Althouse: At the Departed Piano Café...

January 31, 2023

At the Departed Piano Café...

... what left your life today?

91 comments:

Mike of Snoqualmie said...: We were able to donate our piano to a Bellevue elementary school.; 1/31/23, 6:22 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: I'd like to learn more about the paint. Is that a new color?
I like it.; 1/31/23, 6:25 PM
madAsHell said...: I’m sorry. I probably missed the memo..........but I’m starting to play piano again. Why are you giving up the piano?

I’d like to learn a woodwind, but that ship has sailed!!!; 1/31/23, 6:34 PM
WK said...: The piano appears to be hovering….; 1/31/23, 6:39 PM
re Pete said...: "Put your heart on a platter and see who’ll bite..........."; 1/31/23, 6:40 PM
Josephbleau said...: What's left today. Today was my last day as a full time employee at my company. I was a rare beast with a defined benefit pension. I will still do a bit of ongoing consulting in Operations Research. Let's work half the time and make the same amount of money, for a number of years.

When I saw the picture of your piano, I heard the song, "Poor Judd is dead a candle lights his head, he's laying in a coffin made of wood..." An old High School "Theatre" thing.; 1/31/23, 6:41 PM
Fandor said...: How sad.; 1/31/23, 6:41 PM
Fandor said...: Very sad.; 1/31/23, 6:41 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Nothing worthy of note.

I did watch an attempt to have a very difficult conversation about what it means to be a child as opposed to an adult.

Or... How Bret Weinstein proudly donned his patriarchal hat. 🫣

If this is typical, you have to wonder, what are "they" up to?; 1/31/23, 6:42 PM
gilbar said...: here's an article, on why Commie China is NEVER lead on tech:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-china-will-never-lead-on-tech-semiconductor-chip-communism-innovation-west-corruption-economy-technology-11675114520?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Guess why they say? Because tech in commie china belongs to The State.. which means that:
There's no reason for people to innovate. I'd tie in a parallel to the British Industrial Revolution..
But, i'd rather you do that on your own; 1/31/23, 6:48 PM
Temujin said...: I'm applauding for you. We went through getting rid of an upright a few years ago, before our move out of Atlanta. It took time. We were very happy it found a good home.; 1/31/23, 6:57 PM
Narr said...: I'm sure it'll enjoy the piano farm, where it can frolic and gambol with the other old uprights.; 1/31/23, 7:00 PM
R C Belaire said...: Two trips to the Kiwanis Resale Shop to donate stuff. Early spring cleaning.; 1/31/23, 7:08 PM
Original Mike said...: "…what left your life today."

Probably some more hair.; 1/31/23, 7:14 PM
Danno said...: The pint (500ml) of blood I donated on the Big Red Bus in PCB. But someone else will need it unlike a piano.; 1/31/23, 7:17 PM
rehajm said...: Thank you for playing…; 1/31/23, 7:37 PM
Gospace said...: Headline:
Biden tells Congress he'll end COVID-19 emergencies on May 11

Best comment I've seen on this: I love the science that went into picking that date."; 1/31/23, 7:40 PM
Nancy said...: By an amazing coincidence (if there is such a thing), today I stumbled across "The Piano" by Anibal Machado in a Clifton Fadiman short story anthology. The family needs to get rid of their beloved old piano so that the daughter and her new husband can move into the room. They try all the methods suggested by Althouse's commenters, and more. The father in exasperation finally pays a group of young boys to trundle the piano out of the house and down the street 3 blocks, and then they push it into the ocean. HAH! Bet you didn't think of that!; 1/31/23, 7:43 PM
rehajm said...: In keeping with the ‘lick the football’ theme I began inadvertently… the raccoons what play in the yard at night have taken to the Nerf Football the wife left out for them to play with. They did manage to remove the squeaker and the lady fox chose to mark it
but no matter…; 1/31/23, 7:45 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Re “hovering”…

It’s on a dolly; 1/31/23, 7:48 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Re paint

Yes, we’re painting many rooms.; 1/31/23, 7:49 PM
Inga said...: “…what left your life today?”

