{"id":441,"date":"2012-08-27T19:07:56","date_gmt":"2012-08-28T02:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/blog\/?p=441"},"modified":"2012-08-27T19:07:56","modified_gmt":"2012-08-28T02:07:56","slug":"elvis-llamas-and-ukuleles-that-float","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/elvis-llamas-and-ukuleles-that-float\/","title":{"rendered":"Elvis, Llamas and Ukuleles that Float"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part 10 of 11 in the series, \u201cMarvelous Midwest,<\/span><\/a>\u201d about discovering my extended family in Indiana and \u201cukeing\u201d it up in Missouri.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s the first day at the\u00a0Mighty Mo Ukulele Festival<\/a>. We line up in the quaint Swiss Chalet dining hall for dinner and fill our plates at the trough\u2026er\u2026buffet. Lovely women, dressed Heidi-like, scurry here and there providing the sweetest service. \u201cYou mean I get dessert?\u201d I ask. \u201cThis is the Midwest, honey. You get dessert with every meal.\u201d She chirps.<\/p>\n

My husband Craig and I are sitting at a long table with \u201cElvis.\u201d Well that is the name I give this courtly Southern gentleman who I meet at my first workshop. When he speaks, it\u2019s like The King himself has suddenly re-appeared as a ukulele player.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
“Ukulele” Elvis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

He turns every edge of discourse into something hilarious, delivered with a down-home dollop of zing. The conversation goes from ukuleles to llamas, yes llamas, in the time it takes to wipe the salad dressing off my lips. He used to work at a wildlife preserve and especially loves llamas. \u201cTheir eyes are so sweet. If everyone had eyes like llamas we\u2019d all get along\u2026\u201d His Elvis voice hypnotizes me into believing that llama-eyes are the secret to world peace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We better fortify ourselves with bonus dessert calories because there\u2019s going to be a hot time inSaloon Town<\/em>\u00a0tonight. It\u2019s Open Mike at the “O-K Corral.” Now this is a marvelous thing. I know of no other instrument that engenders this egalitarian spirit of participation. One after another, all ages, the ladies, the guys, groups of them perch on the stage, lean into the microphone and play their music. A few confess, \u201cthis is my first time.\u201d Hooray for them. Doing their \u201cfirst time\u201d in a socially acceptable AND supportive saloon of sound.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I remember reading one of those USA Today kind of lists about what scares human beings the most. You would think the number one thing that scares us is, say…Dying.<\/em><\/p>\n

But no-o-o-o-o. It\u2019s public speaking (or singing). We are more afraid of going cryogenic in front of an audience than we are of actually keeling over for real. Well I have had my share of \u201cego deaths\u201d on stage. And yes it\u2019s awful. But afterwards I get to go home, kiss my husband and eat chocolate. So what the hell. Perspective is good as gold.<\/p>\n

So back at\u00a0Saloon Town,<\/em>\u00a0the music finally winds down. Sated and exhausted, we file into the warm night past the glowing salt-water pool where late-night swimmers are splashing around with what look like giant sperm. About eight of these things are bobbing in the water. They have that familiar spermy look and are about the size of a ukulele. I move in for a closer look. Holy crap, they are ukuleles. Inflatable ukuleles. Who thinks of such a thing?<\/p>\n

Janelle Hoffmann\u2026 The mover and shaker who shakes and moves this festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Talk about attention to detail. I am so flabbergasted by the sight that I neglect to take a picture. So this one will have to suffice. Here is\u00a0Boat Paddle<\/a>\u00a0Jerry, in broad daylight, with his latex ukuleles.<\/p>\n

You have to know the uke has gone mainstream when you can purchase a blow-up version on the internet!<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Stay tuned for the final installment of this series, \u201cThe Marvelous Midwest.\u201d Coming to your local inbox, as soon as I write it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is part 10 of 11 in the series, \u201cMarvelous Midwest,\u201d about discovering my extended family in Indiana and \u201cukeing\u201d it up in Missouri. It\u2019s the first day at the\u00a0Mighty Mo Ukulele Festival. We line up in the quaint Swiss Chalet dining hall for dinner and fill our plates at the trough\u2026er\u2026buffet. Lovely women, dressed Heidi-like, scurry here and there providing the sweetest service. \u201cYou mean I get dessert?\u201d I ask. \u201cThis is the Midwest, honey. You get dessert … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":"","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentry","category-midwest"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"},{"value":37,"label":"midwest"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":5,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":138,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":138,"category_description":"","cat_name":"blog entry","category_nicename":"blogentry","category_parent":0},{"term_id":37,"name":"midwest","slug":"midwest","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":37,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":11,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":37,"category_count":11,"category_description":"","cat_name":"midwest","category_nicename":"midwest","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}