a lifetime of worry

Oh, hello.  Some life stuff happened and the time went by without me noting them here.  I plan to crank out some significant events from 2015 in Yuki world in the next month. Yuki is now 8.  She is in 3rd grade.  We are now embarking on the second half of her elementary school career, which is hard to believe.  I catch us saying, "I can't believe she is 8." We've been saying that every time she hits some sort of mile stone.  It feels by the time we acclimate, she gets older and so we are trapped in constant shock by the passage of time. And while we are bewildered by our daughter's growth, we are also faced with our own aging that is amazing in a totally opposite direction and say, "I can't believe I'm 47." So basically, our whole life is based on shock and denial. I am kind of sick of feeling and saying that.  But it keeps happening and I am sure it will continue to happen until I die. At any rate, Yuki is in 3rd grade.  At her school, 3rd,...

It has been over a year since Yuki started her violin. Just looking back on it, it's kind of amazing how she (we) knew nothing about violin a year ago and now she (just her) can make sounds that resembles music on what appears to be a very, very difficult instrument. Back in November, Yuki finished the Suzuki Violin Book One.  Her teacher Ms. Linda informed us that at Suzuki, when a student finishes Book One, it is celebrated by a solo concert because it is a HUGE bench mark and an achievement. Ms. Linda said it can be of any size and in any venue and she will come and accompany Yuki. Yuki opted to have the concert at our home. There are total of 17 piece in Book One. But the first piece, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star has 5 variations so really, it's actually 22 pieces. And you play all 22 pieces in a row, alone. It is a daunting task for a seven year old. Hell, it's a daunting task for any year olds. Of course, some of the pieces are short, but still, she has not played...

It has been a while since I wrote here.  I keep making notes of things I want to write, but then life just ate my time--mainly because my place of work evicted in June, and when a theatre tries to move out of a place it has been for nearly 30 years...well, it's just a Pandora's Box. But with all of that, I managed to get away for almost three weeks at the beginning of the summer, which was desperately needed and highly anticipated. Let me take you back a few steps. When Yuki was still a baby (OK so that is more than few steps), my mother said to me that when Yuki reaches school age, I can enroll her in a school in Japan during the summer if I wanted. I was super excited to hear such an opportunity existed, and had it in my head to make that happen but had no idea how to do it. I figured, I would not worry about it until after she started Elementary School because her Japanese immersion preschool was year around so it made sense to me that we would do this when Yuki had a bi...