Everything Is Kinda Alright

Dad at Christmas

Everything is kinda all right

We gonna make it through the long night

And everything’s gonna work out all right

Long as we keep a-movin’ on

—Charlie Daniels

I should have posted about this a while back, but I’ve never been that good at keeping up with my journals, even though I keep starting them.

I chose the title of this post from the Charlie Daniels song quoted above because that is how I feel after talking to Dad on the phone this evening. It’s not great, but some times all right is all you get…or need.

The picture of Dad is from our trip to see him at Christmas. This picture and many of the recent ones bring a different song to mind.

Well, to me he’s one of the heroes of this country

So why’s he all dress up like them old men?

—Guy Clark

That’s not how he sounded when we talked. And that’s not how I feel tonight.

Dad is now almost through with his radiation therapy. Because they’re irradiating the same general area as when he had colon cancer, he can only take half of what the radiologist said he would normally do for bladder cancer. Dad seems to be tolerating the therapy very well. Today was the first time he complained of any side effects, and those are not beyond the pale of his normal range of symptoms.

So, I’m reasonably optimistic. Dad is in good spirits and has some goals set. They aren’t as long-term as he once set, but they are very reasonable for someone pushing 89. I am very pleased that one of them is to reach 90. When he accomplishes that, he can set some more. As he noted today, “You have to have goals.”

On a completely different note, Suna and I had dinner tonight with Tubaboy and his girlfriend, who has a vaguely Princess Di-ish look to her. (She is a very sweet girl from Montana.) She used Tubaboy’s kitchen to prepare an eggplant primavera. I was really surprised at how delicious it was—not that I had any doubts about her culinary capabilities; it was the eggplant part that bothered me.

After dinner, we walked around campus and visited Tubaboy’s roommate at work. On the way home, I saw a huge gray fox run across the street. Now I know why the dogs have been in an uproar the past several nights.

Father′s Day

Packaging for The Vampire Tarot Photo source: Cult of Personality

Father’s Day is one of those quaint traditions that I never paid that much attention to. I know it was important to Dad, so I always make a point of calling him some time during the day. Other than that, it′s always been yet another way for Hallmark to make money. No biggie.

This year, Tubaboy and Beccano chipped in and bought me The Vampire Tarot. It’s really cool—well thought out and beautifully illustrated. I’ll try to do a more thorough review either here or on Tarot Obsession soon.

Other than that, yard work in the Texas sun. It wasn’t that bad. It still hasn’t hit a hundred degrees yet. And once it does, the grass won’t grow enough to worry about mowing that often.

Beginnings

This is the “living learning center” where Tubaboy will live for the next academic year. When I was in college, we called them “dorms.”

Suna and I spent the day on the campus of Southwestern University in Georgetown. The students had their own activities, while parents were ensconced in crowded lectures that either extolled the virtues of the university or encouraged us to let go and empower our fledglings to solve their own problems—a learning method in which I wholeheartedly believe. (That may be the longest sentence I have written in 20+ years.)

For example: we learned the value of shelf liner in the morning session. To be fair, there was also a lot of information repeated from the New Student Day this Spring. But that repetition was needed as the crowd today was much larger than this Spring. Many of the adults hadn’t already been told of the campus police presence. Or of the dedication of the faculty and staff to the betterment of our children.

Suna enjoyed the lemonade they served to keep us from keeling over on a 100º+ cloudless afternoon.

All of the speakers were as polished as you would expect from a highly rated, if small, liberal arts college. Most were even funny, and all seemed sincere and caring. The cynic in me says that’s why they were the ones on stage, but I have also found those qualities in everyone we have met here.

One thing I am certain of is that if Kynan starves here, it’s his own damned fault. The food is plentiful and good, and I don’t believe that is just to impress the parents. It is institutional food—very good institutional food, but still very institutional.

I started this post during the second afternoon session, which was misnamed “Begin with the End in Mind” or something very like that. It was really four students droning about how great Southwestern is now that they have adjusted to college life. Since I have always been turned off by self-proclamations of school spirit (thanks to the fascist traditions of Brazoswood High), I left to read and write for a few minutes.

Mobile Blogging from here.

