Yet Another Bus Adventure

 

Today I took the bus to work, and that was way more exciting than it needed to be. The road to the transfer point is closed for road construction, which I didn't know until I tried to turn onto it and a guy holding a stop sign blocked me. People were honking at me as I asked him how to get to the transfer point, and he said there was a detour, so I turned around and found my way to the other end of the short road. Then the bus came, but it didn't slow down - it drove right by the stop! I almost had a heart attack, thinking the next bus wasn't coming for an hour and totally forgetting I could just get back in my car and park on campus with my new flex parking pass. Someone else said, "Don't worry - he's just turning around," and then I saw that the bus was coming back - he had been facing the wrong way because of the road construction.

Toward the end of my workday, I tried my new internet camera. My boss had said you just plug it into the port on the computer, and it's good to go. So I tried to do a video chat with my colleague, but it said my camera was off. So I went into settings, and it said it was attached and working properly. So how did I turn it on?? I sent a frantic email to IT, and posted on our work chat, and then my boss explained that I have to turn it on within whatever app I'm using, so she and I had a short, successful video chat.

Speaking of videos, I enjoy watching Doja Cat videos because they're sexy and I'm a Bad Catholic. She has one for her new song, "Kiss Me More," that features an actor named Alex Landi. Wikipedia says he is 50% Korean and 50% Italian. Famous Hat says he is 100% smokin' hot!!

Then I walked to band practice, but only one fiddler and our guitarist were there. Our accordion player and another fiddler were busy, and at first Hardingfele said she didn't want to come because we don't have any gigs scheduled, but then she said she has a grant due tomorrow, so that's a legit excuse. The three of us who showed up tried some new music from a band that played international folk music, but all the members have now passed on, so the daughter of one of them gave our guitarist a bunch of her mother's sheet music. Some didn't have chords, so we had fun figuring them out - it's folk music, so it's not rocket science. I played melody and/or harmony, since we only had one melody instrument. We played a couple of songs from Latin America that made me nostalgic for the little mariachi band I used to be in that accompanied the Diocesan Hispanic Choir. Of course, in my dreams I play in a salsa band, although I would also accept joining an Earth, Wind, and Fire cover band. In this dream, every month is May. Bonus: I don't have to have any more birthdays, unless I become a Taurus. Too bad this dream didn't come true when I was twenty-four.

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Personality Test

 

I forgot to mention yesterday that right after work I went to my garden, and there was another pink flag, but I weeded for half an hour and then it looked much better. My seeds have sprouted, and my kale was so big that I was able to harvest a little, along with some onions and chive. Best of all, I am going to have ground cherries soon - this is very exciting news when I thought I had lost them. I did eat an almost-ripe strawberry because it seemed likely that it wouldn't be there the next time I came back. When will that be? Who knows? I had Adoration this evening, band practice tomorrow evening, and I am once more making an attempt to donate blood on Thursday evening. Maybe I am too busy for a garden plot...

Speaking of gardens, these beautiful lilies are blooming outside our building. I love the contrast of the orange and the bright green.

Here's a closeup.

Today my boss said we all had to take a personality test, and we would be one of sixteen personality types. I said that sounded like the Myers-Briggs, and I'm always an ENFP, but she said no, each type has a name, like she's the Logician, and you could be an Architect or Explorer or whatever. So I took it, and of course it was the Myers-Briggs, and I was an ENFP, or I believe they called me a "Petitioner." Always trying to make the world better for everyone. The surprising thing was that all of us were N, or Intuitive, and in fact that is the only letter I have in common with Tiffy, so it must be a really important one. True story: years ago a bunch of us took the Myers-Briggs test one Easter Sunday, and we were really good at guessing what the others would be (the Irish guy was a PINT, appropriately enough), but none of us could guess what Rich was. And do you know he was nothing? He was exactly equal in all four traits. (For example, I am two-thirds Extrovert and one-third Introvert.) Nobody had ever seen anything like it before - further proof that Rich is, in fact, an alien life form. Can't remember if I have blogged about that before, but if so, it was long ago enough that I can do it again and nobody will remember.

