We need a laugh

Drew was in Pirates of Penzance last year and the Major General Song made the rounds in our house forever.

Well here is Obama, Gilbert & Sullivan style...

Record party set list

Partial list...

Boogie Nights - Heatwave
Rapture - Blondie
Smoke on the Water - Deep Purple
Never say never - Romeo Void
Won't get fooled again - The Who
Life During Wartime - Talking Heads
California Uber Alles - Dead Kennedys
Here Comes My Girl - Tom Petty
Poison Arrow - ABC
Take the long way home - Supertramp
Pull up to the bumper - Grace Jones
Artists only - Talking Heads
Super Freak - Rick James
London Calling - The Clash
Candy-O - The Cars
Sticky Fingers - Rolling Stones - most of it
Mirror in the Bathroom - English Beat
Sultans of Swing - Dire Straights
Precious - Pretenders
Ant Music - Adam Ant
Let the Good Times Roll - The Cars
Grateful Dead - multiple albums, tracks
The Police - multiple albums, tracks
Tom Sawyer - Rush

Dream on

When I was in high school I saw Aerosmith on the Toys in the Attic tour. I saw J. Geils on the Sanctuary tour.

I wore this tshirt for a long time.

And Aerosmith's bad boys, led by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, became part of the sound track of my formative years. Dream on, Walk this Way, Back in the Saddle, What it Takes, Sweet Emotion, Last Child....

At the time, a girl growing up on the shores of Erie and Ontario....did I know I was going to move to Boston and never leave? No. But I was a good Irish Catholic girl...brought up to love the Red Sox and the Kennedys...so honestly? It wasn't that big of a stretch.

Roll forward the clock and here I am...living in Boston, for longer than I've ever lived anywhere. It's home. Just like it's home to the guys that took the stage at Fenway the night of August 14, 2010 with all those songs...Those songs? They're home too.

Before Aerosmith took the stage on the hallowed greens of Fenway we were treated to the following video, narrated by another Boston bad boy - Dennis Leary...




Need I say more?

Was it worth the exorbitant price of admission?

Steven Tyler in amazing voice, strutting and writhing on stage like it was 1978?

Yes. It was priceless.

I know he's paid the devastating meth clinic hell hole price of being a bad boy...but Tyler is a survivor. And that night he was triumphant.

We all sang at the tops of our lungs when he surprised us by showing up on top of the Green Monster sitting at his white baby grand piano...playing "Dream on."

Yeah, we had been dreaming for many years... we had no trouble singing out into the starry skies about Fenway.



Thankful for all of it.

Ah...Summer Camp

I love summer camp. I remember my days at summer camp so well - those quintessential summer days, the sounds of kids and splashing water, the smell of the woods, the dock at the lake, the singing and the mess hall.

Drew goes to Camp Rotary every summer for 2 weeks and looks forward to it all year. It's a classic camp with everything from sailing to ropes course to archery and loads of funny songs and themed parties. He meets up with old and new friends.

They post pictures online every day and it's fun to go look through them, hoping to see Drew.

Here are today's Drew sightings!

Before the jump:

During the jump:

Man Camp

This weekend the men and the boys headed to Lake George to camp on the islands. This was a repeat of a trip that happened about 10 years ago...and now, a new generation of kids were inducted into man camp.

11 guys. 4 tents. 3 days. 2 boats.

Did they have a good time? Does a bear sh** in the woods? Do men build fires that are too big? Do fish get sacrificed? Are there stories none of us will ever hear?

Yep.

SPANG at Gillette Stadium

Spang played a Battle of the Bands at Gillette Stadium in June. Was kind of a rainy day but how cool is it to be at the Patriot's stadium!?

The guys had all just come off of prom and decided on a whim to wear their tuxes for the gig. When asked by the emcee, "What's with the tuxes?" Dylan said "We wanted to be classy." Ha! In this crowd of trendy hipsters...they certainly stood out. Mission accomplished.

Give them an Ovation

This is Drew's second year in The Ovations, an all guy's singing group at the Middle School. At the end of the year concert they performed....well, you know the song....Dom, dom, dom, dom, dom, dom be dooby....

