During regular days, I seldom stop and listen. The routine, all the other things to think about and still need to be done: “Nina, please go to bed. Now!”

Last night after a great meal and being on vacation even though it was way past her bedtime, we were hanging out on the balcony of our hotel in Santa Cruz looking onto the ocean with the full moon shining down on us.

It was getting cooler and over time Nina ended up rolled up in a blanket on my lap. And she started to ask questions:

Nina: Is this how the sea sleeps?
Me: (thinking: Wow, how do you answer this?) Well, you can say so, yes.

Nina: Why isn’t the sea sleeping like Mama?
Me: What do you mean?
Nina: Well, with a blanket and a pillow?
Me: (thinking: Now, how do you answer that?)
Nina: It isn’t quiet.
Me: No it isn’t.
Nina a bit louder: Stop it!

Nina laughs: The sea doesn’t listen to me.
Me laughing too: No, it doesn’t.

Nina: It’s the beach. It’s because of the beach that the sea can’t sleep like Mama.
Me: (Smiling while envisioning the ocean turning to its side while having a blanket and pillow) I guess so.

That little exchange made my day.
Need to stop and tune into Nina more often.

Picture taken last night by Mark & Marie Finnern.

I am still stunned, that within a month I with the help of some friendly neighbors was able to bring 20+ musicians and helpers together to rehearse three times and then march and play in the 4th of July Highlands parade. Sweet proof of how the internet can bring us closer together.

Almost 2 years ago we moved to the San Mateo Highlands [map] an Eichler community of about 550+ households. There are two centers to the community, the Elementary School and the Recreational Center with pool, small gym, playground and preschool. These community engines are the reason why we have our own 4th of July parade.

This year it almost got canceled. It needed a call for volunteers and thank you Mozique Daviel and others for stepping up and making it really beautiful with the red wagons and balloons. Check out Bowling Alone if you want to learn about why these things are so rare these days.

Last year for the first time I watched the little parade. Liked it a lot and as someone who loves music and dabbles with many instruments, I was hoping and waiting for at least one marching band to come by, but there wasn’t one

I started to ask around why and people said: The kids are out of school for the summer, therefore there are no High School bands available.

The backbone of any local community are the mothers. In the highlands there not one, but two active lists run by mothers, the Highlands Parents Google Group and Highlands Parents Yahoo Group.

I got active on both of them, first to find out whether there is general interest and then to announces the rehearsals. I also told everyone I met about it, in the playground, at the pool, the garage sale, …

Myself I have never played in a marching band, of course I omitted that fact when I started to recruit musicians. How hard can it be? You agree on a couple of simple songs and play. Only later I realized, that it is essential to have sheet music especially if you don’t have a lot of time to rehearse together.

What made it additionally tough was, that some of the instruments are tuned in Bb, but others in Eb or C. We needed the sheet music transposed. What makes marching band music interesting is when not every instrument plays the same note, but when the music is arranged with small variations and harmonies in different sections of the band. I was able to find a program that transposes the simple songs, but arranging a song for a marching band is way beyond my reach.

But not out of the reach of Stephen Bell, who is an elementary music teacher who joined for the first rehearsal and was then literally instrumental to the arrangement of our songs: Chasing the star, America the Beautiful, Rock-A-By.

David Solomon also joined us for the second rehearsal. He is a veteran marching band drummer and boy does that make a difference. It gave us structure and time to breath between songs.

I was also super glad that the Chen family came out in force. Father on the clarinet, daughter on the sax, son playing the trumpet and the mother Judy organizing a lot of the logistics including making and carrying our banner.

Coming back from LA, I almost missed our last rehearsal, where for the first and only time we created a formation and marched around in the Elementary School Yard. That fun we had that evening alone was worth every hour that was spent leading up to it.

The last week I practiced the songs  so that I could play them without needing any sheet music. I still hit wrong notes here and there, but was able to enjoy the parade a lot more.

On the day of the parade we had 5 trumpets, 4 clarinets, 3 saxophones, 2 drummers, 2 euphoniums, 2 banner carrier and 1 flute player (hope I didn’t forget anyone.). It was amazing and we sounded amazing too, for having only been together for 3 rehearsals, actually a couple of the players joined us that morning.

It was the greatest to play sweet music together with friends and on the way bring smiles to your neighborhood.

As rehearsed we stopped in front of the Rec-Center. When the announcer heard that we are going to play America the Beautiful he advised everyone to get up for it and people did. We played our best, people cheered and we marched on.

Our enthusiasm must have even reached the Jury and we got awarded the best of parade. My only regret is, that we didn’t make a picture with all the musicians that were still around when the winner was announced.

The whole event was one of the most fun and rewarding thing I ever did. There are 51 weeks left until the next 4th of July, enough to dust off your instrument that is buried somewhere in your garage, or even pick up an instrument at our local shop: B-Street Music and start from scratch. By June next year you will be good enough to play with us. Looking forward to it.

If you want to know what is going on or when the next gig/rehearsal is happening, please join the Highlands Marching Band Facebook group. There you will find additional links to pictures from this year’s parade.

If you have a couple of hours a box cutter and a big cardboard box, you can have a lot of fun creating a little house with your kid(s).

The Flickr set can give you some inspiration.

In short: Take off the flaps of the box; cut out an upside J for the door on one side; don’t forget a little upside U about half height for a door handle; cut an I with serifs as Window that can be opened and closed in another side.

That is all that is needed and the fun continues with coloring, decoration, coming to visit, …

Try it out and let me know how it came out.

Picture taken by Mark & Marie Finnern.

Oh and here is the slideshow of the set:

Here and there I would love to add some text to the slideshow would be nice. You have to go to the actual set for that.

Is this an American problem? We have not even moved in yet, but it seems we outgrew our new house already. If you have a bigger box, let me know, or we built an extension.

Proudly wearing one bracelet

My sister Sabina the artist. She doesn’t like that label, but it is time to call a spade a spade.  For as long as I have known her, which is going towards half a century any year now, she had an eye for beauty and cool ideas. One day for example she saved a birch tree stem, cut it to the right size and used it in her room as a hanger for cloths and a speaker.  I was envious.

She just got a job with the Australian embassy in Washington, so I am not sure how much time she will have to continue her S-capades, as she calls them: Beautiful handmade jewelery.

At the moment she has two unique modern lines:

Wrap Bracelets made by catching “a bit of fluid creativity” between a film of plastic and a thin layer of metal.  Light, pliant, sparkly and each one is totally unique.

Above a picture of me proudly wearing one of her bracelets. One additional great aspect is, that they are created from recycled materials.

These are available at a couple of stores in New York City and Washington DC as well as on Etsy.

Knitted Stainless Steal Bracelets The Finnern family has a unique relationship to stainless steel, as our father was selling it to factories all over the Black Forest and beyond. He would say with a sparkle in his eye: Rostfreier Stahl der Glanz fuer’s Leben. Which translates somewhat into: Stainless steel, the shining for a lifetime.

Therefore it come as no surprise to me that my sister is using stainless steel wire in her work. These bracelet are knitted using stainless steel wire, jewelery beads and really big needles. The outcome is, in my only slightly biased opinion, fascinating and very unique. If you want some of these you have to ping her.

The fact that they are handmade and a lot of effort goes into every one of these, I think she is not asking enough money for them.

For sure much cooler than enything from Tiffany or the dreaded Shain company that does these awful radio commercials, where they claim that you now have a friend in the diamond business [them] just because you listened to their commercial. — NOT!