The Ukulele Club

When I got my teenaged daughter a ukulele for Christmas, I didn't think it was going to become a new trend. My daughter really took to the thing, and started going on YouTube to learn how to play all kinds of songs. Whenever her friends come over, she plays. And so do they. In fact, all of her friends now have ukuleles.


Now they have a new thing:  The Ukulele Club. A group of girls bring their instruments and strum tunes during lunch. I guess it's rather entertaining for everyone.


The trend seems to have caught on. The other day, as I drove my daughter to school, we saw another young lady walking, holding her ukulele. "Do you know her?" I asked.


"No, but now everyone wants to play the ukulele."


I guess so. I will say one thing. When my daughter and her friends are in my car, and I'm driving them some place, I never have to put on the radio. They bring their ukuleles and provide the music.


In case you want to hear some good playing, here's a video by IZ, which kind of inspired me to get the ukulele in the first place:

 

Question of the Month and Banana Phone

It's time for Question of the Month hosted by Michael D'Agostino. Actually, it's past time. I'm late again. Oh well. The question is, "Have you ever had to make a difficult decision which you didn't want to do, but you knew it was for the best?"


The answer is, yes. I've actually had to make quite a few of them. One of the more recent was during my move from Ohio to Georgia about three years ago. I was the president-elect of the Ohio String Teacher's Association. My term as president was supposed to begin just as I was leaving. I was looking forward to serving as president, and I had a lot of big plans. I could've done it from Georgia, but it would have been a challenge. So I decided to step down and let someone else who lived in Ohio take the position. It was very disappointing for me, but I knew it was for the best.


Have you ever had to make any difficult decisions like that?


Now for the story: 


I was sitting at the dinner table when I heard a cell phone ring. It didn't sound like mine. A few seconds later, my son came into the kitchen.


"Mama, you have a call."


I turned around, and found my son holding a rather peculiar looking phone. It was yellow and shaped like a familiar fruit. But it had writing on it.


"Dude," I said. "What's this?"


"A banana phone. You'd better answer it."


So I did. And I had a nice conversation with the monkey on the other end.

Dog Genius

Our hundred pound German Shepherd, Schultz, is now six years old. (Which means I must've been blogging for six years, since he was just a puppy when I first started.) The dog is rather smart, but he never seemed to know my name. He knew "Daddy," and "Bubba," and my daughter's name. But not "Mama."


Time and time again, we'd ask him to "get Mama." and he never would. He'd go to the window and look out, even though I was standing two feet away from him.


Well, some kind of connection finally happened in his dog brain. The day he turned six, he figured it out.


"Go get Mama," my husband said.


And he did!


We made a big fuss about it.


We asked him the next day, and he remembered.


It's been a whole two weeks, and he still knows who I am. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?