Monday, March 18, 2024

St. Patrick's Day on the Green Chicago River

 

The thing I most wanted to do for St. Patrick's Day this year is see the green river in Chicago. Travalon had read that the Chicago River only stays green for a few hours, but he called someone at the boat tour place, and she assured him that it stayed green for several days. Since they dyed it on Saturday, we weren't sure if it would still be green yesterday, but then Travalon had an ingenious idea: we could check the live webcam first thing in the morning. So yesterday morning we got up, and we both looked at the webcam and saw the river was still a bright Kelly green. We meant to get going very early but somehow wasted enough time that Travalon pointed out we could get to 9 am Mass at the church two minutes away. In general we avoid this church, since the people don't seem very friendly, but we went yesterday and missed the opening hymn... and the closing hymn, since we snuck out right after communion and hit the road.

We got to Elk Grove Village just outside of Chicago in time for lunch at an Indian buffet, then we looked into how to take mass transit into the city so we wouldn't have to drive in Chicago traffic and pay Chicago parking prices. We went to the Jefferson Park station and tried to figure out how to take the Metra train, but there was nowhere to buy a ticket. A woman passing by said you had to buy them on the app, so Travalon downloaded the app onto his phone, but he couldn't get it to work. Then two guys said, "Are you trying to get downtown? Go across this bridge to catch the Blue Line." On the bridge were machines to purchase tickets for the L train, so we bought day passes since they were pretty cheap. Then we caught the Blue Line L train, which smelled of urine and cannabis but got us right downtown in twenty minutes. Travalon saw a guy giving him a weird look, but then he realized the guy had a Brentford Bees hat on, and maybe he was looking at Travalon's Wolverhampton hat. Sure enough, they struck up a conversation about the English Premier League until the guy reached his stop.

Our stop, the Washington station, conveniently had a bathroom in an attached mall, but then we weren't sure how to find the river. We asked a couple people and got some conflicting answers, but one guy who really seemed to know gave us a very detailed answer that turned out to be 100% correct. So behold: the green river!

I had originally wanted to go to evening Mass in downtown Chicago, but was I ever glad Travalon had talked me into going in Madison! That meant we had all the time in the world to take an architectural cruise on the green river. It was a very cold day, and it was even colder on the boat, but our guide was a very entertaining young gay guy who really got into telling us about all the beautiful, weird, and even ugly buildings along the river. Here are some highlights - more photos soon!









This pagoda is in Chinatown.


This is some sort of village-within-a-building that contains everything a town would need.






Apparently I was really getting into the talk!





A pair of common mergansers.






I can't explain what's going on here. Keep in mind that it was just above freezing.

After the boat ride, we took a walk along the river and then back to the train station.






The trip back was more crowded, and there were no English Premier League fans... that we know of. In the bridge back to our car, we saw this interesting pigeon.


Oh yeah, the bathroom in the mall at Washington Station was locked by the time we got back, so by the time we got back to Jefferson Park, I really needed to go. We found a nearby Japanese/Thai restaurant, where they had threeks (but I used chopsticks):


This is something I learned from Richard Bonomo: if a fork has four tines, then it stands to reason that something with three tines is a threek. Of course the two brothers who run the restaurant recognized Travalon's Wolverhampton hat, since one was a Manchester United fan, and both of them talked sports with Travalon so I began to wonder if we would ever get home. We did eventually leave, and on the way home we alternated listening to songs we wanted to sing to, like we had on our road trip. 

Today I worked on campus. After walking well over six miles yesterday, and going up eighteen flights of stairs going to and from the riverwalk, I could barely walk today. Oddly, my FitBit said I got lots of active minutes, and even a few vigorous ones despite the fact that I walked so slowly. I guess my heart rate must have gone up from the pain...? Hopefully tomorrow I'm back to what passes for normal at my advanced age.


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Saturday, March 16, 2024

Indian Music Concert

 

It is never the wrong time for some DuoLingo bragging, especially if it involves frogs:


But wait - there's more!

