For the past month, I’ve been carving out the Tenjin (headpiece with the square whole in the middle as you can see)

Then, two days ago, I whipped up the Itomaki (I.e, tuning pegs). Boy, nice to be able to make some shamisen parts that take less than a month to make.

Even though most of my time has been taken up with that, a few interesting things have cropped up here and there. . .

Well, 6 years later, (when we became the Abbott Family Band) we decided that the hats were cute at the time, but now that we’re ugly, the hats seem pathetic. Since we always wear shorts anyway, the only thing special we do is wear cotton button-up shirts (Which is what Pa, Ma and Luke always wear but I’m t-shirt person). You could say we’ve gotten more casual in our attire as we’ve moved on. When I say “we,” I really mean Pa, Luke and I. Ma still spends an hour the day
before deciding on what she’s going to wear.

Well, a couple weeks ago, the day before a gig, Ma was figuring out what to wear. Well, she came out with this thing. The very first costume was just like the one you see here except the skirt was solid white and the belt was the only contrast. Oh man! I had to take the mirror out of her room ’cause it wasn’t helping.

I blurred her face to spare her the embarrassment.

We decided to go again the next day (even though it wasn’t one of the two traditional days to go down) because it was sunny. Unfortunately, it was also breezy. I’d rather have some fog and no breeze than sun w/ breeze. When it’s foggy, you don’t get warmed by the sun but any heat you make from yoga (which is what we do at that time of day on the beach) gets fairly retained. When it’s windy, you have to really work hard to build up enough heat to counteract the cool-down of the wind. After that, we have Tai Chi. It’s even harder (unless you do it at a really low stance) to build up enough heat. After Yoga, I did Karate instead of Tai Chi so I could build up more heat quicker. Then, it was time to dive in! The waves were pretty rough. Not as rough as the ones in my last post but they were surfable. However, I knew from last time’s experience that I wouldn’t have been able to make it in front of the wave in time. I mean, if I hurried and spent a bit of time, I could probably, but I was freezing so I just wanted to dive in and get out (that’s the tradition). So, seeing the end of a big wave (you know, the end where it turns fluffy white and ripples forward) coming forward, I crouched down in a huddled position and the wave came over me with more force than I thought. When I got up. I saw that Luke and Pa were still walking forward to get to the brunt of the wave. I saw Pa dive in but as the wave came forward, I saw Luke turn around as the wave crashed into him. The wave did crash along the backside of his body up to his head. Even though he technically got his head wet, it didn’t get really wet. The tradition is that you submerge yourself all the way to where you can hear the bubbly “submerged,” “wet” or “ears-full-of-water” sound in your ear. Just get sprayed in the back from the wave doesn’t count!

As the 6 month tradition goes, after you dive in the water, you have a hot cocoa and a day old scone at Marinis. However, Luke didn’t get his head fully wet. We decided that he could have a cocoa but not a scone. When we biked up the wharf and entered Marinis to order, Luke asked me if we were getting two scones. I said that he didn’t “complete” the tradition. He said that most of his head got wet but I replied that it was the principle of the thing. When we got to the day-old scone bin, we saw that there was only one. That answered that! I took it. We were talking and I heard some biker buddies (not my buddies) talking and one said, “did you see a scone in that bin? Did you take it?” The other one said, “no.” Anyway, we straightened the whole thing out and he got his scone back.

As we were waiting, we heard one of the biker guys talking to the waitress. He said, “do you get many swimmers at this time of year? Has the water warmed up enough?” The waitress said, “I guess. The people who come down to the beach use wetsuits so they stay warm.” One of the biker guys said, “Not really, I saw three guys in bathing suits down there.” If you haven’t guessed, that was us. . . wetsuits are for sissies. (I didn’t say that to them of course) So, we got our cocoas and drank outside. (as the tradition goes)

Today, it was quite different. It was pretty rough. As we were doing Yoga, some big waves sprung up out of nowhere. It seemed like good body surfing so I took off my shirt to swim instead of doing Tai Chi. However, after Yoga, the waves settled down so I did Tai Chi with the rest of the gang.

