Coffee After Midnight

I've posted before, several months ago at least, about the weirdness that happens in the early morning hours. I'm sticking to that story. I live it everyday and know it is true.

A painter, who only works at night and whose work I enjoy, once told a two-pronged tail about his creative process. I found it to be a perfect analogy for what happens to the mind between 3 and 5 AM. When asked first about how he paints he said he paints nothing rather a magic monkey paints most everything, his only job is to make the monkey show up. Further, when asked why he decided to paint something, he colorfully explained that a tiny Abraham Lincoln was sitting on his shoulder one night and told him what subject matter to use.

So, that's to say I have noticed this trend extends to children. Granted, I don't keep my children up until 4:11 AM just to see how they react, but as anyone with kids knows they sometimes wake up in the middle of the night. Last night was no exception.

Gray woke up at some hour, I didn't look at the clock but since I wasn't asleep until well after midnight, I know it was at weird:30. First off I hear him walk in our room. He doesn't speak, doesn't reach out and touch anyone, just stands there by the bed looking at me. Then I ask him what he needs, not a word. I ask him if he needs a snuggle, and he climbs in next to me. Finally he's lying there and flops his cast arm up in the air and brings it down squarely on my face. A note to any parents who may have a kid in a cast one day: casts in the face hurt, probably worse in the middle of the night.

Tracy seemingly isn't affected by the late night weirdness, but his time is coming. I don't think Gray was affected at the same age. Tracy still has the angry/sad/general crankiness in the middle of the night.

I don't know why this is, but one day I would like to find out. Is it simply that the brain really wants to be asleep, no matter how much rest you get during the day? Is it because of this you enter some sort of nether-world where you are awake and dreaming? Do you lose some sort of inhibition or judgement at this hour, where rational norms are changed due to some time-intrinsic lack of rationality? Is reality warped, time-zone-by-time-zone, all around the world late at night and we are never any-the-wiser?

Nothing in this post even remotely makes sense, does it? It probably has no real flow. It is 3:51 AM and there's a commercial on TV about stealing cookies from the cookie jar. Needless to say, even the commercials get strange at this hour.

A Brief Update

I mentioned Gray had an appointment to check out his arm. Everything turned out great, he's healing perfectly. The doctor even said he could move to a short-arm cast in 10 days. He's counting down the days- April 24 and he gets to bgend his elbow again. Weaponized cast, here we come!

Just Another Day?

I doubt I have anything profound to say today. I'm taking the day to relax and enjoy some time working out some keyboard stuff in the studio. I should be working on a vocal demo so I could get a few more solo gigs but I'm not, so there.

A couple of days ago I mentioned Tracy had learned to take advantage of Gray's one-handedness. That is still going on and it is really funny to see happening. It is as though, now that the playing field is level, Tracy has really come into his own with his brother. Of course it is also a scary proposition, because I can certainly see this as a glimpse into the future when the playing field is more permanently level. Those two will always be plotting, sneaking, or fighting. I don't think it will be long until what little hair I have left turns gray. Shelly's hair, maybe not, she stays very youthful (read into that what you will, I'm not saying anything).

Gray has a checkup on his arm today to make sure it is healing correctly. The bone was not quite in perfect alignment, and although the doctor said it was normal in a kid his age, he did want to recheck to validate it is not slipping. As long as that goes according to plan our little fellow will keep wearing his cast for a few more weeks and be back to normal in no time.

It is quite a gray, cold day here; particularly for April. I don't find that terrible, in fact I enjoy it. Days like this tend to make me reflective, and reflectivity tends to spur creativity for me. What is especially interesting today is the juxtaposition of color. To see the trees and flowers explode in color against the forbidding, lifeless sky is truly amazing. It is as if the background has been stripped away to allow the beauty of now to be fully apparent. The green of the grass, the pink of the cherry trees, the maroon of the maples, the purples of the redbud, all set against the shadowy, leafless hardwoods and stark sky give a new appreciation of how God has chosen to rebuild a creation we have broken from below our feet to the heavens. It is a true picture of the redemption planned for us before He ever sent His first words to split the heavens.

I Did What??

Ever wake up from a drunk and have someone tell you something outrageous you did the night before? Many of you may have never had that happen, in fact I never have. I think it's because I generally have a good memory, though. I can recall a couple of times asking myself that question.