The last of my garlic butter. I have to go crush some more garlic cloves and mix it with softened butter to slather on my bread I’m baking tomorrow. Garlic, delicious and good for you and no vampires will bother you.; 1/31/23, 7:51 PM
rehajm said...: I’m convinced Apple has implemented some kind of typing AI that assumes you meant to type words lefties like…; 1/31/23, 7:52 PM
FullMoon said...: Shoulda contacted me, I would have given you five hundred bucks for it.; 1/31/23, 8:01 PM
William said...: I betcha there will soon be more old chamber pots than old upright pianos. Some chamber pots were quite ornate and artistic and don't occupy much space. Upright pianos just aren't elegant and dominate the room with their ugliness. It's funny the things that last beyond one's era and that people think worthy of preservation and collecting..... Paradoxically though, the really valuable collectibles are the things people didn't think worth collecting. Maybe in two hundred years uprights will be as rare as Gutenberg Bibles and your descendants will read through your blog and watch the disposal of this valuable antique and feel a stab through the heart. If only.....; 1/31/23, 8:05 PM
FullMoon said...: Don't generally watch religious movies, but Nude Nuns with Big Guns is interesting.
Fairly certain it is fictional.; 1/31/23, 8:05 PM
rcocean said...: what left my life tody?

Hope. Joy. The will to live.

Otherwise, I'm great.; 1/31/23, 8:31 PM
rcocean said...: 2/3 of Frenchmen oppose the raising of the retirement age to 64. 500,000 protesters in Paris, again. Macron isn't able to justiy his statement that "there is no money". The Government may fall (low chance). Labor Unions planning more nationwide strikes.

Just shows what happens when you vote for a Neo-liberal/Globalist. The middle/working class never learns.; 1/31/23, 8:34 PM
Carol said...: Piano movers are amazing. Move it up and down stairs and around corners like it's a coffee table or something.; 1/31/23, 8:36 PM
donald said...: There’s a great song about Pianos in a house called For Free by The Pinebox Dwellers. “Piano came with the house, it was too big to haul it out”….a beautiful song. Big Gram Parsons disciples, and they’re going to the Joshua Tree Inn in April. Gonna be huge!; 1/31/23, 8:40 PM
Caroline said...: Girl, same.
Wish I could post a picture of the piano leaving on a dolly on Thursday. It took me a few years to finally part with it. It is an 1895 Bluthner, bought as a wedding present from my great grandfather to his bride in 1900. It lived a storied life as part of salon culture in Belle epoque paris, came to my mother when her grandmother died in the 50s, then to me in 2005. I have loved it all my life.
I needed my dining room back.; 1/31/23, 8:44 PM
Gospace said...: I sent the Coffee and Covid 2023 link with studies showing a link between prion diseases like Mad Cow and the vaccine that isn't to one of my sons today. His reply: What the informed "conspiracy" theorists all said was a possibility. Absolutely true. And in an earlier post takirks said... ...On top of all that, there's the mRNA research reports dating back to the 1990s; mRNA has been like nuclear fusion, until the COVID "crisis" came along. It was always the "vaccine technology of the ever-receding future...", because they couldn't ever get it past the point with the test animals where it wasn't resulting in odd sorts of clotting, reproductive issues, and a whole host of other things that are beginning to manifest. How many young, healthy athletes did we have dying on playing fields before the COVID/mRNA vaccine situation arose?

Here's the damn problem: Nobody reads or pays attention to this crap.

Well, some of us do. I've mentioned multiple times in the comment section on this very blog there's never been a successful test of mRNA technolgy for anything, and never been a successful vaccine against any coronavirus, human or animal, and many have backfired- some bigly. And now we have this miracle cure combining both? Not buying it. And turns out not buying it based on the history of both was the right call.

And based on what takirks said, looks like I'm lucky that the CPAP providers in the area are too overloaded to fit me in. My ENT doc took just a glance at the test results from sleeoing a few nights with a home testing machine and said I have sleep apnea- bad. And I know a lot of people who swear by their CPAP machines. I'll have to take a closer look. I have a history of sinus problems- that pretty much went away when I started nasal irrigation over a decade ago. Never recommended to me by any health professional, BTW.

As to what my son said about "conspiracy" theorists and covid, seems like they were right about many things concerning it. But with all the different types of problems they were talking about, and all the different things that might happen with an untested (by normal standards) vaccine they were all, each and every one of them right about two things, the two most important.
1. The vaccine is useless in the long run.
2. The vaccine will cost more lives then it saves.
Doesn't matter the mechanism that makes the vaccine useless, or how it costs more lives then it saves. the numbers show both statments are true. And a third thing is true that was actually known from previous pandemics, and ignored by health authorities worldwide
3. Vaccinating during a pandemic drives variant creations.
That third one contributes to the first- the vaccine is useless in the long run. This particular vaccine itesef drives the creation of variants that it cannot work against. Before the vaccine there was the original spke protein. Within six months of the vaccine they were trying to convince us skeptics that a vaccine targeting the original spike protein would work on the variants with a different spike protein... That doesn't even come close to passing the smell test.

