The girls have been counting down the hours to their guitar class, and meeting the new teacher, of course. We had no idea who he was or if he was going to be meaner than Mr Mean Goat himself *shudder*.

Well, I’ll let Raine and Skye tell you, in their own writing words (unedited):

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Raine, my 15 year old:

He’s better than stupid cranky old Mr Mean Goat. He’s an okay sorta guy who doesn’t keep asking stupid irrelevant questions and he doesn’t smirk nastily at us when we do the wrong thing. Plus, he can really play the guitar and he didn’t make us play stupid baby games.

Except.. he went a little too fast. He was like, “Okay, E minor is here. C is here. No, this way. Now G chord. This finger over here. This second finger on this string. And now D for donkey.”

OMG. :O

I felt like I was in an advanced program going 150miles per hour. And my poor fingers were switching from chord to chord like some freak and at times I didn’t even know which finger I was using. I thought my first finger was the third and stuff like that.

Boo hoo. Gonna have to ask him to slow down to above snail pace.

Skye, my 12 year old:

Newt (new teacher) is alright, I guess. He asked a few questions and started the lesson. He taught us the E minor chord, C chord, G chord and D chord.

He went too fast. Well, at least, he didn’t laugh at us like Mr Mean Goat or go, “See! Hah! See!”. He just told us if we were wrong and corrected us.

Newt played some songs when teaching us. But I was hardly interested in that because I was busy trying to correct my fingers and ignore the lines on my fingers. It hurts but I guess it’ll go away. Sooner or later.

Back to the point. He didn’t even mind when we asked him how to place our fingers for whatever chord that is for the hundredth time.

Psst! Newt said we could play some songs in a few weeks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So I’m happy and the girls are happy. Sore fingers aside, it looks like they’re still as enthusiastic as ever. It’s happy days and I’m looking forward to hearing some funky music soon .

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Raine’s classmate is working at McDonald’s. If it were any other guy, I’d have said so what? But this is the young man who is sorta Raine’s unofficial ‘brother’ at school as he shares the same last name as us.

He likes to ‘bully’ Raine and the other girls at school, splashing water on them, snatching their food, pulling their hair, stuff like that. And he’s also the one who says I’m one hot mama.

Naturally I was curious. This cheeky 15-year-old, I have to see!! So when Raine suggested we go to McDonald’s to ’stalk’ him and give him a hard time with our order, I happily played along. Hey, I’m a sporting mom .

Turned out he was the guy making the french fries, not the guy at the counter so things didn’t go as we planned. Still we had lunch and spied on him from our corner table.

His seriously over-salted fries aside, he didn’t look like a bully to me at all. Maybe his behavior has to do with his parents being divorced. He lives with his dad and sister, and is pretty much left to his own devices. I can’t imagine how his dad could let him cycle on a major highway to/from school every day.

Not having a mom also means no homecooked food, I guess. Maybe that’s why he likes to pinch the girls’ food. There I go playing shrink again ! The more I looked at him, the more I felt a soft spot for him. Coming from a broken home myself, I can see myself in him.

Anyhow, he finished his shift shortly afterwards and the girls suggested we follow him as he set off at a deadly speed on his bicycle. We spotted him at the traffic lights way ahead of us.

Since I had to turn off to pick up Steev from college, Raine wound down the window and shouted to him while I leaned on the horn. Whee, that was fun! Poor guy probably didn’t have a clue who he was waving back at. We laughed all the way to Steev’s college. That was such fun!!

Today I made two big pans of pasta bake. Yeah, when you have 3 teens, you think B-I-G! Figure we’d bring French Fry Guy a slice over to McDonald’s. But Raine was too shy to give it to him as there was another guy from school working there.

First thing this morning, I grabbed the girls and the classical guitar and headed straight back to the store.

I spoke to one of the staff (not the girl from last night) and right away, she agreed to let us exchange our classical guitar for an acoustic.

Wonderful! She showed us a few but we zoomed in on this one. It’s a Yamaha, very light woody color which is far more cheery than the maroon one from last night.

There was a really nice older man at the store too who threw in a discount and free picks for us. Not bad, huh?

This guitar cost me a hundred plus dollars more than what I paid for the classical guitar.

Just as Mr Nice and I were sorting out the payment for the price difference, Mr Mean Goat, the guitar teacher walked in.

Noticeably shocked at seeing us there again so soon after the first lesson last night, he asked what the problem was. The staff explained to him and right away, he blew his top. He ticked us off for being so disrespectful as to sneak back in and exchange the guitar he had recommended with one of our choosing.