Life Is Hard But Good

OK. Suna blogged this one, too. But it’s such a nice picture. Photo by: Jon Montgomery

Well, I’m still not blogging with the consistency that I was earlier this year, but maybe that’s a good thing. Work is good, and it’s been taking most, if not all, of my writing energy lately. So I’ll keep this Grateful Monday short.

This week I’m grateful that our family economics are to the point where both Suna and I can start investing some of our energies outside the home. Tonight, Suna is leading a meeting at church. I cooked a nice sausage dinner—Suna and Beccano picked out the sausage yesterday—and had it ready when Suna got home.

Suna, the boys, and I sat down to dinner and conversation, something else to be grateful for. In spite of the dreadful manipulation of paranoid souls in which the Right continues to engage, I have some hope for the future. With Trackgrease, Tubaboy, and Beccano putting their energies into making the world a better place, how can we fail? Again.

I’m Back

I’m so glad to have this guy hang around for a little while longer.

I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for a while—neither writing nor doing much in the way of reading. I’m sorry. It’s been a couple of months where life just got in the way. So I thought it appropriate to resume this endeavor with Grateful Monday.

I have so much to be grateful for, and so much has happened since 22 May. I hope to back-post some of what has happened, not that I think anyone is all that interested. I just have a thing for completeness.

So here’s what I am grateful for:

• Dad is alive and well. He is going to keep farming for at least another year and has decided to buy a new tractor. All of that has been in question at one time or another since May.
• Suna’s position at the company with which she has been contracting seems secure. They may even bring her on as a real employee.
• My contract at the Fruit Company will end about a month earlier because I have accepted an offer to work there (albeit in another department) as a real employee. I’m looking forward to getting back into tech support training and working with some old friends.
• TrackGrease seems to have gotten married. I don’t think I was officially invited, but I am happy for him. And I’m proud of him. I don’t think I tell him that enough. I know I don’t call enough.
• TubaBoy has been getting ready to start his undergraduate education at Southwestern.
• Beccano is getting ready for his junior year of high school. He continues to play guitar really well. Getting better all the time.

That’s the short version.

Regional Band Concert

The pictures I took all came out a bit dark, but you can see them on Facebook.

I knew a month or more ago that TubaBoy had made Regional Band. That’s quite an accomplishment, and he deserves it. He is quite a talented tuber…er, tuba-er…tuba-ist? He is very talented even though he never practices at home.

I found out yesterday that the Regional Band concert was today in Georgetown. Suna, Beccano, and I piled into the truck to trek to the town of Georges.

It turns out that TubaBoy made Regional Symphonic Band. The Regional Concert Band opened the show and had a much more accessible program, including one piece that caused us to buy the CD they were recording.

The Symphonic Band played some very modern music, one piece of which included dodecaphony—a musical technique that uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. I didn’t know they were supposed to play all 12 notes at the same time. It was rather painful. On the up side, they closed with several pieces by Leonard Bernstein. As the musical heir to one of my favorite composers, Aaron Copeland, this part of the show was most enjoyable.

Hitched

Beccano, Me, Suna, and TubaBoy

Photo by: Parker

Suna and I got married in the presence of more than a hundred of our favorite people. Rather than talk about it too much, here are links to various photo collections:

• A collection of pre-wedding photos in a Facebook album
• Jon Montgomery’s pictures collected in one of my Facebook albums
• Suna’s Flickr wedding album
• Some of the photos Rick Hendricks posted on Facebook
• Captain Flatulence’s MSN photo album of the wedding
• Emily’s Facebook album
• John Phelps posted his collection at johnphelps photography (Added 5 December)
• Chemical Pink posted her view of the wedding on Flickr (Added 6 December)
• Rick also posted Michelle’s photos on a Facebook album. (Added 9 December)
• Suna’s friend Janet posted photos on her Picasa album.

What’s in a Dining Room?

The Pile

Suna was relieved recently when we turned the dining room back into a dining room for a church get-together. Alas, that is no more.

Tonight the boys and I took everything off the walls and stacked the furniture in the center of the room. Why? It’s all part of the remodeling project.

Since I am afraid of heights, I don’t feel comfortable painting the high walls in the entry hall and dining room. They are way up there. I don’t even own a latter tall enough to reach the top.

So we made ready for the contractors. It was fun working with the boys—even if they didn’t think so. Sigh.

Football’s Back

TubaBoy—March of the Week!

