February is “Gotcha!” Day for the puppers!
Back in February 14th 2015, we adopted Spring AKA Potato Anastasia so every year we celebrate Potato day and on February 17th 2016, we adopted Blue aka Chimi Francis Changa and we celebrate his day.
Potato definitely bonded more with D because he was always coming and going. When we were preparing to move from Boston, MA to Bayamon, PR, I stayed with my parents and Potato until D was released and ready to move. At this point, Potato got attached my mom and it was hard to separate them. Once we arrived to PR, our pup wouldn’t eat and just spent her days pretty blue on the couch. D and I didn’t know what to do but we began to realize maybe it was time for another furry companion.
My main concern was Potato feeling neglected if we did get a new pup. Would she even want another companion? When we thought about it, Potato was used to seeing both my parents, two cats and Whiskey and myself so… maybe this could work? We met this girl who would rescue abused/homeless pups and she had one in her possession that fit our criteria. Enter Blue.
We changed his name from Blue to Chimi (aka Chimi Francis Changa – we had just watched Deadpool). Chimi was this perfect and tiny thing. The most, hands down, friendliest chihuahua mix I had ever met. The moment I held him, I knew he was supposed to be with us. When Potato met him, her tail was ready to fly off from being so excited to meet him. While Chi needed some time to adjust, they bonded instantly and now they are inseparable.
While February belonged to the pups, I still managed to keep up with my other responsibilities. Pole was a way to release tension and work out but I also fell in love with drums at the same time. Back when I was the younger idiot version of myself I tried getting into guitar. My father was VERY invested in this. He had bought me books, video tapes, and a guitar. How did I thank him? By quitting within the week. Maybe I wasn’t mature enough to keep up with it or maybe my passion wasn’t as deep but by the time I made it to 17 years old, I had met an actual drummer and that is when I became curious about this instrument. After dabbling a little bit, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to learn drums. I don’t jump into things without thinking them through so I actually waited years to buy my first kit because I didn’t want to commit to something expensive and then flop.
Christmas 2017 came and I had put this electronic kit on my wish list and my dear hubby bought me this gift. I tried playing on my own by watching YouTube videos but it didn’t exactly work the way I had hoped so it wasn’t until 2019 where I was able to enroll in a class to professionally learn how to play. Sweetest Sounds hooked me up with their drum teacher, Mark, and it was a perfect match. He broke everything down and had such, SUCH patience with me. He could tell within a few taps if I had practiced or not and if it took me a month to master a page, well, then it took a month. By February I had successfully learned how to play The White Stripes Seven Nation Army thanks to Mark, of course. After some time, he felt I was ready to move on to another song and that is when I decided to push myself a further and learn The Runaways Cherry Bomb. Cherry Bomb was undeniably faster than Seven Nation Army. I had to learn how to use my wrists instead of my arms to hit the notes or suffer the consequences of sore shoulders.
Eventually, I was able to get the rhythm down but as you can see in the video, I still do this chicken wing thing with my arms lol Clearly, I need to practice. I’m not sure why I keep doing that, either. I have more than enough space but I keep positioning my damn arms like that. I look like I’m ready to slice someone with the a blade on my foot and peck! (I DO NOT SUPPORT COCK FIGHTS. This is just what I’ve seen in movies.)
Besides learning how to play my favorite songs, Mark did teach me how to read music sheets. He doesn’t believe me when I tell him that while learning songs is cool, I really enjoy reading music. It goes under why I enjoy pole: it’s something I never thought I would have ever done or ever get the hang of – but I did. It took me some time to understand notes and the sounds they make. In fact, I spent about a month and a half on two lines I just could not get down. I’ll be honest, I didn’t practice every day because I was keeping up with other things and also reading a few books. I really like to keep busy!
This damn page was the death of me but it was better than doing pages of the same notes over and over again. I get it – I had to practice the same notes on repeat so I can get to this page but, holy hell, it was torture. I was ready to throw the whole book in the garbage but I kept going. Finally, I started to hit the right notes on the right time and it made sense. I felt accomplished and while this was a small win, I was proud of myself. These notes no longer looked stressful or scary. It was something I was able to pick up and now I can read these page without skipping a beat.
I love drums. I love dancing pole and playing drums. I cannot wait to get back to it again and learn quicker songs and more music sheets!
Organized Chaos 