Learning the bossa nova guitar

A few months ago I started to teach myself guitar with the hope that I can eventually play it like João Gilberto, the inventor of the bossa nova style. Thanks to the internet I found some good resources on how to play the bossa nova on a guitar, and while I am still very far away from my stated goal above, my crash and burns in this dept. has given me some new insights on why bossa nova guitar is difficult to learn.

Oh no!

We’ve got an armchair pilot running the country?
(Wondering what kind of landing the country will get…)

Renewed focus on Bush time in military
Ex-official says he helped politician’s son avoid Vietnam [SF Chronicle]
Documents Suggest Special Treatment for Bush in Guard [NYTimes]
Stung! A swarm of new media stories on young George W. Bush’s dereliction of duty pops his heroic-leadership bubble.[Salon]

We are still alive

We survived the first month of parenting UFO.

The initial days back home from the hospital were the hardest. Wife was still grappling with the fine art of breastfeeding, as well as learning to bathe him, change his diapers and so on. And there is nothing new parents can do to avoid the “lack of sleep” issue. A newborn will wake up every two to three hours hungry, 24/7 for the first month. When UFO wakes up, so do we.

Which reminds me: someone gave UFO a little shirt which says “Party, my crib 3am”. What a true (yet slightly cruel) joke! Every day in the wee hours indeed it has been a breast-feeding party of one alert infant with two sleepy-eyed parents.

But as UFO’s first days turn into weeks, we began to settle into a groove together. Wife knows when to feed him even before he starts crying. (And he breastfeeds with a vengeance if classical music is being played in the background.) If UFO receives a good feeding and nap, he usually rewards us with yelps of joy and lots of smiles.

During UFO’s first month sometimes I find it difficult to believe he is actually here with us, and not in my wife’s belly anymore. Even after UFO came out I would put my hand over my wife’s belly still anticipating some fetus movement. But of course there is none; then it hits me that UFO is here to stay, and there is no going back.

And as time moves on there is no going back to the UFO a month ago either, who was 5cms shorter and 1kg lighter. That echoes what my cousin Frank said, “Try to spend as much as time as possible with them and enjoy it. They grow up in no time.” Deceptively simple-sounding advice but after a month with UFO I can honestly say the best advice I’ve heard so far for parenting. A smile here, a cry-baby face there, but what good if we are not there to witness it?

(Disclaimer: If UFO could speak, he would probably stress that it was him who survived our clumsy parenting.)