If next year's flu shot is an mRNA shot as rumored- I'll be telling my employer to take their flu vaccination requirment and shove it up their you know what.; 1/31/23, 9:01 PM
hawkeyedjb said...: I'm glad it went quietly, without the need for any instruments of destruction.; 1/31/23, 9:10 PM
Jaq said...: gadfly and Chuck should read this thread about the Columbia Journalism Reviews detailed critique and takedown of the New York Times and Washington Post reporting on "Russiagate." They won't but they should if they want to understand why nobody listens to a word they write.

Here are some highlights:

“It was Hillary, not Trump, who began her campaign facing scrutiny over Russia ties….including a lucrative speech in Moscow by Bill Clinton, Russia-related donations to the Clinton family foundation, and Russia-friendly initiatives by the Obama administration”

“By 2016, as Trump’s political viability grew and he voiced admiration for Russia’s “strong leader,” Clinton and her campaign would secretly sponsor and publicly promote an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that there was a secret alliance between Trump and Russia.”

“Paul Krugman, in his Times column, called Trump the “Siberian candidate,” citing the “watering down” of the platform. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, labeled Trump a “de facto agent” of Putin.“

“Clinton was said to have approved a “proposal from one of her foreign-policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services,” according to notes, declassified in 2020, of a briefing CIA director John Brennan gave”

“Hamburger, of the Washington Post, told Simpson the Page allegations were found to be “bullshit” and “impossible” by the paper’s Moscow correspondent, according to court records.
But not everyone held back. In late September, Michael Isikoff, at Yahoo News, published”

“The Clinton campaign put out a statement on Twitter, linking to what it called the “bombshell report” on Yahoo, but did not disclose that the campaign secretly paid the researchers who pitched it to Isikoff.”

https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1620533994373943298

Fuck it, read the whole thing if you dare. It's damning, it's a detailed takedown in two parts. But Chuck, you are a lawyer, could you explain to me why Hillary should not go to jail for "secretly paying for" 'research' intending to defame Donald Trump as part of her campaign, and falsely reporting it as "legal expenses," oh yeah, and reporting these fabrications to the FBI as a basis for an investigation, but Trump should go to jail for paying for silence on a matter that was in no way illegal?; 1/31/23, 9:22 PM
Jamie said...: Best comment I've seen on this: I love the science that went into picking that date."

Didn't they mean, "I f***ing love the science..."? I mean, that's what all the T-shirts said and all.; 1/31/23, 9:37 PM
Jaq said...: Remember that the same people who co-opted the New York Times and the Washington Post were behind the Kennedy assassination, nobody even bothers to deny it anymore, probably the killing of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the forced resignation of Richard Nixon. Killing JFK opened the door to our deeper involvement in the Viet Nam War. Was our own government *not* behind any of the terrible things that happened in the movie Forest Gump? Maybe AIDS, maybe.

Don't worry though. It's different now! They would never lie to us about their motives now! Remember when a huge deal was made by the NYT and WaPo about how we got lied into the Iraq War? Well, they cleaned house all right. They got rid of everybody who questioned them. The Guardian too has turned into a house organ of MI6.

This is the same government that funded the research that created COVID, BTW, then lied to us and said it was from a pangolin.

But you go ahead gadfly, and repeat their propaganda knowingly, as if you are cluing us into the real skinny on Trump.; 1/31/23, 9:38 PM
Jupiter said...: I am pondering my cat. Or, "the cat". The cat that lives with us.
My son "caught" her when she was a tiny kitten. We got rid of her fleas and worms, and fed her, and she is pretty big. Maybe 10 lbs?
Anyway, lately, she likes to be placed on the counter in a bathroom, with a thin stream of water coming from the faucet. These are high, arched faucets, so she can turn her head sideways, and lick the stream. She loves to do this. This is what she loves to do. If offered a bowl of water, she will sniff it. But she does not appear to be thirsty. She likes to lick the stream from the side, and she will complain - "meow!" - until I make this possible.

Is my cat (Batty is her name, because her ears were so big she looked like a bat to my children) "addicted"? Did I get her "hooked" on this wild jag, the sideways water lick?; 1/31/23, 9:45 PM
Jaq said...: The New Yorker’s “Jane Mayer, wrote a lengthy piece about Steele and his work. Then she went on Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC to note how the dossier “was looking better and better every day, more and more credible.”

Althouse's too precious New Yorker and Chuck's MSNBC called out for outright lies in the same tweet! LOL. But both have great production values, as long as you don't include "adherence to truth" as part of those values.; 1/31/23, 9:54 PM
Fritz said...: Nancy said...
By an amazing coincidence (if there is such a thing), today I stumbled across "The Piano" by Anibal Machado in a Clifton Fadiman short story anthology. The family needs to get rid of their beloved old piano so that the daughter and her new husband can move into the room. They try all the methods suggested by Althouse's commenters, and more. The father in exasperation finally pays a group of young boys to trundle the piano out of the house and down the street 3 blocks, and then they push it into the ocean. HAH! Bet you didn't think of that!

The ocean may be a bit far, but I hear there's a lake conveniently close.; 1/31/23, 10:14 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Signs Chat-GPT was... influenced by "Trump is Hitler" chatter.

link to reddit screenshot; 1/31/23, 10:49 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Another gruesome police-suspect video via Reddit

It appears to be a POC getting pounced on by 3 white cops.; 1/31/23, 11:15 PM
wildswan said...: What left today?
One more day slowly trundled away.
Good-bye, enjoyed the visit, come again,
Come again, another day.; 1/31/23, 11:52 PM
wildswan said...: What left today?
One more day slowly trundled away.
Good-bye, enjoyed the visit, come again,
Come again, another day.; 1/31/23, 11:53 PM
Baceseras said...: A family story from some years before I was born has it that my grandmother got rid of a piano, a baby grand, or parlor piano, by burying it, legless, in the backyard.

The story goes that some people could hear the harp thrumming from its grave. A ghost story of sorts.; 2/1/23, 12:08 AM
gadfly said...: Hauling a piano all the way to Brown County? Just a hop, skip and jump over the Fox River from Lambeau Field.; 2/1/23, 12:48 AM
Ignorance is Bliss said...: Danno said...

The pint (500ml) of blood I donated...

THANK YOU!!!

As a blood cancer patient I very much appreciate your donation. I needed platelets and red blood cells after my stem cell transplant. I will very likely need more as my cancer advances.; 2/1/23, 1:15 AM
Wince said...: Your piano movers dress like evil henchmen.; 2/1/23, 1:35 AM
Rt41Rebel said...: My Aunt Betty died today. She was a crazy goat farming woman, survived by Uncle Bob, an AF One press photographer. My fondest memory of them was when I was about 10 yo, when they were dating, and they took me bowling for what I assume was a babysitting assignment.; 2/1/23, 2:34 AM
Humperdink said...: Say good bye to the 88's.; 2/1/23, 4:10 AM
Humperdink said...: Two guys, one piano, extremely quick hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYI4-L1Rw3A; 2/1/23, 4:16 AM
Kate said...: We once rolled our upright down to the curb and someone pushed it to their home. I felt like I'd scammed them. They had no way of knowing how often it had to be tuned.

I'm at an interesting stage. Things are adding rather than leaving. My son is storing four cats in my back house.; 2/1/23, 4:32 AM
typingtalker said...: The National Park Service has 59 pages on Deaccessioning ...

Chapter 6: Deaccessioning
National Park Service; 2/1/23, 5:11 AM
gadfly said...: tim in vermont said...
Remember that the same people who co-opted the New York Times and the Washington Post were behind the Kennedy assassination . . .

Who Dey? Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Sirhan somehow co-opted the NYT and WaPo? Really? I guess everyone but me knows that there was indeed such a conspiracy. Jack Ruby and Rosy Grier must somehow be part of this theory as well.; 2/1/23, 5:16 AM
Kai Akker said...: ---After the election, “the Times produced a steady stream of stories about whether Trump conspired with Russians to win the election without knowing whether the allegation was actually true.” [TiV's Shellenberger link]

Althouse has not adjusted to the changed nature of the press, especially in the case of her old favorites, as far as I can see. The NYT is not entertaining, with a liberal twist, any more. Their political advocacy became ideological and the amount of misinformation the news pages puts out is stunning. Most of it is intentional, but a certain amount stems from the blindness of the true believers.

