:

You’re given enough money for a road trip someplace in the US…not enough to fly anywhere in the world, but enough that you can pay for gas, food, and lodging someplace in this country. Where do you go?

I’d do a bunch of baseball parks by train. But if we’re talking a single location, I’ll pick Juneau, Alaska, because it’s the farthest state capital one can get to by land. If I’m limited to the continental US, then Seattle, WA, or Portland, OR, because I’ve never been to either of them, and they are in states as far from me as possible.

***
Tom the Mayor, my FantaCo colleague, asked:

What was the first comic you remember reading? And the first book?

The first comic I have no idea. It may have been Archie, or Richie Rich, or some other Harvey Comic. The first superhero comic was almost certainly DC, Legion, or maybe Justice League.

I had these Golden Books, but I don’t quite remember them individually. I also had the Golden Book Encyclopedias, and those I remember reading voraciously.

What was the first movie your parents took you to?

Not sure. Can’t remember seeing any movies with my father except for the drive-in. Maybe it was the 1960’s version of State Fair; or did I go without my mother? 101 Dalmatians? Early on, it was West Side Story.

What was your favorite candy as a kid?

It was this red shoestring licorice we bought about two blocks from the school, right across the street from friend Bill’s house.

Do you Kiss your wife and daughter in public? Did your parents kiss you in public?

Yes, and The Daughter still lets me! Not that I can recall, and I don’t know if they kissed my sisters either.
***
You can still Ask Roger Anything.

The Lydster, Part 119: The Lion King

The Lion King: March 2, at 12:15 pm, at First Presbyterian, 362 State Street, Albany, NY.

This is what The Daughter will be doing this weekend, playing the young Nala in The Lion King. So far, the only Christian adaptation I’ve seen is the song He Lives In You will be God Lives In You. There are Equity (professional) actors playing Scar and another role.

It would seem unseemly, I suppose, for me to say that my daughter is the best dancer of the kids performing. There was a sample of the production at church on February 16. Now, if a half dozen people, unsolicited, tell The Wife and/or me that The Daughter was great in that dance number, perhaps the best in the troupe, we shan’t become TOO proud, even though we might agree. Though she’s no longer taking ballet, I think the experience has served her well.

She has worked very hard learning her dialogue and the songs as well. If you’re in Albany on March 2, stop on by.

The Lydster, Part 118: shared songs

I have what I imagine is an annoying habit. Someone says something, and it often leads me to a song. Those references to music in my blogs are not an affectation, or looked up to be hip, it’s just THERE in my head.

The habit used to drive my dear late mother crazy when I was growing up, and I knew far fewer songs then. The Wife tolerates it, but The Daughter hated it. Or used to, until she started doing it herself.

The turning point involved a Subway commercial.

Periodically, the sandwich restaurant offers all their twelve inch sandwiches for five bucks each. Or as the maddeningly catchy repeated four bars go:
FIVE
FIVE DOLLAR
FIVE DOLLAR FOOTLONGS
It’s the minor key ending that’s the clincher.

The ad, in some variation has been around since 2008. WATCH THIS ONE, or several like it.

Not only do we sing it together, in harmony, no less, she’s now taken to coming up with new lyrics, such as:
SCHOOL
SCHOOL IS
SCHOOL IS SO HARD.

So I bug my daughter less than I used to. Is this, or is this not, a good thing?
***
A Motown medley my daughter and her classmates will be singing this month.

I blame Joe Biden

It’s interesting to me that a lot of people I know did not know that Joe Biden was even coming to town.

The Wife was driving me to work last Tuesday afternoon when we were rear-ended by a car. We all were a little sore, and I, more than a little irritable about it.

My spouse blamed the other driver, very rational since that person, in fact, did drive into us, fortunately, not going very fast.

My daughter blames the superintendent of the Albany school district, for she had canceled school on a day no other district in the area had done so, though there had been delays elsewhere. If the Albany district were open, The Wife wouldn’t have been driving me at that hour.

However, I blame Vice-President Joe Biden, in Albany that day to meet with Governor Andrew Cuomo about disaster preparedness in the wake of climate change.

Just before we turned northbound on Everett Road, we see a low-flying helicopter, a tipoff that the VP was on the move. One could not actually travel across the Everett Road I-90 overpass, so the eastbound cars exiting I-90 at Everett could only turn right towards Albany, or go straight, right back onto I-90. We were stuck waiting for cars to reenter I-90 when we felt that familiar sound, and moreover, feeling of the vehicle you’re in being hit from behind.

This was The Daughter’s first car accident, and while a relatively minor event, I know *I* felt achy in my head and lower back for hours. The Wife was likewise affected, and the Daughter was mostly complaining about pain in her shoulders.

Ironically, by the time phone numbers had been exchanged, the Biden contingent had passed and Everett Road was clear again.

It’s interesting to me that a lot of people I know did not know that Biden was even coming to town. I was reminded by Megan Cruz of Channel 9 ~~YNN~~ Time Warner Cable News that morning, who was out doing a stand-up in the bitter cold, for no newsworthy reason, and one could tell she was freezing; it was about zero Fahrenheit, or below. She needed a hat.

The buses were rerouted several times that morning, apparently. The police had blocked I-787 for a time, by plows and when my colleague tried to come back to work after lunch, ended up taking city streets instead.

There’s lots of speculation that Biden and Cuomo are vying for the 2016 Democratic nomination for President, but its WAY too early for me to care.