Little Strummer Girl

Yesterday was a day filled with extraordinary moments and people.

BCTC's cast and crew of See Jane QUIT enjoyed a packed house and author Beth Kander could not have been any more charming at the talkback after the show. Our roundtable discussion on WRFL with James K. Brown, Tim X. Davis and Danny Dauphin went smashingly well, too - it was a fine day for theatre and for Lexington. The sunshiney afternoon was an added bonus, but so was the March Madness Marching Band at Buster's later in the evening. 

I had never seen them up close and personal before - even though I know a handful of them, have written about many of them, and the rest I've seen at Ace Weekly Front Porch Fridays or the Grey Goose at one time or another.

So yes, it was an extraordinary day full of extraordinary people...and they inspired me in ways they will never know, the writers, the actors, the crew, the hula-hoop girls, the drummers - they put on a kaleidoscope of some kinda wonderful...and I have to thank my lucky stars I'm in their loop. 

Since I always yammer on about how I'm an observer more than a participant, a fan in the stands, and not a performer, I sometimes have a hard time imagining myself in the spotlight.  

Then came the birthday gift from Quis, my first ukulele (I feel like a strumpet just saying that) -- a lovely gift, this lil red ukulele is because from it I have found a new  hope: the dream of touring Ireland and playing at a few pubs along the way.  For the two months I've been obsessed with learning the uke, I have built up a decent sized repertoire, about 20 good songs, about a dozen meh more.  And I love to play Scarlett Blue, she's been very very good to me...but I finally went shopping today for a more professional-sounding instrument, one I could tune and have it stay tuned for more than say, three measures, and so I battled the traffic nightmare that is Nicholasville Road - Willis Music, Willcutt, et al., and saw some nice pieces, but either they were too expensive or they were not soprano ukes.  Bummer, right?  Nope! I was starting to think I would never possess such a uke, but then I blithely traveled on down Southland Drive and went into a store called DW Sound, where they're having a huge Martin guitar sale, by the by.  At any rate, the nice fellow there showed me a nice array of affordable beauties, and we decided upon a nice Lanakai soprano uke, which sounds like an angel has kissed it, it's astounding!

The first song I played on it was Amazing Grace, and my sweet girl and miracle hair-didder Julie was here to hear it.  She immediately grinned from ear-to-ear, and so did I -- that's when I knew it was all over, clover.  I have not done anything since but play, play and play...and it makes me happy, happy and happy ;-)

I hope your day was kissed by an angel.  In fact, I am sure it was; sometimes it just takes a while to feel the full bliss.

peace,

Kimmy