But post after post in her blog features this misinformation. The same names predominate, and the discussions frequently end up having to reinvent the wheel concerning the erroneous assumptions and error-riddled "facts" that the NYT, WaPo, and TheNYer print. When a commenter said that LED bulbs wear out from too much switching on and off, Althouse was quick to correct a fact that is no longer so. But the much larger and more damaging errors of these favorite Althouse sources get cited repeatedly as though they possess credibility. That credibility was destroyed by those very publications, of their own volition, long ago. Longer ago than 2016, but that is when this latest chapter of indecency began.; 2/1/23, 5:20 AM
Big Mike said...: I heard the song, "Poor Judd is dead …”

@Josephbleau, that’s from “Oklahoma!” High school plays and musicals like shows with large casts, but ill et they had to redo the choreography for high school level abilities. The professor who taught the theater course I took all those decades ago told us if we ever wanted a nice, steady income stream then write a Christmas-themed play for an all-girl cast. Writing software was easier.; 2/1/23, 5:21 AM
AndrewV said...: That looks like a preview of one thing I'll have to do when my parents pass on.; 2/1/23, 5:26 AM
Captain BillieBob said...: What moved you to upgrade your electrical system?
Did you do a complete upgrade new panel, breakers etc?; 2/1/23, 5:49 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "What moved you to upgrade your electrical system? Did you do a complete upgrade new panel, breakers etc?"

Yes to the second question.

I think the knob and tube worked for 100 years, with never any problem. But insurance companies don't accept it, so it would make it hard to sell the house.

The electricians did an excellent job, working quickly and neatly, but fixing the holes is not part of the job. It's a different skill area. It would be challenging to find someone who could do a great job patching the holes (and then painting all the rooms that had holes!), but Meade stepped up to that job and is doing it to a high standard. I'm helping with the painting. And all of the wall prep and painting will be good for selling the house, if we decide to sell the house, which we might do suddenly, if we find somewhere else that we like better, an on-going fantasy.; 2/1/23, 6:08 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "That looks like a preview of one thing I'll have to do when my parents pass on."

This is part of what we are thinking: If this turns out to be our last house, when we die, we put this burden on our offspring. We have an ethical responsibility, while we are able, to put the place in order and simplify the dismantling and sale of the house after our death.; 2/1/23, 6:19 AM
wendybar said...: Another dead whale. Another dead whale washed up on Lido beach in Long Island yesterday. This is the 10th dead whale to die on New Jersey or New York beaches in the past two months. There are growing concerns that off-shore wind farms heralded as critical new energy sources by eco-activists may be responsible for a spate of whale deaths. If we apply the same “rules” to the offshore wind farms that we do petroleum pipelines, they should be ended immediately.; 2/1/23, 6:20 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "We have an ethical responsibility, while we are able, to put the place in order and simplify the dismantling and sale of the house after our death."

There's no conflict between meeting that responsibility and serving our own interests: 1. Making it nice for us while we live here, and 2. Putting it into shape for sale.

Notice that just knowing it's ready for sale benefits us even if we don't sell. It's nice to be in the position to sell if we decide we want to, so we can shop for a new house without needing to consider what an immense pain it would be to sell the house. I want it to be so that it will be easy (and profitable) to sell the house, so the only question is do we like this other place more. It lightens that question.; 2/1/23, 6:23 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "The National Park Service has 59 pages on Deaccessioning ."

I almost titled the post "The Deaccessioned Piano Café."

But it's not the mot juste because we're not getting money. We're paying money.; 2/1/23, 6:25 AM
Jaq said...: Yeah, go with that gadfly. They are telling you the God's honest truth about everything.; 2/1/23, 6:31 AM
Humperdink said...: I have thought of downsizing from the ranch many times. There's just the two left in a 3000 sq.ft. house on 38 acres. Upkeep inside and out getting to be more troublesome. We have a cottage on the property which we could move into, but it has a spiral staircase which could be painful on the joints. For now, we just press on.; 2/1/23, 6:47 AM
MadTownGuy said...: Here's the text of Pennsylvania's order cancelling battle reenactments:

"COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL & MUSEUM COMMISSION
TO: BHSM & SMOP Staff, Associate Groups & Management Groups
FROM: Andrea Lowery
Executive Director
DATE: January 26, 2023
RE: Discontinuation of Force-on-Force Reenactment
Upon careful reflection and review of the agency’s mission and strategic interpretive goals, PHMC will adopt the National
Park Service’s standards and best practices regarding combat reenactments and demonstrations of violent conflict, as
outlined in NPS Management Policies, 2006, 7.5.9.
Effective May 1, 2023, PHMC will no longer host, offer or sponsor at its historic sites and museums battle reenactments
or demonstrations of physical conflict that involve exchanges of weapons’ fire, the taking of casualties, hand-to-hand
combat, or any other form of simulated warfare or violence between opposing forces.
The inherent safety risks to participants and visitors as well as the potential for damage to historic resources that occurs
during such events are unacceptably high when seen in light of PHMC’s mandate to preserve and protect the
commonwealth’s cultural and natural heritage and those who are visiting or working at PHMC’s properties.
Although living history demonstrations and first-person interpretation are invaluable methods through which our historic
sites and museums interpret history for the public, even the best-researched and most well-intentioned representation of
combat cannot replicate the tragic complexity of real warfare and violent conflict. The staging of inherently artificial
battles fails to demonstrate the respect owed to the memory of those whose lives were lost or irreparably impacted by
those violent conflicts, whether they were actions between military forces, conflicts between company strikebreakers and
labor unionists, or any other type of violent physical altercation between individuals. These types of reenactments create
an atmosphere that is inconsistent with the memorial qualities of the historic sites placed in PHMC’s trust, especially
those that hold the remains of our ancestors.
The use of appropriate and carefully planned historic weapon firing demonstrations, tactical reenactments, and other
forms of non-force-on-force living history will continue to be permitted in our efforts to provide the public with
educational experiences of the highest interpretive value. The Bureau of Historic Sites & Museums is available to offer
guidance to sites transitioning their programming from force-on-force events to other forms of interpretation and, through
the work of its Historic Weapons Safety Committee, will continue to offer training on standards and best practices for the interpretation of violent conflict."

Shorter version: WE decide what you can do or see.; 2/1/23, 7:01 AM
Birches said...: We're in the opposite situation. We have one piano and a very expensive keyboard and probably could use another piano: a grand. The only quiet at our house is when the kids are at school. My daughter was playing last night at 10:30. It's pretty great.; 2/1/23, 7:05 AM
planetgeo said...: Jeez, Ann. Next you'll be telling us you're getting rid of your stacked collection of The New Yorker and changing your blog to "Van Life with me and Meade".; 2/1/23, 7:20 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: New paint: What is that color?
Is a nice celedon or is it more gray?; 2/1/23, 7:46 AM
gilbar said...: planetgeo said...
Jeez, Ann. Next you'll be telling us you're getting rid of your stacked collection of The New Yorker and changing your blog to "Camper Life with me and Meade".
fify!; 2/1/23, 7:52 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "New paint: What is that color?
Is a nice celedon or is it more gray?"

It's Benjamin Moore "Himalayan Trek" (1542), so I guess it's the color of a Yeti's footprint.; 2/1/23, 7:56 AM
Jamie said...: We have an ethical responsibility, while we are able, to put the place in order and simplify the dismantling and sale of the house after our death.

My parents started doing this in their sixties. Actually they did several things: removed all carpet and made the house as close to one level as possible, got rid of all furniture that sat more than 2 people such that now we have to pull dining room chairs into place if we all want to sit and talk (immediate family members are their only guests), and did a truly impressive job of discarding old memorabilia that no one was looking at. They also started wearing the same clothes when traveling so that if they lose track of one another, all they have to do is look down at themselves and realize that they're looking for a person in, say, khaki pants and a blue T-shirt. (They've backed away from this, probably because they almost never travel now.) I'm bemused by it all. Sometimes it seems like such a wise set of things to do, sometimes like sitting in their own graves.

My in-laws, OTOH, driven by my mother-in-law, have repeatedly (and stylishly) remodeled their house since I've been involved with the family, such that at any time except right in the middle of a project, it could go on the market tomorrow and sell in a day for top dollar. But don't open any closets... This has also seemed wise to me at times, and at other times like throwing money down a hole, since they live in an LA exurb-become-suburb and their house would probably sell for top dollar if it was rat-infested and ramshackle.

