2020 Life Logs, Day 32: Quick Trip Off-Cape
Date: Saturday, February 1, 2020
Weather: Mostly Cloudy; High 40 degrees, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
The morning was spent reading more of the dog handling book, People Training for Good Dogs, by Melissa Berryman. In the afternoon, I made an unplanned trip to Newton, near Boston, to take the half-size violin Heather and Justin used when they were in elementary school to a violin repair shop. Ollie is ready to move up to a half-size from his current quarter-size, but the half-size needs some repairs. I have had taking the violin in for repairs on my ‘to do’ list since the first of the year, but just haven’t had the opportunity to get away. Late morning, I went over to Heather’s to take some packing boxes she needed and found that she also needed more plastic storage bins that I get at Costco. Since Costco is not far from the violin repair shop in Newton, I had just the incentive needed to take off to do these two things. I took Shadow with me and we enjoyed our travel time together. I stopped at Costco to get the storage bins first, took Shadow for a walk, and then traveled on to Newton. All I knew was the name of the place, so I put it Google Maps and arrived at Carriage House Violins. What I found out when I got inside is that the Carriage House is the instrument sales division of Johnson String Instrument, the largest stringed instrument dealer in New England. You can buy a 300 year-old violin for thousands of dollars, get an expensive violin restored, or simply get a student-grade violin repaired. It looks a little like a warehouse from the outside, but once inside you are transported into another world. 
The dark wood interior, the sound of classical violin music coming from various rooms, the overwhelming number of violins, violas, and cellos, even the way the staff dresses and move about a little more slowly than the rest of us, gives the whole place an old world feel. I thought I could just drop off the violin, but it wasn’t that easy. I was escorted to a waiting area and then met with a young man that took the violin to evaluate any repairs it might need. When he returned, he went over in detail the things that need to be done, explained why, and listed the cost of each repair for me. I could have decided to rent a new violin for a year for the same price as the repairs, but I decided to upgrade the old one. It is just a student-grade violin, but it has a history and I decided it should be given a ‘new’ life. The violin will be ready in a week and a half and I’ll return to pick it up. It was almost 5 pm by the time I got back to the car. Shadow was patiently waiting for me. I took him for another walk and then we headed back to the Cape. I love that Shadow is a good traveler and I hope he prefers traveling with me rather than spending the time in his crate at home.