Then I left work early for an eye appointment. I'm supposed to have a checkup every year, but it had been five years since my last one - I just never have eye issues since having LASIK surgery. Still, they tell me I'm high risk for a retinal detachment, and of course with my advancing age they want to check for glaucoma and cataracts. Interestingly, they said the vision in my left eye got slightly better for distance since my last checkup, but they can see that my close vision is getting a little worse. They gave me a prescription for reading glasses if I want them, but I don't even use cheaters. Of course, after they dilated my pupils, I couldn't read anything close. Driving home was no problem, but then I had Adoration this evening and wasn't sure I could write in my prayer journal. I was an optimist and brought it anyway, and by then I could see well enough to write in it. My pupils were still really big, but I looked more winsome than freaky at that point. Anyway, my eyes looked good, and they took my blood pressure, and that was good too, so I'm feeling really healthy tonight.

Famous Hat

Blacklight Posters

 

This was an interesting day for a Monday. When my neighbor and I went for a walk before work, the cranes stepped in front of us, so we waited for them to cross, but they didn't. We finally turned and went back the other way. Then at noon we were going to help another neighbor paint our dock furniture, but when we got there, he was already done - he had started an hour earlier and just done it himself! My neighbor said, "Hey, now we get all the credit for volunteering without having to do any work!" Then the mail came, and there were two packages for me! And I knew what they were.

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking of this wastebasket we had back in the 70's, when I was a little kid, that had brightly colored images of the signs of the zodiac on it. I did a Google search and found an image of the exact wastebasket, but it was an antique that had already been sold. Bummer! I looked further down the search to see if there was another one for sale, and I found a poster of the signs of the zodiac that would glow under blacklight. That would be perfect for someone with a blacklight, and know who has one? I do! So I ordered it... and they never sent me a confirmation that it had shipped. Finally they sent an email saying it had been delayed, did I want to continue to wait or did I want a refund? I replied that I was willing to wait a week or two, but if they couldn't get it, then please refund me. Their email had a link to their store, and I found an even trippier 70's style blacklight poster, so I ordered that one too. It shipped immediately... and then the other one shipped, so they arrived on the same day - today!!

Here is the first one I ordered. Notice that Capricorn is on top, just the way it should be.

This is the second one I ordered. Isn't it beautiful?

I remember people used to have posters like this of Led Zeppelin in the dorms when I was in college in the early 90's, but I have no idea if college kids nowadays have blacklight posters. True story: as a child I got a box of neon-colored crayons for Christmas one year, and the box proclaimed: "Glows under blacklight!" Since I had no idea what a blacklight was, I assumed logically that one could color a regular lightbulb black with a permanent marker, and this would work. I don't remember actually doing this - perhaps an adult talked me out of it, but I remember being very disappointed that there was no way to get my crayons to glow. I wonder if they still sell those crayons? Because now I have a real blacklight, and not just a lightbulb colored black.

Famous Hat

Beautiful Evening Boat Ride

 

Today I didn't have much time between our condo board meeting and my Irish class, so Travalon and I went for a hike on Governor's Island. Travalon didn't bring his good camera, but he did take a few photos. This is a woodpecker we saw.

We also saw a lot of ducks.

Then we went to Cherokee Marsh, and I took this photo of tick clover.

Travalon took photos of the marsh itself.

It's hard to see in this photo, but there's a really cool dragonfly with checkered wings.

For some reason our hurried hikes when I didn't have much time made me think of a walk we had taken in a neighborhood some time ago, and at first Travalon didn't remember. He asked when, and I said at least five years ago, in warm weather. Then he started to remember that it was in Middleton, but we couldn't remember why we decided to go for a walk there. When we got home, I checked this blog, and it actually happened in February of 2019, but it seemed further away in time because everyone's timing got messed up by the pandemic - at least, that's what my neighbor said when I told her. Why I remembered it as having happened in good weather is beyond me, but it was probably a lovely day for February, and the reason we took a walk at such a random location is that we were heading out to Sauk to look for eagles, but it was so foggy that we figured it wasn't safe to drive out of town, so we just took a walk close to where we were when we made that decision.

After Irish class, Travalon and I took a long, lovely boat ride on the lake. The clouds were so beautiful.

Here's my favorite captain at the helm of our baidean!

