November 18, 2007

11:02 a.m.

Today I Chop Wood

Months ago, Rose and I had pencilled this day in for a girly trip to Northampton. Carol said yesterday that everything in Northampton this weekend is 20% off. However, Rose and Karl are flat out of firewood, and today is a chop and haul day. So I offered to go help, which I will do as soon as I finish up here.

Our gig at the nature center was great! From only 4 reservations a week and a half ago, we ended up with about 65 people -- not sold out, but respectable. Rose and Karl came, lots of friends I haven't seen in a long time. Some brought new folks. I managed to alter my new dress, though it made me rather late for sound check -- not a disaster, as we were using our own PA. We were pretty smooth, didn't yak too much, and did the 2 new songs.

Being a nature center, there are always things in covered cages -- mostly snakes, but sometimes other animals. One of the volunteers came to me at the end of the night and said, "Someone told me I should show you this." He led me to a small aquarium with a big ball of fluffy stuff inside, yarn and soft material that made a kind of burrowing nest. "We found some baby mice here," he explained, "and this was the only one that survived. We're housing it for the winter, and will let it go in the Spring... unless we love it so much that we want to keep it!" He lifted the fluffy ball, and THERE was the cutest, wee-est, little gray mousie with big eyes and little feets and a swishy little tail. Mousie crawled back under the insulation. I reached in and gently lifted the nest again, and he looked up at me for a few seconds. Then he went back under the nest and came out the other side near the food dish. He came right out and looked up at me, as if to say, "Got any raisins?"

I showed tremendous restraint in not picking him up and putting him in my pocket. He's a wild mousie, after all, though I'll bet he'll get pretty tame with people taking care of him. It was a fine encounter, and I had to tell Dar about it today.

There's a little gift shop there where one can get plastic or stuffed effigies of various creatures. Each time we play there, Chris buys a handful of little plastic frogs and flings them out into the audience. This time, Rose warned me that when this happened, a mouse would be flying my way. Sure enough, she tossed one over (stuffed, not real), of which we made much during the set. I sat it on the front monitor for a song we did about nature, and someone with one of those articulated wooden snakes (also from the gift shop) came up to attack it! We had a little mouse/snake battle and the snake retreated; hence, the mouse's name, Fearless. It's now residing in one of my orchids.

I love gigs where stuff like that happens.

Afterwards, Chris and I stood by the door as people left, and they shook our hands and told us what an extraordinary night it had been. One guy, as he passed, petted Fearless (who, as a finger puppet, was perched on my hand) and asked his name. I told him, and he smiled and thanked us and left. He was kind of cute. I wanted to ask him his name. But then he was gone.

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In other news, Dar is taking us (the band) to see Wicked in Hartford next month! He just saw it in Boston and is raving about it. We picked a night when he doesn't have a performance, so he can come down. What fun! The last big show we saw was Spamalot, and the year before that, The Lion King. It's always a grand event, going to these shows. We have dinner first at some great place (Thai if we can find it, but seafood is the next best) and Dar and I get into some hushed mischief in our seats, waiting for the show to start, making jokes and poking each other. Can't wait.