After a lovely Easter weekend, the daffodils have popped and crocuses have opened wide in pastel purples and yellow. As yet budless tulips have pushed their leaves through the groundcover toward the warm sky. Waves of light blue chindoxia grow against the wire fence. The London plane trees, dressed in camouflage green, gray and brown bark at the base, rise to a sepulchral white tangle of bare branches. The forsythia has started showing tiny yellow buds.<\/p>\n
At the Imagine Mosaic, one guitarist is singing \u201cEight Days a Week,\u201d while another stomps past me, complaining into his cell phone about the angry words just exchanged and the punch in the nose he left unthrown. Thus the early season jostling has begun for this lucrative site. I expect that soon these guitarists will work out their platoon system, as they do every year.<\/p>\n
Center stage was mine. I set up at the east end of Bethesda Fountain, turned my face to the sky and sang my heart out. In short order, some preteens came by and did the hula. Other little kids, sitting on the benches with their moms or sitters, quickly got the idea. After only 10-15 minutes, there was already $6 in my case.<\/p>\n
A mother from California was resting with her daughter beside their bicycles. They enjoyed the show the kids and I put on, eventually wheeling their bikes toward me to chat. The daughter had recently moved to NYC; this was mom\u2019s first visit. They wouldn\u2019t hula, but mom dropped a fiver all the same.<\/p>\n
Two women came by for a hula while a third took video. They danced to both verses of the \u201cHukilau Song\u201d and put a total of $16 in my case, each giving me a bigger bill than the last. A couple of boys followed up with an energetic dance. A young girl stepped up when they\u2019d finished.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I wear a lei for a selfie?\u201d she asked, pulling a dollar from her wallet.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course,\u201d I said, handing her a lei and stepping out of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, come back, I want you in the picture too.\u201d Silly me, I thought a selfie was a picture of herself.<\/p>\n
At the end of my 90 minute set, I sat down to count my money and pack up. At $31.64, if history is any guide, this could well be the best day I\u2019ll have all season. A 20-something walked up and handed me another dollar. And it just keeps getting better. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"