Despite coughig ad sdeezig ad blowig his doze, The GG was a whirlwind of activity most of this morning. He was “organizing” “stuff” in preparation for the upcoming Landfill Chitchen Reno. Which *will* take place here on The Planet Ann Arbor and not in Reno, Nevada [wink] unless the GG and I experience some sort of implosion during the prodject and head to Reno to do what married couples purportedly do in Reno. (My childhood boyfriend aka BBF had the last name Reno, which always seemed a little weird but also kind of cool. Much later, along came Janet Reno… Relation? I have no idea.)

Where the heck was I? Oh yeah, there was a lot of commotion in the Back Room, moving and shuffling and vacuuming(!) and whatnot and I was actually a little bit askeered to even look out there. When I finally — tentatively — ventured a peek, it wasn’t really all that bad. About eight feet to the left of The Red Piano is the wall between the Landfill Chitchen and the Back Room. The piano is usually backed up to that wall with an heirloom spinning wheel on top and various objets d’art on or near the keyboard. I won’t even try to describe the rest but know that the piano is now in the middle of the room and so is the guy with the seaweed glasses and his computer.

I reaally reaally wanted this piano way back when. It is a big upright with a gorgeous sound and a player mechanism. I have a long history with playing the piano and I won’t bore you with the details but, although I was never anywhere near a piano virtuoso, I could play well enough by college that I qualified to have a private teacher. But I am really a flute player. The damn flute has been a part of my life since I first saw a picture of one at the age of three and I greatly envied my two older cousins who played that instrument until I finally managed to get my hands on one. Flute was my major instrument in music school and I was MUCH better at that than piano. My interests have evolved and it’s been a long time since I’ve taken my flute out of its case, let alone play the piano. Meanwhile, the Red Piano’s player mechanism still worked when we moved it here to The Landfill but it was out of tune (all pianos get out of tune when they are moved) and after a few years, the player mechanism stopped working…

So now, we are renovating our Chitchen and even though we are not knocking out an entire wall (sorry folks), I’m not sure where we will put the Red Piano going forward. It needs to be placed so that its back is against an interior wall and I do not know where that will be unless we get rid of a bunch of furniture (which I would also like to do…) The Red Piano is an heirloom and I will keep it until…

And here are four of the six Courtois Boyz on the day that we moved The Red Piano from the C-Fam’s beautiful old house on Woodsboro in Royal Joke to The Landfill. Plus The Beautiful Suzie’s childhood boyfriend Doug, who we all knew and loved. They went separate ways but Doug was and is a Class A person. Jimmy drove the truck. It took a big truck to haul that beastie over here. Jimmy remembers that they slid the piano into The Landfill on a sled. I don’t exactly even remember that but that’s probably because I had a several-month old baby then and I was dealing with her. And she was having a great time with all of those uncles doting on her. If I had had an iPhone back in that day, you know I would’ve had photos of that whole event, including the sled.

I dunno… These guys do not look unlike the Veteran Greenhorns. Four of the six Courtois brothers. Love you guys.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2014 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.