Kaaona Necklace and Thrill Factory

 

Today after Mass Travalon and I recycled the plastic, again with some help from the guy who always used to do it, then when we got home my aunt texted me a photo of an envelope from a card I must have sent to my cousin back when I was in college. I drew this on the back:

She said, "A Famous Hat original. May be valuable." So I asked her if she wanted the crab necklace that used to belong to my grandma. I liked it because it came from Hawaii, but I realized it was for someone born under the sign of Cancer, which I was not but both my grandma and my aunt were. She said she might be interested, so I sent her a photo.

She said thanks, the photo was good enough, I didn't have to send it to her. Maybe I can wear it, because it only says it's for the zodiac sign on the back, and there probably aren't a lot of people around here that know what "Kaaona" means. Maybe I talked this up too much because I remembered the crab being cuter than it is, and I thought it was carved from a coconut, but it's just plastic. Wish my grandma had gotten one for me, but maybe I wasn't even born yet when she got this. It isn't the only jewelry she brought back from Hawaii; I had a seed lei of hers that I wore a ton until it broke, being cheaply made and like eighty years old, and I'm guessing the pin with the palm tree on it is from there too.

Then I had my Brazilian drumming lesson, and today we played with both the other instruments and the dancers. There are less dancers than I expected, but today I was in the very back row, so nobody in the audience would see me. Then people realized I had no idea what was going on, being a short person behind a lot of tall people, so they made me move up. I did improve a lot over the course of the lesson, and one of the teachers noted that we all improved a lot, but he also said we wouldn't have an hour to get better on stage. Will we be ready by the 21st for showtime?

Travalon and I went to Garver Mill after that for some tea, and outside of it was this... sculpture of a giant banana?

Then he took me to the Slow Irish Session. It really went well today, but we're a bunch of regulars so we know most of the tunes, and we all go slowly on the newer ones. I try to sit where I can't see the music projected, but today those spots were all taken so I was smack in front of the music and found it too tempting to look when it was a new tune - to be fair to myself, it's very hard to learn a tune by ear if nobody in the room knows it. We are getting pretty good, especially at playing together really well on the slow, soulful tunes. Travalon snuck in toward the end and I didn't even see him. He had gone to East Towne Mall to check out Thrill Factory, and he took some photos. Some of these are frankly rather terrifying. There's a miniature golf course, a bowling alley, and a tiki bar.

He spent time there playing Space Invaders, which my Gen X readers will remember. After all that, we went home and I skipped band practice. We have a gig in early March, but I know all the tunes. I'm happy with the schedule of Slow Irish session for my fiddle every other week, and band practice for my mandolin every other week. Tomorrow I have Moldy Jam, and a couple of people who were there tonight will be there tomorrow, and they both said bring both. Will let you know tomorrow what I decide to do.

Famous Hat