Monday, March 4, 2019

Lake-Something Lutheran Church



I hope my readers had a good weekend, despite the cold temperatures. Thursday evening I went to Light Bright’s house for dinner, and her toddler wanted to know why I don’t like tomatoes. It’s hard to know what to tell a child when you are a picky eater yourself, even if in my case it is really just this one thing. I’m sure Mom is always trying to get him to eat all his vegetables! And he does seem to like them all.

Friday I went to a paint night that was a fundraiser for St. Vincent de Paul. We got wine, and we got to keep our wineglasses. The theme was a field (I suppose in Holland) full of stripes of brightly-colored flowers, with a windmill watching over them. One guy was such a genius: he painted Don Quixote going at his windmill, and Sancho Panza trying to stop him. Hilarious!

Saturday morning we had a bit of an adventure. During my gig a couple of weeks ago at a community gardening symposium, I learned that there would be a sign-up event for the community garden up near us, and I thought they said Lake Edge Lutheran. So Travalon and I went there, but only a few people were hanging out there, and they didn’t know anything about a gardening event. We went to Crema Café for brunch, then we looked online in case I had the date wrong, but no, it was right – the church was wrong! It was Lakeview Lutheran, which is much closer to our house. Oops! Anyway, I signed up for a garden plot. In the evening Rich had a surprise birthday party for Handy Woman because it was a big birthday for her; we lured her there by saying he was making a traditional Italian dinner. After the festivities some of us went over to Bach Around the Clock to watch Lute Player’s husband perform. (Maybe she needs a new name on this blog, because I believe she now no longer plays the lute. Any suggestions?)

Sunday after Mass several of us went to the Lakeside Café for brunch, then Travalon and I went to Sauk to watch eagles flying by the dam. There were quite a few of them, and one was a beautiful golden color. There is another species of eagle called a golden eagle, so maybe that's what we saw? We have only seen bald eagles before this. Or was it just an immature one? After that we met Rich, Kathbert, and Pete the Sailor Man (who had all been at Bach Around the Clock) at Mr. Why’s grave for our yearly ritual of scraping all the snow and ice off his grave marker, putting flowers on it, and taking a picture for his mother, all while freezing. We met Cecil Markovitch at the El Dorado Grill for dinner, and then we went with him to a Chieftans concert. They are one of Ireland’s most famous folk bands, and they had dancers and local performers join them onstage. For one famous air called Port na bPucai, or the Song of the Fairies, just one guy played the haunting melody on the flute. It is from the west of Ireland, and the story is that centuries ago some fishermen in a boat out near the Blasket Islands heard strange music like they had never encountered before coming through their boats made of sheepskin. They didn’t know what it was, but one was a fiddler so he was able to reproduce the otherworldly sounds on his violin. They named the air, full of strange moaning notes, the Song of the Fairies, and musical scholars have pointed out that it sounds very much like the songs of the humpback whales that would swim among the Blasket Islands. How cool is that? It probably wasn’t fairies but whales that taught them the song!

Famous Hat

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