High school football resumed again last night after a two week break. The game two weeks ago was canceled (thankfully) because of hurricane Ike. If it had not been, our kids would have been coming back from College Station on roads packed with refugees. They probably would have still been in the buses when the storm caught up to them.

Last week was a by week. And the two off weeks did nothing for our team. They had their butts handed to them by another local high school. At least the band was good.

And speaking of the band: TubaBoy was the Marcher of the Week. This is the first time he has gotten to stand on the little step ladder and have the band told who he is and how great he is. He was the picture of grace and humility. Not!

Kids

Beccano in Disguise As Me

First, the good news! I probably have a contract with the Fruit Company. That contract should keep us solvent through the end of the year, and it could possibly be extended after that. And the hiring manager wanted to hire me as a real employee, but after month of interviews all hiring was frozen. Sigh!

That is really good news because kids are expensive—even kids as good and self-reliant as Suna’s. It seems that TubaBoy has been texting so much that the buttons fell off of his phone. Granted this is a phone he inherited from his father who upgraded to an iPhone. (This is a day after my phone decided to become a flash light and I decided to upgrade to an iPhone.)

So yesterday, we went to buy him a new phone. He chose a really sensible model. He doesn’t need the email or calendar functions of an iPhone, so he picked one that looks like a mirror when it’s turned off. It also has a really nice display and a good camera (for a cameraphone). He seemed really happy with it.

That eats up three of our four upgrades this year. Beccano can get a new phone (if he needs and wants one) in January—right after my contract could expire.

Afterward we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet. I thought it would be a treat for Beccano because that is usually his favorite type of restaurant. But last night, he said he wasn’t very hungery. He did eat a goodly amount, as did TubaBoy who usually complains about Chinese buffets. (Why is it that teenage brothers never want to eat at the same type of places?)

What Beccano was was entertaining. One of his favorite games to play when we go out to eat is “Look! I’m Lee!” It’s amusing. I always take off my glasses (and hat, if I’m wearing one) to eat. When he finishes eating, Beccano like to put on these items and say, “I’m Lee.” This is always followed by random amusing statements. These statements are totally weird—nothing like what I would say. Quiet, those who know me!

Thursday Blues

Even though Mesa Rosa means “red table,” I decided to use this photo of roses because the Spanish phrase always makes me think of roses on the table.

Today was a bluesy day. I was able to go through the new job listing in only a few minutes. Then I couldn’t get a lot done this morning because I didn’t want to wake up the kids. This is the last full week before school, and they deserve to sleep in. I always wanted to at their age.

Then I went to the home center to look for a band saw, and the only one they had was a lot more than I wanted to spend. I need the band saw to finish a project I started a couple of months ago, but I don’t need it $400 worth—not while I don’t have any income.

So that left me lolling around the house, doing laundry and cataloging books on LibraryThing. By the time Suna got home, I was hopelessly dumpy. But she cheered me up by offering to take the boys and me to Mesa Rosa for dinner. That meant that I didn’t have to perk up enough to cook, but the food and the company were so good that they did the trick. By the time we left, I was feeling human again.

So does this count as a Grateful Thursday?

Geranium Bloom

This lovely lives on our front porch.

After being overcast since Saturday, we finally got enough rain to settle the dust in the back yard—not enough to measure, but enough to settle the dust. Yesterday, it started to spit every time I went outside, and today seems to be following the pattern.

Since I have new cheap plants in the ground, I still had to water yesterday afternoon. We’ll see if I have to water today. I took a “state of the garden” set of photos after watering yesterday, and I have posted them all to Flickr, in case you’re interested.

The clouds have at least kept the highs in the mid-80s. It’s funny how cooler temperatures outside make the house seem warmer because the air conditioner runs less.

In other news, I took Beccano to the Sophomore Roundup this morning. (TubaBoy took himself to the Senior Roundup yesterday.) The Roundup is where they hand out locker assignments, if you’re willing to pay for one and core curriculum text books. It seems a bit cheesy to make kids pay for lockers, but neither Beccano nor TubaBoy want one, so maybe it makes sense. Since the school does give out textbooks to keep at home and others live in the classroom, I don’t see why anyone would want a locker these days.

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20 August Update: Well, we eventually got .2”, which was enough with the overcast skies to keep from having to water for two whole days—even though other parts of town got two full inches, enough to overflow their rain barrels. At least the aquifer was recharged a bit.

