The Imminent Departure of the Music

It is a day of technological glitches, too boring to explain.

It is also a day of firsts: Little Babe's first driving lesson, one day after he got his Learner's Permit at the Goshen DMV. Mazel Tov Little Babe, the first of The Three Babes to achieve this milestone! Tonight he will sit through a 5-hour session while I skip off to Straub's Fitness ("Searching for Bobby Fischer" is playing at the Cardio Theatre) and possibly putter up to the Barnes and Noble in Newburgh to buy my son the Hemingway work that is required summer reading for Junior year English. (What? Hey, there are two weeks left until school starts!)

Behold my youngest child under the trees by the edge of the woods, playing his new Marcus Miller Jazz Bass, which he spent his entire camp salary on. We bought it last night at the Guitar Center on Route 17 in New Jersey, capping off a two-plus hour visit where we jammed, sang in the guitar room ("Let it Be" and "Landslide" sounded especially great on the 12-string Martin) and schmoozed with customers and salesmen alike. It made me happy that the drum dude recognized me from my last visit two months earlier. We talked about finding a comfortable distance between throne and drum kit. I bought a copy of Drum! magazine (with Chad Smith of the RHCP on the cover!!!) and a couple of sets of sticks to show how serious a musician I am, a rocker chick in my own right, not just the mother of the kid contemplating buying an $800 jazz bass. The drum dude showed me the used drum kits but I was not ready to commit to a purchase though I long to play in the privacy of my own space, a girl drummer, not a girl anymore.

Little Babe's purchase, however, more than justified our visit. Lovingly, he lay the instrument down in the back seat of our Honda and when we returned to the bungalow, he lifted it out gingerly, joyfully, like a father bringing a newborn child home from the hospital. I fell asleep to the sound of him playing, well after midnight.

And here is the Love Shack, already wearing a look of melancholy at the approach of Labor Day, the imminent departure of the music.