However, when we finished Tai Chi and headed for the water, the waves came back! Boy, it sure was rougher than I thought! A big wave was coming so I was running towards it to be the the right spot to ride it. Unfortunately, By the time I reached the spot, the wave had already peaked so I tried diving into the wave to get through to the other end but the wave pushed me back rolled me on the ground for a while before I could get up. Then, I saw another wave coming so I decided to try to go for it. Same thing happened and this time, salty water got sent up my nose. I decided enough was enough so I was walking back. Even that was pretty hard ’cause the water was rushing back. Then a wave pushed me forward and I managed to get back.

Boy, I was more out of breath from swimming than I was from biking back at full speed (which is a tradition to do on the way back home.

I think since it’s been quite a while since I’d body surfing, I hadn’t gotten my “groove” on (if you know what I mean)

She a lot better now and is walking again and is getting her strength back (which, if she’s walking, is obvious I guess). She’s 95 now and over the years, has collected lots of junk. Both sentimental mementos and also more stuff than she needs. For example, 25 paper towels and 5 cans of dust spray (she likes to get a lot of a particular thing ’cause she’s afraid the store won’t carry ‘em anymore). Pa’s been trying to get her to clean out her house for years but now has put his foot down. Fortunately, when she was in the hospital, she said how she just had a feeling of wanting to clean out the extra clutter in her house. Well, that was convenient! So, she’s been back home for about a month and in the meantime, he’s been doing a cleansweep.

The house looks/feels much better now. Before, there was so much stuff, it was hard to maneuver. Now it’s soooo roomy ‘n nice. I think she likes it better too. However, there’s one bad thing about the lack of stuff in her house. Before, (when there was a lot of stuff) I would sometimes go to her house at night (when we have dinner) ’cause I wanted to get some pretzels for a sandwich. She’s easily startled and I don’t want to surprise her. I could go up and tell her I was here to get some pretzels but I find getting into a conversation with somebody just to say your in the house seems like a waste of time. So I’d would hide behind a table or rack until the coast is clear. Then, I’d get the pretzels and leave. Now, it’s gonna be harder when there’s less stuff around.

Anyway, Pa’s also cleaning up her diet too. (since healthy food [no matter how tasty] were ever on her “Top Ten,” she hasn’t eaten many in the past years) He’s been throwing out quite a bit of tasty food and extra food she had (she a little woman and thus eats very little so having two cans of a particular thing is a waste of space. Since, so far, I don’t have a weight/diet problem, I’ve been sampling what he’s been throwing out. First, it was good ol’ fudge! It was tasty chocolate, peanut and walnut fudges (or fudgi). Keep in mind, I didn’t eat the whole box mind you, just sampled a little bit of everything, to get the flavors . . . like a conissuer. Than he threw out Fat Free “Cheese Food.” I sampled a slice. I prefer real cheese personally. Later, he threw out cans of “Diet Cream Soda.” I had one. I think the non-diet would’ve been better but it did wet the whistle.

Today, he threw out a can of pickles, steak sauce, a quart of mayo and a can of Boston Baked Beans. He let me take the pickles (’cause I’m a pickle gourmet) to our house but he didn’t want me to bring the rest of the stuff back. He didn’t say we couldn’t eat it of course, we just couldn’t keep it in the house. Understandable, we really don’t need a quart of mayonnaise. Luke and made some food that would go good with steak sauce, mayo and baked beans. I made a salami sandwich with a big salad and Luke made a burrito with lettuce on the side. I made a carbonated lemon beverage to go with the sandwich. (2 lemons, pinch of salt, 1-2TB sugar, 2 cups sparkling mineral water)

While I was still making my food, Luke went to Grandmas house and came back with the beans in a bowl. He said he wanted to heat them up and also doctor it up with extra ingredients. Augh! I thought that took the spontaneity out of it! I ran back to grandmas house as fast as I could. I went to the garbage can and managed to fish out the bean can. I rushed back before he could heat up the beans and put my share back in the can.

All in all, it tasted pretty good. Filling with all the mayo.

After ordering that, I decided to get some goatskin to re-skin my old shamisen. I had been wanting to do that for a while but was too busy to do it while I was working on my new one. Now, since I couldn’t do anything else without the 2nd file, I could use that time to re-skin the shamisen. The local drum store (where I’ve purchased skin in the past) was the place to go for that. I didn’t know their store hours so I looked online. They said they were open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00-6:00. We biked down there at 5:00 and saw it was closed! I read on the sign that it was open from Thursday to Saturday. I could see that the site and the store weren’t exactly synchronized.