In doing so, he barked, we were doubting his competence as a teacher, bla-bla-bla… He went on barking like a mad dog whose tail is on fire, and just before he marched back in, he made it clear he no longer wanted to teach my girls!

Well, alleluia, and let me tell you one more thing, Mister, if you want people to respect you, you’d better start earning it! Can you even believe this guy?!!!

We signed up for the acoustic class, not the classical that he was trying to force on us, and us exchanging the guitar has no bearing on his competence as a teacher at all. Well, now it does!

Come to think of it, he’s not fit to be a teacher if he blows up like that! And I’m glad he won’t be teaching my girls any more because he’ll likely kill their interest in guitar-playing forever!

Mr Nice was apologetic afterwards and immediately arranged for my girls to work with another teacher. From his expression, I could tell it’s not the first time Mr Mean Goat has blown his top with his students.

I think they should just fire Mr Mean Goat before he chases all their students away with his arrogance and unreasonable behavior.

The girls were all excited, couldn’t wait for their first guitar lesson tonight. We got there a full 15 minutes early with high hopes!

The teacher picked out a classical guitar for us on the premise that the nylon strings would hurt less. At that time, I had no idea it was a classical guitar.

It was all hastily done because we were already 20 minutes into class time. No time to think, no time to ask questions. He said that guitar was what we needed and I just took his word for it.

Over dinner later, the girls were telling me how they didn’t quite fancy the teacher because he’s mean and tried to make them look stupid and laughed at them when they made mistakes.

I agree the teacher had struck me as less than friendly and had a certain bitterness about him that could’ve resulted from being locked up in that music room too long! Nonetheless, I comforted the girls by saying maybe he didn’t mean it, bla-bla-bla and that it’ll be okay.

Then of course, it was only when Skye questioned why we’d bought a classical guitar that it made me realize, OMG, didn’t we sign up for the acoustic class? Isn’t that what the nice lady told us the other day? So why did Mr Mean Goat make us buy a classical guitar?

After dinner, we doubled back to the store to reconfirm. Mr Mean Goat had left so we spoke to one of the staff who told us, no worries, there’s no difference between a classical and an acoustic guitar. Huh?

We did some research on the internet later and of course, there are differences! Duh! True, a classical guitar has nylon strings which are easier on the fingers but it also has a wider neck and a more mellow sound.

The acoustic guitar, on the other hand, has steel strings, a pick guard under the sound hole and more of an upbeat sound which would be perfect for pop music.

That just says one thing. We most likely got conned - firstly, being made to take a classical guitar class and buying a classical guitar when we signed up for acoustic; secondly, being told all guitars are the same when they’re not!

Okay, so it looks like we may have trouble on our hands! Frankly, I was more concerned about the girls’ feelings about the class than having bought the wrong guitar.

As you know, the girls want to learn to play the guitar and we’ve been wondering if they should try to learn it on their own or go for lessons. Well, we finally got them signed up for lessons after checking out two music schools.

The first school we went to is a very small store tucked away in a corner of a mall. They have music rooms in the back where they conduct lessons.

The lady was really nice and took the trouble to explain which class the girls should take.

Classical guitar involves mostly plucking (or was it picking?) which is more technical, and the electric guitar, well, it’s not for beginners.

With the acoustic guitar, the emphasis is on rhythm and chord and involves strumming. So it’s more suited to those who are learning for fun, for singing along to and as an accompaniment to other instruments.

I’m not sure if I got all this right but I think this is roughly what she said, just before I fell asleep on my feet, she was just going on and on.

The second school is a much larger store and much more established. But they seemed more interested in getting us to sign up than to answer our questions about which course would be more suited to beginners.

The old man, who strikes me as an overzealous money-face, kept shoving the registration forms in my face and trying to elicit a response from me in Mandarin.

I tried my darnest to look intelligent but I had no idea what he was blabbing about most of the time . Sadly Mandarin isn’t my forte.

But the choice was pretty clear even from the start. We picked the first school, hands down. It’s small, it’s personal and I liked that they explained things to us and helped us decide which class to take.

So here we are, all set for the big day - first day of class !

After I picked Raine up after her exam ended at 9:30am Friday, we headed to the mall. Just her and me. We haven’t done this girls’ day out for quite a while now so it was kinda nice.

