We were able to slow the bleeding down and my son Max and I rushed off to Cook Children’s Medical Center to have her checked out.

Madeleine was pretty upset initially, but by the time we arrived at the hospital she was all bounce and smiles again.

Maddie enjoys the ER

Big brother makes it all okay

Maddie waits for the ER doc

When the doctor saw her the doctor asked if she had hit her noggin and Maddie said, “No I hit my head.”. Maddie charmed everyone there and even though they sent two nurses in to administer a staple – Maddie was completely at ease in my arms and didn’t even seem to notice the staple being applied.

Max was brave too. He was very concerned about the whole thing and even cried at first when we were heading out and when I told him what they were going to have to do. But when I told him he needed to be strong for his sister – he sucked up the tears and was strong as steal.

It’s no fun seeing your little ones hurt, but it sure shows you how much they love each other and how strong they can be when things get harried.

]]> http://hansgrim.com/?feed=rss2&p=1000 0 http://hansgrim.com/?p=975 http://hansgrim.com/?p=975#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:45:02 +0000 Hans Grim http://hansgrim.com/?p=975 Today I slept till noon. When I got up, Mary and I moved all the furniture out of the living room and ripped up the carpet. Kinda fun!

Then she left to spend the night with her friends in Dallas. I went to Home Depot to get some tools/supplies for the floor. Then off to Betty’s class. Not as much fun as usual tonight. I’ve gotten spoiled playing the Steinway at the Modern. Hard to compare.

Now to bed. Missing my children tonight. They are very cute after all.

I stopped by East Dallas to see a man about some floors. Gonna be fun.

Very sleepy.

Ok – that’s just cool!!!

I played at church this morning and enjoyed watching my three kids sing and dance along with the other Ridglea UMC kids.

Afterwards we went home and had turkey sandwiches, took a nap and then I dropped Rose and Max off with our good friends – The Hills. They will be spending ts week with them – attending their VBS and taking swim lessons.

I can’t wait to read Max’s journal!

Then I had dinner with Maddie and Mary at Terra in Fort Worth. We decided it would make the best sense for me to drive Maddie to San Antonio tonight. She will be spending a week with her grandmother in San Antonio.

Mary and I hope to redo the floor in our living room. Big project!!

I’m sleepy. Goodnight.

Inspired by my son – I am beginning to journal my daily activities. Today I woke around ten to the screams if my three children hounding my wife, Mary, for milk or a snack or who knows what. 

I rolled out of bed and took a shower.  Today I have agreed to record a short bit of incidental music for an independent film. No pay, but the allure of being listed in the IMDB online. I’m just vain enough to want to donate my time to that end.

I showed up at the TCU radio studios to find an upright bass player’ a drummer, the director of the film and his assistant.  The assistant had brought his little 64 key unweighted keyboard for me to play on. It looked dinky and at least a decade old, and I regretted not bringing my own to the session.  I grumbled about the poor quality, but it turned out to be fine.

I’ve found over the years that the better a player you are the less the instrument matters. Which is sad since the better you get the better an instrument you can afford, but – oh well.

Anyway the director played something he had in mind on his guitar.  His assistant remarked that it sounded just like something from Twin Peaks.  The drum set, keyboard and bass were all set up, but no micas or headphones had been hooked up and we had to wait for some other interview to finish before we could setup to record.  

It was probably a full forty-five minutes before we were finially hooked up and ready to go.  Then we took 75 minutes to record a thirty second clip of a song, which a singer would be adding lyrics and her voice to.  It was really fun – of course I wish I had a meatier bit of playing to conquer, but it was fun all the same to be working with a couple musicians to create something new.

In the end it sounded perfect for an Indy short film.  I was happy with it.

Then I used an app on my iPhone called Yelp to find a yummy place to eat.  Sonny’s Cafe – I think.  A Vietnamese place.  I enjoyed their shrimp pad tai.

Then I came home to find my son reading a book he’d read before – so I promised him I would take him to buy some new books to read.

