Riva Palatsio

Can I just say I have no idea how to spell the person's last name from the title of this post?  That's mostly because as a child, I just didn't need to spell her name, she was my piano teacher so I only needed to know how to say her name.  Riva Palatsio (pronounced: Ree-va,  Puh laht see ohh) is just about the most perfect name for a piano teacher in my opinion.  Doesn't is just sound like a person who knows how to effortlessly play beautiful music on a grand piano?

I started piano lessons when I was very young.  My mother's mother, whom I never had the pleasure of meeting, was a piano teacher.  My mother also plays the piano with great skill.  So it was natural that I should take piano lessons.  However, I did not play so beautifully.  But I take lessons for a number of years, and I had the same piano teacher throughout that time.  Riva was a very graceful and elegant lady and she was full of patience (which I'm sure she needed when teaching me.)  I remember hating to practice and learning only what I could through memorization when she showed me how to play a new section of a piece I was working on.  I did not like to read music.

I remember her house and her living room with lots of windows that was taken up by a beautiful grand piano.  I got to play on that sometimes, but other times I would play on the pianos she had in her lower level that you could get to from an entrance in the back of her more modern house.

On those days, I would wait for my lesson to start outside in her side yard.  There was a grove of bamboo trees that I was fascinated with.  It was like a little bamboo forest you could walk into and it felt like you were somewhere tropical.  The reeds were so straight and I could imagine all sorts of fun things you could do with them.  I was, however, not allowed to bring in my tree treasures to the house during my lessons.

I wasn't ever a great pianist, but I hope I learned some things about music during those years.  These days I drive by her house from time to time and I think fondly of Riva Palatsio and I wonder what she's doing now.

The Big Boy Update: The angry twos.  Good grief is he an angry kid at times.  It's usually around meal times when he has the capability to make a complete mess of the wall, the floor, the carpet and himself (not to mention his parents as they try and stop the rage.)  He is usually hungry or tired but I can definitely say it is challenging my ability to be a happy, non-yelling, non-screaming, calm, reasonable mother.   His sister, on the other hand, quietly eats her meal without a fuss.  But I have a feeling she's taking notes for what to do eleven months from now...

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  "The other bows."  She likes her bows.   She only likes them so-so in her hair, but she likes to hold the little container they stay in on the changing table.  There are two containers, one with bows and one with pigtail/ponytail holders.  When she gets on the changing table the first thing she does is ask for "the bows, the bows."  If you give her the wrong container from the one she wants, she'll tell you, "the other bows."  Her little voice is so tiny and high it's almost a squeaky whisper but she's said it enough times now that I have high confidence that's what she's saying.

Fitness Update:  Six miles this morning.  And running with Uncle Jonathan in plan for this afternoon.  I'm currently working on some fun one minute core exercises to take a break from time to time as I work at the computer all morning.  Our trainer is always saying, "engage your core" when we're struggling.  We're always struggling.  Of that he makes sure.

Someone Once Said:   No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: "Come back with your shield, or on it." Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome.