Upright Piano

There’s been some chatter here and across the seas about just junking it, BBC on old pianos  Cordelia Hebblethwaite is one heck of a journalist.

The family heirloom upright piano is now in the basement of the house where we’re packing up the last few years.  That’s right.  It’s been around, but it’s been here in the basement for what actually is quite some time now.  That means quite a while.  It’s been down here, with stuff on it, for quite a while.  Stuff that also has to get out of here.  And it’s time to get moving.

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And if that doesn’t work for you here’s another shot.

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It’s a “Weber” made in Kingston, Ontario.  Serial number 29459.  It was the piano in the family home when the kids were growing up.  Then, years later, it was in the new home of one of the parent’s of those kids.  Then it was in the home of one of those kids, who’d grown up but still played the piano.  Then it was back with the mother of those kids.  The ping-pong table had to come down in the basement and the piano was taking over.

I don’t think it was ever played too much down in that cramped basement that was already full of a lot of other stuff.  I can tell you this.  There was no more ping pong.

But throwing out a piano can be an unlucky act and generate generations of bad luck for the perpetrators of this outrage and their descendants.  If that isn’t correct maybe it should be?  You can’t throw me out.  I’m a musical instrument.

If there’s not too many descendants, maybe no problem.

But we still have to deal with this piano so we are, or I am, here to tell you about a free upright piano that does need a bit of work, tuning for sure, but is a mature, fine looking wooden shiny mahogany upright piano needing tuning, as I say, and some key repair.  That could even be key “repairs”.  Doesn’t matter.  Won’t be cheap.

Your Guess Is As Good As Mine
Your Guess Is As Good As Mine

What I’m proposing is that you call me, direct, at samoyeddogs if either you or anyone you know is in a desperate struggle to obtain a pre-owned upright piano of some 60 or so years, absolutely free of charge.  I hate to say it, but this offer may never be repeated.  This is a serious offer and no reasonable offer will be refused.  Pretty sure.

The real work of dissolution.  Not some fantasy.  Do you want to take up this piano’s cause and make it your own?  Or watch it die like a dog in the ditch?  Delivery terms can be arranged but this fine musical instrument, ready to walk out the door with you, is absolutely free.  Welcome!  Tickle my ivories.

Tequila Boot Camp

It’ll be a cold day in March when I march down to the Fairview Pacific Rim hotel for an all day lecture on tequila, but that’s exactly what happened.

All day.  9:30 in the morning to past 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon.  In the”Star Sapphire” ballroom, which sounds magnificent but is really just a big, modern, high-ceilinged room.  This is what the ceiling looks like.

IMAG1616Actually, that looks kind of cool, doesn’t it?  But I was there about the tequila.  And so were about a hundred other people.  I’d say most if not all of these other people were being paid for attending by their employer or employers.  I was there on my own time.  I must really have a thing for tequila, which sounds strange, because I haven’t had a shot of tequila in years.

Tequila’s made from the core, or piña, of the blue agave plant.  I found out that the Jimador are the guys that harvest the piñas by hacking off the agave leaves which are long with a pointy end.  Then the piñas are baked and then crushed, milled, boiled and a whole lot of other stuff and at the end of an 8 step process tequila is the result.

The rather long, day-long lecture was given not by a representative of any maker of tequila but by a representative of the CRT.  The Consejo Regulador del Tequila.   This organization is dedicated to preserving and expanding tequila’s good name and reputation.  It’s the certification body for the 146 producers in five Mexican states designated to produce tequila.

I’m assuming you can make whatever type of booze you want in Mexico out of the blue agave or any sort of agave but you can’t call it “Tequila” unless the blue agave is grown in these five states and the tequila is made there.

I love the sound of the names of these states.  Jalisco.  Michoacán, Guanajuato.  Tamaulipas.  Nayarit.  When you’re lost in the rain in Jaurez and it’s Eastertime too is a good one, but that has nothing to do with tequila boot camp.

It was hard.  It was long.  But the Mexican lady delivering the lecture was also cool.  A genuine Mexican lady speaking good English in that Mexican lady accent.  For shame I can’t remember her name, but she was very low key that way.  The day was about Tequila, not her.  I’m calling her Esmeralda.

I now know more about tequila than I ever thought I’d know, so there’s that.  I thought it was over but then the guy who’d introduced Esmeralda that morning, but didn’t identify himself at that time as a representative of the tequila that was also putting on today’s show, okay, I’ll tell you, it was “Patrón”, reappeared and started in about the Patrón story.

This after hotel staff working the event had laid out six sampler glasses on tasting sheets with samples of six Patrón tequilas for all one hundred attendees.  And for the life of me, this is insane, I can’t remember this gentleman’s name.  I guess I was getting enervated by this time.  It started with an “S”.  His last name.  He’s an American.

He was talking.  And talking.  And my personal small samples of Patrón tequilas were on the table right in front of me.  And it was getting late.  I’d organized to be out of there at 5.  I had to go.  It was ten minutes to 5.  Finally he suggested we take a taste of the silver Patrón.  But then he was talking on.  It was interesting, but I gotta go.  My car is waiting.

Be right down, Chuck
Be right down, Chuck

The “silver” sure did taste like tequila.  It brought back memories.  I sampled the other five quickly.  Seriously.  You can do this if you know what you’re doing.  It was three minutes to 5 and Mr. “S.” is going on interestingly.  Does that make sense?  I got up and left.

Yrs in the rain.  A fine March day.

 

 

No Thrills Cauliflower Run

We didn’t know. The call came late. But it was the day before and that worked out all right. Cauliflower for $1.88 a large head from “Steinbeck Country Produce, Salinas Ca 93901” right down here at “No Thrills” on good old Fourth Avenue.

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That’s when the fight started.  Kidding!  But hysterical news reports of cauliflower at $7 a head had us in a froth when we saw these babies.  We’re serious.  $1.88 a head.  Time to stock up.

Trompe l'oeil?
Trompe l’oeil?

So we loaded the old SUV and cut on out of there.  Chock-a-block.

The super speedy young fellow at the till kind of flinched when, as we were staggering away with the goods, I told him “You’re the fastest cashier I’ve ever seen.”  He’d processed 68 head of cauliflower in about 12 seconds, plus all the other stuff we bought.

He mumbled something that may have been a sort of semi-strangled “No”.  “Ewk.”  “Negk.” Something like that.  It was humility mixed with maybe he didn’t like anyone talking to him too much because he’s not used to customers doing that.  The shoppers at “No Thrills” commenting, like a bunch of comedians, on his cashiering style.

It was like he just wants to do his job, do a good job, and get out at quitting time. He wants invisibility and durability. He doesn’t want to be picked out for how fast he is because then he’s brought attention to himself.  And it’s supposed to be about the customer.  And he’s not overly crazy to be doing this.

I wonder if he slowed down a bit after us.  But I haven’t thought about it too much.  Just to prove he’s not pretending to be a robot after all. The super, highly efficient robot. Turns out these robots are so good it’s because they’ve gone a step beyond being robots. They’re actually human beings. Red shirts, black pants and clown-yellow walls.

The cashier and everyone else down there do a great job. It may be no thrills but it’s work.  “Everything is directed at saving you money”.

 

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