A Highly Musical Weekend

This was a very musical weekend for me. Friday night Travalon and I went to see the Afro-Cuban All Stars play salsa. What a great show! They had everyone up and dancing. Then Saturday, after meeting OK Cap for coffee, I picked up Hardingfele and we drove down to Eplegaarden to play with our band. At first we were set up in a shaded shelter, but it was very cold there, so we moved out into the sunshine, and then it wasn’t so bad. This gig is always fun because we get paid in produce, so afterwards I loaded up on apples, cider, and squash. In the evening Tiffy and I went to a Baroque music concert that we enjoyed a great deal, especially when they performed the Bach Violin Concerto in A Minor. They also did, among other things, a Biber piece called “Battaglia” that actually sounded like a war. It had movements depicting topics like the soldiers getting drunk before the war, the war itself, and the mourning afterwards. From the backyard of the church where the concert was held, Tiffy and I could see the strange lights across Lake Monona that I had tried to find before when Travalon and I discovered the East Side Club, so we drove around the lake trying to find what they actually are but did not succeed. It remains a mystery.

Sunday I did not attend or perform in any concerts. Travalon, Tiffy, and I joined some of the choir members at brunch, then she went off to her nephew’s birthday lunch while Travalon and I hiked along the Yahara River with Rodney before the Packer game. What an excellent game! The Forty-Niners are worthy opponents, but this time the Pack beat them on their own turf. Also, the Saints (my second-favorite team) beat the Cowboys (and I can’t stand them) in overtime, so that was exciting. After the game, Travalon and I joined Jilly Moose at Rich’s house, since I had promised to drop off some more pawpaws for Kathbert and Rich’s neighbor to try, and then the four of us walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner. The one right by Rich’s house had just closed for the evening, so we went to another one in easy walking distance, and was that an interesting experience. A DJ was blasting music, so we had to ask them to turn it down, and then only Jilly Moose got exactly what she had ordered. I would have thought it was a language miscommunication, except I had ordered mine in Spanish, so who knows what went wrong? Perhaps my Spanish accent is just that bad, although what seems to have happened is they mixed up part of my order with part of Travalon’s, so we each got the right sauce on our enchiladas but the wrong meat inside. Anyway, the food was okay but nothing fantastic. I was more intrigued to hear that they have karaoke there every evening. You know me – I’m always up for karaoke! But it hadn’t started yet by the time we left, so who knows how late they do it? Just think, if I’d gotten to sing, it would have been a musical weekend from start to finish!

Famous Hat