What's Brown and Sticky?

My friend Katy's favorite riddle: "What's brown and sticky?"

Katy would usually start laughing before she ever even reached the punch line, which was:

"A stick."

Try telling this joke sometime. You'll find it gets funnier and funnier (to you, at least) every time you tell it. You'll also find that whoever you tell it to will think it's a really lame joke. For some reason, that's part of the fun.

On Friday afternoon, I found something brown and sticky waiting on my porch. It wasn't a stick. It was a gigantic cardboard box covered in sticky tape.

So here's a new riddle: What comes in a brown and sticky cardboard box?

*** Oh, the suspense... ***

***

Answer: This!

I missed my old beastie piano really badly, so early last week I went on an urgent mission to find something to fill the void. The result is this digital Casio keyboard. It produces really gorgeous grand piano sound, will never need tuning, and it's hammer-weighted so it feels a lot like playing a real piano, but it's light enough for me to lift by myself so it will be super easy to move. (No more dying wildebeest tragedies!)

It arrived by UPS on Friday afternoon, just after I got home from a pediatric advanced life support training session. I spent the rest of the evening setting it up and giving it plenty of musical pounding. It's amazing how this place feels so much more like home now that there's a piano in it!

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Speaking of this place, here's a little tour of my apartment now that I'm all settled in. It's got a lot of old-world charm, and reallyreallyreally tall ceilings that make even my tallest bookshelves look like teensyweensy dollhouse furniture. And the more I look at it, the more the carved scrollwork on the fireplace mantle looks like Santa Claus. Am I crazy, or is there an uncanny resemblance there?! If you're ever in the mood to see Virginia, (...or, um, Santa Claus) you're welcome to visit me here anytime!