I'm not looking forward to whatever changes we will have to make as we adjust to the empty nest we're now in, much less as we prepare for "aging in place"/death, however you look at it.; 2/1/23, 7:58 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "New paint: What is that color?
Is a nice celedon or is it more gray?"

It's Benjamin Moore "Himalayan Trek" (1542). Is that the color of a Yeti's footprint? It's one notch darker than "London Fog," which we are using in the darker parts of the house (hallways).

I'd say it's a warm gray. Might feel a little taupe, depending on what's next to it or how the light is.

Celadon is a green. No, it's not green at all. If anything, it's a gray that doesn't read as green in any light or next to whatever (e.g. red). I don't like gray-green. I once painted that room in a gray that made my gray leather couch look gray green and I repainted the whole room to avoid that appearance of gray green. So, no. You might think gray green is nice, but I dissent.; 2/1/23, 8:01 AM
Ann Althouse said...: I used to think the word "celadon" was based on "celery" but the OED says the color was named after "Céladon, a character in D'Urfé's romance of Astré."; 2/1/23, 8:03 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I once painted that room in a gray that made my gray leather couch look gray green..."

The gray we're using now is probably the kind that could make a cool gray look green. You have to keep track of your grays!; 2/1/23, 8:12 AM
Humperdink said...: @MadTownGuy. I posted this a few days regarding the suspensions of the upcoming
reenactment at Bushy Run Battlefield. Subsequent to issuance of the rules, there has been significant pushback. Hopefully to a positive result.

As my lawyer friend told me a long time ago: "It's not the law, it's the regulators interpretation". They have unbridled power.; 2/1/23, 8:24 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: "Yeti's Footprint" would make a great name for a paint color.

oh wow - not green at all. My computer screen makes it look possibly celedon-ish. I even thought It could be a color I used once before that turned out shockingly lovely. Ben Moore Flowering Herbs. (which really isn't celadon at all - it's a soft warm green)

(I see I spelled Celadon wrong.); 2/1/23, 8:24 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: On my end it looks "Paris rain" ish. 1501.
I too don't like all the greens. There's something about most pale green that feels clinical or depressing.
Thumbs up to Himalayan Trek.; 2/1/23, 8:30 AM
typingtalker said...: Ann wrote, "If this turns out to be our last house, when we die, we put this burden on our offspring."

I've been involved in the sale of two houses of deceased relatives ... both were a mess. I cleaned out the first and had the interior painted. It made the realtor and painter happy but was a lot of work. The buyer sold it a few years later, demolished it and built a castle.

The second, the messier of the two, was sold "as is." The buyer knocked it down strait away and ... built a castle on the lot.

Your kids' mileage may vary.; 2/1/23, 8:54 AM
Lewis said...: My piano is in our music room along with 4 guitars and 2 saxophones. It's actually a Yamaha electronic keyboard made to look like an upright piano. The only instruments that still get played regularly are the saxophones. Playing music is one of those things you can still do and enjoy when you get old. And you can be better at it when you're old than when you were young.; 2/1/23, 9:14 AM
Jaq said...: It's looking more and more like Hunter Biden was selling the information in those classified documents that his dad kept in a box in the garage by pretending that he was an astute analyst of American foreign policy and the internal politics of other nations, and not a crackhead who carelessly left shit lying around and forgetting about it who used those documents as "cheat sheets."

His dad was a famous plagiarist too, so it runs in the family.; 2/1/23, 9:25 AM
Anthony said...: We had one of those uprights when my parents bought their Fond du Lac house in 1968. Big black thing. My sister took lessons for a while but gave it up and we got rid of it not too many years later. I don't know where it went. In retrospect, I kind of wish I'd learned to play it myself, but piano was kind of a Girl Thing back then.

Leaving my life today. . . .are some almost-new small barbell plates I got back in 2020. They closed the gyms and for the first 3-4 weeks I just walked a lot, and it did basically nothing for me; I still got fat (by which I mean, a slight gut). As a daily gym rat, this would not do. I scrounged up some stuff and started working out on the back patio. By that time the stores and thrift shops were depleted of anything exercise-related, but I had a friend who loaned me her curling bar and a couple of 25-lb plates and that, plus some home-workout tips I'd learned way back when from a Jack LaLanne book my Mom had sitting around, got me into some kind of reasonable shape. The gym opened up for another month or two and then closed again, but by then I was able to acquire a few more plates and once again took to the patio. By then it was July (in AZ) and a very hot Summer so I was soaked through within about 30 minutes. Still, I have somewhat fond memories of that.

