Hands Full of Rocks

Top 57 list

So, yesterday was T-day two, wherein Miss R got a mild concussion, chin contusion, and tongue laceration to go with the puking incident from T-day one.

Sucky T-day for her this year. Sucky for ep, too, as he got to be full circle - caught puke on the first go, and was the source of the concussion on the second go (okay, so she really shouldn't have been RIGHT behind him on the stairs, where his heel could clip her chin really hard as he went up the stairs...).

Poor ep. Poor Miss R.

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln... Well, other than that, it was a fabulous thanksgiving. One of the best in years, from most of the opinions I gathered.

We had initially expected 25 people, but four ended up not coming. S'okay, we managed. It just gave us more room to put the food.

We'd put in all 20 leaves in the table (yes, that is 20 leaves, the table seats 26 comfortably, or more somewhat on the tight side). Set out the good silver from both sides of the family. Set out the Waterford for the adults, and the 'training crystal' for the kids (pressed glass, but good heavy stuff, and if they break it, nobody will be heartbroken). The kids decorated the table with garlands and 'scatter leaves' (silk leaves with no stems). The nice holiday china was out, and the damask gold and cream tablecloths under it all, with forest green napkins both to match and contrast.

Lovely lovely.

Lovely also getting up at 6:something AM to get over there after staying up to midnight the night before making pies. Getting to my mom's at 7:30, drinking coffee and starting the rice for rice stuffing and chatting with my sister and her wife. Having my SIL do a latte run for me, and then on to peeling garlic for garlic mashed potatoes (one head of garlic per serving!). Rice stuffing (wild rice, jasmine rice, onions, carrots, celery, mushrooms, fresh herbs) in the bird, and bird in the oven, and then a short break. Mmmm, coffee.

Then a little chatting and hanging out with my sister and SIL and mom, and some discussion about the charity decisions for the year - my mom's charitable fund covers three moderate donations (or does at this point), and so we had to pick out three things that covered the ground we wanted. Still have to talk to one sister, but otherwise, we're good to donate to our selected causes.

Kids arrived with ep, and set to work - Mr G settling in to polish the silver (including the set my aunt found somewhere, mostly plate but a couple of decent ones in there), Mr B heading off to prep table setting (anything not already done), the girls (M and R) who knows where. My brother showed up briefly to drop a few items and head back off. Ep discussed his projects for the day (not cooking), and headed back out as well, shortly after dropping the kids.

Then more cooking - finishing up the potatoes, starting to cycle the other dishes into the warming process. Whoa, suddenly it was 1 PM, and AHHH, my skirt still needs to be hemmed (I caught it with my heel the last time I wore it, pulled it right out), and I'm not dressed and have zero makeup on, and people will be arriving soon!

I got dressed, ep arrived, found my socks (ack, where are my socks!), my SIL threaded a needle for me (I ended up not even getting the hem put back up, but I don't know that anyone either noticed or cared but me), I managed to be sufficiently put-together that I got a yowza look from ep, and a whoa-nelly look from my friend N (wife of my friend A), in the 'hello, I have never seen you look like that before!' way. Good, I hope. I was showing much more skin than usual, and I was wearing the 'tall boots' (I'm 6' 2" in those boots, plus they're knee-high). So, uh, anyway, hopefully a good impression... just not my usual covered up somewhat conservative librarian-with-an-attitude look.

And more hectic dance through the kitchen while everything got assembled and put together and we waited on three arrivals (who turned out to not be coming but hadn't said, sigh, NOT like them)... but then, dinner started, and we carried on, passed the vegan and vegetarian and non-veg food, and despite the potential for grousing that shows up with food differences, there was ease and comfort and enough for every dietary restriction to have gracious plenty and good stuff.

The list, though, I bet you're wondering where that comes in...

Well, my friends A and N are Indian (I've mentioned them before). We got to talking about movies that would be good cultural reference points for new staff coming over from India to get a sense of context, and give them any chance of catching half the referential jokes that are so common to US business. What is a cowboy, and why do people in reference to boring meetings say 'Bueller... Bueller...' ?