Mother’s Day

I started Mother’s Day last night by giving Suna one of the presents I bought for her. My niece has started a soy wax candle making business, and I ordered some stuff from her. Last night I gave Suna two rose-scented candles. Beccano cleaned the whole house for her. I think she appreciated that more than anything he could have bought, especially since she knows how much he abhors housework.

We skipped church this morning because the choir had to perform at an ordination service this afternoon. That was really great. Ministers from all over the country who knew our intern were there. Some of them were really good speakers.

The minister from his church in Boston told a really uplifting story about embracing a near death experience and finding god in her child. She was swinging over a waterfall when the branch broke. She tumbled about 30 feet to land sitting in a shallow at the base of the fall. Her daughter, who was playing in the sand on the bank, looked up and welcomed her back into the world of the living by saying, “Hi, Mom,” as if her mother always simply appeared at the base of a waterfall.

After the service, we went to Mesa Rosa for dinner. The kids were waiting for us when we arrived. We all ate well and had a really good time just being together. Afterward, TubaBoy gave Suna a really funny card and an apple-pie-scented candle. I brought out the second half of my gift—a set of merlot-scented candles in a wine service. My niece donated the wine service, and made the candles. Unfortunately, nobody thought to take pictures.

Finally, I hung the wooden blinds in the front room.

I miss my mom.

Landscaping, High School Band, and The Greencards

New Edging, Established Bed

Photo by: Suna

I finished putting in the edging around the front flower bed nearest the house yesterday afternoon. I stopped on the way home and bought the remaining 17 stones. Then over the course of the afternoon, I carried them from the truck and laid them on top of what I already had down.

If that doesn’t seem to be a full afternoon’s work, it wasn’t. I was working from home, so when my brain would cloud over, I would go downstairs and move a couple of stones to clear my head. It worked, too.

Beccano prepares to play.

The other big event of the day was going to the bad concert. The high school has four fully-populated bands, and we listened to them all. The top band sounds professional. The band TubaBoy moved to because he didn’t want to work so hard sounds like a college-level band. The band Beccano is in as a Freshman sounds like a very good high school band. The lowest band is for students who picked up their instruments late.

We had planned to go see The Greencards afterward. Suna had even won free tickets, so we would only have had to buy one. But the powers that be decided at the last minute to start the concert a half-hour late. By the time all of the bands were finished, we didn’t have time to get there. Sigh. Beccano really wanted to go.

Celebrating Our Birthdays

Suna looks at a birthday card from TubaBoy while he is busy texting his friends. The card features a large biker-type wearing hotpants he doesn’t have the butt for.

The Prince came with us to church. After a rough night (my sinuses closed completely down after dinner), I finally took half a Benadryl at about 6:00. I slept through most of Rev. K’s sermon.

We spent the afternoon working on the house. The Prince and Suna pulled up vines and other weeds in the back flower beds. They have them looking very good. I finally got around to cutting a couple of fence boards that a tree had grown into. They no longer make that annoying creaking in a wind. The only other thing I got accomplished was to trim a shelf so that it fits in the cabinet with the new brackets. One shattered the other day, and we realized that another had been missing for a while. I had wanted to make a tennoning jig, but I realized that the piece of scrap I wanted to use was too badly warped. Looks like I’ll have to buy a little MDF. It’s more stable and will last longer, anyway.

The Prince treated us to dinner at Artz Rib House, where we enjoyed the music of Danny Santos and Eddie Collins, who asked me if I would be interested in playing bass with him, assuming his current bass player actually quits. The boys ate a lot of meat. The Prince seemed to enjoy the meal and the music. Jeff Tveraas also showed up and played part of the break set, the 20 minutes between sets.

When we came home, we celebrated our respective birthdays. Mine is on Tuesday. Suna’s was last Wednesday. The Prince’s was in February. TubaBoy got me a 4G USB key. Suna got me a collector’s edition of The Long Way Home, a collection of the first “episode” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8. The Prince and Princess gave Suna a bracelet. It had been a gift from The Prince to The Princess that they had planned to bequeath to Suna. But they decided to give it to her when they could enjoy her reaction.

On Broadway

This was TubaBoy’s first official gig. He has learned one of the most important lessons in music: If you don’t know the part well enough to sound good, just don’t sound bad.

