You Sweet Moonbeam

Recently I threw a post to a bunch of The Reader questions in the hopes that the steady stream of emails endlessly kicking the bruised shins of the same topics would stop.  And it totally worked!  You started obsessing over other things instead!

What about the cooler?  Did you give Jason and the guys the cooler?  What does D-Row think of the cooler?  Did you get the cooler we sent?  Probably no one has contacted you about the cooler, so here's an email about it.  Have we barraged you enough about the cooler yet? 

This one, I walked right into.  Even before I detailed the woes of D-Row and its non-functionally, unacceptably blue cooler, I warned various Drum Majors that this would probably happen-- that all I'd have to do was mention various cooler-related concerns, and a concerned citizenry, bent and struggling beneath the lash of a horrible economy, three wars, the constant threat of terrorism, and a housing crisis, upon hearing that six members of a marching band were dissatisfied with the color of their game day cooler, would leap to right this wretched wrong.  I told Josh The Supposedly Subdued One, I think, that it would take less than a week for a replacement to appear on somebody's doorstep, with or without a body.  I was wrong. 

It took four hours before the email receipt showed up.

And then, of course, the problems--there are always problems--began.  Where to have the cooler delivered?  The donors suggested the Band Center at Ohio State, but, having been inside that building, I am well aware that it forms the far northern juncture of some sort of deep space wormhole, where time, reality, and personal belongings enter, but do not necessarily return.  (Jason The Ridiculously Young Drum Major recently announced that hey, he took a jacket with his name embroidered on it into the building, and now it's gone, and what is this "eBay" of which you speak?) You chuck a full-sized tailgate cooler into that joint, there's no telling what the cosmological repercussions might be. 

Donors then asked for the addresses of D-Rowers, but I said no, if anyone's going to be murdered around here, it's not going to be my TBDBITL lovelies.  So I had the cooler shipped to my house.

I finally saw it the other day.  In true Blonde Champagne fashion, we can't do anything in a manner even remotely approaching class.  The Readers were eager to honor Matt The Badass' four years of faithful band service, and firmly affixed to the lid of the cooler a remembrance to that effect.  Not a small brass plaque or engraved plate or even a few ransom note-style cutout letters-- no.  Somebody went to Staples and got themselves a four-color 8.5x11 picture of Bleeding Matt and a laminating machine and some Krazy Glue and they made themselves a Very Special Memory.

We had a formal presentation this evening in the parking lot of the Sawmill Bowling Alley when I heaved it out of the backseat of my car and in the general direction of Jason and his new assistant, Kyle.  They were stunned into silence; a respectful silence, I think, until Kyle demanded to know what was in it. 

"All our love," I said.  (I had been drinking.) 

But as love has a fairly low resale value, Kyle was not impressed.  Jason pronounced this acquisition fit for duty, and said thank you, and probably other nice pass-alongable things, but then, I had been been drinking.

Who is your favorite Drum Major?

That's an awesome question! I'll get right on it.  Allow me first, however, to finish out this chart of which nephew I would let drown in order to save the other two.

Which Drum Major do you feel closest to?

How much I have been drinking? 

It's been six months since you began this book project.  What are some of your favorite memories so far?

I'm working with a group of vastly different people, so I have a wide and varied selection of moments I like to scrapbook up, mentally speaking.  And again, we have here a toasted marshmallows vs. aqua massage vs. John Adams issue; don't ask me which is my favorite, because they're all completely different things, loved in different ways for different reasons.  But when I look over my shoulder, these are the moments that make me smile.  Some I haven't mentioned yet:

-David Who Got My Purse and Nate Who Ignores Me linking arms after they saw Jason rescue me from my own inappropriate shoes

-Alex Who Talks Real Pretty informing a bunch of 8th graders at Spring Clinic that when they got married, they really ought to go to their wedding showers, as people would give them presents.  Then he taught them how to salute.

-Stewart Kitchen saving the world one roundoff at a time

-Matt The Badass' face as he affirmed that he could remember every single Script Ohio he'd led

-Josh Halter's face as he watched Matt's face in the same moment

-Jason letting me not only hear him sing, but hear him sing one of my most beloved musicals, Jersey Boys

-Claudia The Campus Sister demonstrating that she did not hate me by speaking directly to me, not once using the word "...bitch" in the process

-Various Drum Majors who shall go unnamed, fighting off tears while discussing their work

Casey Kasem The Reader linked in this video in one of my posts about Jason's tryout prep a few weeks back, totally unaware that this is one of my favorite on-the-radio-NOW songs, and I'm closing out the post with this because, okay, you guys make me smile, too: