My Reputation is Starting to Precede Me...

I was waiting to pick up Son#3 today from his afterschool art class. In my hand I held a music book for Son#1. There is a big Christmas concert that the band is having and I needed to make a copy of some music for him. I happened to see a Mom I knew, who was talking to a Mom I had only seen before, so I walked over. She asked me what I had in my hand. I told her I had to make copies for the Christmas concert and "You would not believe..." and before I could finish the sentence, the Mom said to me, "What in the hell did you get yourself into this time?" and the other Mom, this Mom I DID NOT KNOW, said, "D., what did they get you involved with this time? Even I hear the stories..." Not only did she know my name, but she 'had heard stories'? Yikes!

So I told them that the band director and I had been talking and I told him I still did pick up my flute and he asked me... to.participate.in.the.kid's.concert. He and I are doing some duet. I kid you not.

Now, allow me to make this clear, as I have said to him repeatedly, I am no longer a good flute player. I pick it up in June, usually the last two weeks, right before my family's 4th of July Ceilidh, in some great effort to be able to play a Scottish tune my father has picked out while he plays either the pipes (as in bag) or the fiddle. Then throughout the year, I may pick it up spontaneously and run through some scales or some old tune I still have sheet music for. That does NOT happen often.

However, now I am playing, I believe next week, for parents... with the band director. I see much shame ahead of me... shame and practicing. He picked out the tune for me to study and the first thing I said was, "Hmm. 3 flats. Didn't have anything with two or less, huh?" Thank God it wasn't 4.

Nice to know I have a reputation. And nice to know that I appear to be a source of entertainment for some of the parents...