My cello

I got my cello by luck. I started talking about wanting to learn cello, which felt like a tiny tip-toe in the direction of actually playing. And then I mentioned my idea to our family friend Roger Thompson, an 80-year-old music lover, as we ate dinner before an opera. Roger said, "I used to play cello, but I gave it up years ago. You can use my cello, if you like, though you'll have to fix it up." So now I have a long-term loaner cello, beautifully fixed up by the great folks at Ifshin. I gave Roger a thank-you gift of a boxed set of cello music on CD, along with his old end-pin, strings, tail-piece and mildewed canvas cello case. I couldn't give him the old bow hairs because they had bow bugs. Ew.