Ponder Post: May Birthdays

June is about two-thirds over, and I am late blogging about the end of May birthdays. Alex and I share the same day. Alex turned 31. I turned 64 – a perfect cube in age and shape!  For completeness and tradition, this serves as our official birthday post. There is a perk in being a bit delayed, though; I am able to add some information on my using my present from Frank.

Alex's home had their annual party for him, at which they served a meal of his favorite foods: home made lumpia, pizza, and spaghetti.

Capping off this meal, instead of a big cake, Alex got to enjoy blowing out the candles on a special uber decorated cupcake.

Wearing his birthday-boy blue lei Alex poses for a photo. I was given a birthday-girl pink lei to wear during the party.

Alex breaks into a big grin while all sing ♪ Happy Birthday ♪ to him. He then waits for all to count to three, ONE, TWO, THREE - multiple times - before he blows out the candles.

Afterwards, Alex opened up his gifts. Staff members each picked out a shirt for him. Alex chilled on the couch with his new wardrobe draped over him soaking in all the compliments about how handsome he looked.

Frank and I buy dull clothes. Baby, Marian, and Chris have much more hip taste. They also know how to throw a great party.

Along with a United States puzzle and a container of Hershey Kisses, Frank and I gave Alex a stacking toy where brightly colored gears twirl as they travel down a threaded post. You can see it in action in the video at the Fat Brain Toys site where they call their product Kids Spinagain Toy. He loved it, as did many of Alex's housemates and Alex's nieces and nephew. Of course, as doting grandparents, we've bought this marvelous toy for them, too. It does not go "Zip when it moves", nor "Bop when it stops", but it does indeed go "Whirrr" when it stands still per the Peter, Paul and Mary song. (By the way, Frank and Robin did their father/daughter dance to that song at her wedding.)

In terms of my birthday, Frank surprised me with a melodica, a wind instrument with a mouthpiece at one end and small keyboard controlling a row of reeds. The instrument's name is a blend of melody and harmonica with the accent on the second syllable lod. We were watching The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and I noticed the band leader was playing an instrument. I cried out to Frank "He's playing a melodica! I had one of those as a kid. I wonder what ever happened to it. My dad probably left it behind in the house in New Jersey. Bummer." Frank went on Amazon.com and found me one.

My original instrument had only a curved permanently affixed mouthpiece like the one you see at the lower right but this model also came with an interchangeable flexible hose option so you can play it on a table top instead of holding it as you would a clarinet. The cool thing about this wind instrument is that you can play chords! With other wind instruments, one fingering combination gives one resonating tone only. The exception is maybe an accordion, but you do not blow air through that, you pump it through. Plus an accordion is rather large and bulky.

This new model melodica weighs only 2.6 lbs and, at the dimensions of 21" x 3" x 7", easily fits in my suitcase to take along and play for the grandkids. I bought some popular Disney music books with songs that the kids would recognize so perhaps they might be able to sing along.

Here I am playing out of one of those books when we visiting Dan and Carrie this past weekend. Vivian is dancing off screen. Frank made a cell phone video of us in action, but when I would glance over to watch Vivian cavorting about, I took my eyes off the music and my performance went to hell in a hand basket. That video, yuk, is not for sharing!

One option I had not considered was that Vivian wanted to blow while I played. That was challenging as sometimes notes just did not sound if her breath had faded away. It sure was fun though. We tried it in reverse, me blowing and her playing the keys. Cacophonous – but still fun. It was an out of the box interpretation of a duet.

I am looking forward to bringing my melodica along to Oklahoma on our visit next month to try it out with Autumn and Isaiah. Autumn knows every single word to the song How Far I'll Go from the recent Disney movie Moana. She sang the entire song to me over the phone, so now I can accompany her. If you are not familiar with the song (I wasn't) you can listen to How Far I'll Go on YouTube. It was a fun birthday for both Alex and me and the gifts were hits.