So we started the list, aiming for a top 10. Wait, can't leave that one off, so, 12. No, 17. 25. 32. Dessert was done and coffee was dregs as we got up to nearly 40. Laughing, we teased A and N that there would be a quiz next Thanksgiving. We compared notes on this vs that movie, Breakfast Club or 16 Candles? Tried to trim out the 'just a good movie' ones, leaving 'understand our issues' ones instead. A and N finally headed out around 8:30 or 9 with a photocopy of the list, but then we had more conversation and the list extended again... I finally left with it at 57 movies. Even if they had time to do one a week, that's more than a year's worth.

I'm going to put up a page for the list, later, but for now, here's the raw tally (some titles may be inexact): (My and my sister's combined top-ten are in bold)

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. That's Entertainment
3. John Wayne movie (any, or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence)
4. Manchurian Candidate
5. Mr Smith Goes to Washington
6. It's a Wonderful Life
7. The General (Buster Keaton)
8. Forrest Gump
9. Tootsie
10. Citizen Kane
11. The Road to ... (any) (Bob Hope and Bing Crosby)
12. Some Like it Hot
13. Apocalypse Now
14. Viva Las Vegas
15. Oceans 11 (original, with Frank Sinatra)
16. The Godfather II
17. North by Northwest
18. Dirty Harry
19. The Pink Panther (not for the Americana, but because of the vast number of references that ended up in the culture)
20. Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles (both)
21. Robin Hood (Errol Flynn, not Kevin Costner)
22. Tarzan (Johnny Weismuller)
23. King Kong (the original b/w)
24. The Keystone Kops (any)
25. Sleeper
26. Take the Money and Run
27. The Blues Brothers
28. Terminator (just the first one)
29. Office Space
30. 12 Angry Men
31. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
32. All the Presidents Men (original)
33. Gran Torino
34. Driving Miss Daisy
35. The Wizard of Oz
36. Network
37. Casablanca
38. Star Wars (A New Hope, the first one)
39. Airplane!
40. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
41. The Breakfast Club
42. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
43. M.A.S.H.
44. Superman (Christopher Reeves, just the first one)
45. The Natural
46. O Brother Where Art Thou?
    
47. A League of Their Own
    
48. 1776
    
49. The Shining
    
50. Easy Rider
    
51. 7 Brides for 7 Brothers
52. The Music Man
    
53. Oh, God! (George Burns)
    
54. Groundhog Day
    
55. Guess Who's Coming for Dinner
    
56. Philadelphia
    
57. The Desperate Ones

PHEW! In return, A and N thought they might have four or five Bollywood flicks I needed to see... the rest, eh, not so much.

Feel free to dispute some of our picks, or add your own. The only rules are 'they are cultural touch-points (not just good movies)' and 'source of recognizable cultural references used in popular US culture'. No TV shows, no literature, only movies. And not the uber-challenging ones (we nixed things like The Color Purple on the grounds that that was more of an advanced course in US culture, rather than an introductory overview).

If you know some Bollywood (or 'Parallel' - the alternative indie type) movies I need to see, feel free to comment there, too.

Catching puke

Literally.

This being one of the ways the universe tests your parenting skills, we think.

Take one family gathering, add a lot of food, add a bunch of exciting cousins to play with, and shake.

Wait until one of the children comes and says their tummy hurts. At the first signs of heaving, stick out hands to keep it off the nice floor.

Because, you know, the finish on hardwood can get really messed up by puke.

Heh.

Or really, because, well, what else are you going to do? Scream? Leap back away from the child? Traumatize them for life?

Instead, ep caught. And I grabbed napkins and we grabbed towels (had been on their chairs as protection), and she yooked into those instead. Nice linen napkins... bleach is a good thing, yes?

Miss R is feeling much better after having rented and returned her entire dinner and dessert. 

So, that was T-day one. Ep's parents' house (nice old stone house, plenty of room), his brother and sister, their kids, an uncle and aunt, a foreign student whose host family were out of town, the bf of one of the cousins. Nice mix, all in all.

Today was prep for T-day two. Cleaning up, setting up the table (all 20 leaves in the table, taking up the full length of the addition my mom put on for just this purpose), various decorating and setup for the formal dining.

Tomorrow will be T-day two. 25 people (or 24, depending on whether my best friend from high school's husband shows up this year - some years he does, some he doesn't). My friends A and N (A from work, N his wife) will be getting their first go with an American Thanksgiving. Whoo, boy, poor things! KIDS! PEOPLE! FOOD! MORE KIDS! MORE FOOD! TALKING! MORE TALKING! MORE KIDS! MORE FOOD!

