2 Minutes

Finally, after nearly 10 months of not playing, I felt strong enough to tune the beast a week and a half ago. No burning feeling in the back of my hands as I tuned. Miraculously, I got it rough tuned in less than an hour.

Woo hoo!!!  I was ecstatic!

Cautiously ecstatic.

I played for two minutes. Retrieved Little Red Haired Boy from memories in muscles and mind's ear. Then Swallow Tail Jig.

Later that night, another 2 minutes yielded Farewell to Whiskey and Irish Washerwoman.

Kept to about 2 to 4 minutes of playing at a clip over the next few days and was able to bring back another half dozen tunes or so.

Alas, mizzly weather and/or more work to do at work and/or the three-steps-forward-two-back nature of healing gave me a really bad hand weekend, so, no tuning. No playing.

As a result, the beast is not so very in tune this week. But at least I'm back to my rigorous regimen of playing for 2 to 4 minutes per day.

It's nice to be back. Even if only for 2 minutes.

Cooking versus Playing

I've long considered cooking to be an unpleasant prerequisite of eating, and eating something you do to power the more important activities of life. Like dulcimer playing.

It's not that I don't enjoy good meals. I just don't enjoy them enough to waste my discretionary time preparing them.

I especially loathe all the chopping--probably because I'm no good at it.

Oddly, I do kind of like playing with food. I get a kick out of turning food into something of a performance art. Especially if there's no chopping.

For instance, last month I did one of my themed breakfasts for the Friday breakfast club. Red, white, and blue deviled eggs. Red rice, white grits, & blue corn polenta arranged in the 9x13 glass dish to look like a flag. Red & blue berries & white pears. Played my vintage Red, White, & Blue (Grass) CD. Had appropriately themed paper goods.

But, that doesn't really count as cooking. The point is not eating. The point is the conceptual use of food as a medium, the challenge of manipulating edible matter into something that fits the theme.

So, now, in a last-ditch effort to bring health & healing to my hands in order to (hopefully) play again, I've gone to an integrative doc. My brother-in-law the pediatrician would probably call him a voodoo doctor. Among the "voodoo" recommendations: No microwaving. Cook and eat real food. No artificial sweeteners. No white sugar. No high fructose corn syrup. No nitrates & nitrites.

So, it's come full circle: I used to avoid cooking so I could play the dulcimer. Now, I'm cooking in the hopes that I can get back to playing the dulcimer.

4.5 Dulcimer-less Months

It's been about 4.5 months since I last played the dulcimer.

Over Thanksgiving & Christmas there were oh so many important and interesting things to do with my hands & arms, and I ended up with a temporary set back in my rather long history of RSIs.

So, now I'm doing physical therapy and learning what I need to learn from this experience.

And trying to be patient and optimistic.

But, I really do miss being me.

A Tale of Two Dulcimers

Some folks have been asking how my new (used) Masterworks differs from my older Dusty Strings. I think they were just being polite. But, in case anyone really wants to know, here it is: A mostly non-technical description of the differences between the two dulcimers.

The first thing you notice are the visual things: The Dusty Strings is a light birch. The Masterworks is mahogany and cherry. The Masterworks is a lot prettier, with rounded edges, a thicker body, and generally more craftsmanship details.

The Masterworks has more notes, too. 5 more, to be exact. That will let me play more tunes, though I have by no means exhausted the list of tunes that could be played on my Dusty Strings. Still, it's nice to know that if I get a hankering to learn "Masters in This Hall" this Christmas, I won't have to retune my right treble D to a D#.


Of course, more notes means more tuning. The Masterworks takes me about an hour to hour and a quarter, instead of 45 minutes. Part of that is the new one hadn't been tuned in several months. As it gets used to getting tuned, it'll let me go about it faster. Also, the Masterworks has tuning pins on both sides. I've had years of handling the tuning wrench exclusively with my right hand, and the pick exclusively with my left. Becoming ambidextrous at tuning will take some getting used to.

The big difference is in how they sound: The Masterworks is a lot more resonant. It has a richer, warmer, fuller sound. And the sustain goes on forever. Compared to the Masterworks, the Dusty Strings sounds a bit plinky.

Of course, when you're not comparing them, the Dusty Strings is still a fine instrument. I'm definitely looking forward to taking it to work to replace the Dusty Strings 12/11 that I have there.

And, what'll become of the Dusty Strings 12/11 at work? Alas, going into that would make this a tale of three dulcimers. All I can say for sure is that Banjo Bob has first right of refusal on it.

A Yes Answer to a Non-Prayer

I've often heard preachers say that God always answers your prayers, but sometimes the answer is "no."

The Bible says, "Ye have not because ye ask not." And, it says, "Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts."

The message is pretty clear:

• You won't get anything if you don't pray.


• The answer to greedy, lustful prayers is "no."


