Begin Preheating Now

Flying in over Beijing.  Arriving at 8:00AM on a red-eye from Jakarta.  Six-hours isn’t the same as twelve, but you feel it a lot more than three.  We had the row of four.  The row of four in front of us was cleared.  So were the two seats at two o’clock from me.  I threw my book headset on the empty seat preparing to dash and secure a duet.  I turn and consider my younger one.  She’d appreciate the room as well.  “Hey," I said, turning to her: "let’s cut up in front here once the door closes."  And we do. 

Back home and my gal had turned the heat down?  No.  She cut the heat off before we left.  The house is basically no different from the eighteen-degree Fahrenheit weather outside.  We’re lucky the pipes didn’t freeze.  By now we’ve been home for about ten hours and still it isn’t warm.  It takes a long time to warm a place.  That or the heater hasn’t been turned on properly. 

Shall we have a fire?  Yes.  Shall we bake something tonight?  Begin preheating now.  Certainly.   Get it all blazin’, anywhere you can.  Add oil.  The upstairs is still unpardonably cold.  No way.  I have no interest in retiring there for the night.  It reminds me of a Revolutionary War bedroom.  It will be biting cold up there.  The older one has a heating blanket.  The younger one is unhappy.   The room downstairs with the heated floor will be better.  Come on. 

I remember seeing Chico Freeman around the time I was twenty-three or so.  I seem to recall thinking he was strong and cutting and that he had a handsome, lanky presence with really big eyes that demanded consideration.  Now it’s the moody Mal Waldron with Chico Freeman in the 1992 date “Up and Down” which is sparse and complicated and occasionally lacerating.  (That might have been the same year I saw him?)  I made an early dinner for everyone. Everyone’s eaten.   Last night I got very little sleep with the three seats next to me taken by my little one.  My wife was no better off.  The big one took up three to her one as well.  We both did our best to sleep sitting there, reclined with our arms on our armrests.  

Friday, 01/05/18