Cleaning up

Got a skip on Friday for a long weekend clean up.   It feels like we are getting ready to move house, even though we aren't.   Also, its a bit of a worry when you nearly fill a skip and still think parts of the house look a bit cluttered.  But it is still only 2/3 full.

I'm pretty sure people have no idea how heavy old upright pianos can be.   The one which I have spent 2 days trying to figure out how to get into the skip was taken by my wife off a friend who was wanting to get rid of it, in the hope that it might be repairable.  (I was always sure it wasn't, at anything like a reasonable cost, and I was right.)  Hence it has been used as a (feels like) one tonne, immoveable shelf for something like 20 years.  I was more than happy to try to dispose of it.

It was a challenge: lots of unscrewing, sawing, spannering, kicking, and failed attempts to cut piano wire, which is extraordinary tough stuff.  Despite all of this, the extremely heavy cast iron (or whatever it is) harp like heart of it, still attached to the solidly built wood back, is lying flat on the ground in front of the house, behind a bush, waiting to see if I can figure out a way to drag it the last 5 metres to the skip (not to mention how to lift it into it.)

I'm seriously thinking of setting the wood alight, since if it was the metal alone it might be more easily handled.  This is probably illegal.   It might also alarm the neighbours, too.   But really, I'm running out of options.

I've always thought that taking apart a piano would feel a little uncomfortably wrong in some sense, like killing an animal.   (It certainly makes a lot of noise.)   But I'm pretty much over that.  If any animal worth eating was shaped like a piano, I wouldn't hesitate.  

Speaking of eating animals, I did a lot of it on Sunday, at a very authentic charcoal yakiniku place in the city.   It made me think:  while I have long been sceptical that lab grown meat is going to easily be made structurally into something that would have a realistic steak texture, perhaps there is a better chance of gluing cells together into a thin slice such as is used most commonly in yakiniku.   But then again,  it's going to be hard to do the fat in wagyu meat, thin slice or not.   

Gah, I think I have a splinter in my hand from that piano.  Its revenge, no doubt.