Sixty Eagles and Bounce!

I hope my readers had a good weekend. Travalon and I sure did. Friday evening we went to a work party for him; he works at a nonprofit, and this was a very swanky fundraiser, but we got in free as staff and guest. Was this ever posh: it was at a fancy hotel, and there was a chocolate fountain, all sorts of hors d’oeuvres, and for some reason women dressed as butterflies walking around on stilts. There was even a Michael Jackson impersonator and later a band. We did dance a little, and during one song we watched a bunch of people do a dance, maybe the Electric Slide, but that wasn’t the song. It was a great time, and Travalon’s coworkers seem very nice. I don’t think bitter people who desperately need a job (like he ran into at his last job) work with kids at a nonprofit.

Saturday we had such a fun day. We met Rich for coffee, then we drove out to Sauk to see eagles. And boy did we see eagles! Usually if we see six, it is a good day, but this time we saw around twenty at each of our three usual venues. People told me afterwards that this was because the river must have frozen, so they were congregating around the dam where the water is still open. I like to think it is because I prayed so hard for the eagles during the cold snap that they all wanted to show me they had survived, and maybe both explanations are true. After that we went to the antiques store in Baraboo so I could get Travalon a Valentine’s Day gift, and he wanted an old Milwaukee Braves game program. He also bought himself salt and pepper shakers that look like old Texaco gas pumps. I bought myself a tiny penny in a package that says something about how it’s getting smaller under Nixon, and Travalon bought me a tiny crystal Christmas tree. Then we went to Home Depot because they have beautiful and inexpensive plants, and he bought me a colorful rubber plant and a tiny purple-tinted succulent. We decided to check out something at the Monona Terrace called Bounce!, which was a collection of inflatable things like bounce castles but for adults, like there was an obstacle course and a gladiator arena and a boulder run which I didn’t do, but Travalon did it and bounced off in such a spectacular fashion that I laughed until I cried. Too bad I didn’t make a video... We had so much fun, even if we were among the oldest people there, and the background music was like the worst songs from the last ten years.

Yesterday we went with Cecil Markovitch to Milwaukee to hear a Croatian band playing tamburitza music, since that is both Travalon’s and Cecil’s ethnic heritage (and I’m supposedly part Balkan too, per my genetics test). Travalon made videos of it for his mom. Then we went to the Domes, where they were having a model train show besides all the usual plants. We went to a very funky coffee shop on Brady Street, and then for dinner we went to a Mideastern restaurant called Casablanca. That was so much fun! What a really great weekend.

Famous Hat