putting the knit in shizknitz

Part II of Birthday Week:

Trying to be clever, I had gotten tickets to the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. What caught my eye was a particular concert entitled: “The Great Happy Birthday Concert!” - and upon checking, they were celebrating their 25th Birthday, just like Tienshiao. Happily, I purchased tickets for the earlier showing, since I had prior commitments for a Housewarming in the “promised land”. When purchasing the tickets, I thought it was a little odd that the concert was held at two times - 10 AM and 11:30 AM. Not only was it super early, but considering how close together the times were, the concert seemed pretty short.

Now mind you, Tienshiao has no idea where we are going, and he is not exactly a morning person. Costa Mesa is about 45 miles from where we live and depending on the 405 fwy traffic, this can range from 30 min to eternity. We ran late, of course and I drove down like a madwoman. It was my first time at the OC Performing Arts Center (which is a gorgeous bldg as you can see above) and as we were pulling up, I noticed a lot of kids (er, families). As we were walking up to the door, I see more kids. I was more wrapped up in “when is he going to realize the theme of this concert” when we walked in to find a kid-filled zoo - balloons, noise makers, kid games, young musicians playing - when he says to me “is this the Pacific Symphony’s Youth Orchestra?”. Sure enough, it turned out to be a series of kid oriented concerts entitled “Mervyn’s Musical Mornings”.

The actual performers were members from the Pacific Symphony, but they also had some from the Youth Orchestra join them as well. The conductor wore a birthday hat, and they played short pieces of music which focused on musical terms such as forte, fortissimo, dynamics etc - and let’s just say the concert was very interactive. At one point during J Strauss’s Champagne Polka, the conductor asked the audience to jump out of their seats everytime we heard the cork pop, and to waltz during Tchaikovsky’s Waltz from Serenade for Strings, Op. 48. Needless to say, it was quite entertaining and it was definitely a first for me.

After grabbing some lunch, we zoomed over to the “promise land“. This is located about 60 miles from where we live (so you can now do the math for travel from Costa Mesa which is in the other direction) and is out in the desert, far from the hustle bustle of LA. One thing about Palmdale is that it reminds me a lot of home, where land is flat and residential home building is in a frenzy.

One of my guys and his fiancee recently purchased a home. If you’re not familiar with certain urban areas of California, purchasing a home for a reasonable price is unattainable. Its a give or take - long commute and home, or short commute and condo. They purchased their 5 bedroom 3000 sq ft home for less than what it would cost for a 1 bedroom condo here in LA. It is brand new, and in a new development - the house is so huge that you would have to yell to find each other, and the yard is so large that you could have a pool, BBQ set AND a nice garden. The house and community is perfect - but the commute is not (I could not handle an avg 1 hr commute each morning and night) - so it makes me wonder where I will eventually end up settling…..

Which brings me to my next thought - I’m sure many people in their late 20 somethings have come across this very same phenomenon, where all of their friends are settling down - getting married, buying property, etc. It is such a strange change of life, where all of a sudden you feel like a little college kid in comparison, living life more spontaneously and still renting, for that matter.

I finally got to meet the fiancee, I had heard some terrific things about her. What I was shocked at, was how genuinely sweet she is. I suppose you have to have that in you, to be an elementary school teacher, but it really struck me in a way never imagined when she said, “thank you, Shiz. He says you treat him like a friend than a supervisor, talks about you all the time”.

Through life and work, you meet all kinds of people - those that have hurt you and have left everlasting impressions of negativity, but sometimes you really have to take a step back and look at the entire picture. On my long hot drive back to smog land, I thought about how lucky I have been, and am. I have been fortunate enough to meet and remain friends with some of the nicest and sincere people, lucky enough to cross paths with people that come from completely different backgrounds, and have had opportunities in my personal and professional life that have been amazing. As I head into another week, I’ll have to hold onto these warm, fuzzy thoughts to get me through another week of sheer craziness.