Sal Goes to a Ukulele Singalong!

How can I even begin to describe last night's events?  They were the culmination of many months of effort from a small band of ukers extraordinaire!  (New readers should refer to this post from way back in October and this post from a couple of weeks ago to get an idea of the effort that went into this humble evening.)  The whole experience has reinforced my belief that people can't possibly understand and appreciate the effort that goes into any endeavor -- unless those people undertake a similar endeavor themselves.  Any group that puts together a show and performs it has done soooo much more work than anybody who has never done such a thing can imagine.  Even if the performance isn't so polished, chances are the people on stage have devoted an untold amount of time, thought, work, and devotion to that show.  (My sincere apologies to those I drove crazy for months with my incessant talk about the Singalong preparations.  You know who you are!)  And now back to the story...

So, after countless hours of behind-the-scenes effort, the big day finally arrived!   About an hour before it was time to leave work and head to Fairview, I began to experience a growing sense of anxiety.  I believe stage fright would be the appropriate term for what I was suffering.  Luckily, Sal was there to distract me from this unpleasant feeling.  I couldn't spend all my time worrying about messing up big-time in front of a room full of people.  I had to think of how to get some pictures of Sal at the program!

In the end, poor Sal didn't get the attention she so richly deserves.  Since I was getting ready to play, then playing, and then accepting the congratulations of the dazzled-by-our-boffo-show audience (this last part might be a slight exaggeration), there was little opportunity to get Sal photos.  I am happy to be able to share a picture of our merry band of Cleveland Jumping Fleas in action, however, thanks to my sister who wielded the camera and got the following shot.  (She is not pictured in this post, but she was an invaluable part of the team last night.  She was the ultimate PowerPoint slide-changer!)

What a great group of people!  I am so glad those Portuguese sailors went to Hawaii and that Al Gore invented the internet (inside joke).

Quite a few family members and friends of the performers attended the program, including this very promising young ukulele player and his mom. 

This lovely lady -- who my son's friend was lucky enough to meet and marry -- brought her musical son to the program.  This young man has been teaching himself to play the ukulele by watching videos on YouTube -- and he is already playing some chords I can't do yet!  Here he is with my awesome banjolele.  His mom is holding Sal.  So glad they came to the program!  Several other friends came, too, but I was so distracted by chatting with them that I didn't think of asking them to pose with Sal.

Sooner than you can say "is it already time to go?" it was!  We packed up our stuff, loaded our cars, and started driving caravan-style to a local pizza place (which shall remain nameless).  Some of us had not had dinner and all of us were looking forward to a chance to talk about how the program went, etc.  The pizza place was supposed to close at 10:00 p.m., but when got there (at approximately 8:55), we found that they had closed early!  Now we were standing outside in the bone-chillingly cold night air, wondering what to do.  After some discussion, we decided to follow Jeff to a restaurant he knows, which is a few miles down the road.  We all got in our cars again and drove in the same caravan-style to find that this restaurant was also closed.  By now I'm pretty sure we all were tiring of this to-and-fro.  Across the street, the lights of a Steak and Shake were visible.  Despite the fact that this was not at all what we had in mind, we hastily traveled thither.  I, while wishing that the pizza place had been open, realized that all of this adversity would make Sal's post more interesting, so it was easier to accept. 

After a bit of a delay, we were seated and began talking about the show --  what we thought went well, what we would do differently next time, etc.  I brought Sal out of her case and, as the night went on, got some fun pictures of her.  The one picture I did not get was a picture of Sal with our server.  When I asked him if I could take a picture of him with Sal for this blog, he seemed horrified.  Personnel at Steak and Shake are not permitted to pose for photos at work!  I was surprised.  This was the first time I had asked someone to pose with Sal and been refused.  Normally people are very happy to get their photo taken with this adorable instrument. I am happy to report that my Flea chums were not so reticent!

Nicole ordered the best thing of all -- a delicious shake!  Yum!  (Uh-oh!  "I drink your milkshake" just popped into my mind.  If you're not familiar with this infamous line, check out the film "There Will Be Blood."  The milkshake speech is truly memorable.)

Sal with Nicole, Jeff, Holly, Bruce, and our extremely unhealthy meals.  Sorry Lisa and Lynn.  You were sitting at the wrong end of the table and I didn't get a shot of you.  Our server said he would take a picture of our group, and then disappeared, so we don't have a photo of the whole group enjoying our post-performance repast.

I'm not saying that anybody in our group is a ham, but...  ;)

After all the notes we scribbled on our music or attached with sticky notes and/or e-mailed back and forth, here is one last post-it...

Finally we all went home.  I am currently experiencing a bit of Singalong withdrawal.  Happily, we will probably be doing this program again in other venues.  There are some Cub Scouts who would like us to perform for them, and other libraries who are hoping for a visit from the Cleveland Jumping Fleas!