Fun Fact: 0.1% of people in the US are fluent in Romanian

I haven't posted in such long very inconsistent. Luckily for you, my dear readers, I have summoned a guest poster to tell his story titled, "I'll Take Roamin' Romanian for 2000, Alex."

The guest poster is Skooter. Here go.

Ten seconds or less of observation at any one of my fraternity's exec meetings, and you'll realize that competence, attention span, and forethought are spread thin throughout.  More importantly, you'll realize that only one person (myself) actually has the capacity to charitably give a flying fuck. (I do, most of the time)

So, a whole bunch of years ago (like a decade or some Greek shit word) a bunch of previous members of my fraternity purchased a domain name and have operated and maintained a website up until about a year ago.  Exactly one yearish ago, someone....dropped the fucking ball.   And it was heavy, and damaged the floor, and the vinyl needed to be replaced, and it was this whole thing.

Anyway, the person with the information to login to our GoDaddy site decided that none of that information was worth writing down, or sharing with anyone, or carving into stone tablets, or even committing to memory, or ANY OTHER FORM OF TANGIBLE OR INTANGIBLE MEDIA.  And after the year passed with no one logging into our GoDaddy, the credit card expired and we were no longer able to be charged for our domain rental.  Which we found out when our email and Google drives and everything else that used the domain as its server LEFT US HANGING.   No email.  No Google drive.  No fun.

After staring at the sun until they could see a little dark circle in their retinas, and trying to follow it to treasure for an hour and a half, one of the exec members mentioned the issue to me.  So, pulling out my handy dandy bag of fucks, I pulled yet another out to give that no one else wanted to.  And called GoDaddy.  

Now, GoDaddy was more than accomodating, and completely understood the situation.  "These things happen, we understand that." said the nice man on the other end of the line.  "You've been with us so long, this isn't a normal behavior for you as a client, so we're even going to waive the re-activation fees."  Alright, that's cool.  Won't argue with special treatment.  I gave him an updated credit card, repurchased the domain, and pat myself on the back for totally saving the day and being like a super rad dude.

Or so I thought.  But this is my life, and nothing can ever work ever.

I quickly realize our email and other server functions aren't working still, and at that moment, I log back into GoDaddy to be all "What's going on, eh?".  I nearly rocket-thrust shit myself through the ceiling of the room and into the upper floor when I realized that the salesman had sold me a .com, instead of the .org that we had been using.  So everything was still broken like it was Y2fuckingK.

I call GoDaddy back and, being certain I said ".org" requested they change the subscription after only one day.  The nice man on the other end, being just as understanding, agrees.  Then, the no longer nice man corrected himself and left me to hang with "Oh.   OOOHHH.   Uh oh....."  to which, I responded "Huh." as he explained the situation.  Because our account had made activity, and had NOT renewed the .org site, GoDaddy concluded that we must not want that domain back, and sold it to the next person on the waiting list for it.  "We can get it back for you." offered the man of varying niceties, depending on the minute.  "....Yea, do that." I replied, with just the slightest bit of vinegar.  "There's no guarantee,"  OK.  "And we take a small percent of the purchase price." OK.  "And the starting rate is $90 to attempt."  Oh,  kindly step back, because you don't know me like that.  I can yell and scream for WAY less than $90.  

So I run a whois.com search, and find out who bought our domain.  We'll call him CAL.  CAL owns over 42,000 websites, I came to find out, as I stalked him like a high school freshman girl looking at the totes adorbs boy that sits next to her in English 101 and is the starting quarterback and sooooooooooo cute.

Fuck.  He owns 42,000 sites,  Which means either A) He uses them for work and needs them or B) He buys and sells them for profit.  Neither of those are in my favor to get this domain back relatively quickly or cheaply.  Oh, and the little tiny bird that is point C) HE LIVES IN ROMANIA.  AND BARELY SPEAKS ENGLISH.

I decided calling and essentially saying "I'm an American frat boy, I need my website back" was probably a bad way to go about this.  I then decided having someone call, in Romanian, and explain that the domain belonged to a non-profit for the past decade, and we can't afford to setup the system again on a new server (which is all technically true) he might be a little more accommodating. 

BEGIN WIKI "ROMANIA"

Ok, so very few people speak Romanian, no one learns it for fun, and no other language is close.  I found a single teacher at my university, conveniently known as incredibly bitchy, who was fluent.

