For The Love of Music

Emma lives for Friday mornings - music class. Mary, her 'teacher', is amazing. She's very much a non-Jewish Bubbie; one who wears jeans & heels, sings, dances, blows bubbles, and basically has more energy in her entire 60-year-old body than I have in my baby toe. It's cute, but pretty lifeless these days.

Today we arrived and GASP! There was a substitue!!!! A supply teacher for music!! Turns out Mary really is a Jewish/non-Jewish Bubbie - she's sunning herself in Ft. Lauderdale for the next few weeks. Take one look at her ever-so-perky bottled blonde permed 'do and you'd understand completely.

Okay, we'll give the new girl a chance... Hell, it's still music class - we still love singing & dancing & having fun with all the other kids. How bad could it be?

At first it wasn't bad at all. Did the usual "good morning" song. Always safe for a smile. Then out came a guitar! Yes, a guitar! Things were looking up! Mary doesn't have a guitar!

And then the strumming began... holy shit - talk about a kum-ba-ya festival. I felt like I was at some sort of low-key stoner sit-in. We actually sang songs that talked about YAWNING. Who sings about yawning??? The alphabet song was done in slow-motion, so the kids would know that lmnop wasn't a letter. We sang "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" THREE TIMES. And if that wasn't bad enough we then broke into groups - and had to sing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" in three separate verses. Y'know, like you did in second grade music class, the one where everyone had a triangle.

All of a sudden Emma got up and walked to the corner to the room. She grabbed her jacket & brought it back to me. Then handed me my car keys.