I rescued my wife from Rosie who was keeping her firm taking a nap.

The three of us retreat to the couch for a while and I watched YouTube clips of Bear Grylls from Man vs. Wild.  I really love that show!

Mary took off to go to the second night of her show – The Full Monty – in Addison.  I’m hugely jealous of her on this one – I really love this show.

I went into the front yard and spent forty-five minutes wrestling with my paint sprayer.  Finally I was able to get it working.  I put the first coat of paint on my daughter’s bunk beds.  We bought a wood stained set and thought it would be easy to paint them white.  This has turned into an ordeal.  I’m not a big fan of painting.

Anyway – once I cleaned up I came in and wanted to take the kids somewhere fun and they needed to eat was well.  So I bought tickets for Despicable Me in 3D at the Hulen Movie tavern.

We hustled into the car and slipped into the theatre, but we couldn’t find any seats, so I asked if we could have a refund. The manager actually gave me a refund and let us go to see Toy Story 3 for free.  He really didn’t have to do that. That was pretty cool. 

It was a great movie. I especially enjoyed when buzz light year gets flipped into Spanish mode.  Very funny.  Also – I have always though George Clooney was the voice of Buzz.  Apparently not.  Funny

Afterward, I told Max we needed to go home and get the girls in bed and that we would have to go online and order him some new books.  He didn’t like that – and I didn’t want to go back in my word – so we went to Barnes and Noble.

Rose and Maddie picked up almost every book in the place and handed them to me. They screamed and frolicked like banshees, but we were finally able to find max a couple of books.

He’s draw to informative encyclopedic books – which is great, but I feel it is more important for him to read fictional accounts – novels.

So we found him a couple that he liked the sound of and we bought him a diary – one with a lock on it.  He began writing as I began writing this – but I guess I had a lot more to say.

well – goodnight.

Hans

If you’ve ever thought about taking her class – I strongly recommend it. You can find more information here.

I decided we needed our own arrangement and created this one. If you would like to use it – please just let me know. I’d love to know about it.

I Sing a Song of the Saints of God

"Musical Director Hans Patrick Grim tackles that formidable Bernstein score with a mere trio. But with some creative doubling on instruments, they manage admirably." -Perry Stewart; Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Granbury Opera house budget allowed for me and 2 additional musicians. I hired my best friend Wes Griffin for percussion and my brother Evan for Guitar, Keyboard, Trombone and additional percussion as needed.

It remains one of my all time favorite productions and I would never have made it through without Evan and Wes’ help and the Directors – David Swan and Kate Swan.

However, one story though sticks with me to this day as a cautionary tale. It involves a particularly tricky dance number in the show entitled “Cool”.

To set the scene – In Granbury there were 7 shows a week – and the show ran for 4 weeks so we got plenty of opportunity to think about the music. One Friday afternoon in about the second week, my wife mentioned casually that the dancers thought the tempo on “Cool” was getting a little slow. So my brother Evan, Wes and I sat down a little early from dinner and dialed up the metronome marking from the score. Sure enough – it was quite a bit brighter than we had ever played it. We tried playing it at that tempo and were delighted that we could even keep up. After two weeks of playing the show – we now found ourselves able to play it much faster than we originally could. So I set the metronome on my stand and when Riff cued the song I counted the piece off in the prescribed tempo.

We had a blast! It was so much fun flying through that tune as Bernstein had originally intended (well – with 10% of the music personnel of course).

Well – at intermission we went backstage expecting to hear how great we had played it and how much better the tempo was. WRONG! The dancers it seemed did not have anywhere near as much fun as we musicians did. Apparently they nearly flew right off the stage at our brighter brisk tempo and were absolutely furious with us. It seems funny now, but at the time – you’d think we’d set fire to the set as they were dancing on it. We had no idea it might cause them bodily harm. It was pretty tense for the rest of that week. The cast took it VERY personally.

And a very green musical director learned an important lesson about tempos!

Read the review at Theater Jones – Feed Your Need.