Fuck.

So I ran downstairs to the kid in my fraternity that moved from Poland, and we had the following exchange:

Me: "Do you speak Romanian?"
Him: "I speak Polish."
Me: "Do you speak Romanian?"
Him: "I speak Polish."
Me: "CAN YOU FUCKING FAKE ROMANIAN?"
Him: "No, it doesn't work like that.  It's a romantic language, and the closest thing is Hungarian.  And no, I can't fake Hungarian."

Double fuck.

My pledge son, from this point on SON, was also in the room watching my brain try to figure out the fastest way to end its own existence.   He laughed appropriately at my futile attempts to yell someone into fluency of a language I couldn't even write.

I sat down on his couch, and contemplated if the fall from the roof (head first of course) would be enough to kill me the first time, or if I'd need to climb up twice.

*Enter pledges for an independent reason*

Pledge 1: "Where's-"
SON: "SHUT THE FUCK UP, DO YOU SPEAK ROMANIAN?"
Pledge 2: "No."
Pledge 1: "I was born there.  I'm fluent."
Me: "ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME,   ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS.  I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU DON'T ACTUALLY SPEAK THE LANGUAGE I'M GOING TO CASTRATE YOU WITH SOMETHING VERY VERY VERY DULL AND RUSTY."
Pledge 1: "Nah, I'm actually fluent."

In the heat of it all, I realized I was holding the kids collar and possibly raising my voice a bit, and maybe I'm too close to his face.  I back up, calm myself, and explain the situation.

Pledge 1: "So I have to call Romania, and tell this guy stuff, and we're buying our website back?"
Me: "Exactly.  I'll buy you pizza.  Romanian speakers are hard to come by apparently."
Pledge 1: "Fuck it, let's do it."

After setting up Google voice, this kid sits down and turns into the Romanian equivalent of Barry Manilow, smooth talking CAL like he was working his way into the bedroom.

After two days to think about it, Pledge 1 was able to haggle CAL down from $500 to $90, because Romanian Barry Manilow don't pay more than the love is worth.

The kid ROCKED it.  We got our website and server functions back, I bought pizza for the team of international businessmen (because that's totally what it was, and I'm putting it on me resume), and the day was saved.


Out-of-Context Quotes From Just Errywhere

"Dude, I'm so into this gun thing."

"I have learned the hard way that the black rock holds down the poopies."

My fingers are finging

Three-ish weeks ago, I was asked to accompany for my coworker's daughter's wedding. I was honored when she called me; I have never been asked to play for a wedding before and have only really played a few songs here and there for graduations and school masses. It was pretty last minute, as the girls who were going to sing asked for an accompanist three weeks before the big day. I said I would love to do it as long as I got the music well in advance so I could learn the few songs and be ready to rock. The ceremony was going to be at Al's so it was somewhere I'm totally comfortable and have a pretty decent track record. She said it was just a wedding ceremony and not a full Mass, so it wouldn't be too long and it would be less work for me because I wouldn't need to learn any of the Communion prep, consecration stuff, and deal with a Communion song or two. My impression at the time was that I just needed to learn three, maybe four songs in three weeks.

Boy was I wrong.

I can't sight read, but I can teach myself almost anything as long as I have a few weeks to do it. I wasn't worried at the time as I thought I had three weeks.

I didn't get the music until a week before the wedding. I also received music for eight songs.

Eight.

I can do a lot of things. As Nick would tell me, not only can I do a lot of things but I even know so many things. But learning eight things in a week seemed like something I couldn't accomplish even with a glass of wine and mandatory constant moral support from Abby. That's more than one song a day! Two of those days I'm going to be in DBQ for the surprise party! (Sidebar we had a surprise 75th birthday party for my grandmother but don't worry we didn't pop out and yell or anything like that.) I decided to look through the songs before I went into full-blown freakout mode because hey, I bet I already know some of these. People tend to pick popular, well-known pretty songs for weddings, right? RIGHT?!

The bride requested some songs to do as preludes before the ceremony that were churchy but not exactly from my handy dandy Gather book. I almost crapped my pants as I read through the list. Of the eight songs, I knew how to play one. And I knew it thirteen years ago so that barely counts. I knew what seven of the eight songs sounded like but had only ever played one.

I looked at the Flower Duet. Oh hell no I can NOT learn this in a week much less learn seven other songs at the same time. BZZZT.

