Funny Money and Bunny Backrubs

I had a lot of fun this weekend. Saturday did not start out promising: it was drizzly and cold, but I dragged myself out of bed anyway and to church for confession... only to find a sign saying there was no confession there this week. I didn't have time to go to another church before our band's gig at a children's festival, complete with its own currency called a "uni." You could buy a uni for one dollar and then sell it back for 90 cents, and the extra 10 cents went to a children's charity that helps kids in Bangladesh. Hardingfele grumbled that she would have preferred our tips in standard US currency, but I thought the unis were a fun idea - and they were way more colorful than dollar bills! I should have kept one for my money collection... However, we had a lot of fun spending them on useful things like pesto pasta salad, cranberry oat bars, houseplants, and carp wind socks. Rockstar Tailor had a blast playing games, getting her face painted, and creating an "egg holder" out of what looked like the stuff from a clothes dryer lint trap. We played after the fire breather did his thing, and when the giant walking banana arrived, that was our cue to finish playing. It was just our banjo player, two fiddles, and me on the mandolin so it was a stripped-down sound without any guitar, accordion, or penny whistle.

T came up to visit this weekend, and then she, Anna Banana II, and I went to a handbell concert. You haven't lived until you've heard the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" on handbells. Some of my bandmates were there too; the squeezebox player brought her parents for a Mothers' Day gift, and the banjo player's husband played organ. (That's right, what is a handbell concert without an organ, a brass quintet, and percussion?)

Then yesterday T gave Charlie and Cashmere bunny backrubs. Charlie was so relaxed he looked like he had no bones. He was like a little puddle of bunniness. Cashmere wasn't quite so relaxed, but at least she let me cut her toenails with less fuss than usual. Then T and I went to the Tree Park to see the blooming crabapples, magnolias, and lilacs. It looked and smelled like heaven! and everyone else in town seemed to have the same idea, because it was PACKED. After T left, some other friends of mine hiked through the Tree Park, but I fell asleep on my futon and missed them. Richard Bonomo called and woke me up, so I met them for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, then we all went to Cecil Markovitch's place for a dessert my OTHER choir director had made with the first rhubarb of the season. (He had just bought it at the farmers' market.) Besides Rich, Cecil, and my choir director, Kathbert and Anna Banana II had gone on the hike, and then one B-Boy joined us for dessert. (The other one had some lame excuse about being in Hawaii with his new bride or something.) Cecil showed me his nameless new fish who is bigger than Arphaxad and Amminadab put together, and he gave me a piece of his cool purple Christmas cactus, which he says blooms golden-pink. Like I need another plant... I forgot to mention that Hardingfele and I stopped by a local plant sale right at the end, when everything was half price, and negotiated an even lower price for a weird houseplant which I believe is called a sea onion. One was dormant, so I took that one, since it didn't seem right to pay such a deeply discounted price for a plant in its prime. Since it was so cold this weekend, the denizens of Plant World had to come back inside.

Famous Hat