it's 9:33 am, saturday right now and what i wanna know is...WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING UP? well, my cousin christian called and asked for directions to corona del mar. i took my cousins and my sister there on the 4th of july and now look! they're hooked! too bad we have to drive all the way there for clean beach water to swim, boogie board or wade in. i wanna laugh everytime i give directions to get there: 5 south to the 605 south to the 405 south to the 73 south exit macarthur...man! sometimes i can't freakin' believe the number of freeways it takes to get there! and to think we used to drive back and forth from LA to irvine...and to think we did that for 4 years! crazy...

so yesterday my sister was part of this piano contest run buy an organization called AFNA. i couldn't tell you what that stands for so don't ask. all i know is that they're a foundation made up of different music schools and they have this event every year for young pianists and accordion players. anyhow, i didn't make it to her performance like my parents did cuz i couldn't get out of work. but i made it to the radisson hotel by LAX just in time for the banquet and awards ceremony.

let me tell you something about my 13 year old sister. she's not one to get excited or nervous about ANYTHING. riann calls her DARIA and to a certain extent, she sure portrays the MTV cartoon to a T. but tin's piano teacher has been preparing her for this evening for months! and i can't tell you the number of times i've had to listen to her piece, IMPATIENCE, a piece she literally breathed and slept! oh the repition involved on the road to perfection! she had that piece SO perfected she even had time to compose a page or two of orginal music. i'm not talking about some right-handed lullaby. i mean a piece that could rival young mozart (ok i'm exaggerrating but it's really good). anyhow, my sister, in all her talent for art and music has definitely monopolized the right brain genes of our parents. when it comes to levels of creativity, if it's not about scrapbooking, i am at a loss. i remember freshman year at uci when cile used to try to get me to do something artsy with her to devoid my mind of chemistry, physics, calculus and fortran, even for just a moment. and once i did try and the results were nothing short of laughable. all i remember cile saying to me was, "anna, how come everything you draw is symmetrical?" i had never felt so close to my left brain...but i digress...

my parents said that the one area of IMPATIENCE that my sister played through in practice like cake was the one area she misplayed. some nerves finally got to tin! but she isn't one to dwell on such trivialities (is that a word?). at the banquet all the participants received medals; a bronze medallion engraved with the G-clef. and the winners of each category are broken down into different "royal courts." they had categories from 4-7 year old "counts and countesses" to 16 & 17 year old "kings and queens" of the accordion and piano. to put into perspective how huge this event was, let me just tell you that there were 80 tables in the ballroom! 800 people! each seat was filled by hopeful musicians, not to mention even more hopeful parents, waiting for their child's name to be called. i can't even begin to tell you how overwhelmed i was at this place. this 4 year-old girl with blonde curls, clad in a pink dress won in her division for the accordion! 4 YEARS OLD! she was SO cute! close by was a lady with fire-red hair and i heard her call out, "piper, come here" to her 8 year-old pianist daughter who had just come down from the stage after receiving her trophy, proud as can be, with a smile so big you'd think she'd just seen santa claus buying groceries at vons! and oh how all the performers were dressed!! talk about prom! little boys were in suits and tuxes and i even saw a few in barongs. and little girls in their pretty dresses with their hair done. amazing! you just KNEW that this is what they lived for: competition.

the cool thing about this contest? all the kids got trophies! there are the top winners, the runners-up and the honorable mentions. my sister got an honorable mention. to some kids there, not being named the count, or the princess or the duke or the queen was devastating. there was a girl crying in the bathroom cuz she didn't win the top prize. but my sister couldn't be happier with her honorable mention award and my parents and i felt the same. she even got her name engraved on the trophy (they were getting it done there for only $5
regardless of how long your name was!) and it's sitting on top of the piano, draped with her medal. next time you all come over you'll see it. oh the trials of a concert pianist...well, not really but closer than i'll ever be.

it's time to change the bedsheets now. don't have any exciting plans today (WHAT A MIRACLE!!!!!!). i think i'll wash my car. until next time....