What We Didn't Know

What we didn't know, on Sunday morning, when we woke up:

That my husband, looking through the paper, would find this, tear it out and hand it to me:

That we would get ourselves dressed and out the door before noon on a Sunday, and take the checkbook with us, all very unorthodox behavior for us.

That we would dip into our savings once again, postponing the desk purchase in favor of another, more interactive piece of furniture.

That before we ate lunch, our living room would be totally rearranged.

That, finally, my stacks of sheet music would see daylight. Or lamplight, actually.

The open sheet music on the piano is the Moonlight Sonata, one of my three favorite pieces of music to play, although I can't actually play more than a page of the original composition, only a much simpler arrangement. Soon, soon. Now that I can practice.

My other two favorite pieces to play, incidentally, are Bach's "Prelude in C Major" from
The Well-Tempered Clavier(Some people seem to think that's just a finger exercise. Silly people.) and Aram Khachaturian's "Ivan Sings," from Adventures of Ivan, or Children's Album, Book 1. It's also referred to simply as "Andantino." You can hear a sample, if you go here - Russian Piano Music and the World of Childhood- and click on "listen" next to Track 13. (Took me forever to find that. Apparently, it's not that well-known or well-used, but it was my favorite thing to play when I was growing up and feeling melancholy).

I'm not a very good pianist -- perhaps I was an intermediate piano player once, but I haven't played regularly in many years, ever since I had to donate my upright grand because I moved to a fifth-floor walk-up. So I've probably reverted back to beginner status. I don't mind, though. Because playing the piano makes me so, so happy. I don't need to wow people.