Today I worked on campus, and at lunch there was an early music concert, so I sat with the Former Professor Formerly Known as Lute Player, and she gave me a new instrument. It's called a woodrow, and it's strung like a mountain dulcimer but shaped like a small rebec. It's very cute, and because I had my ukulele with me, and the Snark tuner in the case pocket, I was able to tune the woodrow. It's tuned with the lowest string a D, then the next one an A above that, and the top two a D an octave above the bottom string. Seabird came down to see the new instrument, and then another colleague stopped in, so the three of us were yakking about work and other stuff, and at one point I pulled out the ukulele and strummed a few chords. That got the attention of our chair, and he stopped over and asked who was playing music, so I admitted that it was me. Oddly, while the ukulele was in tune with itself, it was a little bit flat, so that means all the strings went flat at exactly the same rate.
After work I drove to the Lone Girl for the ukulele strum. I got there a little early, so I wasn't concerned that it was only the two leaders, the woman taking our money at the door (we pay $5 to help cover the cost of the room rental), and another guy... but then nobody else came. Was it the weather? The other guy said he had seen some other ukulele regulars downstairs having beers, so we joked about sending someone down to collect them, but we finally gave up and started playing, and a few other people trickled in, then half an hour later the big group from downstairs showed up, thinking that we were starting half an hour later than we did. They even argued that the email said that, but I'm quite sure it didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have had to leave work a bit early to get there in time. I thought the theme of today's strum was going to be country music, so I was going to title this post "Western Wednesday" to keep up the alliteration theme, but it was actually "Songs that Have Been Covered a Lot." I really enjoyed this strum, and Travalon came in and listened to us toward the end, and he said he enjoyed this music too. Afterwards he and I had dinner at the Lone Girl, and he had a really good toffee-flavored beer. Apparently over the holidays they had a spicy chocolate chestnut beer - wish I'd gotten to try that! Sounds amazing.
It was snowing when we headed home, so I was hoping to go at a comfortable speed, but of course there were always people behind me in a big hurry, despite the late hour and bad weather. I went to the Kwik Trip near our house to top off my tires with air before the cold weather hits, but their machine was out of order, just like the one in Waunakee. Hopefully my tires don't get too low in the cold! Are there any working machines in town?
Famous Hat
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