Since I'm quitting my job to go to Europe a Taiwanese lady I work with invited me to her house for a barbecue. She has good taste in classical music so I went. There were a few other people from work there too, including the vice-president's mom and dad who were also from Taiwan. After we finished eating we went into the living room for a soiree of sorts. She called her children in, a boy of fourteen and a girl of thirteen. I fully expected it to be an awkward show-off session, obviously instigated for the sole purpose of impressing us at the children's expense. To the contrary, they seemed to enjoy it at least as much as the rest of us did. The son, Robbie, performed a Kabelevsky piece on violin with his father on piano. The daughter played a few pieces on the cello after which the mother, Rose, asked me to play. By that time I was happy to do so but I wanted to break the mold a bit, so I played them a solo rendition of my own piece "You Be Quiet". They liked it well enough and asked me to play something else, so I borrowed their acoustic guitar and whipped out the Beatles' "Girl".

After that the father, son, daughter, and I took turns on the piano. They all played well and the father turned out to be a very good sight-reader. I couldn't resist showing off my chops so I played a bit of Mozart's "Turkish March". It turned out to be a very enjoyable evening and reinforced my desire to one day have children if for no other reason than to have my own band.