To celebrate auspicious transitions, my wife and I took A. out to dinner at the local Hibachi Rocks, a Japanese hibachi grill and sushi restaurant, for a "pre-pre-birthday" celebration. I fell behind, due to a work matter too boring to journal, but arrived to pick him up only a good solid bunch of moments late. We met up with my wife at the restaurant, and proceeded to order. I went with sushi choices, while my wife went for grilled salmon and my nephew for scallops and steak. They always do a great job at Hibachi Rock, which is not five minutes from our home. It's like a lot of similar places--a bit too expensive for routine meals,but perfect for a special celebration. My tuna roll, yellowtail roll, and smoked salmon all went down swimmingly.
We went back to our home for a visit. We gave A. the Egyptian style chess set I bought last year. Then we all began to play with the dogs. A. threw the tennis ball for young Bea, who loves to fetch the ball and return it for more throws. Young Ted, meanwhile, enjoyed doing her various sit/stand/stay tricks, which she seems to derive pleasure from demonstrating.
A., who plays piano a bit, got a huge, super-cool Yamaha MIDI keyboard for Christmas. He gave us a demonstration of the 500+ voices the keyboard had, to our delight. Bea looked askance during the "dog bark" version of "Ode to Joy". A. and I then went upstairs to my spare room, where we recorded A. playing his keyboard. I then placed the sample into Slicer, morphed it about a bit. I posted the result over at my DisFish Records site, where it is now "Dog Opera, with collaborator Zook Murning", on my new work-in=progress, "Haunting Voices". A. assured me that next time we should record an album by A., for which I should merely serve as producer. He may be right in this. A. then got both Ted and Bea into tennis-ball-fetch frenzy. We were so glad he came to visit us.
I like that we have such fun nieces and nephews.