Tuesday, August 27, 2019

Sailing and Kayaking and Hall and Oates



I hope that my readers had a good weekend. Sorry for my silence, but Thursday evening Travalon and I were on the Union Terrace until late in the evening, and Friday we had dinner at the Nau-Ti-Gal, so there wasn’t time to blog either day.

Saturday Travalon and I met Richard Bonomo and OK Cap for coffee, then they both came over to our house, Rich to help with plumbing issues and OK Cap to pray the rosary. OK Cap and I went to a book release party at the Dream Bank, and Travalon met us there. The book was about fighting "adultitis," so there were fun crafts and toys and brightly-colored donuts with sprinkles. It had been a strange day weather-wise, but later in the afternoon it got nicer so Travalon and I went to my garden plot and took a hike on Governor’s Island. Then we went to evening Mass at the church near our house before going to watch the Madison Forward play against the Richmond Kickers again. This time they beat them 1-0. Revenge is sweet!

The reason we went to Mass on Saturday was so that Sunday we could go to Travalon’s hometown of Pewaukee and attend the last-ever service at his childhood church, Historic St. Mary’s. The school closed three years ago, so the church has been rented out to a non-denominational church that has taken good care of the 150-year-old building. Sadly, the merged parish that owns the building wants to sell it to a developer to build high-priced senior housing, and they plan to tear it down next Sunday. I was extremely angry about this, but the pastor at the service we attended gave a sermon about how we can be like drinking fountains: bursting out all over everything, barely putting forth any effort, or producing a good stream. I thought yeah, I shouldn’t be that first drinking fountain, and then the Holy Spirit gave me the idea to bombard the merged parish’s email with scriptural quotes showing how evil they are being, like “Mene Mene Tekel Parsin.” (One of the creepiest stories in the Bible.) Will this work? Who knows? Today I sent them yet another message, but so far they haven’t responded. And I don’t really need them to – I just need them to change their evil ways. Then Travalon and I had lunch at Seesters, a Mexican restaurant on the shores of Pewaukee Lake, and then we drove to Oconomowoc and hung out with his mom on the shores of Lake LaBelle. Best of all, when we got back into town, our neighbor took us sailing on Lake Mendota, and it was a windy day so we really got some speed. When we were returning in the channel, where it is more sheltered, and the jib sail was down, our neighbor had me take the rudder and I really felt like I was in Heaven, steering the calmly sailing boat between the sylvan shores. Which is funny, because I also feel like I am in Heaven when I go to my garden plot, so is Heaven like both of those things? Like neither of them? Who knows? In the evening we returned to Breese Stevens Field, this time to see Hall and Oates perform. We knew every song they did except one that sounded like Steely Dan. Which of course meant it was great.

Yesterday Travalon had the day off of work, so I took it off too. Of course it was the one rainy day in the forecast, but that made it wonderful for sleeping in! Then we drove to the lake house his college buddy is renting on the shores of Waubeesee Lake. It was too drizzly out to have lunch on the patio overlooking the lake, but we sat in the screened-in porch overlooking the lake and played a card game we had never played before with this guy’s mom and stepdad, who barely beat me. When the rain let up a little, we went kayaking, but of course I fell in while trying to get into my kayak. We paddled around an island and into an inlet, then after our clothes had dried (Travalon got wet too), we went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. Despite the weather, it was a fabulous day off!

Famous Hat


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