September 2, 2010. Thursday.
Situation: Work tonight, and find it most convenient to take Mway for her walk around noon. Mway, lying under the kitchen table, doesn’t expect a walk at this odd hour, but when I open the door, she bolts toward it.
State of the Path: I think the goldenrod is close to, if not at, its peak, with nearly every stem spiking up yellow (though at the clearing I realize most of the goldenrod around there is still green); the same I’d say is true of the touch-me-nots, though I’ve yet to find an exploding seed pod. I discover a new little pink, clover-like wildflower by the wigwams (and maybe the same down by the creek) – no time today to try to figure out what this is. I cross the feed channel, wary of a bumblebee climbing on a boneset blossom. There are a couple new flowers on the aster, though the plant’s having a rough time of it in the dry dirt of the ditch. In bug land there’s a bush now bearing red berries – no time to figure out what this is either. As I approach the break in the ridge, I hear what sounds like a cough, and Mway comes bolting from the ridge and starts running along it after something – don’t know what it is, and she loses track of it.
State of the Creek: No change, as far as I can tell, in the creek.
The Fetch: More fetches than I care to deal with, in what’s still hot and humid weather. Mway’s bark today sounds like a piggish squeal; maybe she has a cold, or allergies from ragweed pollen. Back at the house, she drops the stick at the end of the porch instead of in front of the door as I like; when I ask her “Where’s your stick?” she doesn’t run over to get it as she normally would, instead stands there panting. Probably her mouth is so dry from chomping on the lilac stick, she can’t think to respond to my question today, and I don’t press the issue.
3 comments:
Might as well describe a little of my gig last night, this one a yearly municipal outdoor concert in a nearby rustbelt town. Set up in a gazebo next to the First National Bank which for a time was some sort of dance club but again has realtor signs posted on its front doors. View of the river behind the gazebo. Equipment unload is in the middle of the main street intersection. As I get out of the car this year, a kid somewhere between the ages of 15 and 25 comes up to me and says he can help carry my equipment. I’m grateful for the assistance. The kid carries my Fender Passport PA in one hand and the nylon carry bag for my Yamaha P-80 in the other. I hear a clunking sound on the sidewalk as he’s following me into the gazebo, but don’t think anything of it at the time. In the middle of the gazebo, he asks me where I want the stuff, and I point to where he’s already set it down. “Hi. My name is Craig,” he says. “Thanks for your help,” I say, for the first time fully aware of the thick timbre to his speech. He follows me up to the car to carry another load and on the way I peel out a dollar bill to hand him. I have to move the car, and Craig limps down the sidewalk to point out an open space for me in front of the vacant bank. Back at the gazebo, Craig asks “You have wires?” but I tell him I can do the rest of the set up on my own. Sue Smith and Wade pull up at the intersection, and Craig goes off to assist them. He and Sue bring down Wade’s equipment, the most important of which is Wade’s electric fan. The sun is beating down into the gazebo, and Sue is nervously looking around for an electrical outlet, but we have to wait for Randy to show up with heavy-duty extension cords that Wade now learns we’ll have to run a hundred feet or so to an electric box on the side of the bank. When I take out my Yamaha, Craig comes over and asks me, “Is that an electric piano?” An audience starts milling in to fill up the few park benches around the gazebo. A man with a sun-grizzled face and hand tremors comes up to Wade, and I hear Wade telling him “how wonderful” it is for us to be playing in this town and “how wonderful” the hot dogs are at the hot dog stand up by the street. A bigbellied, small-breasted woman with short curly grey hair comes up to me and asks if she can borrow an equipment bag “or something,” explaining that she has to leave her bench for a minute and wants to save her place. As I’m looking around, Sue is quick to my rescue, and hands the lady one of Wade’s cymbal bags. Randy finally shows up at the intersection. Sue and I walk up to the car. I grab the extension cords and carry them down to the electric box, Craig limping behind me, asking me if I need any help. I string out one of the extension cords. A second one lies on the ground. I grab one end and before I know it Craig has the other end, pulling it the opposite way, a snarl developing in the middle of the cord. Randy finally comes over to untangle it. In the gazebo, Sue is wondering where she can plug in Wade’s electric fan, Wade telling her “not to worry, Randy knows where to plug it in.” A guy from the municipal organization that hired us shows up to make a short introduction, announcing, with a drumroll from Wade, that there will be a raffle drawing later on. The woman who borrowed the cymbal bag returns and thanks Sue for its use. I call out “Guachi Guari” and a few notes into the tune realize my piano tones are not decaying properly. I stop playing, wait a second, try again, stop, try again. Wade and Randy start to flounder, not knowing whether to continue or not without a main instrument, and I cry out “Keep going,” as I mess with the dials on the PA head. Wade shouts out “your sustain pedal is stuck.” I grapple for the pedal box with my shoetips, find nothing wrong when I stamp on the pedal, and finally, after Wade and Randy start singing “Don’t want to go back to Georgia,” can do nothing but unplug the pedal from the piano to try to salvage what remains of the song.
The comment removed by the author was simply a repetition of my first comment, which I discovered for some reason I had accidentally published twice.
Post a Comment