Yesterday I worked from home, then I talked to Tiffy. We were talking about our childhood piggy banks, and she tried to send me a photo of her Porky Pig piggy bank, but I didn't get it. Finally I did get it:

Later in the conversation, she started laughing till she was practically crying. The reason I hadn't gotten the photo right away is because she didn't send it to me - she sent it to a random hair salon she had gone to once years ago here in town that had just sent her a text to remind her to come in to get her hair done... and she accidentally responded with this photo. I'm not sure any explanation is even needed, but I suppose she could add, "Can you do this haircut?"

Today Travalon was hanging out with a high school buddy, watching the high school basketball tournaments. In the morning I went for a brisk rosary walk, and at that time the weather was sunny and just a bit windy. Rich wanted to go on a hike at Cherokee Marsh with an out-of-town guest, but by the time we got there, it was overcast with a biting, cold wind, so they didn't enjoy it that much. I did show them the observation deck from which you can see the little island, and we also walked out onto the peninsula. Then we warmed up at Zippy Lube with coffee and fried chicken.

I cleaned a bit at home, then Travalon had a small window of time when he could meet us for dinner, so he met up with my colleague, her husband, and me at Himal Chuli. He left to go watch another basketball game, while we went to the Union. I went to the box office to get my free tickets to the concert of East Indian music (my colleague and her husband also got free tickets, but not near mine), but the box office wasn't open yet. So we went to the Sunset Lounge to get the special ginger, turmeric, and mango drink they were selling just for this concert, but they weren't selling it yet. So we ended up getting ice cream. Once the box office opened, the line for will call tickets was really long, so my colleague waited in it for me while I went to find Kathbert. We were looking for each other in different spots, so by the time we found each other, my colleague was at the front of the line, but because she could spell my last name, they gave her my tickets, so that was helpful. Kathbert wondered why there was no program, but the concert was one long jam on the raga jog, using a rhythm with ten beats. There was an apparently renowned tabla player with a flutist to his right and a guy playing a really interesting stringed instrument to his left. It seemed to be a cross between a viol and a hardy-gurdy, because it had a constant drone. Some of the audience members were rude (why bring a toddler? why look at your phone through the whole thing?), but it was a cool concert, even if we would have liked more of an explanation of the instruments. I love how the tabla drums sound like "Doink!" For an encore, the string player sang a song as they all played along. I love the scale, whatever "raga jog" is. Kind of Dorian? State Street was kind of crazy afterwards because of St. Patrick's Day, so Kathbert walked me to my car and then I drove her home so that neither of us would have to walk alone through that nonsense.

Here are a couple of the plants I got from Travalon's mom's funeral.

It's a really pretty purple ti plant (the color didn't come through that well) and a gerbera daisy. I will try to take photos of some of the other plants soon.


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Thursday, March 14, 2024

I'm the Goat! (and Possibly the Secretary AND the Treasurer)

 

Today I was very busy helping grad students do expense reports. One told me I'm the "goat," by which I assume he meant the G.O.A.T., or Greatest of All Time, but I said, "I guess you're right, since I'm a Capricorn." He laughed, so I doubled down: "In the Eastern zodiac, I'm a pig, so either way I'm just a barnyard animal." Then he really lost it. I do sometimes wonder if I could have been a standup comedian. A phlebotomist once told me I was her funniest blood draw all day. That was the time I was wearing a really tropical getup, and when she commented on it, I said, "My people were island people." She gave me a quizzical look, since I clearly can't be out in the sun for more than five minutes, so I said, "England and Ireland are islands," and she lost it. I don't know if my material is that great, so maybe it's my delivery.

After work I had a union meeting. I was thinking not enough people would show up for a quorum so we couldn't have elections, and then it would have been a waste of time but at least I'd get home early. But noooo (to quote John Belushi), at the last minute one more person showed up so we had exactly ten, and then we had elections. I've been the secretary for the union for a while now, but the woman who has been treasurer for twenty years is understandably sick of it, so they nominated me for treasurer. It's not like I don't have experience, having been the treasurer of our condo association for a couple of years now, but this woman always said what a time suck being treasurer is. Worse, nobody wanted to be secretary, which means we don't have one, and people were pointing out that secretary/treasurer is a common position. I most definitely do not want to be both! All the other positions got filled, even trustee, which is actually a sweet deal because you only have to do an audit once a year, but nobody ever suggested that position to me back in the day. I started as a member-at-large, which means you have to attend all the meetings but otherwise have no official duties, and our current members-at-large were perfectly happy with that job and wanted to stay there and not get promoted to secretary. I can't really blame them...


