Piano!

As are many others around the blogosphere, I am tired of politics.  I'm following it, but just don't have the energy at the moment to get worked up about it.  I'm preparing for economic disaster to the family fisc starting January 1st, and after that it's pretty much going to be playing it by ear, since no-one in DC seems to have a clue what is actually going to happen.

So, instead I'm going to be happy because I now have a piano.  My husband isn't too sure about it; when I told him a few weeks ago that I would be able to get one if I took care of the moving of it, his first and only question was "Why?".  To which the answer was, "I want one, I played for years, and I've missed having one for the last 20, and the girls want one too".

So I spent the last week tidying things up, and taking down the old guinea pig palace since it was in the only sensible spot for the piano.  I have a friend who's family could really use the money and gave him $100 (since he'd have to round up at least one other healthy male - uprights are heavy, and possible rent a truck) and said that they could pick up our spare fridge that has been living in the shed since we moved, since their's broke a few weeks back.

So yesterday afternoon, said friend get a U-Haul and a friend, went to my mother's friend's to get the piano which they needed to get rid of (so now those friends are happy), brought it to our place and got it into the back room (so now I'm happy), took the fridge from the shed (so now we're both happy, I can use the space more than an unused fridge), and presumably got it set up in his house, so now he and his wife are happy.

All told not a bad days work all around.

Now I just have to finish cleaning the downstairs for Christmas, and so we can have the piano tuner in. Needless to say the move wasn't kind to the tuning, and since it hasn't really been played in many years,  the action is stiff in places, and doesn't always rebound completely.  But it's a Beckwith, and even grossly out of tune it sounds pretty decent, especially for something that cost me $100 and a 30+ year old refridgerator.

And then this morning, I got back to work after taking the youngest to the doctor's to find a basket of recorders at my office door.  My mother seems to know from whence they came, and since she doesn't need a full consort of Aulos and some other less expensive wood ones, it looks like I may also now have a full set of recorders, only missing a garklein, and a contra-bass. Though it looks like they've been sitting around unloved for quite a while, so they'll all need a thorough cleaning.  But again, FREE! The bass and the two tenors alone would set me back about $600 new.  There are also two aulos altos, an aulos soprano as well as two wood sopranos and one wood sopranino.

Obviously this is music week.