Woe is My Piano

Lauren had a joke this past week: What do you call a musician without a significant other? (Answer: homeless.) This week, the joke is on her: What do you call a pianist without a piano?

Shortly before Christmas, I received a present: news that our grand piano was so heavy in the action, it threatened Lauren's very wrist ligaments. Two musicians tried it. Yes, it was serious. A piano emergency. I tried to understand how this happened so quickly. We'd had it tuned only two weeks before. The weather? Age? I could not understand. Yet, as a non-musician, I had no recourse and we called our tuner.

He brought a tray of copper weights and gasped as he set them on the keys. He could fix it, but the friction had built up so much, he was going to have to take it with him. Luckily, that meant just the keyboard, which comes out. A week he said and $300. I had expected the $300 but a week! Lauren plays daily for hours in preparation for her auditions in February at several colleges. The timing could not be worse, though we have been generously offered piano time at both a dear friend's house and at her piano instructor's house.

And then it snowed......and snowed. So I drove.....and drove. Pet sitting, piano. pet sitting. It is very pretty. The semi on the highway gave my heart a bit of a flutter but....

We got several inches of snow and a possibility for more tomorrow. William tested it: good for sledding, not good for snowmen. Of course, just plain sliding with friends is not enough. You have to get "air" as a friend put it. William is in the orange cap.

Notes:

I've not seen Lazarus (red tabby cat) since it started snowing. While he's a mean cuss, I don't wish him dead. More proof that he's cheating on us with another family.

My sister gave me a silkie chicken egg, which hatched out Judas (so named because he betrayed me by being a rooster). She says she doesn't take returns. Not only that, she offered me a silkie hen to keep him company. I started considering, could I manage? That might be nice. And then she told me that the hen was named "Precious". She was fine, her top and bottom beak just didn't quite line up. That's what I need - a chicken who needs orthodontia. Here I thought she was bein' nice.