Mom, if you're reading, the previous paragraph is completely hypothetical. I've never had too much to drink in my life. Now you can keep up that myth that I'm somehow perfect and never been in trouble.

Now, as all of that is a past life, I still have those moments. Case-in-point: Sunday night I was going over some music, all of which I had agreed to play and is pretty well set in stone. One of the songs I chose based on having learned it several years ago and recalling it to be easy to play on the guitar. Given I have learned a lot about the guitar in my years in Nashville, I figured anything I played before I moved here would be super-easy to pull off now. Right? Wrong.

You see once I started playing it, as I had learned it several years ago, I realized I had learned it from an E-Z chord book. While the intervals I was playing were basically right, they were really missing something... they were in the wrong key. First chore, find the right key.

I was playing in e minor, and while this was nice and easy to play, I could tell I was way too high. A little experimenting and I had it. Can you guess? OK, so not everyone is musical, but I'll go ahead and float this out there... it's in c# minor. Let me put it in layman's terms; if you play piano c# minor is fine, but the guy who wrote this had to be a sadist to write c# minor for the guitar.

Once I got the key, I transposed the chords and realized I was still missing something. The chords in the song had more depth than I was playing. I went through them, there were extra notes all over the place, 7ths, 9ths, diminished, suspended, whatever weird you could throw in was there. I'm not playing this, no way.

Problem is, like I said earlier, I've already agreed to play the song. Did I mention when? This Sunday. Less than a week, plus it's Easter. I did what? Yep, I did that. Now I hope I have sufficient time to practice!

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Update on Gray- He's doing great. He has an appointment with the doctor today and should get his cast. That will be great, it's hard to hold him back. The splint he's in now holds his arm snugly, but it does not offer the protection that such a wild animal needs for a break of such significance.

Another funny thing about that... His brother has figured out he has a distinct advantage now. Back in the fall, with Gray's last break, Tracy never figured out he had an advantage. This time he's figured it out and is taking all sorts of liberties with it. Maybe in the next couple of days I'll expound on that in a post. It's really all too funny.

A Day of Blessings

Yesterday was a day of true blessings. In actuality, it would seem nothing good happened; which is the absolution of grace, and a reminder to rejoice in all things- all things.

The day started (or ended in my case) fairly normal. I left work on time, got home on time, had some eggs and cheese, played with the boys for a few minutes, and headed off to bed. It was a gray morning and heavy storms were in the offing for the afternoon, so I was trying to get as much sleep as I could in the event we had to run for cover later. Good plan...

I don't know if Shelly told me or not, I have no idea, but she took the kids up to the playground to play with Tracy's "girlfriend" and spend some time with Courtney. Given the approaching storms, everyone would be stuck inside later in the day. This got everyone out to burn off some extra energy and, since she is very much pregnant, allowed Courtney some time to vent with Shelly. I'm sure that was all needed. Good plan...

Seemingly we are always wrought with good plans. You see, once at the park, Gray finally decided to take a shot at the monkey bars. As I hear it went down, he fell off the monkey bars. Can you guess what happened next? Yep, another broken arm. Left wrist, above the growth plate, both bones, required reduction. Poor kid.

Thankfully this time he had not had anything to eat or drink just before he fell. This allowed the doctors to move pretty quickly and get him to sleep and set the wrist. We got to the hospital about 12:15 and they had it set by 2:20. By 2:45 or so he was awake and he and I headed off to post reduction x-ray. 3:30, Gray was in tears ready to go home, and we had our discharge papers in hand. Then the tornado alarms went off. Poor kid.

So we waited through the storm just to see the lower level of the hospital parking garage flood to the point we couldn't leave. I think we finally left the hospital about 5:45.

In the meantime some pretty amazing things happened. First, Nashville was struck by terrible flooding and at least one tornado. We were safely tucked in a hospital building completely safe. Second, having made no preparations for such a day, the kids without food were provided fresh bread sticks by a family who had purchased two packages and not even opened them. Finally, when the flooding issue in the parking garage had been resolved sufficiently to get the cars out, most of the heavy rain had left the area, making the drive home much less treacherous. Plus, in all of the flooding and storms no one was seriously injured or killed.

So even though my buddy's arm was broken, even though I only got an hour-and-a-half's sleep, even though the boys were fussy and tired when we got home, and even though I've been at work all night after yesterday, I am reminded to rejoice.

Philippians 4:4-7 (ESV) "4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; 6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Good plan.