Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia, designated today as an official day of mourning for the shooting victims at Virginia Tech.  To show support for Virginia Tech students and their families, he asked everyone in the state and in the D.C. area to wear orange and maroon today -- Virginia Tech's school colors.  I wanted to participate, but I simply don't wear those colors.  Yes, even though I graduated from the University of Virginia, where the school colors are orange and blue, I hardly have any orange in my wardrobe except for T-shirts.  I also don't have any maroon clothes, although I do have a lot of red ones.

I did finally find an orange blouse and a paisley skirt with mustard-yellow and dark plum in it.  They didn't quite match, but they didn't quite clash either.

After all the work I had gone through to find orange and maroon clothes, I was quite disappointed that I didn't see many other people wearing those colors today except at A.J.'s school.  My co-worker Bob wore Virginia Tech's colors today, of course, since his son is a student there.  I also saw someone on the subway wearing Virginia Tech paraphernalia, and another co-worker had one of the official mourning ribbons in orange, maroon and black.  I don't know if others didn't know about Governor Kaine's request, didn't care or -- like me -- just didn't have those colors in their wardrobes.

On a different note, my co-worker Barry stopped by band practice today.  It was a nice surprise to see him, but I hardly recognized him because he has lost all his hair, including the full, white beard he used to have.  He seemed in good spirits, and seemed to enjoy the racket we were making.  When Bob decided to practice one of the songs he plans to play at Barry's farewell party at the end of this month, though, I had to fight to keep from crying.  (Note:  pretending to clean your glasses or rubbing an itch on your nose are two good techniques for surreptitiously wiping away tears.)