Our Only Fan

Jeff and I have been spending our evenings of late (well, a portion of them) playing Irish jigs and reels--he on the mandolin and tenor banjo and I on my spiffy new guitar:



It's the same kind of guitar we bought Greg for Christmas--a Washburn D10S. A dreadnought. Which means a honkin' BIG guitar. I'm kind of dwarfed by it, actually (although some would say that I'm dwarfed by just about everything...). It's a nice, loud instrument!

Anyway, Shelly (who, alas, is starting to show her age as a geriatric 14-year-old feline) will come sauntering in, hideous sock toy in her jaws, about two or three songs into our repertoire. She will sit on the floor in front of us, watching and listening, for another song or two. At some point during those songs, she drops the hideous sock toy (sometimes in my open guitar case), and ambles over to the sofa. She launches herself up on the arm thereof and settles herself in for the rest of the set, purring loudly enough for us to hear between songs. It's really funny, because in her whole life she hasn't shown much interest in music, except for Laika and the Cosmonauts. Well, we're playing stuff like "Kesh Jig" and "Old Hag You Have Killed Me" instead of "Aztec Two-Step" and "The Man from H.U.A.C.," but to her, I think there must be SOME connection!

An aside... a couple of months ago when Jeff was in Boston on business, I hauled the guitar out to practice by myself. It didn't take but two or three chord changes before Shelly loped into the room, all happy and expecting, it appeared, to find that Jeff was home. When she didn't see him, she was visibly disappointed. (Don't ask me how I know when the cat is disappointed. It's really obvious.) Anyway, she did me the favor of listening to me plink away on my lonesome!

Ow! And Other Odds and Ends

My fingers hurt! Specifically, the fingers on my left hand. For the last few days, Jeff and I have resumed practicing a medley of three Irish tunes (two jigs and a slip jig)--he on mandolin and I on guitar. The thing is, I haven't played in ages, and the ponderous and ugly calluses of my misspent youth are long gone. I'm building them back up, though! Currently, I'm playing on a classical guitar with nylon strings. And that can be murder on novice (or begin-again) fingers. We're talking about getting a steel-string guitar like the one we bought Greg for Christmas--that was a sweet instrument. But even though I'll have calluses by the time we do so, it's always a pain in the fingers to shift string-types. We sound okay though! I tend to get lost, especially in the slip jig (Kid on the Mountain), but the timing is WONKY. Most of my rhythm guitar work has been 4/4. You know. Rock 'n' roll. I'll adjust, though. I'm more Irish than Jeff. It's in my blood! The auld sod!

In other news, we've both been fighting colds for the last week or so. I'm the culprit who brought it into the house, although I'll be damned if I know where I picked it up. Last Tuesday afternoon, I was enduring yet another conference call (probably the fifth or sixth of the day) when my nose started running. By the time I got home, I was in rhinovirus misery. I HATE getting a cold. To that end, I take lots and lots of vitamin C and swab the Zicam in my nostrils at the first sign of trouble. And so I have been blessed with o, about three or four cold-free years. Until now. It's not just the feeling crappy. It's the feeling betrayed. How dare I get a cold? Feh. The really acute stage only lasted for about two and a half days, with the damned thing blasting from head to chest in record time, but the fatigue and general wooziness has lingered... Maybe tomorrow I'll feel up to snuff again? Sigh.

And finally... We bought a new range. Our old one bit the dust a while ago (thank goodness we got that Advantium microwave hood when we did the reno... it is a conventional oven too (and a speed oven and a warming oven! I thought it was overkill at the time, but it sure has come in handy...), but it's either been too snowy or we've been too sick to go out and buy a new one. Well, we popped over the appliance emporium after work today and picked out a nice stainless steel number from GE. It's not one of those super high-end Wolfs or Vikings (they look so nice and, well, high-end!), but it does have cast iron burner grates and a self-cleaning oven and such. It set us back a bit more than we had planned to pay, but it seemed so much more substantial than the next model down... They are delivering it on Saturday. Now if we can hold off until next year to replace the fridge, we'll be doing okay! (But can I live with an ugly almond fridge with that nice stainless steel range residing just across the room? Hmmm....)