Got the day off for Chinese newyear. hAPPY YEar o fthe monkey. (dang keyboard.) Met Beta on her lunch break, getting something to eat at the coffee shop on Kr

Nothing like driving on icy streets at night, is there.

These arrived in the mail today, from Armandele. Armandele has a more colorful picture of them here. It’s an interesting project he has going – producing actual, physical blog um uh artifacts. My children are so proud of their dad for being famous, they stole all the buttons.

Thanks, Armand.

Party at wonderchicken’s.
Yes.

The cello lesson wasn’t what you’d call a rousing success, but it went well just now. I walked out of the “classroom” (previously a monk’s cell, I believe, in another incarnation back when the building was a monastery centuries ago, or maybe a warehouse) shoulders back, head held high. So what if the “A” string squeaks? It turns out to be a squeaky A-string: it’s not my fault.

Actually, it all went suspiciously well. I don’t want to jinx it, but… there was this transition between three different positions that had been giving me trouble. I relaxed and the trouble went away.

That’s been my problem all my life, not enough relaxation between positions.

There’s a little more light in the sky because I’m a few minutes late this morning. You heard me right: my schedule controls the sun.

The air is clear and cold and the trees are black against the purple sky. The field is muddy and there are no deer, unless they are mud-colored and standing very still. Later, taking my offramp, there is a flatbed truck in front of me with a load of pipe. Pipe in shiny zinc metal and brick-red plastic in every size available from about a half-inch up to six inches in diameter. Estimate the length of the truck’s bed, estimate how many potential tin whistles are stacked there on the bed. Tin whistles, low whistles, organs, calliopes.

I haven’t heard a calliope since I was a kid. Those old steam organs they used to play inside merry-go-rounds etc. Remember them? The first instrument I’d associate with Ray Bradbury, for reasons lost to me.

Continue reading →