Some people just brought dessert, or a salad.

I mentioned missing our friend Ellen last week, and now today (yippee!) Harrison will be back in town to visit, so I thought I should tell you about our piano.

We'd been needing a piano for quite some time. Lindsey had been taking lessons from Ellen for over a year already, and using an inadequate (but cool, and portable) electric keyboard. But also, all of the kids are musically inclined to varying degrees, not to mention that the band needs a keyboardist, and in general both of us sort of feel that a piano is one of those things every home should have.

That, a fireplace, and a Labrador.

Well, we had none of the three, until this August. Ellen and Michael, wonderful people, and talented musicians, were moving away. For all good things-new jobs, new house, new place-but still, they were leaving not a few friends extremely sad to see them go. They naturally knew of the piano-deficit in our household, and had generously offered to give us one of theirs. Not just any piano, but a perfect little sculpture of wood with ivory keys on which Michael had composed his opera, Spa. Meaningful to them, all the more meaningful to us that they would have us take it.

Well, take it we did! While I was fussing about in the kitchen counting forks and putting on dinner, Tim, Steve, Michael, and his and Ellen's four adorable sons BROUGHT US THE PIANO.

Lindsey was suitably excited; as you can see, she was in the van playing it before they could move it into the house. Of course, she would have been thrilled to have taken their Labrador, as well, but that's another story.

So in they moved it to the spot we had waiting in the dining room, and we all had a lovely, albeit bittersweet, evening saying good bye and good luck.

We will forever be grateful, for the piano, and for having gotten to know its previous owners just a little bit better before they moved on from Tarrytown.

Coda: This piano is so perfect for us and we love it. Still a little out of tune, and a little funky, but I would not have known what to do with some huge piece of glossy black elegance. And now, still lacking a fireplace mantle to decorate, I have the next best thing: the back of the piano, upon which I can now arrange all sorts of pretty seasonal things.

One out of three ain't bad. Thanks for reading.

tt