Woot? It is kind of hard to be dropped into that whole thing, BAM. Though maybe they'll be more used to it than we think, since it is probably closer to a 'small event' in the Indian experience. What, only 25 people? Piff. Nuthin. Heh.

Still, my family can be a bit much to take. They're all nice, but they can all, uh, talk. Even all the introverts.

But hopefully nobody will have to prove themselves by catching puke. Once a holiday is enough for that.

Fall means charity

So, around here (that is, in our family), autumn is charity time.

I don't know how much it is a reflection of culture (harvest is in!), or logistics (ack! Have to get the charitable contributions in for taxes!), or other stuff, but fall seems to be our biggest chunk of attention to the charitable work.

Sunday I was part of the UU Fellowship service, talking about practicing our principles. The principles of being present, being in community, and taking action, in combination are a big part of what it means to be a UU. They're also a big part of our family process, on both sides (after all, those values are common to many other religions, such as the Quakers, being the other side of the family).

So Baba and I got up in church and talked about how we do this. How do we get the kids involved, how do we make it light them up?

How did we get kids to choose to do extra chores to pay for their public-radio membership?

How did we get kids out in the dirt, digging up history or planting trees?

How do we get them to send money to a girl's school in Afghanistan, or donate to Doctors Without Borders?

How do we get them to get excited about donating food to the food bank?

How do we get them involved in the research project for (hopefully) inoculating amphibians against the fungus that is killing them around the world?

We only had two minutes to talk, so I tried to make it short - but that meant we didn't really get to explain HOW in detail. More 'what' than 'how'.

A little on the how, though - like staying aware and open for the possibilities. Listen for the question that you can let them answer from their values. Like for public radio, explaining what a pledge drive is, but not asking them too much, or telling them, or lecturing, or bossing - just discussing, and asking what they think. Funny how they will come up with the idea that if they're listening, maybe they should support it, too. My kids are therefore the youngest contributors to the public radio classical music station they've ever had.

In coffee hour after the service, though, we got more questions. HOW do we do this? How do we get kids to want to help?

Following the kids is the core of it, for us. We don't make them do it, even if we set them up to do it. If I'm going to donate food to the food bank, I plan it to have the kids available to come along. But that's the cheap-ass version of the process. The deeper level is watching for what upsets them, and finding a way to answer that anger or hurt or fear or sorrow.

So, when my mom's house addition meant that some beloved trees were going to be taken down, my mom didn't just assuage their sorrow or tell them to deal or otherwise just answer that part of the problem, she promptly contacted the Nature Conservancy and asked if there were any tree-planting events going on that needed volunteers. So the kids in honor of the trees lost went and planted trees in a place where those trees had been lost long ago - and would now get to grow back in a protected and safe place.

It answered the pain with action.

And there's also the chance to follow someone else's passion that isn't mom-and-dad's. Like, my sister - aunts and uncles and friends are part of this. My sister has many passions, and is an expert on charities (it's part of her job). She found the amphibian research project that needed a push - they really needed to hire a grant writer, and she talked to them about funding that. And the kids donated specifically to that. She's also into the non-profit archaeology group that we dig with - she set that up, and got us psyched, got us started, and ... well, the kids got to light up on someone else's cool.

And then we celebrate that - the events are documented with more care than we give birthdays and holidays. Certificates of thanks are framed and put on their bedroom wall (at Baba's house, where there is more wall space, but where they see what they've done often). We talk about it with others, in front of them, show the pride we have in their willingness to help. We embed it in conversation with them, as well.

The opportunities are endless. We choose differently each year, but the point is to choose. Start, find something that lights them up. Whether it is a 'do-good' thing (Doctors Without Borders) or a 'fight for change in the world' thing (a girl's school in Afghanistan) or an arts thing (volunteering at the Art Museum) - it doesn't matter.

Starting matters. Practicing being aware of the community matters. Being open to the opportunity to create change matters. Doing it as a family matters. We do it all year long, but the peak is really in the fall, when we gather as a family-extended, and think about gratitude as part of Thanksgiving, and send our gratitude back out into the communities in which we see ourselves - local, regional, global. 