We had Auntie Anne’s Pretzels for breakfast. Of course, we chatted non-stop . That’s really the nice thing about going out with Raine. We have so much to talk about.

We did a bit of window-shopping since we had so much time to kill before going to pick Skye up from school. But we didn’t buy anything because we wanted to wait for Skye. It’s no fun shopping without Skye.

Just before we left the mall, Raine suggested we make black pepper lamb chops again since her Daddy missed this last weekend!

You know what’s been refreshingly different about this week-long school break?

We stayed home more than we went out. On a couple of days, we only went to the gym or out for a quick breakfast, came back and didn’t go out again. This is quite strange for us.

Part of it has to do with Raine’s exams which are coming up in a week so she needs to act busy and look like she’s studying really hard so her mom won’t get all jittery and worried .

The other part has to do with me trying to impress on the kids that with the weakening economy, we must all try to cut back and be more aware of our spending. A good real life lesson for them anyways.

So what have I been up to if we haven’t been going out? Yes, cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I cooked this big pot of chicken curry to go with bread or rice.

I also made different kinds of pasta and roast chicken with potatoes and salad. Recipes are on my food blog.

I like cooking without the rush which is not something I get to do very often. I’m always putting meals together in a hurry. So this laid-back cooking was kinda nice . We must do this more often.

Me and the kids were hangin’ out at Carl’s Jr this morning, mindin’ our own business when two people walked in. We looked at them and almost simultaneously went, “is that her husband or her son?”

Thing is I couldn’t tell. Neither could my kids. Strange how, for those first few moments when they walked in, all of us had that same question running through our minds.

Steev insists it’s her husband. Raine says it’s her son. Skye says it’s her son. And I say it’s her son. There was no way her husband could look so much like a kid. On the other hand, he could well have been someone blessed with boyish looks.

We argued back and forth as they walked back and forth refilling their drinks.

Husband, son, son, son. Husband, son, son, son!

Why don’t we go ask them, Skye suggested. Kids! But there was really no way to tell. We tried not to stare. We didn’t want to be rude.

They’re about the same height. He was wearing a t-shirt and khaki shorts, and sneakers with no socks. Standard casual garb for a teenager. Yet, grown men often dress like this too.

She was wearing a t-shirt and jeans with low heels, black-rimmed glasses and barely any makeup. She did the ordering and paying. They didn’t talk much. He just followed her around quietly like a puppy dog.

We still don’t know. It was none of our business but it kept us entertained all through lunch.

McDonald’s has two new flavors of McFlurry, Mudpie and Berries. Steev was standing in line to order.

The situation was quite chaotic at the takeout counter because the two servers were temps who didn’t have a clue how to handle lines.

Finally it was our turn.

Server (signaling to Steev): Yes?

Steev (pointing to signboard): McFlurry, one of each.

Server (leaning across counter): Yes?

Steev (pointing to signboard): McFlurry, one of each.

Server: What flavor?

Steev: One of each.

By now, it’s quite obvious this very simple expression is lost on our two teenaged servers (one of the girls goes to Raine’s school)!!

Me: One Mudpie, one Berries.

That’s what they needed to hear! The exact words. No phrases, expressions or indirect references please!

And people are still fighting for less English to be used in the school curriculum!

I ran into a whole bunch of my tai-tai (aka ladies of leisure) friends while out at breakfast with my girl friend (who is not a tai-tai).

I love my tai-tai friends. They’re the ones who can tell me where to get the freshest veggies, how to brew herbal soups,  how to spy on my hubby (think I’ll wait for the book) and they can make the darnest traditional Chinese stuff like bachang (glutinous rice dumplings) and mooncakes, all from scratch.

The thing that really scares me though are their organized home invasions visits when they go through my home inch by inch, flipping every drawer and cupboard, inspecting everything that’s inside, from my crockpot to my underwear, all without a search warrant.

Back to me bumping into them at breakfast. A few of them instantly pounced on me and started interrogating me as to how I’ve managed to stay so slim even after I quit dancing (I used to be in the same dance class). As if I was ever fat before ?

But never mind that, the machine gun fire of questions has started and they’ll never let me off without answers. So I’d better start coughing some up, pronto.

So how come you’re still so slim? Um, exercise. What kind of exercise? Um, I walk. Where? Morning or evening? How many kilometers? With your kids or alone? Bang, bang, bang *shielding my head*

Gimme a break, is this the Spanish Inquisition? So many questions, so much rhetoric! *squirm* Think I should take up jogging or kungfu instead.