Imagine

Drew has really gotten into piano this year.

He chose one of my all time favorite songs for his recital.

No. Way.

Those crazy Germans...

Better than money

You know in your gut that:

1. A happy marriage is more important than money


2. Commuting is a soul-sucking, deadly experience


3. Friends and laughter are essential
   

And today, in his NYTimes column, David Brooks provided all the data to back it up.

Here's my favorite quote:

"If the relationship between money and well-being is complicated, the correspondence between personal relationships and happiness is not. The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting. According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year."

Drew's singing

It seems Drew has been singing and whistling his whole life.

He sings so unselfconsciously. He makes up songs all the time.

He sings to himself, to me, his friends, the dog.

He must sing around the halls of school too, because last year, in 6th grade, the 7th-8th grade music teacher invited him to join the 7th-8th grade a Capella group...and then submitted his name for State junior districts where he sang with other song-meisters from around Massachusetts.

This year Drew is actually in the middle school...and he just keeps on singing. But now, he has even more great ways to do it.

Here he is as Samuel in Pirates of Penzance:



(He was quite a hit with the girls, too.)

And this weekend he performed at the Junior District concert for his second year.



This will be his last year as a Soprano - his voice has officially changed and hitting those high notes was tough!

Bob comes from a long line of singing Welches. And he's always told me, whenever I wished for a little quiet and got frustrated with Drew's constant singing and whistling....

"Mol, only happy people sing...only happy people whistle."

Bob's right.

Snap, Crackle, Oscar

I held my third annual Oscar party this year.

I wore my trusty thrift store dress. Ann wore hers too. Mari wore her new California stack heels. And yet, all I seemed capable of doing was taking pictures of the most honored guest....Oscar.




Patty is world-renowned for her sculptural expertise in the medium of breakfast cereal.

And she out-did herself this year. Presenting us with an anatomically correct, such as he is...Oscar.


We couldn't keep our hands off him.


As the night heated up, and the food and laughter and awards and cries of Oscar Bingo were heard, his marshmallow gave and he did start to tilt.

So, well, it was Ben that took the first bite.


And then...we ate him.

All that and the first woman won Best Director for Hurt Locker.

Great night all around.

Pitching Pi

Dylan and his friends created this video for a Pre-Calculus Project. Kills me.
I can't believe how different school is now compared to when I went.

Jim and Mini Jim

Awwwwwwwwwwww!

Happy Birthday Drew

My baby just turned 14 years old and he's becoming a wonderful young man.

Shortly after this picture was taken Drew took half of the leftover cake and hid it in the corner Lazy Susan cupboard so Bob wouldn't eat it when Drew is at school tomorrow.

But when he turned the cupboard to close it, the cake upended against the inside wall behind the Lazy Susan, dumping gooey cake and frosting inside of the cupboard. This is quite possibly the only spot in the house that's nearly impossible to reach.

OK, maybe if he dumped the cake between the walls it would be harder to clean up.

Cleaning it out involved ingenious uses of spoons, knives and broom handles, numerous wet towels and lots of laughs. In fact, I am still laughing. Note, in the pic below...you can't see the vast quantities of frosting and cake glommed on the bottom and sides of the BACK of this cupboard...now that's funny, right?

But Drew was a trooper and he cleaned it all up.

When he was finally done he said, "Right, so, Mom, ummm....just wondering...um....are you going to make me another cake?"

Jake Bob

Welcome to the world Jake Robert Schreiner!

Whoa. This means Barb and Dan are grandparents!

But I'm sure they're loving every minute of it.

Jake looks JUST like Jim. A mini-me Jimmy is born and ready to be doted on by his huge family. Lucky boy.

Jake - you picked great parents - try to let them sleep every once in a while...

Spang Update

Dylan's band Spang is still going strong. The guys have about 10 original songs and they've started recording them with the goal of putting out an EP later this year.

Their next gig is at Marblehead High School on Friday, January 22nd - a fundraiser for the sophomore class.

Jake was interviewed by in student podcast - check it out...song at the end.

