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okay, since the last entry, in reverse order…

today, thaddeus and i busked at the pike place market, under the clock, for an hour, and made $115 a piece… that takes into account the fact that we were amplified (which isn’t normally allowed at the market) and playing on the back of a truck for the “flower festival”, and we were being paid $100 a piece by the PDA to be there… the extra $30 was from tips, because of course we set up our tip bucket, because we were busking at the market. for some reason (probably the fact that he was being paid by the PDA) the busker who was on the stage/truck before us did not have a tip bucket out. 🤷

yesterday, i finished the pea gravel to the west end of the house project that i started earlier in the week. yesterday was also a “category 5” geomagnetic storm, caused by sunspots, which made a “visible” aurora borealis across most of north america, so of course moe and i went out to a “light desert” near salmon la sac, and took pictures. it was the first time i have ever actually seen an aurora… i have PROBABLY “seen” other ones, but they weren’t anywhere near as spectacular, and, significantly, i didn’t have the technology to actually “see” what i was “seeing”: what i saw with my naked eye was lighter grey stripes that were, basically, indistinguishable from clouds, which, very occasionally, had slight hints of colour… but apparently cameras these days take in A LOT more light than our eyes do, and the photos that came out of monique’s phone were phenomenal:

240510 <em>aurora borealis</em>
240510 aurora borealis
240510 aurora borealis
240510 aurora borealis
240510 aurora borealis
240510 aurora borealis
240510 aurora borealis
240510 aurora borealis

thursday was my circus class, wednesday was busking without amplification or the extra $100 a piece — we made a grand total of $6 ($3 a piece), which qualifies as one of the 5 WORST days i have ever had busking at the market. also i cleaned the furnace filters that i forgot to clean on monday. tuesday and monday i started adding pea gravel to the area behind the fence at the west end of our house. monday i forgot to clean the furnace filters.

last sunday was my unicycle class, where i may actually be making some progress, in that i am free-mounting pretty regularly, and i just discovered that if i do it right, i can actually idle, rather than riding away after a free-mount… but everything is still sort of tentative, and i’m not sure whether it’s an actual improvement, or whether i’m just doing fine this week and i’ll go back to not being able to do it next week… which is sort of what i’m expecting. 😒

last saturday was may 4th, which is bongwater day, and world naked gardening day, as well as the more conventional star-wars day. last friday was international tuba day, national paranormal day, and world press-freedom day. last thursday i had my circus class, may 1st (wednesday) we busked at the pike place market, under the clock, with interference from the “pike place drummer” who sets up on the corner opposite the market, so that he is NOT “on market property”, sets up a trap kit and an amplified, pre-recorded MMO tape, and drowns out all other buskers in a three block radius… and we STILL made $20 a piece, which was more than the drummer made. 😉