Musical instruments I do not play

 So, here's the thing:

Some years back - more than I care to calculate at this point - I bought the ukulele pictured above in a mad flight of island fancy during a trip to Maui. As time passed, I practiced irregularly, took a few lessons from time to time, and even recorded a video or two of my playing during one more active period, but really, the uke spent a lot of time idle. I am not sure if I don't have a musical soul at all, or if I just never had a long enough stretch of consistent practice to reach critical mass, or what, but I can't say with any honesty, even after all this time, that I play the ukulele.

Of course, since owning a ukulele worked out so well, I went ahead and got a mandolin, which you can also see above.

This decision was made in the service of charitable giving at an online gala supporting the Whatcom County Humane Society, and was encouraged by the enthusiasm of friends (if not spouse), spurred on by a little auction rivalry with one "Amanda", and perhaps abetted by some consumption of peanut butter whiskey. But paying entirely too much for an instrument that I cannot play was all for a good cause, so there we are. I hope the kitties and puppies are happy.

Oh, did I mention it's an electric mandolin? It came with this sweet amp and bunch of other stuff.

So, what have I learned about mandolins since making this commitment? Well, first, that they are tuned completely differently from a ukulele; that they have metal strings instead of nylon; that they are strummed or plucked with picks; and that the likelihood of my actually learning to play one is certainly no worse than my learning to play ukulele, but hardly any better.

In any case, I can't play either one right now, over even tune them, since my thumb is broken. At least that's a legit excuse, eh?

Jig-word Cross-saw

So, you may know that Coco and I enjoy from time to time what we call Puzzle Time, that interval when we put on some music or an old black and white movie, and she sits at her puzzle station and works on a 1,000-piece eBoo jigsaw puzzle, and I sit nearby on the couch and do a NY Times crossword puzzle. It's a practice that arose during lockdown days, but one that we find peaceful and comfortable and plan to continue.

The puzzle station behind the couch

Well, today the two worlds collided. I was doing my lunchtime crossword and its title was JIGSAW PUZZLE.

The theme answers were descriptions of things you do with a jigsaw puzzle phrased in common expressions, such as PICK UP THE PIECES and GET IT TOGETHER. But the real cleverness of the puzzle lay in its incorporation of an actual jigsaw puzzle into the grid!

Look where I have outline the circled letters in some of the words - here's a closeup:

See how the F M E N forms a kind of upside-down T-shape? And how the R E T T S makes a backwards C? All those little arrangements of letters formed the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, like so:

And that cordoned off little section in the bottom of the puzzle is where the pieces fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to form the final answer!

I love puzzles that are challenging but interesting and have a nice payoff, rather than just being slogs through trivia or attempts at interpreting clues that are not just obscure but dubious.

Hats off to Christina Iverson and Jeff Chen - this puzzle was a winner!