Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of my 21st birthday, and it was pretty awesome. Why? Well, I got a surprise visit from my mom last weekend while the fiancé was home visiting his family, and we had some really great quality girl time. Shopping and delicious brunch, and olive oil tasting and wine and ohmygoodness wedding stuff. It was really great getting to see her right before my birthday because my job doesn’t allow me to go home for the holidays, and I don’t know the next time I’ll see her.
Oh, and also because my man got me a freakin’ UKULELE:
The shirt says "Uke can do it!"
To most people, this is pretty darn random but to me it was perfect. I’ve picked up and abandoned various musical instruments and endeavors throughout my life (piano, voice, guitar, drums) so it’s not totally out of left field for me to be into something like this. But it was definitely a surprise and a great one!
To explain, I guess I should first point out the shirt. (How adorable is it? So adorable.) The chick dressed up like Rosie the Riveter on there is Amanda Palmer : Piano-playing Dresden Doll, frequent nudist, wife of author Neil Gaiman, and ukulele enthusiast. I may or may not have the teensiest girl crush on Amanda there (and a teensy regular one on her hubby) and so made my fiancé go with me when the both of them came to San Francisco on a recent tour.
One of her newest songs is the “Ukulele Anthem”, my favorite lyrics of which are as follows:
It takes about an hour to learn how to play the ukulele,
about the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb
YOU DO THE MATH
It’s fun and hilarious and clever and full of curses, just how I like it. It’s basically about how the world might be a better place if everyone played ukulele. Future Husband and I both really liked it, and had a great time at the show (minus our car getting towed afterward, but that’s another story). So when yesterday morning he excitedly presented me with the shirt, ukulele and a beginner ukulele book I cracked up and thought it was the most perfect gift. My parents cracked up, too when I told them but that just goes to show you that ukuleles really DO bring happiness! Either that, or they think my fiancé is really silly. (He is really silly. It’s great, and we’re all quite happy with that.)
I even brought my ukulele to work to show my coworker who plays. (He’s Hawaiian. Go figure.) It turned out our other coworker is the one who taught him how to play, so he was excited for me, too and even tuned it for me! I’ve already started learning some really easy songs and chords, and Amanda Palmer isn’t kidding in that song about how easy ukulele is. At least, very basic ukulele, as youTube can very quickly tell you there are some absolutely disgustingly talented ukulele players out there.
My ouchie fingers and I are calling it a night – I’m already making my man learn that Jason Mraz song – the one you know you love even though you’ve heard it a million times – with me since he has a mandolin and a tenor guitar. We’re working on being sickly cute together so that we’re pros at it by the time the wedding rolls around 
In closing, UKULELE POWER! And if you want to check out all of the Ukulele Anthem lyrics (so great) or download it for free (or however much you feel like donating to Amanda) you can do that right HERE on her site.
(OK, fine, just a few more lyrics, because I love them)
so play your favorite cover song, especially if the words are wrong
‘cos even if your grades are bad, it doesn’t mean you’re failing
do your homework with a fork
and eat your fruit loops in the dark
and bring your etch-a-sketch to work
and play your ukulele
ukulele small and forceful
brave and peaceful
you can play the ukulele too it is painfully simple
play your ukulele badly, play your ukulele loudly
ukulele banish evil
ukulele save the people
ukulele gleaming golden on the top of every steeple
[...] And both were AWESOME. Wanna see? [...]