Thus, I feel a bit sad about getting rid of them, not to mention because I've hardly used them. I have a vague fear something else will come along and the Idiots/@ssh***es In Charge will try to shut things down again, but as it is they're just sitting there getting in the way with no obvious alternate function.

Except for the plastic ones, I use those as a tree stand for the old family silver aluminum Christmas tree.; 2/1/23, 9:31 AM
cassandra lite said...: Not my piano, but still made me wistful, thinking that there wasn't another good home eager to take it. Instead, it's on its way to the glue factory. Seems like a metaphor for the world we grew up in that's receding ever further into memory.; 2/1/23, 9:39 AM
Walter S. said...: One of the nicest things we have from my great-grandmother, who died in 1911, is an essay she wrote called "Farewell to a Piano." It calls to mind a scene like the photograph above. The essay was less sad than it might have been, because my great-grandmother had just acquired a better piano.; 2/1/23, 9:42 AM
Jaq said...: https://twitter.com/JailletAlain/status/1620693474109685760

Kiev's plan for the ethnic cleansing of Crimea on French TV. This is why naziism has to be stamped out, and no embers left burning, like you are Smokey the Bear. Naziism appeals to the worst in human nature, but it does appeal to many.; 2/1/23, 9:44 AM
Rusty said...: After my brothers death I realized that no one will ever enjoy my stuff as much as I do so I've begun the long undertaking of getting unfettered of my surplus belongings. Much of my hunting stuff will go to those nephews and nieces who will actually use it. A lifetime of precision and mechanics tools have been and are going to be given away or sold. (TIP grandpas or dads wooden toolmakers box is worth more than the tools inside it. The micrometer or vernier caliper he paid a hundred dollars for is maybe worth five.) Many many books have been given away and, for some reason, there are more. I never knew that fly fishing stuff is so hard to dispose of. Not many people fly fish any more I suppose. That will be for my daughters to dispose of.; 2/1/23, 9:48 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: The Bidens are crooks and the hack totalitarian D-loyalist press Plus Joy Behar and Saturday Night Democrat and the FBI are all fine with it.; 2/1/23, 9:52 AM
Douglas2 said...: I remember as a tiny child our piano arriving to the house by being wheeled down the street from its previous home on its own casters.

That giant upright was damaged in a flood -- much to my surprise the insurance payed not only for its removal and disposal, but also gave my parents money for the purchase price of an equivalent used replacement at retail.

As an adult I lived in Nashville when we decided we needed a piano and were 'settled' enough that it wouldn't make life difficult to own one. We found that there are no decent free pianos in Nashville. It lives up to its name "music city". I did insist on a spinet size, as I wanted to be able to move it myself. We found a good one for $600, from a family moving to California.

When clearing out parents' homes landed us with a second piano, it took nearly 2 months to find a taker for our extra one. I delivered it to the new home of a family with 2 children taking piano lessons, they had lost everything in a fire including their beloved piano. I'd promised to deliver it to their driveway, but ended up using my $20 home-depot dolly and the aluminum 6' folding ramp (that we'd got for Mom's wheelchair) to take it in to their house and place it in their living room.; 2/1/23, 10:14 AM
Narr said...: What's with the purple in the distance, above the departed?; 2/1/23, 10:37 AM
CStanley said...: I’m a dissenter, I guess, because I love green-grays. You do have to choose carefully though to avoid the look of the school nurse’s office. It needs to be cooler and less saturated, and like all grays it depends on the lighting. I once had the exterior of our house painted in what appeared to be a slightly bluish gray and learned that the sun makes grays much bluer. Current house is a stony, taupy gray, much better.; 2/1/23, 12:19 PM
CStanley said...: I was a pretty good pianist in high school, early advanced level. Went nearly 40 years without playing and restarted a couple of years ago. I expected to get to my previous level after a few years but have found it takes at least twice as long to learn a piece as it did then, even though I have more time to practice.

I’m convinced it’s a great brain exercise and highly recommend it. Having recently read some of Ian McGilchrist’s work I’m really noticing the shift back and forth between left and right hemisphere engagement and the “flow” feeling when you learn a piece well enough to play without thinking of the individual notes.; 2/1/23, 12:27 PM
n.n said...: Departed or deported? And don't you come back no more, no more, ...; 2/1/23, 3:08 PM