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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

End of Chemo Party for the Daughter of Denni

 

Today I only worked for half a day, then I joined the Daughter of Denni, her mom, and a bunch of her friends to celebrate her last round of chemo. We met at Vintage, where I had a chocolate beer (not very Lenten of me) and bought soft pretzels for the table. Someone else bought chicken Rangoons, which I didn't even know were a thing but they're delicious, and someone bought cheese curds, while the Wife of Denni got nachos for her daughter because she had been jonesin' for them, having had to eat soft food for months. At first it was just a few of us, and the place was pretty quiet. I knew the others from the annual bike ride the Daughter of Denni would do for her birthday, but they all knew each other better. Then more people started coming that I didn't know, but one woman and I started chatting about pets. She seemed young... and then she said she had just turned thirty in December. It's always a weird feeling when you're at a party and realize you could easily have borne the person you are chatting with, and not even in a stretchy kind of way, like, "Well, if I were a teenage mother..." but like it wouldn't have been strange at all. I had the same feeling when talking to a grad student who wondered what I remembered about the Berlin Wall falling, since he hadn't been born yet. It always seems weird to be able to have adult conversations with people who could have been my children. Maybe the Wife of Denni feels the same way about us, since she probably could have been the mother of any of us at this gathering, and quite possibly the grandmother of the woman I was chatting with, yet we can all talk like equals. Isn't getting old weird? 


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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Rosaries from Travalon's Mom

 

The plot thickens with my FitBit, because now it says I got thirty-three active minutes while swimming last night, and it gave me two more active minutes on Sunday for a grand total of six that day. Nowhere near the twenty-two I'm supposed to get every day, but since I got over eighty yesterday and over forty today, my daily average is well over twenty-two. It was a gorgeous day, and I walked on the busy road at lunch to avoid my neighbor with the dog, since she slowed me down on Sunday. During my afternoon break she was lying in wait for me (she seems to have my schedule memorized), but I insisted on walking faster, which her puppy loved. I thought about going outside again between work and adoration, and sometimes a train passes by just after five (they never come midday anymore), but I decided to watch the monologue from last night's Colbert show instead of trying to see the train that might not come. A few minutes in, a train did pass by, but I realized I could see it from Travalon's chair through the leafless trees, so that was cool. Then I went to adoration, and the parking lot was not happy to see me.


Here are the various things my sister-in-law found in my mother-in-law's stuff that she set aside for me.


From left to right: a rosary, a Waterford pin of a harp that Travalon brought back from Ireland, a Seven Sorrows of Mary chaplet, a really interesting Miraculous Medal, and another rosary. I prayed with the rosary on the left tonight at adoration, and it had a very, very joyous vibe, so here's hoping that means Travalon's mom is in Heaven!


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Monday, March 11, 2024

More FitBit Fussing

 

Today I somehow woke up before my alarm, despite it being Daylight Saving Time. I think it was because Travalon got up. It was a busy day at work, and on the bus ride home, we passed a pond where people skate when the water is frozen - so, not much this winter. It made me think of a time I skated on a pond with Mr. Why. It was nothing romantic, in fact I think he might have been hoping to skate with my gorgeous friend (although he always insisted he was gay), but she skated well and I was in dire need of help. Mr. Why was a very good ice skater, and I felt like Ginger dancing with Fred as we glided over the ice together. That is the only time I remember enjoying ice skating.

