Man, yesterday was a study in contrasts. At one point in the day, two friends and I were splitting a cookie we’d found in a trash can (it was wrapped, and on top of everthing – absolutely no garbage juice was involved) then later that evening, I was listening to these guys in the new Kauffman Performing Arts Center.
(picture courtesy of Christi, AKA MissChief)
One goes from this sort of action, to hustling home, scrubbing down in the shower, throwing on a pretty dress, and preparing to smile and be helpful. I’d have loved to had a couple of more hours to maraud around with our ad hoc all-girl bike gang, but the volunteers were to be mustered by 5:30 p.m. sharp!
My swanky night out at the Performing Arts Center was part of a volunteer gig with the Friends of Chamber Music, an organization of which Joel’s mom is an enthusiastic member. Really all I needed to do was be friendly and show people where the ticket counter, elevators, coat-check, and restrooms were. In exchange for this small service, we were privileged to sit in on the concert. Nice work if you can get it, no?
The show really was fab, too. The first half of it was rather otherworldly – the theme of the concert was “love,” but seeing as the first half was in Old French, German, and Latin, they really could have been singing anything and I’d have had to take their word for it. But their voices are smooth and melodious, and listening to it was just very relaxing. After the intermission, however, they got more contemporary and up-tempo, and performed two Basie songs and a bring-the-house-down arrangement of Cream’s “Somebody To Love.”
If the second half had been more of the same as the first half, I’d have been like, “oh, it was nice and all,” but since they brought out the more lighthearted, “fun” stuff to wind up the concert, I walked out of there wholeheartedly proclaiming of what a good time I had.
It was fun to meet the other volunteers, too. I remembered a couple of them from the last time I got to help out at a Friends of Chamber Music show. Others were new faces. One gentleman is a Lutenist in his spare time. Another young lady (just turned 16) was volunteering with her Dad. Besides classical music, she’s into volunteering at a local vet clinic and reading fan fiction, but NOT Bella/Edward shipping.
On a completely off-track note, I think they’re making teenagers better these days than back in my day. I swear I have met so many delightful kids in the past few years. Really articulate, confident, and earnestly interesting. It seems like in my day, amongst my “peer group” we were kind of evil little shits, surly and sardonic, principally interested in watching Beavis & Butthead, holing up with our noisy Alice In Chains CDs, drawing obscene cartoons on each other’s jean jackets. If there was a smartass remark to be made, it would definitely not remain unspoken.
Now it could be that the various Millennials I’ve met had their best foot forward because they were talking to a grown-up, but sometimes I wonder… I cannot recall ever having my shit so together (or at least giving the appearance thereof) as so many of the kids I’ve come across in recent years. Is “being a snotty little shit-show” is no longer a requirement of adolescence?