It’s 6:30 am. It’s 27 degrees and totally dark. A bard barred [I stand corrected] owl is hollering insistently from the woods above me, trying to convey some kind of message before his dawn bedtime. Looking at the weather forecast on my desktop I see an inscrutable icon: clouds with little white dots underneath. When I drove to school yesterday I had to pilot using just my fingernails, the steering wheel was so cold.
Here’s a video from Kiswahili class yesterday. I’m always struggling to keep pace but am enjoying myself. Whoever of you guesses the topic of the song wins. I don’t know what you win. What would you like to win? How about an apple pie? I have five in my freezer, freshly baked by the local church ladies of the Dummerston Apple Pie Festival, from whom I also bought a wool cap.
[flashvideo filename=wp-content/video/gifti.flv image=wp-content/video/gifti2.jpg /]
Now it’s getting light. From my third-story window I see frosted leaves lying on frosted spikes of grass. The wind has been blowing hard the last few days so the trees are half-bald. I wonder if they’re as embarrassed as a golden retriever after a haircut. Now the air is still but yellow leaves keep twirling off, one at a time: wee wrinkly, aged ballerinas. Clusters of flowers have toppled over and are lying flat.
Wait just a second. What’s that out the window? It couldn’t be. Little white dots floating down from the sky. Lots of them. Don’t the weather gods know it’s only mid-October? It reminds me of Molly when she was three. I took her to a conference for California Arts Council grantees (of which I was one) at Asilomar. One night there was a big bonfire on the beach. Watching little sparks rise into the night sky, Molly asked, “What are those? Are they little orangey dots?” Indeed they were.
I have pictures from last weekend’s pie festival and contradancing. I’ll try to put them up later if you want.
It’s off to school I go, through the snow (three miles, barefoot), bundled in my church-lady wool cap, the blue scarf Anna knitted me and my little red gloves.
OK, here’s your personal natural history fact-checker: bard owl? You’re kidding, right? Some sort of highly academic reference to a Shakespeare-quoting fowl? What? No? I know there are barn owls, barred owls, short-eared and long-eared owls, spotted owls, ferruginous, anyway, you get the point! If you’re gonna get all gorgeously descriptive (love your half-bald trees, and wee, wrinkly, aged ballerinas!), better make sure you get it right, or you’ll hear from me!
It’s unseasonably HOT here in NC, and the trees are putting on a show to rival “your” eastern hot shots.
subject of the Kiswahili ditty–here’s my guess: cute little spider spinning a love web!
mycaptcha words: imprisonment demands
Syd: I think perhaps she means a Barred Owl? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_Owl (“It goes by many other names, including eight hooter…” who knew?)
Ginnsylou: HHHHHHNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! I am so envious. I genuinely miss living somewhere where you get Real Weather. Although I’d probably miss it less if I actually lived somewhere with Real Weather and had to go out in it.
I don’t know what your man is singing about, but I would like a pie.
STOP it-you’re embarrassing him!
He’s adorable…
THAT’s what I’d want if I were to win.
Alas, I have no guesses.
Suppose now I’ll have to spin a Love Web?
-Fissures Concourse
P.S.
It’s like 75 degrees here in Oakland.
And I just heard a shot.
No kiddin’.
PIE FESTIVAL??? PIE FESTIVAL!!! Oh man, I could really go for one of those…Like EVERY DAY!
He’s singing about babies? Or if we go by the reCAPTCHA, then he’s singing “of rostrums.”
No one has won yet. Nary a baby in the song, dead (like bluegrass) or alive. No rostrums or colostrums or conundrums. It’s not about eight-hooters (or eight hooters) or tweekas or spiders or apple pies or gunfire or imprisonment demands or concourses or ferruginous owls.
I’ll give you a hint — a really obvious hint: it consists of twelve words. And to make it glaringly plain, I’ll tell you the words: Moja, mbila, tatu, nne, tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa, kumi ta [jali?>].
Is it a counting song?