The Ants Go Marching One by One, Hurrah! Hurrah!

It's been quite some time since I've had a "random things I'm thinking about" post, so here you go, ye gods. 

I think I've become shameless. Ever since I've become aware of my womanly powers of manipulation, they keep popping up on me unannounced and totally applicable in a myriad of situations. It happened again today while I was teaching a piano lesson! It was one of my favorite students, Jake. Jake is by no means my most talented student, but he has shown a lot of improvement over the past year. He's fun to work with and he has a great sense of humor. His only faults are 1.) practicing in fits and spurts and 2.) crying at the drop of the hat. I swear, I've made this kid cry no less than five times, and I've never so much as looked cross-eyed at him. I feel like Attila the Hun. Teaching him is kind of like dancing -- it's tons of fun, but there's always the possibility of stepping on your partner's feet or falling over backwards.

Anyway, it was quite obvious that he hadn't practiced much, if at all, this week. I love how kids think we can't tell and say, "Oh, I think I'm going to get this song marked off this week!" and by the time they're done playing it I'm going, "Um, sweetheart, you didn't practice at all this week, did you?" and they act all crestfallen and surprised. Sheesh, guys, I've been teaching lessons since I was fifteen. I'm not stupid. 

To continue with the story, Jake limped painfully through his songs, I managed to reprimand him without evoking any tears (phew!) and then Inspiration Struck. I reached into my cabinet of extra music, and I saw his eyes get huge. There, in my hand, was a book of Star Wars music. Capturing his gaze in my own I said, "For every song you get marked off, you get to learn another line of Star Wars. Capisce?" He capisced and acted like it was the greatest thing ever.  I should have remembered that book ages ago. Nothing speaks to the male race, even young members of the male race, like Star Wars. Betcha he comes back next week with four songs ready to get marked off. Muahahaha, I'm good!

Courtney and I decided today that French toast is among the seven unnatural wonders of the world. I was trying to think of the other six today as I drove/froze solid and slid on my own icy butt to the bank. I came up with the following items:

1.) Lavender scented laundry detergents and softeners. Lavender is my favorite scent, and doing the laundry can be quite relaxing when you've got that lovely purple bottle standing near. Not to mention the fact that it makes me feel mildly evil whenever I pull Evan's clothes and sheets from the dryer all nice and clean and smelling sweetly of lavender and vanilla. 

2.) Amusement parks, more specially Cedar Point and Disney World. I am fearless in nothing but roller coasters. Best adrenaline rush in the world. 

3.) Converse sneakers.

4.) Caro syrup. I'm one of the maybe four people on the planet that loathes maple syrup. Caro is a godsend of the corn category.

5.) Fred Astaire. Don't think he's an unnatural wonder? Let's see you dance with drumsticks and go crazy on roller skates and woo Audrey Hepburn and see how long it is before you have wood burn across your butt cheeks from constantly falling over yourself.

6.) All technology that allows me to watch TV and movies. I'd kiss your motherboards or whatever if I weren't afraid of electrocuting myself. This is me we're talking about. It could totally happen.

It took me forever to decide the fate of a good steak when it came to being a wonder. A good steak is quite obviously a little piece of heaven here on earth, but can it be considered unnatural? No, because God in his infinite and omniscient mercy put the cow on earth knowing that it would soon lead to the steakhouse, so I suppose a steak must be a natural unnatural wonder. God put the cow in the meadow, we put the steak on the plate with a good bottle of A-1 close by. It was a joint effort, although I'm sure the humans' bit of the miracle was divinely inspired.

It is unbelievably frigid outside today. I'm sitting in a heated house with shoes and socks on....why, if I may ask a question of the universe, are my feet still giant frozen fish sticks??? I went to the bank today, as I mentioned before, and every single person that I saw was, without fail, wearing a hoody. It made me smile. Gotta love the climate's idea of universalism.

Big news! Elton John and Billy Joel's Face 2 Face tour is coming to Nashville in May! I'm so going! Knowing my luck it'll be exam week, but I don't care. I'll do something unheard of and actually work ahead. It's not like these guys are getting any younger. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

I'm going to get off now and go thaw out my feet. Too bad they don't make hoodys for the digits!