Christmas is so commercialized at this point, it is hard to fight back without undercutting the fun. 'Tis the season becomes too complicated, fraught, confusing.

For us, this is the season of giving.

Hogmanay

Last night we went to Hogmanay Ball, a Scottish Country Dance event repeated around the world on New Year's Eve. Ours was in a gorgeous old converted church, with live music (bagpipes, fiddle, accordion, piano - and at times, three bagpipes ... in the high-arched hall, it's glorious). Set after set of dancers decked out - women in sparkle and shimmer and satin and velvet, men in their best - kilts and Prince Charlie's and doublets and the odd trews and jackets and cobbled-togethers with individual flair for the college guys who can't afford (or couldn't borrow) a kilt.

I love balls, and Hogmanay is one of the best (okay, they're all best, but this is a favorite for many reasons). There's a balcony there where you can look down and watch the patterns of the dance swirl through, parallel motion down three lines of sets, with the background murmur of the folks standing or sitting out, heads turned toward each other or toward the music. Mmmm. Yeah, that's what hooked me on dancing, seeing this, feeling the unison of enjoyment, being able to see community in motion. Even the small painful dances of intersection between people who used to love each other and are still recovering from their divorces (but both still dance, and it is accepted that most will encounter each other at such events), and the less painful but still intricate dance of those who parted ways years before, moving in close enough to remember the fondness, looping gently away from old hurt... this is my community, in real life.

It isn't my only community. I have a half-dozen others, but this one is my core. Nearly every other community I am in intersects through this one. This is where I have spent my life, from the age of 14. This is where I fell in love most often (though not exclusively), and where my history lives. These are the people who held my hand when I wept, and whose eyes shine when I succeed. They've seen me through layers of growth, and have forgiven me my adolescence, my youthful arrogance, my tendency to fall in love on the dance floor during my college years, and even my lack of active dancing for the last seven years.

I got to dance last night. Rather, WE got to dance last night. For seven years, it has been a challenge - Mr B didn't make dancing easy - it distresses him deeply to have me go out onto the floor and leave him behind. Last night, even at this age, he clung to me and wept and asked me not to leave him when I said I was going to dance. He still let me go, transferring his need to his grandparents, who took him off in search of a bandaid for a hangnail that was bothering him.

And I got to hit the floor with epeepunk, and remember all the reasons I fell for him when I was still a young punk myself. He's a good dancer, and the continuous eye contact that is essentially mandatory in Scottish Dancing reminded me that I can see the red-brown of his eyes even at a distance. We were definitely rusty, and we both grimaced at the unaccustomed demands on muscles and joints - even though we both danced for more than 20 years straight before the recent hiatus, the muscles don't just snap back. Worse, they remember what to do, and try, without the capacity. Ow ow ow. But we still managed, the flow, timing, pattern all deeply ingrained. Together, apart, together, turning, remembering that he's a good height for me, I don't have to duck or let go hands to get into allemande hold (goodness, is that spelled right?). We know the same things, the timing of the turn... and enjoy the same things, the pleasure of aligning with the couple dancing with us, covering so we sweep into place in unison, and the solid and probably very Scottish pleasure of a strathspey six hands round and back with everyone keeping good arms so the circle moves as a circle entire, slows at the same pace for the reverse direction, eye contact across to the other side and someone who is not your partner... mmm. Yeah, I love that, and love remembering the dancing. Plus, he looks hot in a kilt. Mmm. *cough* er, back to the post.

Overall feeling? Satisfaction.

Rather a lot of it, really.

Satisfaction of looking up to see that Mr G was helping move water to the water table, or refill pitchers, learning the tasks of the tea assistant job without me needing to watch over him.

Satisfaction of seeing that old friends are carrying on.

Satisfaction of listening to the skills of the musicians, one of whom is a cousin (also found in this band), and having a sense of the history and relationships interweaving between them and the dancers.

Satisfaction of seeing all the kids growing up into the community, the kids whose parents' courtships I remember fondly. Seeing those who are growing into their adulthood with remarkable (but at the same time reasonably expected) grace... watching the set of kids dancing with parents, and checking in with the kids jumbled and tumbled onto the balcony floor, playing board games or being silly together. Wincing a bit at the little boys hitching up their kilts in the back as they're careening through the crowd or sliding across the floor in their stockingfeet, little girls racing after (when they were not in the lead themselves).

