i feel like it's almost an integral part of childhood to play an instrument. sister 1 played the guitar. in fact she still has it somewhere in the closet. and whenever she's feeling nostalgic she pulls it out to strum. but i say no playing until it's tuned. untuned guitars sound awful. i took Casio lessons. but in typical me form, i stopped for lack of motivational interest. i thought my teacher was too boring. and that the songs i was supposed to practice were stupid. and that i sounded dumb. or who knows what else i was thinking then. brother 1 also played piano. personally, i think he's more musically inclined than i am. but which boy wants to sit and practice scales. so now that leaves sister 2 and brother 2.

sister 2 decided she wanted to go for something less conventional.

she announced that she wanted to play the saxophone. my mom's first reaction was to recoil in horror. she was thinking Bill Clinton and seedy jazz bars. i was thinking more along the lines of "thank G-d she didn't choose the tuba!" so she plays the sax. in the beginning she sounded like a flock of Canadian geese that had caught a particularly bad strain of the West Nile virus, or something equally as awful. but she's gotten better at it. now she plays all kinds of music. from Jewish, to Popular Folk (YMCA) to Rock (We Will Rock You) and everything in between. i think she's supposed to be playing something in her school concert. (something Jewish, obviously)

brother 2 started off on the flute. the only thing cool about it was that it was stored in pieces. i remember when we went to Detroit one year, he took it with him, and announced at 4 am that he was going to practice. i think i threatened to hit him over the head with it, and then break it into many more pieces. a short while after that, his teacher switched him to the clarinet. it wasn't as pretty as the flute, but i shouldn't have wished for him to stop playing it, because recently he got switched again-to trumpet. very very annoying. think a duck trying swallow a very hot piece of sharp metal that is slightly too large. he's very good about practicing, but at this particular moment, I'd rather sleep than hear a rendition of "Oh Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel"