Ash Wednesday

Practicing with Grade III last night. There were only 4 Grade IV's there, and Pete played with GrIII. Lee arrived at the Last Minute (8:30 pm, he had to work: Ash Wednesday).

We did MUCH better than last week, both with GrIII's and by ourselves. We must all have been practicing, not just me. My reed is still a bit hard, so my drones are not steady, but I 'splained this all to Sean when he tuned me, in 5 words or less, and he was understanding.

I barely escaped being tuned by "John Adams" (I don't know this guy's real name. You know how I am with names. He looks like the guy who plays John Adams in 1776, he just came back from a mission, so he's about 22 or so, excellent piper, possibly no sense of humor, and he thinks I am dirt under his feet because I made a joke once 2 years ago about something, I forget what.)

Last night I tried to act like I knew what I was doing (ha!), and I didn't make any jokes. "John Adams" was helping Jason and Sean tune everybody and had indicated he would tune Sande next and then me. I admitted I had only warmed up a minute or two, so I went backstage and was running through my 6/8 when Sean approached me and did the tuning. Then when "John Adams" approached me a few minutes after that to tune, I told him (amid the sound of 20 pipes tuning) that Sean had already tuned me. "Who?" he shouted. "Sean," I yelled back. So I escaped with as little ridicule as possible.

Speaking of names, and to help me cement these new names in my head for future, our new bass drummer is Matt, and the other rather stout piper who came back from a mission 6 months ago is Ben, currently playing with Grade IV.

It rained, and I can see the daffodils and tulips poking up through the grass! Spring is just around the corner. The older I get, the happier I am to see spring.