Aloha

I thought I had updated this since Tuesday, but I guess not. I'M STILL ALIVE. I can eat now, too. So my old-person, proton-pump inhibitor drugs seem to be doing their job. Unfortunately, the drugs don't treat hypochondria, and I read that unexplained stomach pain/ulcers can sometimes be a sign of ovarian cancer, and I'm an Ashkenazi Jew, so...

I'm sure my doctor loves getting my semi-hysterical emails.

In other news, October is not starting well in general. That is not fair. October is for walking through crisp, dry leaves and drinking cider and eating all the Halloween candy too early. Instead, so far, we have mass murder, and the death of a beloved rock star, and the still-looming threat of nuclear war. It just doesn't seem right.

Also, apples - October is for cooking with apples.

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A couple of weeks ago, I tried to convince Susie to take group guitar lessons with other kids her age. She insisted that she HATED guitar. To my knowledge, she has never even touched one. But she was adamant. "I'd like to play ukulele, though," she said.

??????

"Lots of my friends have one," she added, when she saw the confusion on my face. Okay, then, I guess it's a thing. The guy at the music store confirmed my suspicions. "Oh, yeah, it's gotten really popular. Come Christmas, this whole wall will be covered with them," he said.

I hate it when I'm the last to know about a trend. Did any of you know that ukuleles are the musical instrument du jour?

So now Susie has a ukulele. She took a free lesson, but she didn't like it. "Too confusing," she said. So instead Susie is learning to play this thing from some old guy in Seattle via YouTube. That arrangement is saving me a heck of a lot of money, so I try not to worry that he's some wacko luring young ukulele players to their doom.

They just...appeared.

Wacko or not, he's apparently good at teaching. Susie can already play Rainbow Connection, Cecilia, and some other songs. But what's freaking me out is that, a few mornings ago, 2 plastic leis mysteriously appeared on the kitchen table. "Did you put those there?" I asked Larry.

"No," he said. "Where did they come from?"

So I asked each of the kids. NO ONE knows how they got there. I can only assume that the ukulele playing attracted them. As time goes on, grass skirts will appear in my closet. Pineapples will show up in the fridge.

It's weird how many Hawaiian stereotypes I have stuck in my brain, actually. I blame the ukulele.