Colorado Begins

Our first day in Colorado ends up being a day of rest. My mother fought for this decision and she won, her best arguments being a need for altitude adjustment and groceries. Hard to argue with – especially because of our Texan weakness to elevation (you should see the things that happen to us when we ignore elevation changes).

We went into Longmont to do our shopping. We went to the farmer’s market, skipped the Target as it was apparently being demolished, stopped at Mickey C’s bagels (yay!), a random garage sale for fun, and the nice Safeway. All the time I had a strange sensation knowing that I was in Matt’s hometown without Matt. Just weird. If we return I might have to do creepy things, but for now I’m safe of any absentee stalking (Oh you went to school here hmm? You live where?).

Upon return, we opened up all the windows and doors again (great cabin!) and this time a hummingbird flew into the house. Such tiny birds were something I hadn’t contemplated a great deal before, so it came as somewhat of an obvious realization that something so small would naturally have a brain the size of grain of rice, uncooked. It kept trying to get out of the screen covering the skylight. It didn’t the mental processes required to note that it wasn’t working and perhaps to try a new exit. My father encouraged it to move places with a broom (no we didn’t beat it with a broom, just a blocking object is enough to herd a hummingbird). ;) Still stupid, so it comes down to the window at my feet, smacks into it really, and tries for eternity to escape that way. My mother, concerned over the little pathetic bird’s plight, tries a new tactic. She takes a soft white shirt and covers him like others would cover a birdcage. It works, the poor thing stops moving and clings to the shirt, and my mother takes it outside and releases it. Cheers!

Later that evening, we went to the YMCA because they had a concert. The group was called the Star Edwards Band, and it had a harp, a guitar, and a percussionist. We arrived about 3 minutes late because we got stuck behind the slowest car ever, and as we walked in they were butchering a very old, very beautiful song. It was clear to us that they wrote their own arrangements, and it was also very clear that this was not a good idea. The songs needed to be cut in half, the melodies became so plodding I was tempted to go find food to throw, the guitar player needed help (his improvisation was possibly worse than a high school kid and he was really proud of it), their main form of arrangement was something like 16 measures and repeat, and added to all this was a bad synthetic percussion line and a lifelessness on stage. ‘Twas a shame because I was looking forward to the harp music. By herself, she was pretty good, but add in the others and the arrangement – ick.

My father and I shifted uncomfortably in our seats. It’s always a question of how long to stay and when it would be the most polite time to leave and escape. I occasionally shook with contained laughter and my mother poked me, on occasion I would look at my father and he would grin, but on the whole we were doing fairly well, behaved subtly and no objects landed on stage at our will.

This good behavior ended when the guitarist announced his own song. He described it as having a kid of Asian theme, and introduced it as “Chinatown (something)”. Momentarily the percussionist presses the foot pedal for a canned beat that belonged in a 60’s song, and the song begins. It has no Asian theme, is bland to the point of boredom, is plagued with improv runs the guy can’t do, and the good behavior of my family ended. I retract that, my mother behaved well. J

The instant the beat came on my father tried containment. He started to curl up a little in his chair, then turned towards me, away from the band, his hand went over his mouth because he couldn’t hide the smile, he shook a little, and poked me when I looked at him (because this only made it worse). I tried to hide behind my jacket, keep shaking to a minimum, and certainly not look at my father because it nearly always produced a near guffaw and many times brought me to tears.

We made it to the end of the song, not gracefully, and then my father took off to the bathroom. They started another song, a Celtic one this time in honor of the woman’s Celtic harp, and after I decided that I didn’t want the “8 measure and repeat” practice to ruin the song for me, I decided we should go wait for him in the lobby and then leave. We leave the building and start giggling. Normally my family doesn’t giggle, that’s left to me, but this was a special occasion. Then we continue giggling, almost to the point of hysteria. We were in tears by the time we reached the car, and talking about the band was difficult because we were laughing so hard. We sat in the car, giggling more, then finally after some minutes starting to recover. Good times. My father felt it was a waste of gas, on the other hand, we were entertained.