I looked at The Prayer. I decided I would be using my version instead of the one she sent me. Luckily, they were in the same key and mine was just easier. I had plunked my way through The Prayer a few times in my life but had never played it with singers and have certainly never played it all the way through without swearing and starting over.

I looked at the Ave Maria. Yes, that Ave Maria. Son of a bitch I've never played this and it's chordy and everyone knows this so I have to do it right and probably not just wing it...

I looked at A Blessing of Music. What is this? I don't think I've ever heard this but it looks easy. This should be fine.

I looked at the Celtic Alleluia. Classic. Also imperative that I don't screw this one up because everyone knows it. Except Molly.

I looked at Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee. Ode to Joy. Doable. Done. Too bad I forgot about it until the Thursday before and suddenly remembered that I had to learn it.

Canon in D. Oh yes, the instrumental for the processional. Which means I needed to nail it because there's no singing and also EVERYONE IS WALKING IN.

I had to pull Canon in D from the depths of my mind. It was so far back in there I passed Fur Elise, cheerleading routines, and all the harmony from choir. The last time I played Canon in D was for the talent show when I was in 4th grade. It was a simplified version that didn't sound too simplified so it totally worked.

I practiced like crazy for the week. I had the Ave Maria on constant repeat in my head. I listened to dozens of different versions of Canon in D and decided it would be more work to unlearn my version to learn the real version and just kind of stopped looking at the music and played it by feel. I met up with the girls on Friday before the rehearsal dinner so we could run through the songs together as we had never met and I knew I was going to need all the practice I could get before the big day. Thankfully, they are beautifully amazing singers who could totally hold their own and I didn't need to really play the melody for almost anything. We decided to start with A Blessing of Music because it was the one we were both least familiar with. I kind of learned it but not really which ended up working out because the girls also kind of learned it but not really so we decided to just scrap it. Amen.

Unfortunately, Saturday afternoon happened and it was go time. We were supposed to play the preludes starting around 2:00 and the ceremony was scheduled to start at 2:30.

This is where the story gets even more ridiculous.

The priest is late. Super late. We're not even sure where he is and if he knows he's supposed to do this wedding kind of late.

While we were waiting for the priest, the girls and I were asked to just keep the music going. We ended up doing the Ave Maria three separate times, The Prayer twice, and the Flower Duet twice. I also played random songs from the Gather book that I knew because what else am I going to play in a church? I played five or six songs and made sure to play many, many verses of each. All five verses of Blest are They? Sure! Playing I am the Bread of Life long enough to get into the Spanish verses? Of course! We had an undetermined amount of time to kill so I just went balls to the wall with the Bible Jamz.

Let me give you a quick rundown of Bible Jamz. When we were still at IWU, sometimes I would have to go play random songs just because. Because I only teach myself the prettiest songs, Kristen started coming with me when I went to Presser and would read, study, or just listen as I played everything I could think of. I lugged my big accompaniment books and we started calling it Bible Jamz.

I basically did Bible Jamz for a hundred people. It was great.

The priest who was supposed to do the ceremony never showed up. More than half an hour after the wedding was supposed to start, someone ran over to the rectory to see if anyone was there. Luckily, another priest who lives in the rectory was home and agreed to do the ceremony right then and there.

Suddenly, it was time for Canon in D. I saw everyone lining up at the doors to process in and started to play.

I don't think I have ever witnessed a procession that moved at such a glacial pace. I soon realized that I was going to have to add to Canon in D to make sure I didn't run out of song before the bride even got to the aisle, much less down it.

I had to improv. I can't improv. But I had to. I just had to keep playing. Did I mention that I realized that having the music for the real Canon in D only screwed me up so I opted to play from memory? If you know me, you know that I can not play a single thing from memory. Not a thing. But I turned this into a thing.

I could not ever replicate the version of Canon I played as it was a one-time-only Molly original. I was drawing on George Winston, my simplified version from 2001, and straight up feels. I think I'm going to call is Hot Mess in D. I'm glad Canon is such an easy song to just keep adding to because otherwise this story would not have had such a happy ending.

Thankfully, the rest of the ceremony went off without a hitch. I made it through all the songs, I didn't noticeably screw anything up, and I remembered to put my shoes back on before I walked away from the piano at the end.

I don't think I can ever listen to Ave Maria again without twitching a little bit. Maybe I'll take a short break from playing...probably not though.