September 4, 2014 - The Carreño Household

Last night at about eleven o'clock I got an email from my philosophy professor's wife, Mrs. Carreno.  I had signed up for Ministry to Moms, which is basically where you volunteer to help out with the kids, as the professors have a lot of them and lead busy lives while they and their spouses are out running errands, teaching classes, or just relaxing.  I had put down that I was willing to teach piano, praise the glory of Clare (on further notice, it appears that Clare made a little addendum to my blog while I was in the shower....), guitar, clean, or just play with the kids.

Mrs. Carreno wanted me to come over and see if her son Dani (pronounced Donny), who's seven, could possibly learn guitar.  She wasn't sure if he'd be interested in it or not, since he's young, and he really wants to learn violin.  So today was supposed to be a test run of whether he'd like to play.

Upon arriving at their house, their four year old daughter Lina ran to greet me with a hug, a huge stick of candy, and proceeded to measure herself against me.  "Hi, I'm Lina, who are you, you're shorter than most people who come here, I like that, hi, will you help me make a necklace?"

Dani was more reticent - he was busy with Legos, which I was quick to discover was a key point of his personality.  He did greet me nicely however, and try to get down the guitar for me (he's a bit too short).

I learned why the Carrenos were kind of worried about getting him started on guitar early - he may be brilliant and speak Hungarian, German, English, and Spanish fluently, but his attention span is rather short.  I guess it was pretty impressive for a seven and a half year old.  I taught him the names of the strings, how to hold and pluck the guitar, and he was pushing for me to teach him a chord, so I taught him the D chord.

Dr. Carreno is incredibly intense and very intelligent, and manages to come across as extremely direct and blunt, while friendly, and I could see that coming through in Dani.  It amazed me how happy he was to learn - he smiled and laughed whenever he learned something new, and eventually he hailed some of the neighbor kids over to listen to his success.  (He called Anna Cassidy and Benjamin Wolter over, both of whom are professors' children.  It was hilarious because Anna introduced them both, then managed to add, "He's a Wolter, I'm a Cassidy", like they get that sort of question a lot.  Who do you belong to?)

However successful we might have been, Dani's hands are a little small for that big guitar, and it's not even a very good quality guitar.  Mrs. Carreno told me she had to run to talk to Mrs. Wolter down the street, so she left me with the four kids, saying that Professor Carreno was upstairs and would be there if I needed him.  Shortly after she departed, Dani lost interest, asked me to play him a song, shushed everyone violently if they tried to talk while I was playing, and then he made me come play Legos with him.

You'd think that playing legos, especially when you can't find half the pieces, would be really irritating, but I honestly found it relaxing.  Dani and I talked a little and I made sure Lina didn't strangle herself on the cords she was tangling herself up in, and I watched the Cassidy and Wolter children bolt all over the backyard.  It was like a little old fashioned movie - one of the Cassidy girls came over from next door asking to borrow a cup of sugar and everything.

Professor Carreno came downstairs and said that he had to go to a meeting, but that Mrs. Carreno would be back soon, therefore leaving me in charge of all four of the kids that were there.  I wasn't phased, I just kept playing with them.

By the time Mrs. Carreno came back, it had been just about an hour, and Dani was engrossed in building a lego train and having me scout out parts for him.  He got frustrated when I had trouble finding the pieces he needed, but it was actually kind of incredible - Mrs. Carreno told me as an aside that she hadn't had him behave that well for any of the students who have come over this semester yet, and that it was kind of a miracle that he wasn't being horrendous.

I can see how that would happen - Mrs. Carreno and I started talking about music and things in general, and she just seemed so happy to have conversation with someone who wasn't in the 12 and under age demographic.  Dani kept interrupting us, going, "Hey!  Hey!  LADIES! Stop speaking!  Krista don't can do legos when she's speaking with you Mother, shush shush!"

Mrs. Carreno was extremely patient with him, but man, I could see how that kid would get to be a challenging pain sometimes.  Both Dani and Lina are very cute and when I left, Mrs. Carreno thanked me in excruciating detail for being so patient with both of them and managing all four kids while she was gone, and then she made Dani give me two chocolate bars for my time.

Dani was begging me to stay longer when I was leaving - I hadn't realized it had been an hour and a half; it had just been super relaxing and a joy to be in a place where I just felt very welcomed, loved, and accepted right away.  Mrs. Carreno told him to ask me if I could stay for five extra minutes ("because Krista has to help me finish this train! Only her, I need her to stay, so we can finish it right now!") so I gave him fifteen minutes.

On me leaving, he asked me if I could come back, so I might go over on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons and chill with them for a bit even if Dani doesn't want more guitar lessons.

After that Clare and I went for a hike, up to the waterfalls where I went by myself originally.  We talked quite a bit on the way up about how we'd been making an effort to talk to people and how we didn't really feel like anyone really was accepting of it, but that it was really nice when someone took the time to say hello to me.

(We also acknowledged that it was yes, a little pathetic for us to get really excited over someone, anyone, just saying hello in a friendly manner.)

When we got up to the waterfall we discovered that a bunch of people who are really popular and stick together were already up there taking a dunk.

The identical twins (one, or both, who knows) ended up greeting us and telling us we were late to the party, and then we all ended up down in the water together.  At one point I was in the water with several of the other people and they were all in a clump and I was just sort of floundering around by myself.  But one of the twins came down and told me I should get under the waterfall and touch the wall, and I just thought it was nice that, you know, one of the group acknowledged us.  Because most of the others - well, they see us there, we're pretty sure, but it's like we're like phantoms, or whatever.  Maybe we're mutually ignoring each other?

It was kind of disheartening for me to be honest, but I was uplifted by the twins in any case.  I just wish I could tell if it was one of them that says hi to me consistently and acknowledges my presence, or both, because they told me how to tell them apart, but how the heck am I supposed to scrutinize their chins to figure out which one has a slightly deeper cleft?

I mean, either way, they're really nice and funny and I appreciate that their smiles look super genuine.  So let's end on a happy note rather than a depressing one.

Kartause Marienthron