I took some selfies too, but they were all pretty bad. This is the least bad one, although I liked the one okay where I wasn't smiling, but nobody else likes those.

Then we watched the Bucks beat the Atlanta Hawks in the third game in their series. This was a road game, so that's good news, but they lost the first game in the series, which was a home game. Anyway, they are looking really good, especially Middleton, and Giannis forced some turnovers, so maybe this will be their year.

Famous Hat

Misty Day in the Marshes

 

Today was an overcast, misty day, so Travalon and I headed to Horicon Marsh. We figured there would be more birds out and about than on a hot sunny day, and there would be less humans around too. We started at the hill overlooking the whole marsh.

As we drove back down the hill, we saw this whitetail deer.

Next we went to the part where we often see the white-headed goose. At first we didn't see any geese, but we did see this beautiful, iridescent blue swallow.

We walked down by the water and saw this female wood duck.

And a couple of cormorants.

The only geese we saw were a whole gaggle of them on the path.

Our next stop was Theresa Marsh. I was hoping to see the whooping crane again, and Travalon said, "At least if we don't see a crane, we'll probably see a train." There was a train that was almost past as we drove up, so we saw the last three cars. The first thing we saw in the marsh was this handsome great blue heron.

We saw a number of killdeer, which are very loud, but then all sandpipers seem to be.

And we saw these carp swimming through water so shallow that their backs were sticking out. Once they got past the shallow part, they swam really, really fast. I wish we had video of that.

Coolest of all, we saw a pair of bald eagles just standing on the ground.

When we got back to the start, the blue heron was still there. Note its breeding plumage.

After that we went to the Red Owl in Brownsville, and they had a little model Red Owl store inside.

Here is the sign outside the store.

We went to the path Cecil Markovitch had told us about, because last time we saw so many egrets there. Today as we walked along the path, we saw lots of these millipedes with yellow legs.

And we saw the teeniest little toad, with my finger for perspective.

We saw a family of swans with six cygnets.

And we did see plenty of egrets.

Here is an adult Canada goose with a teenage one that is still fuzzy but starting to have adult markings.

We saw these avocets flying around too, and then they landed. They were very loud, but again, that must just be a sandpiper thing.

We also saw these pinkish-beige birds about the size and shape of ducks, but they didn't seem to be ducks. They made a laughing call, but we only saw them in flight, and Travalon couldn't get a good photo of them. So here are some more egret photos.

In this photo, you can see the terns flying around the egrets.

Once in a while, you would see a red-winged blackbird chase an egret, even though they are so much larger, and at one point I saw one chasing a large white bird with black tips on its wings, so I think it was a whooping crane. Travalon didn't see it, so he handed me the camera to take a photo myself, but I couldn't focus on it. If I did see a whooping crane, then I saw all four Big White Birds today, because just then we saw a pelican fly by.

As we were leaving, we saw this plant that seems to be growing out of a metal tube.

We ended by going to the boardwalk. It was really drizzling by then, but plenty of terns were flying around.

They kept landing in the water, splashing around, and taking off again.

We saw this cute muskrat eating grass.

And I'm not sure what this pretty bird is. It seems to be not fully mature.

This looks like your standard female mallard on a muskrat lodge.

Then we saw three pelicans fly overhead in a graceful configuration.

We stopped for ice cream in Columbus, and the girl asked if I wanted one scoop or three of the coconut pineapple ice cream, so I said one. Travalon got a root beer float that was kind of small, which was a good thing because the girl must not have heard me, and she gave me a HUGE ice cream cone with three scoops. Fortunately Travalon was willing to eat half of it. Then we burned some of it off playing World War III. The secret club I'm in has homework every month, and this month it was to play a game we used to love as children. I couldn't think of anything until remembering that my brother and I used to play what we called "World War III," hiding behind the furniture and blowing wads of paper at each other out of drinking straws. I convinced poor Travalon to play this game with me when we got home, and he accidentally sucked the wad of paper into his mouth instead of shooting it at me, so he said he was like a Loony Tunes character, aiming at Bugs Bunny but shooting himself. I laughed so hard that I choked. We did get some good shots at each other, and then I went around cleaning up the spent ammo, so that hopefully burned some fraction of the ice cream off.

Famous Hat