Gig at Bad Art

 

Yesterday I worked from home, and at lunch Travalon and I walked on Governor's Island. The water was very blue.

He had the day off of work, so he went to Watertown and took a walk on Tivoli Island.

I took a walk in our neighborhood on my afternoon break.

This is out of order, but in the morning Travalon was trying to get tickets to AC/DC, who are playing in town next summer, and while he was waiting to get into the site, this little man was walking as the green bar moved further to the right.

He said, "That little man is getting more exercise than I am today!" Then when he came home, we went on another walk after dark (I was wearing my high-vis vest), and then he went to see the Marshall Tucker band while I talked to Tiffy. I said I felt very uncharitable about not liking someone who annoyed me with little things, like saying, "Thus far" instead of "so far," but Tiffy totally understood. She said, "Do they say 'shan't' too?" Not that I've heard, but I wouldn't be surprised! And when I found out this person's politics, because they totally brought it up, then I didn't feel guilty at all about not liking them.

This morning I met my Union peep who looks like a leprechaun at the bank so we could close out our Union bank account, since we merged with another local, then Travalon and I took a walk on Governor's Island. On the way there we saw this pretty tree with a cute Little Free Library in front of it.

Here's a photo from Governor's Island itself.

Then we hung out at home for a bit. I was really doing well at DuoLingo today.

We checked out a trail not too far from our house in the afternoon.

Travalon's Premier League team the Wolves were on in the afternoon, not the morning like usual, and for the first half they held Chelsea to no score, but in the second half, as we drove to my gig at Bad Art in Oregon, Chelsea scored three goals. The poor Wolves - I don't see how they won't be relegated. But miracles can happen in sports, as we would discover later in the day...

The gig was to celebrate our fearless leader having an art show. Her thing is making chickens out of return address labels, and there were some cool ones (I particularly liked "Rainbow Rooster"), but did I think to take a photo of any of them? No. Travalon did take a couple of photos of Bad Art.

We were supposed to play for an hour, but our leader spent the first twelve or so minutes talking about her art, some of it interesting like how her whole family were artists and they were featured in Life magazine, and some of it maybe not so interesting. Then we were supposed to finish at five, but she wanted to keep playing because she had talked so much, and she thought we should play for a full hour. My regular readers will be stunned to learn that I had to recycle some water fiercely, so I said, "I'm done!" and ran to the back room where my mandolin case was. As I was putting the mandolin away, some older guy said, "Before you put that away, can I see it?" I said, "Let me go pee, and then we can talk." As promised, I showed him Mandy, but he grabbed her away and I kind of thought he wasn't going to give her back. I am pretty generous about letting fellow musicians try her out, but I didn't know this guy. He was saying he had checked out another round-back mandolin, but it was only fit for hanging on the wall for decoration, and it was surprising to see one as old as mine in playable condition. Then he asked me a million questions about what kind of pick I used. Meanwhile, Travalon was waiting for me to get ready to leave. This was supposed to be an unpaid gig, but we did get one drink at the bar, so I let Travalon have it. He got a delicious pumpkin concoction, and when I had a couple sips just before the gig, our leader's partner wondered if it was a good idea to drink before playing, as if many of the most famous musicians weren't three sheets to the wind most of the time they were onstage. Our leader gave Hardingfele $2.50 from the tips when they had played there the previous weekend, so Hardingfele gave it to me, since I wasn't getting paid (they were paid $25 each last weekend), but then we each made $8 in tips, plus the venue did decide to give us each $10, so I actually made $20.50 at an "unpaid" gig. Not bad. My big disappointment is that I put my FitBit on my right wrist to get my steps for the hour, and by the second song I'd gotten them, but my playing didn't register as a workout. I was curious to see what FitBit would have thought I was doing.

Travalon and I went to a newish Mexican restaurant not far from home that we'd been meaning to check out, and I got a huitlacoche quesadilla and a thing I thought would be a sweet corn cake, but it was a strange yet aesthetically pleasing crust with salsa and cheese on it.

(I should have thought to take this picture before taking the first bite.) I know what you are wondering: "So Sombrero Famoso, which salsa is the hot one, the green or the red? La verde o la roja?" and I would say, "Yes. Si." Notice how it's the colors of the Mexican flag. Then I had to use the bathroom, and when I passed the bar, there were these sad balloons spelling out: "Viva Mexic."

