Apologies to Noelle My Car

 

Today Travalon went back to Cherokee Marsh and took more photos of the common mergansers and the tundra swans and the flicker.

I think this puffy little bird is a chickadee.

Judging by some of his other photos, which weren't clear enough to post, he also saw red-headed ducks, canvasbacks, scaups, goldeneyes, and ring-necked ducks. I have posted his photos of all these types of ducks on this blog previously, or you can just google them if you wonder what they look like.

Meanwhile, I worked on campus, and in my building not one, not two, but three people said they liked my new plaid tam, two of our grad students and someone I didn't know in the elevator. One guy said it was very stylish. When I walked with Hardingfele at lunch, she said it is very 70's, but I think it's an older style than that. She wants us to play for some singalong at her department, on a Tuesday when I'm not usually on campus. I have to think about this one. Maybe I'll take the afternoon off and drive in - she said she could get me a parking pass. I asked if we had music, and she said no, but everything's in G, so she's right in that I don't need music for that. She wants me to play the mandolin, and she and her coworker will play violin, and a woman we don't know will play the guitar.

Speaking of playing, this evening I brought the violin to the Moldy Jam jam. I left home earlier than usual but had to park far away, and I got to the music club in time but they had already started to play. My A string is starting to unravel, but it is a gut string I've had on there since I did early music, and that was ages ago. It may be time to put new, steel strings on the violin. Heaven knows the mandolin has needed new strings for ages; Travalon bought a set for me some time ago, and now I can't find them, and Hardingfele always mocks me for it. She changes her strings every year - is that really necessary? The string didn't break during the jam session, but I didn't know the first few songs and wondered why I had even come. Then people started to call out tunes I did know, so it was more fun, and the ones I didn't know seemed easier to pick up. I called out two tunes I've known since childhood, "Rakes of Mallow" and "Blackberry Blossom," and they were happy because those are tunes they know but don't do all the time. (I was trying to do old timey tunes instead of Irish ones, since I always do Irish ones, but "Rakes of Mallow" is Irish - oops!) People were really friendly to me tonight, so I was kind of late leaving the club, and then I had the long walk to the car, plus it kept sounding like a train was coming but it never came on the track alongside the street where I parked. On the drive home I hit a median really hard (no idea why), and the plastic wheel well came off of the front driver's side wheel, so I had to stop and pick it up. I apologized to Noelle my car, but she drove fine without it. She is fifteen years old now, so we have to think how much we really want to spend on repairs for her. If she drives fine without this part, and you can't really tell there's a problem by looking at her, does it really matter? Maybe it was the full moon that caused all this weirdness tonight - it was so beautiful, with a rainbow around it, but they say it makes people crazy. There's supposed to be a lunar eclipse early this morning, around five, but I don't plan to be up to see that.

Famous Hat