Baby, music, labor hole woes

Wow, it's been a while!! Sorry about that! Eep!

Sooo... catching up... well, the biggest news of course is that we have a baby in the house again. Samir Ghoshal Freeman, born about 7:30pm on St. Patrick's Day (also his father's birthday), to Mala and Ezra, and three year old Zadek is now officially an older brother. Mother and baby are healthy and happy. Samir was born at home, as most Twin Oaks babies are, and chose to come into the world in the middle of a traditional Irish music concert. They weren't actually at the concert, of course, and Ezra's upright bass was missed. Ez showed up at the end, to play a song we'd saved for last, hoping he'd make it. A rousing rendition of "The Rocky Road to Dublin," followed his joyful announcement of his son's birth. He was out of breath, having run all the way to Tupelo, where the concert was.

I had a great time at the concert, having wormed my way into playing the tambourine! Trout, the very talented musician who put the thing together, is as sweet as can be, and graciously let me bang happily away. Sometimes I wonder if people really want a tambourine... I tried to play with taste and discretion. But there's no better seat in the house than behind a tambourine, and I was especially blown away by Kassia's fiddle playing -- WOW is all I have to say. WOWW wow wow wow. She and Trout on guitar rocked Tupelo. And Keith played a modified ashiko (made by my buddy RJ!), and kept me in line. (Thank goodness). And a fellow Kassia brought from C-ville, Tommy, who we kept wanting to call Commie, played mandolin, and something called a "hoodoo." A hoodoo looks a bit like it should have wine in it... it's a kind of percussion instrument that Wikipedia doesn't know about yet, and defies easy description, so I'll pass.

In other news, I signed a labor contract, and missed my first month's quota by one lousy labor credit. So shoot me. Or sue me. Or whatever. I was sick, and not allowed to make overquota. Caught in a catch-22 by the labor system, whatever. I'm a bit bitter about it, because it means I cannot take part in Wild Child in May, the 3-day family camp. Grrr. But whatever. Live and learn, eh? There have to be some sort of consequences to being a slacker, and not getting to go to fun stuff is one of them. It's too bad in several different ways, because I was going to hang with the little kids in the mornings, and now the (very patient) organizers must scramble to find a replacement. I really dislike making problems for other people, and it's another lesson for me about how my irresponsibility affects others. Ah well. Life will be different once I'm out of the labor hole, which should be in June.

Okey dokey artichokey! I won't let so much time go by again! Hopefully I won't get as sick again!
much love,
Kelpie