In the evening Travalon and I went swimming. He was still suffering a bit from that back muscle spasm, and the warm water really helped him. I had to laugh because just yesterday I had blogged about how my FitBit always gives me a lot of credit for active minutes when swimming, no matter how slowly I swim, but not tonight! Tonight it said I had five active minutes during a half-hour swim. Travalon said I should blog about how my FitBit hates me, which was the theme of my post yesterday, but why not today too? Between that and my phone that only sporadically gives me credit for going up staircases, I have about had it with these electronic devices that supposedly track your movements. At least just walking around campus today I got enough active minutes to make up for so few yesterday. Tomorrow, when I'm working from home, it might be harder to get active minutes. Especially if my neighbor is laying in wait for me when I walk by, because then I will for sure not be walking fast enough to get active minutes if we are walking along with her dog. That was the problem I ran into yesterday, or at least one of them. I can't explain walking as fast as possible around the house and getting no credit for active minutes. That's just weird... and discouraging.


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Sunday, March 10, 2024

Kiwi at the St. Patrick's Day Party

 

Today was a slightly frustrating day. Mass in the gym was fine, and afterwards Mr. N'Awlins, who seemed to have been giving us the cold shoulder for years after a political disagreement, came over and talked to us, and we had a pleasant conversation. Then Travalon and I went to the Shamrock Club St. Patrick's Day party, and that went pretty well. The two women we'd sat with at the Halfway to St. Paddy's Day party sat with us again, along with another guy also named Travalon who was from New Zealand. This confused Kiwi wasn't a member, but apparently someone had erroneously put into the paper that the raising of the Irish flag at the Capitol next weekend would be at the restaurant today, which makes no sense if you think about it, but he showed up anyway. This year's Irish Person of the Year told him someone hadn't been able to come, so if he was fine with shrimp, he could stay for lunch. He was a lot of fun to talk to, and I believe by the end of lunch he had been convinced to join the club. Then during the raffle, my Travalon got the Irish atlas he wanted, and I got a club T-shirt, but it was possibly too small for me, so I traded the other Travalon for a mystery package. This turned out to be a mug covered in shamrocks and filled with chocolate, so a very un-Lenten prize. Since it's Sunday (and Laetare Sunday at that!) we went ahead and indulged in some chocolate.

None of that was frustrating, except for the photo the club posted of us on social media; the two Travalons look fine, but I look like they caught me mid-chew. Always a good look. If that was all that went wrong today, I'd say who cares. But Travalon apparently pulled a muscle in his back, so he didn't want to go for a hike anywhere. I went outside to maybe pray a rosary, and right away I ran into a neighbor walking her dog, so we walked for over half an hour, and then she invited me over. I powdered my nose quickly and noticed her toilet made an odd sound when I flushed it, but I didn't think more about it. We sat on her wonderful sun porch and talked while her puppy kept trying to lick my face off. Then we planned to walk a little more,  but I couldn't find my sunglasses anywhere. They weren't in any of my coat pockets, and I didn't seem to have set them down anywhere. Finally something made me check the toilet... and they were in there. That must have been the strange sound I'd heard when flushing. That was frustrating, but I just washed them off, and they were fine. We walked some more, and I went to check on Travalon, who was feeling better, so he and I went for a hike at Jackson's Landing. It wasn't the warmest day, but it was sunny without much wind, so we enjoyed it. So... here's where it gets frustrating. I've been trying to get vigorous zone minutes, but apparently I walked so slowly on all these walks that I only got four fat-burning zone minutes. Weird!

Travalon took me to band practice and went to Leopold's, where he bought the book I'd started to read on Wednesday. When we got home, I could have logged in to Night Prayer just a few minutes late, but I wanted to get the other eighteen active minutes for my daily minimum, plus I still needed to pray a rosary, so I used the new cuddly one that glows under blacklight to pray while walking around the house as fast as I could. I was sweaty and breathing hard... and still only had four active minutes. What the heck, FitBit? It's bad enough that I can't seem to get vigorous minutes no matter how hard I try, but now I can't even get the fat-burning zone?? It's insane how my lived experience doesn't seem to match with what FitBit thinks. A couple of months ago I climbed up five flights of stairs at Holy Hill (Hilly Hole) and was panting and gasping and my heart was pounding, but did FitBit think I'd exerted myself at all? Nope. Oddly, I have the opposite experience with swimming - no matter how leisurely my pace, FitBit says I got a bunch of vigorous minutes. Guess we should have just gone swimming tonight.


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