jumpingfish

So why is it? Why is it that pieces like Take Five are so compelling?

4/4 time. 3/4 time. That’s fine, but it just goes around and around and in some sense sounds like an infinite loop around just a tiny bit of something.

But 5/4 and 7/4, well now we’re talking. Looping still, of course. But each iteration holds a tiny universe. A world full of complexities and maybe unexpected syncopations. And can you even count along?

So there’s Brubeck’s Take Five in 5/4. And there’s Jethro Tull’s Living in the Past in 5/4. And of course, there’s Pink Floyd’s Money in 7/4.

So much happens in each measure.

That’s why, isn’t it?

1. Noticing the Music

There was music in the grocery store.

How great is that, live music at the grocery store?

We walk in thru the sliding doors, and as the smell of the produce surrounds us, there’s guitar music coming from the lobby where a guy is sitting on a stool playing and singing while people sit at tables eating and listening.

I know. The prices are high. Still, the food is good. There are many organic choices. … And now there’s music.

2. Scowling at the Music

We wandered around, starting in the produce section, working our way thru the meats and cheese, getting some eggs and soup. And then we were back in meats again. 

I was picking out some hot, cooked chicken to eat for dinner (because we had met after work, and I was fading fast) when I noticed the music again. It was coming from the other side of the store. It was loud.

The guy was belting it out at the top of his lungs. And it was really bad.

3. Dining with the Music

After we checked out, we pushed the cart up to a table just beyond the cash registers, and we sat down to eat.

The guy was still there howling into the microphone. There were very few people left at the tables listening to him. The music had been deteriorating steadily, and it frankly wasn’t pleasant sitting there. I chose a table as far from him as we could get.

“Do you want to sit outside?” asked the Fair and Industrious Trudy as she put her wallet back into her purse.

It was cold outside, and I was really hungry by now.

“No,” I said as I bit into a drumstick.

4. Stopping the Music

And now the songs turned raunchy. Not only was he too loud. Not only was he out of tune. But now he was singing some song about sex.

The manager walked up and quietly whispered something to him. They spoke for a few minutes, and then she walked away.

“Well that’s fine,” he said into the microphone. “We won’t sing about SEX. We don’t talk about SEX. Anything but SEX.”

The manager came back and quietly whispered a few more things to him. She still had a pleasant look on her face, but it was pretty obvious by now that things we going majorly downhill.

Mark mumbled some words into the microphone as he shuffled thru his sheet music looking for a different song.

“Here’s something,” he said. “It’s about a grocery store!”

This time, the song was about blood, warm blood flowing out of her head. Each time he got to the word “blood”, he belted it out as loudly as he possibly could.

The manager returned. I heard her quietly say, “Ok, we’re done.”

And that was the end of the music.

The sun is overtopping the house, golden light spilling into the front, lighting the Salvia blossoms that remain and that one blooming Cowpen Daisy by the curb. 

The oak leaves are bright green and swaying in a gentle breeze.

There is a pie in the house: apple/pear/cranberry. Attention! There is pie.

We returned to the aroma of baking last night as the pie cooled, having filled ourselves downtown amid the lights of the city and the buzz of the hipsters laughing, drinking and checking their phones. We ate chicken and meatloaf and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and corn fritters and deviled eggs.

And today there will be another feast. Turkey. Sweet potatoes again. Green beans. Stuffing. And attention! There will be another pie.

My grandfather would have been delighted.

The three of us (Trudy, mom and I) will sit down, a smaller thing perhaps than those Thanksgivings of old with all of us gathered under the glowing light of my grandparents’ magical dining room, but a fine thing nevertheless. A fine thing. We three will sit at the table with a spread before us, such as it will be, and think of our gifts. 

I am thankful for so many things. 

I am thankful for blankets I can pull about me at night. For arms intertwined with Trudy’s. For happy dogs in the morning. For happy dogs at night. For a boy about to graduate from college.

I am thankful for lights we read by in the evening and for farmer’s market eggs in the morning.

I am thankful for butterflies and bees buzzing in the yard. For lizards hiding in the rocks. For beetles scurrying in the leaf litter. For the snakes that we rarely see but know are there. For wrens and mockingbirds and cardinals and bluejays and titmice and doves and owls and hawks. And even for vultures soaring just above the treetops.

I am thankful for the dirt that we plant in. For the warm, rich compost pile in the back. For the cucumbers and tomatoes and peppers and greens that grow out of the ground by some magic that I still cannot quite believe. 

With all of this, I am blessed. By all of this, I am humbled. For all of this, I give grateful thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.

He leads a team. She’s a contractor on it. They were talking in an office behind a closed glass door. But their meeting was over, and they slide back the door as they walked out into the big room with the rest of us.

“How old are your kids,” he asked her.

She smiled at the question. “Fourteen,” she said.

He smiled broadly. “Mine are four and almost two.”

It was then that his face really lit up. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He swiped in once and held it out. 

She took it and looked at the pictures of his children, and she said something back.

He nodded and chuckled and took back his phone. She sat down at her desk. He walked around to the other side and sat down at his. And they got back to work.

This is an amazing place. I told my mom once that when I took this job that I had died and gone to heaven. It’s true. Every day I find another reason why it’s true.

I saw Endeavour hitching a ride west this morning.

Standing in the wet grass on Auditorium Shores, we spotted it approaching from the east out of the sun. They had clearance to fly low at 1500 feet. With landing lights on, shining brightly thru the morning haze, a T-38 trailing slightly behind and off to one side.

The 747’s turbofans whined loudly as they passed over downtown. It was a single pass, flying directly over the capitol and then climbing back to altitude as they passed behind a flagpole and into the hills on its way to El Paso and then to California.

I saw Endeavour hitching a ride this morning. And that will certainly be the last one I see in the air.