Murphy’s Law, when I go there on Thursday, they will be sold out of goat skin.

At least I got the file ordered!

It worked pretty well with one of the body pieces. I managed to get the proper angles back. Since one of the pieces had been made smaller by the sanding, I would have make the opposite piece exactly the same for it to fit right. So this next piece, I’d be taking off 1/8″ of wood. Through this next piece where I did a lot of sanding, I found out that there were a couple things wrong with m’ jig. I wanted to right those wrongs before starting on another piece.

One was that sanding took a long time. Not just that, trying to get the sandpaper flush with the brace took a while ’cause I clamped the sandpaper to the wood using a screw clamp. As we know with a screwclamp, when you turn the handle, that turns/rotates the part of the clamp that touches the wood, sandpaper or any surface. Well, when I had the sandpaper flush with the wood, the rotating part of the clamp presses against the sandpaper and since the part of the clamp rotates, it also twists the paper therefor, “unflushing” it. I did manage to get it right but it took quite a bit of time.

Another problem was after I sanded, a little bit, the wood would get a micrometer smaller and I’d then have to take the sandpaper off, move the braces closer, and then put the sandpaper back (which all took more time than it should). Also, the sandpaper would tear which made me start the whole thing over again.
Two things had to be changed. One, not needing to move the braces. Two, an alternative to sandpaper. Well, for the braces, we decided to due which wouldn’t require me to remove the sandpaper was slipping sheets of paper on both sides. this raised the sandpaper off making the distance shorter which was needed when the shamisen body piece got shorter (and when I short, I really mean about 1/2 mm). So, for this next piece, I did that. that had been going along famously. However, after I got the piece to be the same length as the first one I did, I noticed that, while the angle was fairly true, it was bowed! Not good! The best explanation was that all the paper (to raise the sandpaper up) that was under the sandpaper changed the levelness of the flat wood underneath. So, after all that, I had to go back to the original “brace moving” strategy.

I got ‘em both pretty accurate. Not perfect but good enough for now. Now I had a new change to make. Instead of sandpaper, I would use clamp a flat file down on both surfaces. Not only would they be straight, they would also grind off wood much quicker than sandpaper would. We had just the file to use: A Nicholson Farrier file. Unfortunately, we only had one so we went to the hardware store to get another. That story will follow.

How bangier can you get than Tuvan Throat Singing and Tsugaru Shamisen!

It went off pretty well. There were some blunders here and there which on those parts, I believe I roll my eyes or smile.

Since Wordpress is a little sucky, I can’t put the video up here but I can give you a link to it on youtube.

We were all doing are own thing when suddenly, Ma says, “you know, I was thinking about telling John (not the persons true name but let’s say it is to make it interesting) about the party today.”
Now, one thing I have to tell you about John to put this in perspective.  He talks. . . a lot. It’s even beyond talking. It’s non-threatening verbal assault. When you are by him, he will start talking to you. Sure a little bit of chit chat wouldn’t hurt nobody but he will go on and on and you want to leave but it’s hard to find an opening. Even when he does pause to give you a chance to escape, he will follow you and keep talking! The only way it could get worse is if he grabbed your arm and pulled you in for the too-close conversation.

Now, I was shocked by Ma’s idea. I asked why in the world she would want to do that?  Then she said, “well, I was thinking about how mean we’ve been to him by ignoring him, I thought I’d make it up to him by inviting him over for dinner.” I almost passed out! “Wait! Did you send the letter yet?” I asked. “Yeah.” She said. For ten minutes I was reeling and said how by inviting him over, she dragged us into it and we’re gonna get non-aggressively verbally bombarded. (or ‘friendly-fire’ as we say)

Then, Ma started to chuckle and said, “Boy! This has been my best one yet!” I thought she meant that it was her best foot-in-the-mouth blunder or best “whoops!” moment. Just then, I realized that it was April Fools day! However, I had yet to realize that John-invitation thing was a prank so I came up with a brilliant idea and said, “Hey! When we see John, we’ll tell him ‘April Fools!’ and then we don’t have to eat with him!”  After that, to my relief, I finally realized the whole thing was a joke. whoo!