{"id":451,"date":"2012-08-29T12:02:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T19:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/calirose.com\/blog\/?p=451"},"modified":"2012-08-29T12:02:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T19:02:30","slug":"hello-and-goodbye-marvelous-midwest-final-installment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/hello-and-goodbye-marvelous-midwest-final-installment\/","title":{"rendered":"Hello and Goodbye \u2013 Marvelous Midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is THE FINAL INSTALLMENT<\/strong> of the 11-part series, “Marvelous Midwest<\/a>,” about discovering my extended family in Indiana and “ukeing” it up in Missouri. All in one very eventful trip.<\/p>\n

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Cali and Craig on the last day of The Mighty Mo Ukulele Festival.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My husband I live a 10K race away from LAX. It\u2019s like there\u2019s an airplane freeway in the sky that passes over our condo. This is the soundscape of life around here. In Missouri, it\u2019s cicadas. I never actually see one, no little green guy with a \u201cC\u201d on his butt. But I hear them and ask a local person \u201cwhat the hell is that?\u201d I am told that sometimes the cicadas get so loud it\u2019s impossible to carry on a conversation.<\/p>\n

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The Flea Bitten Dawgs do the “sunshine” part of the evening concert. As soon as the sun goes down, it’s our turn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thankfully today there\u2019s just a gentle buggy whoosh, with strains of ukulele melodies thrown in. Both Craig and I teach workshops and prepare for the concert tonight. It\u2019s a long evening with the Open Mic winners (the ones that got the most votes from the troops), the Flea Bitten Dawgs and us.<\/p>\n

The concert is outside under a pergola, with the pool to our left and more seating to the right. It\u2019s hot. As the sun goes down, it gets hotter. It\u2019s humid. As the sun goes down, it gets humid-er. They are worried about me because I am just plain not used to this weather. Janelle and the sound guy haul out fans. I\u2019m ready to do Gatorade, intravenous, because swallowing the stuff ain\u2019t working fast enough. We begin our two-hour set late and I\u2019m smiling and perky but inside I\u2019m wondering how the hell I\u2019m going to get through this.<\/p>\n

Well adrenaline is a wonderful thing and having such a sweet and supportive audience seals the deal. The time passes at light speed. Years ago, a wizened old pro pulled me aside at one of my piano bar gigs and offered some advice. \u201cTake it from me Cali, get out of town once in while and play where people appreciate you.\u201d I thought he was full of\u00a0you-know-what<\/em>. It\u2019s taken me this long to realize he was right.<\/p>\n

The folks in the audience are eager,\u00a0eager<\/em>\u00a0to hear original tunes. Once Craig joins the party, we fall into an easy \u201cmarried folk\u201d banter. That\u2019s fertile ground for humor, don\u2019t you think? And the hilarity and music continue as we do some \u201ckanikapila\u201d songs like \u201cThe Lion Sleeps Tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

My ukulele group, The CC Strummers, finish this tune with\u00a0\u201ccries of the jungle.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Birds, monkeys, lions, mystery-critters. But right now Craig and I are in the Midwest, so I suggest we throw in \u201cbarnyard\u201d animals instead. Lo and behold, Elvis lets loose with what he calls an\u00a0Arkansas hog cry.<\/em>\u00a0It is a moment I will never forget. The sound is so real, so omnipresent, that for a second I am looking around for the pig.<\/p>\n

Until I realize it\u2019s Elvis. \u201cOh my God that is just fabulous!\u201d I gush. And in his finest Elvis voice, he says \u201cThank you. It\u2019s a gift.\u201d You have to know that every time I think of bacon, smell bacon, eat bacon, see the commercial on TV where the big sloppy dog barrel-races to the bowl of\u00a0guess-what<\/em>\u00a0as a gravely voiceover huffs and puffs \u201cbacon, bacon, bacon,\u201d I will think of Elvis and his Arkansas hog cry.<\/p>\n

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Our official photographer stands on a borrowed truck bed to get all of us in the picture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next morning, we rub the bleary from our eyes and share our final breakfast together. Janelle hires a local photographer to take a group picture. Can you believe it? Like high school, except happier.<\/p>\n

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Aloha ‘Oe, Missouri-style…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then we spread out in a big circle on the grass, sing Aloha Oe\u2019 and bid farewell to each other and this most endearing weekend. It\u2019s fortuitous that “Aloha” means both hello\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>goodbye. I look forward to staying in touch with our new Midwest ukulele ohana and my newly-discovered and totally loved family in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

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By nightfall, my husband and I will be home, snuggling under the covers in our own bed and soon enough our sojourn to the Midwest will feel like a dream.<\/p>\n

And some dreams change us\u2026<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Thank you for sharing the trip with me. I have loved reading your emails and hearing your stories about family, travel and music. Let\u2019s live wide. It\u2019s a short visit!<\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is THE FINAL INSTALLMENT of the 11-part series, “Marvelous Midwest,” about discovering my extended family in Indiana and “ukeing” it up in Missouri. All in one very eventful trip. My husband I live a 10K race away from LAX. It\u2019s like there\u2019s an airplane freeway in the sky that passes over our condo. This is the soundscape of life around here. In Missouri, it\u2019s cicadas. I never actually see one, no little green guy with a \u201cC\u201d on … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":452,"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":[10,41],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogentry","category-midwest","tag-mighty-mo-ukulele-festival","tag-ukulele"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"blog entry"},{"value":37,"label":"midwest"}],"post_tag":[{"value":10,"label":"Mighty Mo Ukulele Festival"},{"value":41,"label":"ukulele"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":{"display_name":"Cali Rose","author_link":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/author\/crbauthor\/"},"comment_info":1,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"blog entry","slug":"blogentry","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":2,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":137,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":137,"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":[{"term_id":10,"name":"Mighty Mo Ukulele Festival","slug":"mighty-mo-ukulele-festival","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":10,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":41,"name":"ukulele","slug":"ukulele","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":41,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":15,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","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=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/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=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calirose.com\/wackyworld\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}