Follow them on their MySpace page.

Taking stock of 2009

I am not, by nature, a pessimist. I mean, it's OK to complain to your closest friends...especially on Friday after work - in which case it's called "therapy" - but otherwise it's not the place to go.

So while I'd like to say 2009 sucked for us, I can't do it. I mean, get real...lots of families have it far worse than we do. We took considerable shots. But we're OK.

So rather than get all paranoid and pessimistic, tonight I asked everyone at the dinner table what was the best thing that happened for you this year?

Dylan says the high point was his time at the Brown University Leadership Institute where he and kids from all around the world met to discuss ways to effectively create social change. Dylan got a taste of college, fell in love, had a kiss on a gondola ride and began his independent life.

Drew loved his summer best. Also at Brown University, he spent a week learning how to create video games at ID TechCamp. He then spent another two weeks at Camp Rotary with his pal Nick.

Bob and I both count our trip to New Orleans as the top of our chart for 2009. It was a time filled with music and love, music and friends, music and joy de vivre. In New Orleans we got back in touch with life after a winter of loss.

Those are some highs. There were plenty of lows.

The year began on New Years Eve when Ben went out into the cold and almost didn't come home.

In February Bob's Dad died sending seismic shifts through our personal universes.

In March Bob got laid off from his job.

In April, in some kind of weird response to stress, a big patch of hair fell out of my head. No lie. Luckily it was in the back, and thankfully it grew back. Freaky.

In May Bob's car died and we had to buy another v-v-van which is exactly what you want to do with your unemployment check, right?

In August we went to the Pacific Northwest for a long-planned action/adventure family vacation which we almost canceled but decided to do anyway. When we arrived in Seattle Drew came down with an eye infection, a fever and a bad cold. As we traveled about in those cold summer weeks among the mountainous watery world of Seattle, Vancouver, and the San Juan Islands we were alternately sick or dragging. Dylan was an uncharacteristically sullen due to an ex-girlfriend he tortured himself over. The news reports were rife with H1N1 - I don't think we had swine flu - but who knows?

I missed a dear friend's daughter's wedding in August because I was too sick after vacation to go.

In September Bob did a beautiful thing. He volunteered to drive Dorothy to Mexico and get her moved into her new home where she planned to retire. It was an epic trip well-documented by Bob the travel blogger.

Yes Dorothy retired to sort of third world country. I was alternately flipped out (she's retiring to Mexico??) and excited for her (she's retiring to Mexico!). Given the way the year was going, I waited for disaster to strike...but so far so good...she's doing fantastic there and loves her new home.

As for work, this was my third year with WeeWorld.com. Like most companies in this economy, the whole year has been like a game of chicken. The kind where you can't flinch...you just keep on going no matter what may be coming at you. Over the course of the year I spent the equivalent of a month in Glasgow, Scotland with our team there. We've all worked hard, and hoped to breakthrough to profitability by close of year - but 2009 wasn't going to have any of that.

It's bad all over. Tons of people I know are looking for work. In the family...Jim got laid off. Nancy and Scott went through a near miss with layoffs. So did Charlie I believe. Dan's company laid everyone off hoping to save money for when the work came back. But at the very end of the year they announced the company was shut for good. And Dan's worked there for 25 years I think.

Bob has been doing some good consulting gigs and has a few other options brewing. But still, lots of adjustments to make - it's been hard on him. For example, for years Bob called his Dad every day on the way to work just to shoot the breeze.

But as usual Bob inspires me with his reactions to unexpected forks in the road. This time? He wrote a book. It's in it's third revision now and I'm eagerly anticipating my next read through.

December culminated in West Side Story at Marblehead High School. Dylan was a part of a very talented group that put on a spectacular production.

So after all is said and done, I'd say we survived OK thanks to love and hope and friends and family. And laughter. And not taking ourselves too seriously.

This year we're off to the land of SATs and college entrance. Followed by how soon can we sell this other van? And the much anticipated driving teenager. And we're putting pedal to the metal on this game of economic chicken. No flinching.

So goodbye 2009. Let's do better in 2010, shall we?