Satisfaction of interweaving myself into the conversations, passing on my current state, picking up the current state of others after short gaps or long. Reconnecting with family - all from epeepunk's side, but family that is family. There's something particularly nice about seeing relatives at Hogmanay. My side will be today, not last night, and that's okay.

At midnight, singing Auld Lang Syne (the Burns version), and the subsequent pleasure of groaning boards of 'tea' (which in our area means ham and home-baked treats and hummus and savory goodies and cheeses and lox and fruit and chocolate and more home-baked treats and some not-home-baked but equally welcome goodies and some veggies and more chocolate... mmmm this branch knows how to have a tea!). And then more conversations, with the long history allowing touch-downs into deeper territory within a few words, encountering current pain and struggles with compassion expected and given freely. And then more music, and the next dance of packing up and moving the kids out to the car, gathering up the gifts that magically appear from behind backs or were added to our pile of coats when we weren't looking, gathering up the coats, and shoes, and and sleepy grumpy children, pouring them into the car and then sharing our separate conversations and observations on the drive home, and our thoughts and needs for the upcoming year for ourselves.

We have our bad years, in this community, and in our own lives. Hogmanay isn't always full of grace. I'm sure for some people, this year wasn't as easy, it is either moving downward into or just barely moving up out of the depths of their own pattern. There were a lot of friends wanting to leave behind the sorrows of last year, or still in the midst of a struggle of one sort or another, and some not looking forward too much to what is coming this year. For us, this one was a good moment in the pattern, a point where the dancers come together, sweeping in close with that brief touch of hands, a pause of zero bars in the meeting, the music telling us what to do.

And today, it is off to my mom's house, for a more intimate celebration of the new year, with our traditional smoked fish (shellfish included) and caviar and champagne lunch, this year with home-made sheep-cheese pizza for those who aren't into eating 'smelly fish'.

It's good.

Happy New Year, all.

Tweaking Christmas

We're tweaking Christmas again this year.

Some things are completely worked out, and are now settling into a nice tradition.

Like, we know that Dad-and-Shelle's Christmas will be the week before or after the official day, on the weekend (or so), on a date mutually agreed by the majority of his kids - it maximizes the overlap of family. That one is a Pollyanna between the grandkids. The core of that one is that we get together, as many as possible.

We know also that we'll do first Christmas in the morning at our house (one gift from Santa, one from parents), second Christmas at Baba's (my mom's) for breakfast and stockings and gifts with that sibling set (of those local enough to attend, which includes some overlap). There, a heavy emphasis on gifts to leave at Baba's house for the kids to enjoy (since they spend so much time there).

And then there's third Christmas - in the afternoon at ep's parents' place, where there is again much family and a lot more of the gifts-to-take-home, though recently an emphasis on things that solve a real problem for someone, or feed into a craft or hobby. There's a lot of looking at sketches and waving hands and talking about materials, oohing over office supplies for the sib with his own business, and grandkids ranging from 4, to adult-and-home-from-Basic-Training being enormously silly with their cousins. Emphasis is on family helping out family, crossing energy from one to the other, interweaving ourselves more intentionally at this point.

So, that seems pretty much worked out. We've managed to work through the huge issues, like working out the whole swapping every year between who got Christmas eve and afternoon, and who got the (obviously more special) early morning. That was miserable - my mom does a formal breakfast, his family does dinner, every-other year we swapped the order, and therefore got neither breakfast nor dinner. I think we did that four times, all before we had kids. Not the most fun.

And we've got the message through about how to balance the gift-giving on all sides. Not so that my family balances with his, but that we all feel comfortable at each event with the amounts we and others give. This year it was quite clear that nobody wanted to overflow our house with more clutter (hint, having the grandparents come help with the house helps make clear how much the clutter damages our lives, rather than enhancing our lives). That makes the whole deal easier. The kids will get things they're interested in with minimum storage requirements - the emphasis on things like learning how to tie knots and make a fire with firewood and cook and build stuff is higher. We haven't had much issue with CPC (cheap-plastic-crap), ever, but even fabulous toys with parts end up drifting into heaps when there are too many of them (hence the toy library, which is unfortunately also now a heap, since I haven't been able to sort it out properly for months).

