The very lengthy post you are about to read (or give up on because it looks too long), was begun before I had this epiphany, and has been sitting in Blogger as a draft since February. Since it was almost finished anyway, I'm posting it. You will perhaps be relieved to know that future posts will follow the photos and minimal text model.
Back in February I wrote...
When Sal and I heard that there was to be a James Hill and Anne Janelle weekend at Elderly Instruments, we decided that we had to go! I asked Bruce -- a fellow member of The Cleveland Fleaharmonics -- to accompany us, and he agreed.
The weekend of February 13th-14th was to be full of musical delights:
1. An open-to-all strum early Friday evening, led by Ben Hassinger of Mighty Uke Day fame.
2. A concert by James Hill and Anne Janelle at 8:00 p.m. on Friday.
3. A Saturday morning open-to-all strum at Sir Pizza.
4. Chord Twins workshop at Elderly Instruments at 1:00 p.m.
5. Lyricism and Line workshop at 3:00 p.m.
With me behind the wheel, Bruce, Sal, and I took off for Lansing on the 13th. As we got closer to our destination, we began to encounter some falling snow. By the time we arrived at the location of the Friday strum and concert, the flakes were coming down pretty hard. We went inside and followed the lead of others who were saving seats in the concert hall by placing their coats thereon. While taking my coat off, I put my purse down on a chair. Bruce asked me if I was going to leave it there, and I responded that of course I wouldn't do such a thing! He gave me his wallet to stick in there, and off we went to the strum. My purse remained on the chair, where it sat unattended for the duration of the strum! Thank goodness ukulele players are honest!
James Hill and Anne Janelle had started the day in Manitoba, traveled to Toronto, and then found their flight to Michigan had been cancelled because of the weather. They bravely rented a car and drove through the blizzard instead! That is dedication! Because of this transportation snafu, James and Anne were late in arriving in Lansing, so The Springtails -- a wonderful local duo -- did a great set for the assembled uke fans.
By the time James and Anne got on stage, it was well after 9:00 p.m. After such a trying day, you might think they would put on a half-hearted show, but you would be wrong. They were amazing!
After a terrific evening of music, we headed for our hotel through a blizzard that made it well-nigh impossible for me to see the road. Happily, we eventually arrived safe and sound. The next morning we had breakfast and headed off for Sir Pizza. The strum was fun, and we decided we would return for a pizza lunch between our two workshops.
The Chord Twins workshop was super -- and gave us some good ideas for a kids' ukulele program we're doing this summer. Afterwards we went to Sir Pizza -- looking forward to a relaxing and tasty lunch. Unfortunately, there was a loud presentation going on in the restaurant, which took much of the enjoyment out of the experience. An author was talking to a bunch of young women about the Christian relationship book she had written, and giving them advice that we could not avoid hearing, as she was loudly amplified. The advice was pretty hard to swallow, which made the food hard to swallow, too. We ate pretty quickly and returned to Elderly, where we hung around looking at ukuleles while waiting until it was time to go downstairs to the workshop. Unfortunately, I mistakenly thought the workshop was scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. Since it actually began at 2:30, we were a half hour late. Embarrassing....! James was quite gracious about it and did not humiliate us in any way, but I felt absolutely awful. It was bad enough that I missed 1/3 of the workshop myself, but I caused Bruce to miss it, too. (And he's a guy who is known for always arriving early!)
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| Lots of people wanted to talk with these amazing folks, so Sal and I hung out until the bitter end to get this photo. Thanks to James and Anne for being so nice to all of the students when they must have been exhausted. |
The rest of our time in Lansing was filled with even more disasters. For the sake of brevity (too late), I'll skip directly to the next morning, and list some of Sunday's events...
1. The driver's door on my car was frozen shut, so I had to climb over the gear shift to get in and out more than once before it thawed out.
2. Despite using a GPS, I missed a ramp from one freeway to the next, causing a cascade of mysterious GPS commands and frustration.
3. When I pulled over to reset the GPS, I decided to get something from the back of the car, and almost knocked myself out with the hatchback. Because of the cold it didn't open quickly, and was only half open -- parallel to the ground -- when I bent over to reach inside the car. The edge of the hatchback and my head collided smartly and I fell on my butt in the parking lot. I sat there stunned for a minute. When I pulled myself together and got into the car, I learned that Bruce had not even noticed what had happened to me.
4. At this point in the proceedings, I had a mini-meltdown and cried for a while. I'm sure you can understand why!
Eventually we made it home. My head was sore for a few days, and my pride was injured, too, but I'd travel to Lansing for another James Hill/Anne Janelle weekend anytime! Please come back soon!
And here's a wrap-up of the whole thing, which I'm adding just before finally posting! I began writing this, but before finishing it, I fell and broke my elbow. This meant that all typing had to be done with one hand, which is why I stopped working on this (extremely lengthy) post. Eventually, I could type with both hands again, but the damage was done. I couldn't find my way back to complete the post until now. ARGH!!!
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