More Banjo Madness

Today was the big Second Annual Fretted Instrument Guild of Western Washington Four String Banjo Convention. A mouthful, no?

The GH Banjo Band rocked the house, needless to say, during the Round Robin when every band takes turns playing a song. A guy in the Orphan Banjo Band (so called because it was made up of people who were either not part of a regular band or their band was not represented in the Round Robin) turned to me and said, "You guys have got pizzazz!" Why thank you, sir!

We also have video, courtesy of Ray and a little Flip we got as part of a wedding registry that only had the Flip and a tripod on it. I am going to figure out how to use it momentarily and post video. We got Linda doing the Charleston and she is so precious! Oh, and Linda has apparently found my blog while googling her dad's name or maybe Grays Harbor Banjo Band. Hi Linda!

We had Dick Lewis with us. He performs under the monniker "Montana Red" and he is terrific. Ray said he overheard Montana Red asking Hank, the unofficial leader of the Orphan Band (aka "no-name band," but that's just all complicated) for a squirt of something from a can with a guitar on the front. Ray posited that it was for easier finger sliding on the strings. But since a little oil/anything can mess a string up I am curious about this substance.

Before we hit the convention, we went to the Olympia Farmers Market and got some Washington cherries of a variety I can't remember. Ray was impressed because they were so early, I was impressed because they were so sweet and flavorful, even though they were kind of soft. We also go a loaf of Wagner's cinnamon bread, and I don't care how much cinnamon bread you've had in your life you haven't truly had cinnamon bread until you have had the very thinly-rolled and generously-becinnamoned European style cinnamon bread Wagner's sells.

Then the convention was mostly organized by the Tacoma Banjo Club, and was held at the Little Creek Resort (it's really a casino, too, though). I noticed that the readerboard was advertising MMA fighting for tonight (6/6). Well, it was advertising, "Extreme Cage Fighting! Meets No Mercy! Carnage at the Creek! June 6 2009!" where an exclamation = screen switch. Too bad we couldn't stay.

There were us, the orphan and Tacoma bands, as well as the Seattle Banjo Club, the Kitsap Banjo Club and the 101 Band, which appeared to maybe be three people, one on banjo.

There's a lot of overlap in banjo band repetoire. I heard "Side By Side," a kind of Depression-era "we're poor but who cares if we have each other" song, and we all were expected to play "Bye Bye Blues," which I kind of vaguely remembered playing before and especially that tricky Aflat7 chord, and "God Bless America." God Bless Ernie for having the sheet music with him so I could read it!

After the Round Robin, I returned my self-busting busted sunglasses to Target (Ray had taken to calling them "Collette Reardons") and got new kicks for working out that I hope won't hurt my legs like my other sneaks did.

We had dinner at Lemongrass and it was delicious. Also we did more French CD learning. I find French a disheartening language full of words that all sound exactly alike and not nearly close to how they are written. I suppose this is how English learners must feel, only more often, so I should suck it up and continue.

Upon returning home I got a Friends of the Library newsletter and some devastating news: The Timberland Library will have to reduce the number of holds available to each person from 100 to 25, I assume in fall when the other Timberland changes as a result of the failed levy are going into effect (like charging for printing and overdue fines. Yeah, we're totally spoiled). I have a perpetual 80-odd items on hold, people! This will ruin me! This is my summer of (ahemming) or getting off the pot with some of those books! I will have to read like the wind! Why was this NOT IN THE PRESS RELEASE when I wrote about this a few weeks ago! I could have read harder and cleared some items off my plate!

In the meantime, I am freaking out. This is very new news to me. I will have to push my finishing of "The Egg and I" to the back burner, apologies to Kris.

(I recently read Big Box Reuse and Rethinking Thin (I recommend that review, for it has the same reaction I did to the book — i.e. yeah, but, Wha?) and am on P.D. James' The Private Patient. My God that woman is, in the first few chapters anyway, such an amazingly skilled and literary writer for her genre, and she keeps it up even though after 14 Dalgliesh novels alone she could rest on her laurels. Brava!)