Futbol Weekend

Cashmere the Rabbit is really feeling at home in the new condo now, because she is back to being her weird bunny self. We have a glass coffee table in the living room, and she likes to run laps around it and lick it. Maybe it tastes really good…? Rodney the Poodle did chase her for maybe a foot, so she got a little scared, but not enough to stay out on the screened-in porch. He soon lost interest, and anyway she has only herself to blame, since she was approaching him as he was trying to sleep.

Saturday I thought it would be a good idea to move my small washer/dryer combo from my old condo to the new one, not realizing how heavy it was. Travalon and Richard Bonomo ended up doing most of the heavy lifting, with quite a bit of help from Kathbert and some from me as well. Travalon, Kathbert, and I all ended up with very minor injuries, and the washer dumped water on the carpet in my old condo, but we did succeed in moving the unit… just to discover the outlet in the new condo is the wrong kind. Fortunately Rich is an electrical engineer, so he can help us with this issue. Whether the washer/dryer still works after that beating is another matter, but I’d be too embarrassed to sell it with my old condo, since I’d have to explain how partway through the spin cycle the agitator always comes off so you have to stop the washer and replace it, only you can’t just pick up the lid to stop it because of a previous repair Rich did. I may just buy a new set for my old condo, or sell it without them and let the buyer take care of it.

In the evening my band had a gig at Make Music Madison, only Hardingfele wasn’t there because she had an actual paying gig. They did let us busk, and we made $4, or $1 apiece. I just donated my buck to the next act, a group doing capoeira, which is a very cool Brazilian martial art with its own music. The music is simple and rhythmic, but I was still impressed how two of them would do the dance part and then trade with two musicians without missing a beat. There were five people in that group, and they made a whopping $17.50 in tips since they were so good. They were really fun to watch, doing cartwheels and kicking at each other – very athletic. I thought about doing capoeira ages ago but was discouraged to find out they practice three times a week, so that would have been the end of all my bands and choirs. Besides, I really am not coordinated enough, but imagine how fit I would have been! Travalon, Luxuli, Prairie Man, and OK Cap came to hear my band, and they stayed to watch the capoeira too. The act before us was also really good, a drum line from Chicago who did choreographed moves along with their drumming.

Yesterday was a really beautiful day in Madison, and also in Oconomowoc when we went to visit Travalon’s mom, so we were able to take her out for some fresh air. However, when Travalon and I went into Milwaukee, the temperature was much lower, but we still went canoeing and enjoyed it a great deal. By the time we went to the Three Lions Pub in Shorewood to try to watch the World Cup, the temperature had dropped to the mid 50’s, so we were too cold to watch the game outside and the pub was too full for us to get into it. We returned to Oconomowoc and ate at Burke’s Landing, a restaurant on the lake, and there it was in the mid 70’s and very pleasant. Then we came back to Madtown and watched the World Cup highlights on ESPN2. I was in love with this four-second snippet of a song they play whenever they return from ads, and today I found the whole song on YouTube, but it isn’t an actual Brazilian song, it’s by Pitbull. So sort of hiphop with a little Latin flavor courtesy of J-Lo. Kind of a letdown, but I do really like the song. It’s called “Ole Ola.” Travalon and I have been watching the highlights every evening, and sometimes we root for opposing teams, like I was rooting for Nigeria since I know many Nigerians while he was rooting for Bosnia since it’s near where his family came from. Today he is watching the Croatia game because that is exactly where his mother’s family came from. Hm, I wonder if Cecil Markovitch is going to watch it too? Something tells me he doesn’t care at all about “futbol.” (I feel weird to call it soccer when it is actually played with the feet and a ball, as opposed to what we call football, which is a throwing and catching game played with an egg-shaped missile.) 

Bad news - my Famous Hat has developed a hole. It is very small now, but the hat's days may be numbered. Will I have to change the name of this blog if it totally dies?

Famous Hat