Recital

 I have a little ukulele at my desk I like to pluck at in between meetings or when meetings get boring or when anyone but me is talking. It’s a super fun distraction and I’ve learned timeless hits like “Super Mario Bros Theme” and “Sponge Bob End Credits Theme.”

I also harbor a desire to start the Hamann Family Band and travel coast to coast in our trippy school bus playing state fairs and, um, solving mysteries?

The boys, as you know, have been taking piano lessons for years. Which involves ignoring the piano for 6 days and 23 hours and lying to their instructor for an hour a week. 

Since we are all indoor people now, their instructor suggested a virtual recital. Every kid taped themselves playing a selected work and then they were uploaded…somewhere. Presumably a place where we could watch the other kids’ videos. Hahahahahaha.

Luca was up first. I was cameraman. His attitude, like mine, was “let’s get this knocked out while my next video game is loading.” I pressed play, he played his song once, done. Bing bang boom. 

Elijah was a little tougher. He really wanted it to be perfect. He combed his hair and everything. Granted, his song was more difficult than Luca’s, but he kept getting tripped up at the same part. We could see the little musical bend in the road from a mile away, but every time our piano would careen off and into the ravine.  

5 videos turned to 10 which turned to 20. He became increasingly upset. I have one of the videos here for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Ugqh471IE

I suggested taking a break or running the part a few times or remembering that literally no one is going to watch his recital except mom and me. But every time he would mess up he’d throw himself on the keys or rip at his sweatshirt or toss his sheet music across the room. 

I took the opportunity to work on my cameraman skills. I would zoom in on his fingers or pan across the ivories or slowly follow a tear down his cheek.

After much ado, he made it through. Nailed it. Perfection. He snatched the phone from my hands to see the video.

Now, often times I exaggerate on the blog for comedic effect. But I am being dead honest. 

I did that thing where you press “stop” when you mean “play” and vice versa. Yes, I am a sitcom dad from the 1990s. I am Danny Tanner incarnate. 

Eli burst out laughing. It was the perfect tension breaker and shifted the blame from him to me, where I was happy for it to live. He made it through with no other issues and we uploaded the video into the great expanse of the internet.

COVID Scare

On the day they announced Biden’s victory (see my last, kinda maudlin post), we invited a few people over for drinks and burgers. Yeah, I know we’re living through a deadly pandemic. But democracy! And we’ve been really safe. What would one tinsy little party do? 

Duh.

Yep, one of our party goers got the COVID. Which meant we were officially a super spreader event. The boys and I were able to cut through our terror by placing all blame on Diana, who technically organized the party. We rode her so hard she snapped by mid-morning.

We had to get tested stat. Or stat after a 5 day waiting period.

Our best bet was heading to the urgent care place across town. The only issue? They had a strict “we only test people with symptoms” policy. So I sat the boys down and explained that lying is bad in 99.9% of cases with the one exception of when it is convenient.

Eli was totally on board. Lying is a way of life for 13 year olds. Luca was not on board. Suddenly he became Abe Lincoln. 

“But lying is bad,” He moaned. 

“Do you want to know if you have COVID or not?”

We drive to the urgent care place and I approached the front desk for one of my patented “Dr. Hamann” performances. I told the checker inner lady that we had been exposed and were feeling a little off. You know, oogy. The lady saw right through my lie and sensed Luca was the weakest link.

“Are you sick, young man?”

Luca quietly shook his head. JUDAS! 

I spent the next 24 hours pitching the benefits of lying to Luca. Some of his favorite people lie. The President does it all the time. Lying gets us what we want without having to face any consequences at all!

Finally, he relented and agree to go back to the Den of Dishonesty. Luca spent the entire time with the expression of a person whose last shred of childhood was being snatched by a lazy father.

Long story short, we got the test (very uncomfortable) and the results came back negative. We’re in the clear. We’ve also redoubled our commitment to wearing masks and social distancing. I also explained that from now on, we shouldn’t lie.

In case you are wondering, our friend with COVID is doing fine. He is quarantining in his basement with a new TV and newly acquired golf channel subscription.

Wear a mask, everyone!

 

Thank Goodness

It’s been weird to be a dad over the last three ish years. 

 

Since the boys were born, I’ve tried to impart one lesson. One simple lesson: BE A GOOD PERSON. Be a good person and good things will happen. Be a good person and you’ll win.

 

And then our nation elected the worst person. 

 

Suddenly a very bad person became the most powerful person in the world. And he did bad things. Terrible things. He put people in cages. He cheated. He stole. He bullied. He treated the needy with zero respect. He killed hundreds of thousands of people with his carelessness.

 

Diana and I shook our fists. We marched. We donated. We turned on MSNBC full blast. Our dinner conversation centered around the bad man and his badness.

 

And yet, I worried about the affect this had on Elijah and Luca. Yes, they were vocal opponents of the bad man. Quick with a “Bad man sucks!” whenever we saw him on TV. But I worried about what this was doing subconsciously.

 

Deep down, maybe their developing brains were learning that being a bad person was the way to be successful. A bad person was super rich(or so he says over and over). A bad person was worshiped by millions. A bad person was president. Maybe being a bad person wasn’t as bad as Dad said.

 

Heading into this election, I was petrified. Oh hey kids, be a good person. Unless you want to be the most powerful person in the world. Twice. I needed consequences for evil. I needed The Emperor to get thrown over the railing. I needed the dragon to be slayed. I needed Hans Gruber to fall out of Nakatomi Plaza.

 

What if the bad person won again?

 

Yesterday, we were training Jerry in front of the house. Feeding him hunks of string cheese as a reward for not attacking us.

 

Suddenly, our neighbor Lydie came running out. Tween legs and arms and hair flapping. “Guys…Biden won. They called it!”

 

People came streaming out of their houses, shouting. The good man won. The bad man lost. Diana burst into tears. Later, we walked to the center of town and stood there cheering as cars unknowingly found themselves in an impromptu parade and honked with enthusiasm.

 

I looked at Eli, who banged on a trashcan lid and whooped with glee. I let out a long sigh and let the goodness sink in. For just a minute.