When I stopped to count the wood anemone (24-32), sweat had already started forming on my arms, and dripping into my eyes.  At Bethesda Fountain, standing out in the sun and playing for the people on the benches in the shade, I wondered if I might be a little nuts.

A Swedish couple came forward and gave me a fiver.  “Thank you,” said the man, “that was a lot of fun.”

“We really enjoyed it,” said the woman.  Me too.

A woman from El Salvador wanted to take a picture with me.  I put a lei around her neck; she gave me a dollar.  Another woman gestured at the leis draped over my case.  I thought she wanted to dance.  “No, she doesn’t want to hula,” said the man she was with.  “How much?”

I hesitated, since I usually don’t sell my leis.  “Three dollars.”

He hesitated, then gave me the money.

I was so happy to see Marcel and his scotch terrier, Maggie, stroll down the path and head toward me.  Marcel’s wife, Sue, was with him.  For many years, Marcel walked Maggie in the park and, if I was busking, Maggie would plop down in front of me and listen.  When that happened, more people stopped to admire Maggie than they did to hear me perform.

I grabbed Marcel’s hand and shook it.  “I haven’t seen you all summer,” I said.

“He had a stroke,” said Sue.

“You look great, you walk and talk just fine.”

“My eyes were effected,” he said, shrugging.  “I go to PT.  I’m feeling much better.”

He asked about Agnes, my granddaughter; I’d shown him pictures of her when she was born last year.

“We better keep going,” said Sue.  “The heat is bothering the dog.”

A girl on a bicycle rode up with her friend, and, without dismounting, threw a dollar in my case.

“Have you got time for a hula today?”

“Where’s the nearest bathroom?”  I pointed toward the arcade.  “We’ll come back for a hula,” she said, and she did.  They were from California.  “We’re having a great time in New York,” she said.

A 50-ish couple from Vancouver stopped to donate $2 and chat.  They had a place in Hawaii; he had just bought himself a tenor uke.  I handed him mine, and he strummed out a few chords.  “You know what I think?” he said, handing the uke back to me.  “I think you’re the most relaxed man in New York.”

The heat and humidity were getting to me.  All the water in my thermos was gone, leaving a few ice cubes rattling around.  I’d decided to pack it in when a little girl of 12-14 months, holding her dad’s hand, toddled up to me.  “You want to dance?”

She moved her head in a way her dad interpreted as affirmative.  I put the infant lei over her head, played the chorus and one verse of “The Hukilau Song,” took a buck from her dad and sat down.  My shirt was soaked through, and my leg burned from a spot I missed with sun screen.  I’d let the little girl toddle off with my lei.

I put $13 in my pocket.  Macadamia nuts?