The Severed Cortex

It's been a long time since I've written about Robert, but that doesn't mean we haven't been hanging out with him. We've actually done something almost every week in December.

Band Concert

The last time I was at Robert's house, I saw a music case on the floor. When I asked Robert's mom about it she seemed shocked to find out that Robert hadn't told me he played trumpet in the band. Robert seemed taken aback when I asked him if I could play his trumpet, but before he could say no I ran through a quick chromatic scale. Twenty-three years since I last picked up a trumpet and the brain signals still made it to my fingertips. Unfortunately, they didn't make it to my lips quite as nicely. I was able to create decent tone, but I couldn't hold it steady for very long; perhaps just a 16th note in length. Now I'm pricing trumpets. Robert's mom also said, He has a band concert next Tuesday.
So, on December 11th we went to Robert's school in the evening to listen to his band concert. It was quite possibly the most torturous musical event I've ever been to. I'm only half kidding about the excruciating band concert. It was pretty much what you would expect from a 5th grade band and orchestra. Yes, they actually have both and there are three times as many kids in the orchestra. Which, to me is a good thing. Just the fact that schools are still able to teach music in the days of No Child Left Behind seems amazing to me. The orchestra instructor was a little high strung, but then again she was dealing with the type of kids that might drop their violin on the gym floor. Yes, it did happen and yes it happened at the quietest moment. Just as the orchestra instructor was about to take the podium. It echoed nicely and I laughed audibly.
Next came the band, led by a guy who could have passed for Tom Ryan's brother. I guess it might be helpful to understand who Tom Ryan is, and the answer to that puzzler is the Assistant Band Director back in my high school band days. Nice guy. Very enthusiastic about music. Didn't exactly stay on top of the latest Paris fashion trends. Neither did Robert's band director, but he did seem enthusiastic about teaching the kids. He even took credit for the 5th grade band arrangement of Jingle Bells that they played. Dream big my friend, dream big. The band sounded better than the orchestra. Let's just leave it at that. I could hear Robert playing above everyone else.
The choir came last and they were actually quite good. I have a theory that you can get any 30 people together, have them sing just like they do in the shower, and somehow it works. Have you ever heard a bad choir before? It has to be more than 30 people though. Anything less than that and all bets are off.
After the performance, we went to Applebee's to celebrate with chicken fingers and Sprite.

Christmas Tree

We received a flyer in the mail from BBBS telling us that a Christmas Tree Farm located on the other side of Shiloh would donate part of their earnings to BBBS if we brought the flyer with us when we purchased a tree. We needed a Christmas tree and it seemed like a fun activity to do so off we went. From Robert's house to the Christmas Tree Farm way past Shiloh requires nothing short of a sherpa, and if part of the funds hadn't gone to BBBS we would have stopped long before Shiloh to get a tree. Instead we ventured way out in the country where the operation was run by the kids (or grandkids) of the farm owner. Great gig for the kids, plus it teaches them the value of hard work. The Mehrle family back home set all their kids up with a corn stand in the summer and those kids always had money to spend. I was envious. Anyway, enough of my bitterness. The kids handed me a saw and we walked up a steep hill to pick out our tree. They had a bunch of nice ones and it took us awhile to figure out which one was the best out of all of them. It was difficult, but we settled on one finally. I cut it down and Robert helped me drag it down the hill. The kids bored a hole in the trunk and then tried their best to get out as many dead needles as they could. Many still wound up on our living room carpet. All in all though, we got a very nice, symmetrical, 7-foot tree for $35, and part of that went to a non-profit. Not a bad deal if you subtract out the $300 in gas I spent getting there and back.
The original plan was to go home, set up the tree, then decorate it. That didn't work because it did nothing but drizzle all day. The tree was way too wet to bring in the house so we just made s'mores on the gas stove and drank hot chocolate. Equally fine.

Tree Decoration

The weekend before Christmas I left to pick up Robert with sole purpose of having him help us decorate the tree. I already had the tree up and Nancy cleaned out all the dead underbrush that seemed to be the root cause of why we were being flooded with pine needles and debris. Best to just get it over with all at once. I pulled all the decorations out of the basement shelves a couple days ahead of time and by the time I showed up at the house with Robert, Nancy had most of the essential stuff moved upstairs. I strung up the lights and Robert and Nancy handled most of the ornament placement. And then we played Guitar Hero, and Tekken 3. At some point, I moseyed upstairs to cook dinner while Robert and Nancy battled on the Playstation. Dinner was, of course, simple, yet tasty. With cheesy breadstick goodness.

Christmas

We actually swapped gifts with Robert and his family on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. We all met over at his house in the afternoon. We gave Robert's sister some candy, which I'm sure she didn't need. Robert's mother received a baby blanket knitted by Nancy. Robert's gift was actually the one gift that I purchased in plenty of time. While I was in Phoenix over the Labor Day weekend working, Nancy was enjoying the free hotel room courtesy of Magellan Health Services, and free flight courtesy of America West. She toured, she caught up with her cousin, and she shopped. She even purchased a gift to give Robert when we got back to town. While in the airport preparing to fly back home on Labor Day, she called me on the cell phone at whatever Direct Care Clinic I may have been working in at the time, and told me I needed to get a gift for somebody but don't worry about Robert because she already had something. I wrote that down completely opposite in my brain and before I left town I picked up a Phoenix Suns jersey for Robert. So, for Christmas, Robert got a Phoenix Suns Amare Stoudemire #1 jersey. Robert gave Nancy some home decor that she has set up in the living room. I got a totally cool hoody sweatshirt. It's real sweet looking and I wear it immediately after getting it out of the dryer. It basically stays clean for 30 seconds.
We also spent some time on the kitchen floor playing with a race track. It had a contraption that would sling the cars out of it at subsonic speeds and the way the race track was banked caused the cars to stay on the track for the complete loop. Whereupon the contraption would sling the car out again at a subsonic speed. It was great fun.
On Christmas day Robert called me to wish me Merry Christmas. He was also dying to tell me that he got a robot and try as he might, he couldn't fix it so that I could see the robot dancing through the telephone. It didn't make him any less excited telling me about the robot.