I was in Seattle last week for work, and spent the weekend working on another ipad musical project. As I worked on this, I noticed two tiny mice scurrying about the apartment. They were surprisingly bold around me, running right up to me and checking out my feet. So. I dedicate this song to those miniscule mouse muses. “Topolino” is Italian for “little mouse.”

Here at work now in the Manhattan office. This is a late-waking city. I got on the subway at 7:35am and it was relatively empty — rush hour apparently hasn’t started yet. I got off at Grand Central and walked to my building, which is a few blocks away. In the lobby, a man in custodial garb eyed me suspiciously and walked towards me: “where are you going?”  I said “to work” and kept walking towards the stairs (the office is on the 2nd floor).  He said “2nd floor or 3rd floor?”  I told him 2nd — I’m not sure why he asked that. Perhaps he was just making conversation — this is something we Seattle ex-pats can’t quite handle until we’ve had our coffee. 

I work in a small office (Manhattan branch of a Seattle-based company) that is in a group of small offices with a shared receptionist, kitchen, conference room, etc. The main door to the suite was locked — at 8am! Remarkable. They had given me an access code and keyed the biometric lock to my right index finger (I know this technology has been around for a while, but it still feels very sci-fi to me). That got me in — and there is not another soul in here.