They say that I won’t last too long on Broadway

I’ll take a Greyhound bus for home, they all say

But they’re dead wrong, I know they are

’Cause I can play this here guitar

And I won’t quit ’till I’m a star on Broadway

—Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil,
Jerry Leiber, and Mike Stoller

This weekend was one of the best I’ve had in a while. It was all about music.

We started Friday with a Trey Bone rehearsal in preparation for Sunday night. We got together at Deadhead’s to go over a few of the songs Suna and company have been doing for years. I’ve taken to playing lead bass. With two guitars already in the mix, a lead guitar wasn’t adding that much to the sound. Now, I’m rounding out the bottom while still adding some linear movement. We decided on four songs: “Helplessly Hoping,” “California Dreaming,” “Attics of My Life,” and “I’ve Just Seen a Face.”

After gardening all day Saturday (more in a later blog entry), we went to a house concert at MoneyMan’s house. I call him MoneyMan because he is the church treasurer, not because he is exceedingly rich—although he is not poor. His spouse won’t eat anything that has ever touched an animal product or flame. Even so, there was excellent snackage. Not to mention excellent music by Karen Mal and Ken Gaines. Two steel stringed acoustic guitars, two voices, and no amplification yielded a warm, rich sound that completely filled the room. I really enjoyed listening to them. I love the imagery on her song “The Space Between.” And I like the title track to Ken’s Catfish Moon CD. He is working very hard to keep a dying style of music alive.

It’s hard to believe that this was their third anniversary playing as a duet. Their first performance together was also a house concert at MoneyMan’s house.

The sermon at church Sunday was delivered by the senior religious education class. They also provided the music. Jewel2 sang and played acoustic guitar (nylon strings) for the transitional bits and a hymn. A small ensemble played Let It Be for the collection. And TubaBoy joined an electric ensemble for the postlude. I never thought I’d hear Red Hot Chili Peppers in church.

Then Sunday night was our “gig” at BB Rover’s Café and Pub. Well, it wasn’t really a gig; it was an open mike. After Attics, the crowd was so wowed, the owner asked us to play a fifth song, instead of the three (four with an encore) we had planned. We added “Landslide.” It’s good tune for Suna to sing, but the guys have an unfortunate tendency to not put the correct chords in the cheat sheet. They’ll put the chords in one key and then capo (seven frets in this case)—I’ve always played with people who could transpose before. Sigh. I started in the written key instead of the key they actually play it in. Other than that, it was a good evening.

All of the acts at the open mike, although of widely varying style, were good. Well, maybe one of them wasn’t, but we couldn’t hear his voice in the mix. So it didn’t matter. This being my first open mike, I wonder if any city other than Austin (or maybe Nashville or LA) would have the quality of performer showing up at an open mike in an obscure café. It really reinforced that I made the right decision when I chose to stop trying to earn a living as a performer. There is just too much good, unsung talent for the market to support.

Grateful Monday

So that brings us to what I am grateful for this week: music. It is so good to have music back in my life, pervading my life even. I am surrounded by music and musicians. Oddly, I find the cacophony of developing musicians satisfying, especially when the get what they were working on. I love the wonderful exploration that comes of not being afraid to make a mistake.

Sometimes Bad Is Bad

I was so thrilled. OK I was still pretty sick, too. Photo by: Suna

Across the street, a neon sign

“All you can eat for a dollar ninety nine

Our soul stew is the baddest in the land”

But one dollar’s worth was all that I could stand

—Huey Lewis

I have made it through a full week at work now. For the last two days, I have felt pretty good, even though I finished the antibiotics and have cut back on the decongestants and cough syrup. Maybe I am finally over this thing. Man, it sucked.

I am still running behind on all of my personal writing and reading, but I am starting to catch up. I thought I would take this opportunity to note that I have joined Library Thing—an online community about books. I am starting to list the books I have read and write a short review of each of them. If I work at it diligently, I may have the job finished by the time I die.

Suna posted earlier this week about TubaBoy’s birthday, so I won’t go into too much detail here. We went to a local chain, Z Tejas Southwestern Grill, another company that thinks web visitors all want to see a prolonged, annoying flash intro rather than content.