• The answer to other prayers is also sometimes "no."

Well, asking God for a new dulcimer would definitely have been greedy. With a Dusty Strings 12/11 at work and a Dusty Strings 16/15 at home, I already had more dulcimers than somebody of my skill level deserves.

Nevertheless, I wanted a new dulcimer. I wanted that rich, full sound you hear on Scott Williams' CDs. I wanted that sustain that goes on forever and those low notes that get into your bones. And, I wanted the 5 extra notes you get on a chromatic dulcimer.

Sounds a bit like lust, doesn't it? Maybe with a bit of coveting my neighbor's Masterworks thrown in. Definitely not prayer material.

But, this year I am learning that God sometimes answers "yes" to the prayers that we don't pray.

In the midst of all this not praying, I received Scott's latest email to his adoring fans.

Now, Scott's emails never have "for sale" info. And, you never see people selling their full-sized Masterworks dulcimers. And, a used dulcimer worth having would never, ever be at a price worth the 4 hour round-trip to the LA/Riverside area.

Never was last Sunday.

And, now the answer to my non-prayer is in our music room, a reminder that sometimes we don't have to ask. Sometimes God just gives us the desires of our hearts.

Tortillas

Lately I've had a hankering for homemade tortillas.

When I was 11, my best friend's mom Francis made tortillas all the time. Debbie & I would take a hot tortilla off the griddle and rub a stick of margarine all over it, roll it up, and munch away as melted hydrogenated fat ran down our chins.

The tortillas were thick, irregularly dappled with brown spots, and not entirely round. And, they were wonderfully moist & chewy.

So, of course it galls me to pay upwards of $3/dozen at the grocery store for tortillas that are perfectly round, completely white, paper thin, brittle, dry, and tasteless. I look at these things and think, "$3 for 12 little pieces of flour and fat?!"

No doubt it was my hankering for real tortillas that made me decide to create soy tortillas for my knitting group today. (The theme was "foods that cause or cure hot flashes.")

So, I bought a tortilla press, googled up a tortilla recipe, and figured I'd substitute soy flour for half the unbleached white flour.

The tortilla press did not come with instructions. And, I don't think my friend's mom ever used one. But eventually I figured out how to operate it.

The first tortilla came out dry, brittle, and tasting like an unsweetened soy pancake.

Much kneeding later, the next few tortillas came out like soy-flavored naan.

I started double-pressing the tortillas, and then stretching them like pizza dough. The tortillas gradually got better.

The final ones were a lot more irregular in circumference and dappling than the tortillas of my childhood, but they were reasonably moist and were finally starting to get the right level of chewiness.

And, they tasted like.... soy.

Nevertheless, I'm kinda proud of the fact that they came out looking and feeling almost like tortillas. If I would have just stuck with plain all-purpose flour, they might have even tasted like tortillas, too.

But, next time I have a hankering for tortillas, I think I'll go to the store and uncomplainingly fork over $3 for a dozen perfectly round, perfectly white, and perfectly tasteless pieces of flour and fat.

Volume, Vol. 2

Spouse & I are still trying to find a church that won't cause our ears to bleed.

I googled churches in my city. Friends Christian Fellowship was on the list. They didn't have a Web site.

So, a little research. There are four general flavors of Friends (aka Quaker) churches. Think of a 2x2 matrix: Liberal (similar to Unitarian Universalists) vs Conservative ("Christ-centered"), and unstructured vs structured.

Unstructured... Hmmm... If you're sitting silently waiting for God to speak to you and/or prod you to speak, then you probably don't have a rock band blasting you at 120 decibels.

Unstructured conservative would probably be perfect for us. And there are lots of these. In places like Pennsylvania.

The church here in town had no Web site. Odds were, though, since CA is a ways away from Pennsylvania, this wouldn't be an unstructured conservative service. But, if they're too small to have a Web site, maybe they're too small to have a rock band. Or, at least too small to afford big amplifiers.

So, we went.

This was an Evangelical Friends church. Going back to that 2x2 matrix, that would be conservative & structured.

Well, I was wrong about them being too small for a rock band. They were small, alright. I counted about 30 adults. But, they had the rock band.

The good news is, they do have a sound level meter. And, they claim to try to keep it at or under 90.

In fact, decibels ranged from 85 to 99, and that was with the drummer missing.

This may be as good as its going to get for us.

Meanwhile, Spouse & I are certainly not alone in our concern for aural safety at church. Others, including Nephew 1.0 and our friend Grant report that their churches are too loud. And,the Neph isn't an old fogey like us. Nor is it some weird California phenomenon. The nephew's church is in Wisconsin.

Maybe I really should consider going back for an M.Div. and starting my own church. The problem is, almost any seminary is going to require attendance at chapel services. Where they'll probably have rock bands.