The joy of Legos and Tchaikovsky

M&L have just, and I mean just, discovered the joy of spending hours building things with Legos. Now, they've had legos since they were itty-bitty (inherited from older brothers), but during the past couple of days, they're spending hours at a time building. L even built a fire engine USING THE DIRECTIONS. I was impressed. Of course, about 5 minutes after he came and showed it to me, he proceeded to drop it on the foyer floor, which sent it into a gazillion pieces. After a few minutes of sobs, and some serious mommy-hugs, he pulled himself together and re-built it. I kept telling him that that's the cool thing about Legos - you can always rebuild anything that falls apart or is, ahem, destroyed by your sister.

Reminds me of when Matt, my 22-year old stepson, was about 10 years old. He would build these amazingly complex and intricate creations, then put them away for what seemed like forever. E, who was about 5 at the time, would find them, and proceed to, egads, cannibalize them for HIS creations. Matt would, without fail, fall into hysterics of mammoth proportions. It was unbelievable the tantrum he would throw about these things. We really just had to sit back and laugh at him, it was just that ridiculous.

The Legos that M&L are now playing with, well, at least some of them, were hubby's when he was a kid. See, Legos are stupidly expensive, but we stick it to the company by holding on to the stupid pieces for 40 years. That'll show em.

Okay, now to the joy of Tchaikovsky part. I just got home from playing a concert as second flute for the Prince Georges Philharmonic. The concert was themed around Shakespeare - music from Othello, The Tempest, Twelth Night, and of course, Romeo & Juliet (that's the one Mr. T wrote). R&J is the very famous tune that most people recognize, whether they listen to classical music or not. Anway, it was a blast. The orchestra played really well tonight, with only some minor intonation problems. But jeesh, everyone seemed to be in a contest to outblow each other! Why is it, that during performances, this orchestra plays louder than they ever do in rehearsals? Which, as a result, makes the pitch go sharp, and causes the intonation problems. Oh well, I guess that's the difference between us and an orchestra where the players actually get paid for their efforts. (I'm not complaining, trust me. I love to play, whether I'm paid or not). And lest I forget, the county executive (in other words, head dude of Prince Georges County) was there. VERY important for a county-funded orchestra. So I'm glad we played well for him.