A Year of Blogging: May 22, 2011

May 22 was 'Buy a Musical Instrument Day'. I know what instrument I would buy if I were planning to buy one. I would buy an upright piano. I have always wanted a piano. When I was younger, I had grand visions of having a white baby grand piano. Now that I'm older, and paying the bills, I've decided an upright piano would be just fine. When I first told Erich I wanted a piano, his reaction was 'can you play?' I answered 'kind of'. He wondered how you can kind of play. Well, I can read music, and I know the keys- as long as I know where C is. I never took piano lessons. Mom had planned to have our church organist give me lessons, and then she died suddenly. I took up the flute in sixth grade, and we decided that was enough. I don't know why I took flute- except several of my friends also took flute. It seemed the girl thing to do. I enjoyed the flute, but was only ever second flute. Ironically, all the first flute people were also people who took piano lessons. I always thought the music teacher was biased towards those who took piano lessons. But it's ok, I never wanted to be a world-renowned flutist. Two of my aunts had organs, and I played them all the time. They had the guide which told me which key was which, and I could play beautifully with that guide. So yes, if I had a piano, and I had a guide, I could play. I came incredibly close to realizing this dream a couple of weeks ago. A friend was getting rid of a piano, 'free to a good home'. A free piano! I thought and thought about it for two days. The problem was, I don't really have the room for a piano, even an upright piano. The only place it would fit in the downstairs is in the corner that of the living room that the dog toys are in. While I could find other homes for the dog toys, that is also the corner I put my Christmas tree in. There is no other place in the house to put my tree, so the question became: if I get the piano, where do I put it when I put my tree up? Erich wasn't thrilled with the idea of a piano, but he was more than willing to sacrifice the Christmas tree for the piano. He actually dared to suggest I buy a smaller tree! (My tree is 7 1/2 feet tall, and at the widest part, probably about 4 feet around.) In the end, my love of Christmas outweighed the desire to own a piano, and I told my friend no. It broke my heart to do that, but I had to be realistic. I will have to wait until we have a house with more room, and then I will buy myself a piano. And if I hit the lottery, or become a best-selling author, the piano will be a white baby grand!