It's a girl. Definitely a girl.

So the one thing I didn't blog about in my last post was the adoption of my new baby girl. Here she is:


She's a little shy, like me.



And here she is coming out of her shell a bit.


Look at that big beautiful smile!

I adopted her from the Asano Taiko Orphanage. I just had to pay the adoption fees and she was all mine. But boy o boy was it a hard decision. First I went in to the taiko marketplace and looked around at the other vendors. Miyamoto. Remo. Miyoshi. Great drums, really, but none of them were my baby. At the Asano booth I just stood there and stared at the drums. The lady must have thought I was crazy. They were all beautiful. They had really small ones and medium ones and bigger ones. As soon as I saw them I knew: one of those is my baby.

I went away and then I came back. And stared. The lady was really nice. She let me go behind the table and actually touch them and play them a little. And then I asked if they took credit cards and she said "no." Can you believe that? They don't take credit? And can you believe how stupid I felt when I realized that I hadn't even thought of bringing my checkbook to the conference. What was I thinking? Or rather, what was I not thinking?? I swear I would have kicked myself it that didn't require coordination and acrobatics. I was all set to buy a medium drum and everything. I had to walk around all day thinking about all the people who were going to adopt my baby. But I guess it worked out in the end because the next day I brought my checkbook, and even though all the medium drums were gone, there were still some beautiful larger ones available. With the larger shime, you can tighten harder and they can produce a higher tone.

After settling all the paperwork, ie filling out the check, writing in some numbers, signing 2 weeks of salary away just as fast as it got direct deposited, the baby was mine. A genuine Asano original. 400 years of fine craftsmanship. Direct from Japan--smelling of Japan. My car smelled great the whole drive back. They should make "New Drum" air fresheners.


Check out the finish on this. Such a pretty shade of red. And those knots. I can tie those knots now! I haven't tried tightening this shime though. It came this way. That will be the subject of another blog.

I still need to name her. I haven't figured out a good one yet. Maybe when we actually get to play without the stupid muffles her true personality will come out. But for now, I couldn't be happier!