Sunset and Animals

 

Today I worked from home. My boss said the powers that be denied my promotion because there isn't a raise to go with it, which struck us both as very weird: how many people have complained that all they got was a title change and no raise? So clearly it happens all the time. I asked if they could give me a penny an hour raise and that would suffice, and my boss admitted that he hadn't thought of that but it might be worth pursuing. We were both hoping this would happen before I'm subsumed into the FART, because who knows if my new boss at that point would give me the promotion? The thing is that I was originally supposed to be classified a grade higher, but my previous boss for some reason talked the powers that be down a grade, so this isn't even so much a promotion as a correction. Everyone else in the FART is at least one grade above me, so it will be very disheartening to be the one person at a lower grade. And now I can't even run off to Panama if I get tired of the whole thing, because the Evil Orange Thing is threatening to invade Panama. As Peter Tosh warned us, "Sorry for MAGA dog, him gone turn round bite you!"

As promised, here are Travalon's zoo and sunset photos from Thursday.

And here are the animals: lions, alpacas, flamingos, a meerkat, and Travalon's favorite, the red pandas.

As usual, the aardvark was asleep.

The only birds he saw in the bird house were these macaws.

I don't remember seeing these murals before, so maybe they're new.

Our zoo doesn't have a baby pygmy hippo like one in Virginia does. Oh my goodness, is she adorable for something that would kill you once it's full-grown! I've seen videos of hippos chasing people in boats. Shudder!

What time is it? You know what time it is - time for some DuoLingo bragging!

I'm surprised that I have that many perfect lessons in the Music course, because the app has a tendency to ask you to play songs you think you know, but then change them up weirdly, like adding a random minor-key section to "Three Blind Mice" or whatever. However, first it has you practice with colors designating the notes, and then it has you practice with actual notes, and finally it has you perform it for Oscar, a grumpy character in the DuoLingo universe, so you have three chances to learn it. Then you're supposed to play along to some popular song you may never have heard before, and that's always a challenge because it goes very fast. If you don't do well, they hardly toss any roses in the air afterwards, and they cheer quietly. If you do an acceptable job, they toss more roses in the air and cheer louder. If you do a perfect job, they even toss a whole bouquet of roses among all the single flowers, and they cheer raucously. That's what you're aiming for - the whole bouquet.

So much for all my complaining that you can't get near the health club in January... Travalon and I went there tonight, and there were the normal number of cars in the parking lot. The locker room was pretty empty, and only a few other people were in the pool. Maybe people have made resolutions not to make resolutions this year.

Famous Hat

A Chance to Win a Chance to Win

 

Today at Mass at the far east side church I didn't really mind the rock band, because we sang some of my favorite Christmas carols for Epiphany, obvious ones like "The First Noel" and "We Three Kings," but also "What Child Is This" and "Hark the Herald." Then we went to the East Side Club, where they had a beautiful Christmas tree.

The Packers were pretty lackluster, and we thought, They're going to lose at home against the Bears! But then they came roaring back, and they were up by one point with 45 seconds to go.... and they let the Bears get a first down, so they were close enough to kick a field goal. Why give us false hope, Packers? We also didn't win anything in the raffle. There's a 50/50 raffle, where you can win half of all the money taken in, so someone won like $250. There's also a meat raffle, and random prizes like koozies and free drinks, and our favorite: pull tabs. These are lottery tickets, so when you buy a raffle ticket, you are buying a chance to win a chance to win. That's so lame that I said it had to be my blog post title.

Then we walked at East Towne Mall, and they have a very big Christmas tree.

We walked as fast as we could for almost twenty minutes, and yet my FitBit said this wasn't nearly enough exercise. It is constantly thinking up new ways to drive me crazy: walking 10,000 steps wasn't good enough for it, so it came up with this thing called "active minutes," and I'm supposed to get at least 22 per day, based on an elevated heart rate. When that didn't prove to be much of a challenge for me, now it has this new thing called "Cardio Load," and I'm supposed to get 52-74 (no idea what the units are) per day, but this vigorous walk that left me exhausted only got me... 8 cardio load! I would have to freakin' kill myself with aerobic exercise to get 52 cardio load! I may just ignore this new directive from the FitBit. It seems unattainable. It's so hard to exercise this time of year, because it's too cold to walk outside, and the health club is inundated with resolution people so it's hard to go there.

Tonight at band practice I tried to convince my bandmates that we should add "John Barleycorn" (the Traffic version) to our playlist. They politely listened to it, and that's probably as far as it will go. After the rock jams at the East Side Club and jamming with my uncle, I find our music kind of boring. I'm not sure if DuoLingo's music course is really teaching me anything either, because now I know how to find B flat and E flat, which are notes I'd rather ignore as a mandolin player. Who needs these keys?? Silly me, thinking the course would help me identify a hemiola or the Phrygian mode. Still, I'm enjoying it.

Here are photos of stuff I have acquired recently. At Atomic Antiques, I got this rosary (on the right) and prayer beads made of rose quartz on the left. The medals on it are puzzling; they seem to have a floral design and maybe stylized Arabic writing? But it's the right configuration to do a Sacred Heart Chaplet.

These are the least practical things I got at Atomic Antiques. The toy clarinet is so jazzy-looking, and today I discovered it does actually make sound, like a deranged harmonica. You can kind of change the pitch with the keys, but not in such a way that you could play a recognizable tune. The thing on the right was described as "a jar of glass squiggles." I cannot think of the circumstances that would call for such an object, but it wasn't that expensive, and it's kind of pretty. I'll probably take it to work and set it on my desk.

