First Salaried Day and Moldy Jam Jam

 

First, I forgot to post a photo from yesterday, when Zippy Lube gave us a donut for having to wait a long time for our iced coffees, and it matched Travalon's jersey. (It was raspberry flavored.)

Today Travalon drove me to work, and I got in a few minutes late, but it didn't matter because I'm salaried now. Also, the shuttle was stopped by the side of the road, so I would have been even later if I'd taken it. Only one coworker was in, but at first I thought nobody was there, so I was singing "Fly Me to the Moon" in the bathroom because the acoustics are fantastic. And this coworker was a voice major... It was good that I was there, because as my regular readers know, I drink A LOT of water, so the first thing I did was go over to the drinking fountain to fill my water bottle... and there was a huge puddle around it. I put in a work order, and they actually came immediately and fixed the leak. I'm impressed, but the new filter they put in makes the water taste kind of weird.

I had to go to some benefits stuff for my new position, and then we had lunch from Panera. The other new financial people seem nice, and I said they could ask me any questions they had. There was one other woman who is like me, having worked here forever and just changing classification to salaried, so we bonded a little. Unfortunately, she is in a different FART. The meeting was in a building right near some tulip trees, and I know they bloom around this time of year, so I went to check them out, and they were covered in blooms.

My one coworker who was in today said it was Sneak Out of Work Early Day, and she seemed to leave a bit earlier than usual, so I have to admit that I did catch the shuttle before my usual one. And guess who was on it? My shuttle buddy, whom I haven't seen in ages. She's been catching the earliest shuttle possible in the morning, at 5:15. That's over an hour before I even wake up! 

In the evening I went to my first Moldy Jam jam. I have been on the Moldy Jam email list since going to an old time music jam at Muso in April, but this is the first one I've attended. They tend to be small and at people's houses, but that feels awkward when I don't know anyone. Now they have started having the first and third Monday evening jams at Muso, and a lot more people were there, so nobody could hear me making mistakes. Most of the people there were older than I am, and two of them loved my "John Barleycorn Must Die" tie-dyed T-shirt. Others were fascinated with my round-back mandolin - there were quite a few mandolin players there. I felt like I'd found my tribe, because I heard someone playing "Butterfly," so I suggested that one, and they said, "What key do you play it in?" and I said, "E Dorian," and they said, "Oh good, us too." The songs were a mix of ones I knew, ones I thought I knew but they played a different version, and ones I'd never heard before and was struggling to learn by ear. Luckily the old-time tunes, like the Irish tunes (we played a number of Irish tunes tonight) have this thing where the end of the figure is kind of predictable, so even when I don't know a tune, my fingers seem to know what to do. Anyway, I don't think I embarrassed myself, and everyone was very friendly. I will definitely try to make this a regular part of my musical life. Hardingfele and I did take a walk this afternoon, and we talked about our band and its future, and I said, "I have a lot of other musical outlets." She does too, but hers tend to be community orchestras, and I don't enjoy the music they play. When I was a kid learning violin, I loved the Baroque and fiddle music, but they always made me feel like to be a serious violinist, I had to learn the stuff I didn't like, the Romantic era and modern music. No thanks. I'll stick to early music and fiddling tunes.

Famous Hat