Nice Evening

While Mommy was out on a quixotic adventure for gardening supplies, the girls and I played out in the backyard with the dog. Gertrude rode her bike in circles on the patio and Matilda and I threw a tennis ball to the dog, who chased it like an outfielder. Once we started to melt, we went back inside. Gertrude refused to take off her bike helmet, so she walked around the house and watched TV looking as though we were trying to stop her from harming herself. Which, given her penchant for danger, isn't too far from the truth.

That she resembled Toad from the old Mario Brothers games wasn't lost on me.

Later, when they were in their jammies, I sat with some music and tried to pick out some songs on the ukulele. Since I know how to play guitar I figured that it wouldn't be too hard to learn the uke. Which it isn't except . . . the frets are really small. So some of the chords are a little torturous.

However, by the end of the evening I had picked my way through Wilco's version of "Be Not So Fearful", Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower", the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize", and several songs by the Magnetic Fields, including "Papa Was a Rodeo" complete with the flourish run at the end of the chorus, "Parades Go By", "Asleep and Dreaming", "You You You You You" (okay, that's the Sixths), and "My Sentimental Melody".

Mind you, I was mashing my way through the songs and blowing some of the chords, but with practice I may get the hang of this.

But the highlight was when I started strumming through the opening of "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing" (really screwing up the B flat chord, mind you) and Gertrude came flitting into the kitchen where I was playing and started to dance (the whole house is very familiar with this song), making sure that her summer nighty twirled like a ball gown.

"Will you play pretty music," she asked.

"Someday," I said. "But for now, this is what you'll have to put up with."

And she danced away, not caring that some of the chords were a little sad and the tempo was too slow.

That, my friends, no matter how you cut it is what life is all about.

As the song goes:

You've never been more beautiful
Your eyes like two full moons
As here in this poor old dancehall
Among the dreadful tunes
The awful songs we don't even hear
And nothing matters when we're dancing
In tat or tatters you're entrancing
Be we in Paris or in Lansing
Nothing matters when we're dancing