These are the rosaries and trivet I got at the Holy Family Shrine in Nebraska. The rosary on the left was made by a local artist, and the one on the right was made in the Czech Republic.

We stopped at an antiques mall east of Lincoln that we had stopped at on our last trip to Nebraska, and Travalon found stuff he liked, but all the rosaries I found were like cheap plastic ones that they wanted way too much for. I did like this crystal of fossilized oysters, so Travalon bought it for me for a second birthday present, besides Black Light Bunny.

Tune in tomorrow when I will finally post Travalon's photos from his trip to the zoo and the glorious sunset he saw on Thursday.

Famous Hat

Birthday Dinner at Lola's

 

Sorry that I haven't blogged in so long. Thursday I worked from home, but Travalon had the day off of work, so he went to the zoo and Leopold's, where he got me a slice of pistachio cake. In the evening he used one of his "Free Night" coupons to go see a high school basketball game. I don't know why I didn't blog, but my leg was really bothering me, probably from eating badly on Wednesday, so I probably just didn't feel up to it. The one thing I did get done was going to campus to water my work plants, and on the way back we saw this frat house with the Delta Chi lit up.

Yesterday I turned 53. Travalon gave me a stuffy to mark the occasion.

And she glows under blacklight!

This inspired me to grab my stuffies that glow under blacklight, although I forgot at least one, the little chick that Ma Hat crocheted for me.

From left to right: Party Kitty, Jørgen the Narwhal (sounds like Yur-ghen), Black Light Bunny, Esteban the Scorpion, and Margarita the Unicorn. And once again, Atticus Sappington III.

And here he is, glowing in the dark.

Travalon and I had a very relaxed morning, then we drove out to Sauk to see eagles. We also saw common mergansers.

There was at least one goldeneye.

We went to the Mixing Bowl for my favorite shortbread, and they didn't give me anything free for my birthday, but they did write a message on my latte cup:

I only ate a bite of the shortbread, then we went to Fitz's on the Lake, where I had a half-off lunch for my birthday. They had chocolate toffee cake, so we were going to split a piece, but again we each ate a bite and had to bring the rest home. It was a very cold day, but we did take a walk in the neighborhood when we got home, and all the mail we'd had held during our trip was delivered, so we sorted that. 

I was not in the mood for a party this year, but Travalon mentioned that at Lola's Hi/Lo Lounge they were having a 90's hip hop and R&B party, and that sounded good to me. I only mentioned it to Jilly Moose and Mamastep, and to my surprise they were both free, so the four of us went there around seven. I wore the Niko shirt Travalon had given me for Christmas.

We could see the moon and Venus were really close, so we took photos. Here is my take.

Here is Jilly Moose's version.

Of course we had to wait, but now Lola's has a side lounge where the shoe repair place used to be, and it didn't take long for a table for four to open up. We had some cheese curds, and the others had cocktails, but I'd had an edible and was enjoying that buzz, so I saw no need to change things and stuck to water. On Fridays it's jazz and funk at Lola's, so I was really enjoying that and asking Siri every other song what we were listening to. Our table was ready much earlier than we had expected, so people were in the restroom or at the bar ordering popcorn for the table, and I was the only one able to go to the main part of Lola's to claim our table, but soon the others joined me, and the popcorn followed us to our new table. Three of us had the Midnight Pasta, and Travalon had the pelmeni. It was so good! The 90's music wasn't starting until 9:00, and even though we ate slowly, we were still done by 8:30, so the others ordered another round of drinks, and then we had dessert. Mamastep and I split a chocolate pot de creme type thing (they called it a "bundino") with lavender whipped cream on top. I have to say that dark chocolate and lavender are a winning combination. Of course, all my senses were a bit heightened, so the music and the mood lighting and the food all seemed incredible, as I'm sure they would have been regardless. We were having such a good time that we didn't leave until 11:00. Now that was a fabulous birthday!

Today Travalon and I had another lazy day, then we went to Picnic Point to see if the tundra swans are still around. Answer: yes! Along with Canada geese, mallards, and goldeneyes.

Then we went to Atomic Antiques, and I got a rosary, a Sacred Heart chaplet, a toy clarinet in jazzy colors, and a jar of glass squiggles. Photos soon. When we got home, I thought there might be a spectacular sunset, since there were the right kind of clouds for it, but it was not that exciting.

As always, I made Travalon take photos of the moon.

He did take some photos of a spectacular sunset on Thursday, and also animals from the zoo, that I will post soon. I wanted to post the photos from the first day of our trip before it got too far in the past. These are from the Railway Park in Rochelle, Illinois.

They had hobo symbols in the shelter.

I don't think this was an actual working gas station.

This was at a rest stop along Route 66.

Here are Christmas lights and other photos from Springfield, Illinois.

This is the Old Capitol.

Decorations in the lobby of the scary hotel we almost stayed at.

And their sad little Christmas tree outside.

You can see there are hardly any lights on in the hotel.

There was a plaza with lights overhead.

Here is a view of the new Capitol and a Christmas tree.

An Episcopal church.

This is the depot Lincoln left from when he went to DC to be inaugurated.

Another view of the scary hotel we almost stayed at.

I liked the Santa hat seat covers at Abe's Hideaway, the restaurant we had dinner at in Springfield.

Another view of the depot that Lincoln left from. It's now a law office.

A better view of the new Capitol.

I believe that I am finally caught up on photos taken during our trip. I still have to take and post photos of some of the stuff we acquired, so watch for that soon.

Famous Hat