Actually, having kids made it easier to balance what we want to celebrate, and where. We wanted our own morning. Then it was 'mid-morning to early afternoon' vs 'afternoon to evening'. That was easier to work out, since one wasn't weighted to specialness and sleepy kids and all the joy of discovery.

But we still have some stuff to work out, tweak and tweak again to make it fit comfortably. It's only been 11 years of tweaking.

Now, I know we're extraordinarily lucky that we have all our parents nearby. Maximum distance is about 45 minutes, and my mom is a mile away. It does make it hard to figure out where to spend the time, and when, and there's more expectation that we will spend it. Bonus, we enjoy our various local relatives, even if there are frictions at times. We work it out. 

So, it looks like one more of the minor issues is settling into a standard pattern. Our tree goes up Christmas eve eve (second day before Christmas). This is mainly because with all the family around, we're putting up my mom's tree, and my IL's tree, and the kids are decorating those, and then the time goes away to do it sooner. Since we (still) do live trees, we can't put it up at Thanksgiving and have it make it, so it ends up after everyone else's. We keep it up until at least Epiphany (edited, thanks GB) (Jan 6), and often the week after. So, that one is settling in. It's not my ideal, but it is an accommodation that works for the kids, the grandparents, and us, well enough to be fine. And it is what the kids are growing up with, so it feels normal to them.

But there's still the pesky Christmas Eve thing.

For a long time we alternated between the Quaker side (evening sing at the Friends Meeting) and my side ... that was initially going to the high Episcopal Christmas Eve service for the 'smells and bells' - insence and bell choir and candles and liturgy ... as much UU as we are on my side, my step-dad was Episcopalian in origin, and he tended to split time between the two churches, this time being one of them. I didn't even need to learn to love that service - I also love the Catholic services, and could place myself within their realm as a reverent guest and accept their blessing without any personal conflict, the same way I could do at a Buddhist temple in China. The Universalist in me, I suppose.

Anyway, we slowly drifted off from that due to the kids, among other issues (including ones to do with the direction of that particular church), and shifted focus to the Christmas Eve family traditions. My mom does a range of Eve things that are kid-friendly, and have kind of become kid-mandatory.

Hence the problem that needs tweaking. Last year, it was a rush to complete all the things lined up for the kids to do before we left to do the evening sing at the Quaker Meeting. It was Not Fun. Hurry, go put the apples in the wooden shoes for the reindeer, hang the stockings, now sit down and one of you read The Night Before Christmas, now pack up let's GO we're going to be late!

Er.

I don't think that's the Christmas Eve to remember.

Sigh.

So, more tweaking. We're in discussions now about what we want to do, and how we want to do it. The kids are old enough to join the conversation. Then it is scheduling it all. Like, today.

Discussing it will mean talking about what is fun, and what is important (like maintaining the Quaker connection), and where those fit, and how to make them work. Doing that without strong-arming anyone when there are six potential opinions is interesting.

But we know it doesn't have to be perfect this year. Celebrations evolve. They're responsive, not rigid. So what happens will shift, and settle, and shift again. If there's a major upheaval at some point (like a loss of a grandparent), we'll shift again, find more stable ground, carry with us the things that are most important of what remains undamaged, more able to see in the clear light of loss what is and is not essential.

Meanwhile there's still tree-up and decorating for us. We haven't the money (let alone space) to do what I really want to do, which is to have a forest of small trees - six of them, one for each - that we each decorate the way we choose out of our collection of ornaments. Right now we have settled to my theme and a kids theme, with the 'window tree' (an artificial tree designed to hang on a wall that we hang in the window) being for the kids, and the 'big tree' aiming for a tree that looks like it was decorated by Mother Nature, Winter form, in an expansive mood. Ice crystals and snowflakes and some birds, but fairly frosted with them.

Poor ep, he likes a more sparse tree... I grew up on Victorian Excess for Christmas decorating, he grew up with something much closer to Quaker simplicity. Hence me wanting six trees, equal size, so we can each express our sentiment and aesthetic purely and clearly, to share with the others and allow them to glimpse our individual Truth. Another of the Quaker expressions from me, though it crosses over with the Universalist again - each expressing their understanding of celebration fully, and the forest together being the collective vision, in both contrast and symphony.

Sigh. We'll tweak that one later, if we get the chance.