Dinner With Vida
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Village Pizza
When Vida started taking piano lessons I had my mom send me some old piano books that were lying around her house. Among the selection was an old book of Jewish songs and prayers for young pianists. I was fooling around in it playing one of my favorites, Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and Vida started to pick it up too. Just before we went to Seattle for Passover in April Vida informed me that she was going to accompany her Hebrew school class on the piano as they sang Hatikvah for their annual songfest or Zimria.
I was honestly horrified that she had volunteered herself to play a song publically that she had just started to learn. I had a bad experience trying to accompany my Campfire Girl troop when I was a few years older than Vida and I couldn’t get the image of myself running back to my mom in the audience in tears because I had failed. Truthfully I failed because I didn’t practice enough—I think kids think things will work out if they simply will it to happen. I felt strongly that I was the one responsible for helping Vida succeed and I was determined to do everything in my power to make sure she did. There was something amazing in Vida’s confidence that she wanted do this even though she has only been playing the piano for a little over six months. I didn’t want anything to happen that would damage that optimistic attitude.
We took the piece to Vida’s teacher and she helped us figure out what we need to do to get it into shape—also noting that we had to make sure that they were going to sing it in the same key that she was playing it. Vida took the book to the music director at Hebrew school and she assured me that “it was fine” how she was playing it.
She had the first page down pretty well. When we were in Seattle she entertained us with it during Passover. The second page was more difficult than anything else she had played. There were lots of places where she would miss notes or slow down too much. I had the sense of the event being a ways off so when she let me know that she only had two weeks left to practice after we got back from Seattle I tried not to panic. They had a rehearsal the week before and Vida says she got “butterflies” and didn’t play as well as she thought she could. Even a few days before the performance I felt that the piece wasn’t in good enough shape but we kept plugging along until we knew that she could play it without mistakes even if it wasn’t great every time.
The day of the performance her group was the very last one to go on stage. When she went to the piano I saw that there was no place for her music in front of her but that it was perched on a music stand to her left—essentially she had to play it from memory. She played it perfectly. Not one missed note. Her class gave the most heartfelt performance of the afternoon. I was unbelievably proud, just a little teary, and incredibly relieved. She got a big “high five” from the music director who I’m pretty sure wasn’t convinced it was going to go well. It was only after the performance that he told us that he had the kids change key so that Vida didn’t have to transpose the music.
B and R and Rara came to see the performance but I left Victor at Muffinville since he can’t stand it when Vida is up on stage and he isn’t allowed to go up there with her. Afterwards we made a plan to go to Village Pizza for dinner. I’ve driven past this pizza place on Arguello and Clement countless times but never stopped. On this evening it just seemed like a perfect spot since it was walking distance from the synagogue. While I was gone to pick up Victor they placed the order. Vida was thrilled to get her favorite “Margarita” pizza. It’s usually not a good idea to order a pizza requiring the freshest of ingredients, in this case basil, at a typical pizza joint. I was not surprised when it came with some pale sliced tomato as well as way too much chopped basil but Vida didn’t mind at all. They ordered an antipasto salad, typical but delicious with the usual sliced meats, pale tomato, cucumber and some atypical feta cheese. Another pizza with cheese was ordered for everyone else. I wasn’t fast enough to get much of the food but I enjoyed my Peroni and watching a bit of the Sharks game on the TV perched above our heads. The atmosphere there was very much old school pizza joint—even if there weren’t fake grape vines crawling along the woodwork I imagined them still.
I spent the entire meal breathing one big sigh of relief. Now we prepare for the spring recital . . .
Restaurant Total: 265
When Vida started taking piano lessons I had my mom send me some old piano books that were lying around her house. Among the selection was an old book of Jewish songs and prayers for young pianists. I was fooling around in it playing one of my favorites, Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem, and Vida started to pick it up too. Just before we went to Seattle for Passover in April Vida informed me that she was going to accompany her Hebrew school class on the piano as they sang Hatikvah for their annual songfest or Zimria.
I was honestly horrified that she had volunteered herself to play a song publically that she had just started to learn. I had a bad experience trying to accompany my Campfire Girl troop when I was a few years older than Vida and I couldn’t get the image of myself running back to my mom in the audience in tears because I had failed. Truthfully I failed because I didn’t practice enough—I think kids think things will work out if they simply will it to happen. I felt strongly that I was the one responsible for helping Vida succeed and I was determined to do everything in my power to make sure she did. There was something amazing in Vida’s confidence that she wanted do this even though she has only been playing the piano for a little over six months. I didn’t want anything to happen that would damage that optimistic attitude.
We took the piece to Vida’s teacher and she helped us figure out what we need to do to get it into shape—also noting that we had to make sure that they were going to sing it in the same key that she was playing it. Vida took the book to the music director at Hebrew school and she assured me that “it was fine” how she was playing it.
She had the first page down pretty well. When we were in Seattle she entertained us with it during Passover. The second page was more difficult than anything else she had played. There were lots of places where she would miss notes or slow down too much. I had the sense of the event being a ways off so when she let me know that she only had two weeks left to practice after we got back from Seattle I tried not to panic. They had a rehearsal the week before and Vida says she got “butterflies” and didn’t play as well as she thought she could. Even a few days before the performance I felt that the piece wasn’t in good enough shape but we kept plugging along until we knew that she could play it without mistakes even if it wasn’t great every time.
The day of the performance her group was the very last one to go on stage. When she went to the piano I saw that there was no place for her music in front of her but that it was perched on a music stand to her left—essentially she had to play it from memory. She played it perfectly. Not one missed note. Her class gave the most heartfelt performance of the afternoon. I was unbelievably proud, just a little teary, and incredibly relieved. She got a big “high five” from the music director who I’m pretty sure wasn’t convinced it was going to go well. It was only after the performance that he told us that he had the kids change key so that Vida didn’t have to transpose the music.
B and R and Rara came to see the performance but I left Victor at Muffinville since he can’t stand it when Vida is up on stage and he isn’t allowed to go up there with her. Afterwards we made a plan to go to Village Pizza for dinner. I’ve driven past this pizza place on Arguello and Clement countless times but never stopped. On this evening it just seemed like a perfect spot since it was walking distance from the synagogue. While I was gone to pick up Victor they placed the order. Vida was thrilled to get her favorite “Margarita” pizza. It’s usually not a good idea to order a pizza requiring the freshest of ingredients, in this case basil, at a typical pizza joint. I was not surprised when it came with some pale sliced tomato as well as way too much chopped basil but Vida didn’t mind at all. They ordered an antipasto salad, typical but delicious with the usual sliced meats, pale tomato, cucumber and some atypical feta cheese. Another pizza with cheese was ordered for everyone else. I wasn’t fast enough to get much of the food but I enjoyed my Peroni and watching a bit of the Sharks game on the TV perched above our heads. The atmosphere there was very much old school pizza joint—even if there weren’t fake grape vines crawling along the woodwork I imagined them still.
I spent the entire meal breathing one big sigh of relief. Now we prepare for the spring recital . . .
Restaurant Total: 265