If you like nouveau cuisine in a loud environment, this is the place for you. They try some weird experiments, but—on the whole—the food was good. The tables were comfortable and the lighting was intimate. There was something about the vaguely coleslaw-like food product that accompanied my mushroom enchiladas, and the ambient noise left my ears ringing. But the most important factor was that both kids seemed to like the place and their food. I can’t remember that happening before.

Friday’s Feast

Appetizer: What is your favorite beverage?

Like Suna, I must list more than one:

• Water
• Pepsi One
• Jack on the rocks
• Sangria wine

Soup: Name three things that are on your computer desk, either at home or at work.

I don’t really have a computer desk where I am comfortable working for long at home, and my desk at work is very Spartan because I am a short-term contractor there. At home, I mostly work with a portable in my lap. So I will list three things that I see from the couch:

1. The TV
2. The street outside, lined with front lawns and trees.
3. The media collection

Salad: On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how honest do you think you are?

8. I am not nearly as honest as I aspire to be, especially with myself. I do value honesty and I try to be honest, even when it is not in my immediate (or long-term) self interest. But actually putting my ideals into practice remains a challenge sometimes.

Main Course: If you could change the name of one city in the world, what would you rename it and why?

I never really thought about it. I get kinda irritated when they change the names of cities. It brings about that whole Prince thing. You know—the city formerly known as Stalingrad, which was formerly known as St. Petersburg.

Dessert: What stresses you out? What calms you down?

• Stressors: Not being able to do what I want or as well as I think I should.
• Destressors: Downtime with family and friends. Sleep, when I’m not too stressed to sleep.

Enchantment

The little bumps on the rock in the background are people.

We slept in a little again, despite not noticing that the alarm was set. It went off at 07, but it was inobtrusive enough that I slept through it until Suna asked me to turn it off. It sounded like the sound powered speakers make when a cell phone is left near them. I kept wondering if we had left a cell phone on the computer, not really thinking that we keep the speakers on it muted.

After the continental breakfast that was most forgettable, we headed out of town to Enchanted Rock. We hiked around the inner loop trail, which took us near the summit but not quite there. Suna has posted some of the best of the pictures of the trip in Flickr.

Once again, we took the scenic route.

Photo by: Google Maps

After the hike around the rock, we wound our way home through Llano, Bertram, and Liberty Hill. It was a pleasant trip. We got home to find that TubaBoy had been successful in learning to drive a stick.

The only down side to today is that Suna seems to be suffering from what may turn out to be an ear infection. The left side of her head is hurting worse as the day progresses. I may try to apply some heat later, if she continues to hurt…if she lets me.

A Shot of Something

A single shot of cola is enough to start the day?

Gimme a shot of faith, a shot of confidence, a shot of something

A shot of something

—Manic Eden

TubaBoy was a hoot this morning. We were running late getting out of the house. He and Beccano were as sleepy as I still remember being on early-morning school days. When they both hollered that they were ready to leave, I exited the study to get my road cup. There was TubaBoy with a two liter Pepsi One in one hand and a shot glass full of black liquid in the other. As I realized what I was seeing, he tossed back the shot of cola and banged the shot glass down with a satisfied exhalation.

When I started laughing, he said, “Sorry. I needed some caffeine—not too much, not too little.”

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Tubaboy plays at sunset
Photo by: Suna

Last night I went to my first high school football game in more years than I care to mention here. I’ll admit I went primarily out of a sense of obligation, but I really had fun. Not yelling-yourself-hoarse fun, but fun. I did yell.

I sat on the top row of the visitor section in Temple, right next to the sousaphone section of the band. Tubaboy was within reach. Becanno was hidden in the percussion section much farther down.

The team was expected to lose by a big margin, but they won 38-28, even though the QB threw five interceptions in the first half. There was some really good play on the field, and I found myself sucked into the vortex that is football fandom. I don’t expect to learn each players’s stats (or even their names), but there are a few really good players.

But the reason I went was the band.

They were very impressive for the first performance. They all seemed to know their parts; Tubaboy even had many of the pep pieces memorized. The marching program was on the esoteric side: “This is what really happens when you go to sleep.” I would not have known it was a nightmare sequence if it had not already been explained to me. It was visual enough, and the playing was good. But huh?

Next week is a home game. I look forward to seeing the performance from stage front instead of backstage (that is, the visitor’s section). Maybe it will make more sense then.