I asked the bartender, "Donde está el O?" and she said, "El explotó." I feel like there's a story there, but my Spanish isn't good enough to find out que pasó. Meanwhile, Travalon was looking at his phone, as he is wont to do when I go to the restroom, and he was stunned to see that the Badgers were beating the Washington Huskies. What?? They can barely score, never mind win!! We came home and watched the final minutes of the game, and they won!!! Everyone was so excited that they rushed the field!

I was excited for a completely different reason too - my new license plates finally arrived!

I did get my first choice of personalized license plate! Travalon says he will get the Crane Foundation one next May, when he needs to get new stickers, so maybe he can get a clever personalized one at that time. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments. I'm thinking TRVLON. Or TRAVLN.

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Missing My Mandolin Earring

 

This morning Travalon dropped me off at a research study, and then he went for a walk on Picnic Point. He took some photos with his phone.

I made the study person laugh a lot, but I also lost one of my mandolin earrings. Travalon took me to work, and I was double-checking a shadow budget and realized a lot of salaries hadn't been accounted for. Yikes! I took a walk by myself, since Seabird was working from home and Hardingfele was busy, and I took some photos. Some of them aren't as great as they looked in real life, but these two are okay.

Travalon also took a photo where he works.

There was a Brazilian music concert tonight, but when Travalon got home from work, we went back to the research place and looked for my earring. However, we weren't as lucky as a couple of weeks ago, and there was no sign of it. So sad! The thing is that this time I have no idea what action I'd taken that might have knocked the earring out of my ear, unlike last time when I realized what must have happened and was able to look right where it had happened. I said maybe I should get a pair of violin earrings, and then I could wear one violin one and one mandolin one. And this isn't even my only pair of mandolin earrings, so it's not like I can't wear mandolin earrings if I so desire. I just can't wear this particular pair.

Update: I clicked on the link above for mandolin earrings and found the exact pair that I just lost one, and also matching violin earrings. So guess what's coming to my house in a few days?

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Nat King Cool Has Arrived

 

Yesterday I worked from home, and after Travalon and I walked on Governor's Island, we took a breathtaking drive through Maple Bluff. He went back today with his good camera and took some photos.

And he accidentally made a video that I found really amusing.

As a child, I use to detest autumn, but maybe it wasn't as pretty where I grew up. This year the colors were later than usual, but they were worth waiting for.

After work I went to Adoration as usual for a Tuesday, and upstairs there was a Gold Mass going on. When I finished my Rosary with a "Hail, Holy Queen" they began singing "Salve Regina" at the same moment. (Same prayer, different languages.)

Today Travalon dropped me off at the Fluno Center so I could meet Seabird for a free breakfast. I was invited to their open house again this year, but we already took the tour last year (and I was totally convinced that our guests should stay there), so we skipped it and took the free bus back to our building. Then I was in a panel discussion about what could be improved with the FARTs when the refrigerator delivery people called to let us know that the fridge we have been waiting months for was suddenly going to be delivered right then. I spent most of my lunch break taking food out of the old fridge and putting it in the new one, and the Chair said I should find a photo of Nat King Cole and label it "Nat King Cool" to put on the fridge, since he had suggested we should name it and I was the one person in the department who submitted a name, so I guess I won by default. (Travalon did suggest Rita Coolfridge, but the Chair liked mine better.) Then I was planning to go to the singalong at the music club after work, but my Union peeps emailed me to remind me that we were meeting at the Labor Temple right after work to sort paperwork. I just missed the free shuttle that goes down that way (got confused about the timing), so I had to run blocks to catch the Big Bendy B Bus, since that's the only other transportation going down that way. I got to the street it goes down, but where was the bus stop? Just then the bus turned the corner and stopped right in front of me in traffic. I signaled to the driver, and he actually let me on, even though I wasn't at the stop. So kind of him! And the other people on the bus were so nice too, telling me, "Your stop is next!" So I got to the Labor Temple, and we sorted paperwork, and now I'm exhausted. Maybe next week I'll get to sing...

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