I'm cheating
My birthday is a week away and, well, I’m nowhere close to completing the original list. So I’m cheating.
Even with these outright attempts to cheat my way to the finish line minor revisions, I’m not going to hit all 32. I might just have to finagle a few more retroactive additions to the list. But the whole point of the list is to encourage me to have experiences, and the things I’ve added to the list were things worth experiencing. As a corollary, what’s been crossed off hasn’t been abandoned, just pushed forward to the 33 list.
In the spirit of forging ahead, I wanted to write a quick post tonight with brief thoughts about each of the things I’ve completed since I took the kids to the aquarium over the summer.
Grade 5 RCM Exam — I passed! Walking out of the exam, still shaking from nerves, I had a feeling I didn’t fail, but only by a hair. Turns out I played well enough to score an 88/100, with very encouraging notes from the examiner. Her highest compliment was that I played with “musicality,” which is always something I’ve struggled with. (Just hitting the right notes with the right rhythm is hard enough, let alone playing it “like music.”) I look forward to tackling the Grade 6 exam next summer.
Watch Colbie take her first steps — She is a walking machine! Can’t be stopped. And so fast, too!
See Jonah swim — Counting this one feels a little like cheating (I’m noticing a trend…), but he tried so hard at his lessons that I want to honor his courage by entering it on the list. He still hasn’t swum1 by himself—he’s afraid to hold his breath and put his head underwater—but he’s taken some positive steps (strokes?) in the right direction.
Listen to the Top Recommended 100 solo piano pieces from Talk Classical — A joy to listen. Some of these pieces were brand new to me, but most were old friends I revisited. There are a couple of pieces I didn’t quite finish (did I mention I’m cheating my way through this list?), but otherwise I managed to listen to hundreds of hours of solo classical piano by some of the greatest to ever do it. My favorite new discovery through this process has to be Debussy’s “Bruyères” from his set of Preludes, a piece so short you could finish listening to it by the end of this post. It’s gorgeous and worth many, many listens. While it’s difficult to select any one piece as the “best,” my all-time favorite remains Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, D.960, a very long piece that you would not finish before the end of this post, but worth every single second. I don’t really know what “sublime” means, but this sonata would likely be its musical definition.
Take Colbie on a hike — We’ve been on a few since I last posted. This picture was taken on a particularly pleasant morning at the Santa Rosa Plateau.
Play a Grade 6 piano piece at performance level — I’d feel comfortable performing both Grieg’s Arietta and Czerny’s Etude in A-flat Major for an audience right now. Neither is perfect, but perfect is an impossible standard. Hoping to hone them both even more before next summer’s exam.
Read Under the Dome — I started reading this about 10 years ago and gave up probably 10 pages in. It’s just so long, and my 21-year-old self felt he had better things to do. My older, wiser(?) self committed to consuming Stephen King’s monstrosity, all 1,076 pages of it, and I’m glad he did. It’s a terrifying, claustrophobic exploration of what happens when there’s nowhere to hide and nobody left to protect you. Some people may not like the explanation behind the dome’s appearance, but I think it fits in perfectly with the themes of the story and makes its potentiality all the more chilling.
See the San Diego Symphony — Boy, did we! We could touch the stage from our seats. I enjoyed this date night with Whitney immensely. We were treated to three masterworks: Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and his Italian Symphony, as well as Korngold’s Violin Concerto. While the Walt Disney Concert Hall still tops my list of favorite venues, I’ll be returning to Jacobs Music Center for sure.
Host a piano recital — Lots of fun to do this with family and friends. And, it turns out, crucial for my success on the exam. For my first unofficial rehearsal, I botched my pieces in places I didn’t even know I could screw up. The recital was slightly better, giving me confidence to take with me into the exam. Thanks to everybody who showed!
Watch Jaws — Like going to Hawaii after everybody hypes it up, Jaws is decidedly not overrated. Richard Dreyfuss is especially fun to watch.
Play Sword of the Sea — It’s like playing Journey all over again, but this time I get to do frontflips on a sword-snowboard. Gnarly! Highly recommend.
Play Blue Prince — Another recommendation from Gio, Blue Prince was an absolute(ly frustrating) delight. Whitney and I spent several hours exploring the mansion together, adding to notebooks, drafting ourselves into corners, and cheating (gasp!) by looking up some hints about how to unlock Room 46. Would it have been more fulfilling to figure everything out without help from the internet? Probably. More fun? I don’t know. I have no regrets about how we did it. I feel accomplished.
Run a 10K — A return to the Gaslamp 10K after a year away. I didn’t beat my previous time, but I did finish without injury or giving up, which is always the goal.
Run a 15K — Haven’t done one of these since 2014. The race was completely on trails in San Diego’s Carmel Valley, with the definition of “trail” somewhat varying through the race. At one point I ran about 100 yards on smooth stones that should have been at the bottom of a riverbed. It’s a small miracle I didn’t sprain my ankle. Note to self: Puke Hill really is as hard (or harder) than they make it sound.
Watch Happy Gilmore — It’s pretty funny. It mostly just made me sad that I wasn’t currently golfing.
Watch Over the Garden Wall — This will be a yearly October watch for us. Everything fits together so nicely, and the music is a vibe. Trying to be more like Greg.
Clean/organize the office — It’s not fully there, but it’s organized enough for Whitney to work and for me not to feel overwhelmed with clutter when I practice on my electric keyboard. It feels fitting to end this slightly dishonest list with an entry that isn’t totally complete.
Counting everything on this list, which is generous, I’m 75% done with this year’s list. Still no way I’ll hit 100% by Tuesday, but I’ll get closer.
See you next time.
This never feels right, but it is. Thanks, 7th grade grammar handbook!