Halloween 2021

 

Sorry for the silence yesterday. Travalon went to the Badger game, and they beat Iowa 27-7. I feel bad when the Badgers beat up on a non-conference cupcake team, but a conference foe that's nationally ranked? Then I love it! Meanwhile, Tiffy, Kathbert, Rich, and I went to the Arboretum, and I took lots of photos of the beautiful trees, which I will post tomorrow. Kathbert had several good quotes: when we saw a maple with leaves that looked slightly like marijuana, she called it a "maple-juana," and when we were looking at osage oranges on the ground, which looked like green brains, and I said Funk Factory used them to make a sour beer, she called it "brainy brew." Osage oranges are sometimes called "monkey brains," and you can see why in this photo.

In the evening Tiffy and I had dinner at Bellitalia, then we went to a concert of German Baroque composers. As my regular readers know, I will drop almost everything to hear music that isn't in equal temperament. The two Bach concerti were ones I learned to play years ago, the Brandenburg Concerto #3 and the Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor. It was so wonderful to hear them live!

Today Tiffy joined us for brunch, then she, Travalon, and I hung out at the Memorial Union. After she headed home, Travalon and I went to the Hop Garden in Paoli to hear the blues band we heard at Beef Butter BBQ a few weeks ago. We also got good chocolates and lemon cookies. Here I am in my "costume," the horns I got from being the Mayor of Hell, Michigan for my 40th birthday. (I couldn't find my light-up unicorn horn anywhere.)

Then we went to Rich's house for Barbarian Spaghetti, which was my secret mission for this month. Kathbert and Jilly Moose joined us too. The secret club had sent a plastic tablecloth, so we ate the spaghetti right off of that with our hands, except for Kathbert, who ate hers off a plate but didn't use her hands. Rich took some photos of that which he hasn't sent to me yet. He did send me this photo of Travalon and me re-enacting the scene from Lady and the Tramp:

Travalon even played the song from that scene to get us all in the mood to slurp spaghetti. Rich didn't have time to think of an equation to put on his pumpkin this year, so he carved a traditional jack-o-lantern. It was kind of cute!

There were supposed to be spectacular northern lights tonight, so Travalon and I went to a little park off Bong Road near our house, since that should have been very dark. To our surprise, another car followed us into the parking lot. We figured they were going to look for northern lights too, but they seemed to be a bunch of teenagers who were there to smoke weed, probably attracted both by the remoteness of the park and the name of the road. We didn't see any trace of northern lights, but I looked through the binoculars at the Pleiades, and that was very cool. So that was our spooky experience for Halloween.

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Poetic Justice

 

So today I found out something even more interesting about the game last night: Douglas, the cornerback who got the interception to end the game, had just been cut by the Cardinals. He had been on a number of teams but never really got any playing time, and this season he had been on the Cardinals' practice squad, but he never got any playing time with them either, and then they cut him. The Packers' two starting cornerbacks are both on injured reserve, so they were desperate to pick up a cornerback, and so they picked up Douglas, who had just become unemployed. He had a solid game against the team that had just cut him, but what poetic justice that he got to pound the nail into their coffin with that final play! So seldom do you get to see karma play out so quickly like that, but it's always so satisfying when it does.

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Amazing Packers Win

 

This morning as Travalon and I took a walk before work, we saw the golden squirrel. He took some photos, but not with his good camera, and they didn't really turn out. However, we both took photos of autumn foliage with our phones that turned out.

By our dock we saw this rose blooming, and I thought that was impressive this late in the year.

But then I saw our neighbor has tons of roses blooming today!

On a completely different topic, it must seem puzzling to a lot of people that the same types who say of course cops have to shoot unarmed black men if they seem even a little bit uncooperative are now decrying a policeman for shooting an uncooperative rioter at the Capitol on January 6, and on its face it does look inconsistent. But if you look at it in a different way, they are being very consistent: they believe that it's always okay for a white person to kill a black person, but always wrong for a black person to kill a white person. Therefore, in the case where the cop is black and the person causing trouble is white, like the case with the rioter at the Capitol, she was an innocent, unarmed person who shouldn't have been shot no matter how much she was disobeying the cops. It's not that they're "law and order" types, they are just good old-fashioned racists. But extremely consistent.

Tonight we watched the very depleted Packers team play the undefeated Cardinals down in Arizona, and I didn't have high hopes. But they were ahead and things were looking good until they stalled in the red zone and Arizona was driving back down the field with hardly any time left. The Packers defense couldn't stop them, and soon the Cardinals were in the red zone, and it sure looked like the game was over. But then, it was almost like a miracle: Douglas picked off the ball in the end zone with twelve seconds left, so the Packers could just take a knee. The Packers Paradox: Adams is their best player, but they have never lost a game he couldn't play in. Tiffy says that is because the other team knows who to cover when Adams is playing, but they have no idea what to do if he's not there. Who is Rodgers giving the ball to? They have no way of knowing. She's undoubtedly right about that.

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Pumpkins and Coffee (But Not Pumpkin Coffee)

 

Yesterday there was a student activity that involved pumpkin carving, and this morning there were some extra pumpkins that we could take home. Most were huge, and I had to take the bus home so that would be impractical, but there was one cute little one that even had some lovely designs carved into it. I showed it to my boss, thinking someone had forgotten it, but she said she did it. Free hand! She didn't have a stencil or anything. She showed me by carving some more of it, then she gave it to me. Isn't it adorable? Isn't my boss talented?

Monday night I saw a beautiful sunset, but by the time I got home and could take a picture, it was past its prime. Still beautiful, though.

Yesterday I went for a walk with my colleague, and she said that she usually walks a mile in 18 minutes, but when she walked with me, it took her 24 minutes. Then I saw my workout, and it said I had walked a lot faster than usual, so I had to laugh. I slow her down, and she speeds me up! So today I was taking a very leisurely walk at lunch, and I ran into her halfway through. See if you can spot where we meet up.

You can also see where she left me behind because she had to get back for a meeting, and I reverted to my evil ways. I said we should walk together more often, so I can get faster, but I'm not sure she wants to be slowed down...

This afternoon in the break room I ran into a faculty member who was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, and we talked about coffee. I said I never drink the coffee in the break room because I'm a coffee snob who drinks the free trade, shade grown stuff; it's not only better for the environment and society, but it just tastes way better. Also, I have to make coffee for Travalon in the morning, and he needs a deconstructed cake in it: chocolate, hazelnut, caramel, etc. This wouldn't have been noteworthy except that I had the exact same conversation on the bus home this afternoon with my bus buddy. I have no idea why coffee kept coming up today. It wasn't a day that required any more caffeine than usual.

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Back to the Crane Foundation

 

Today was another day at the actual office, but I almost didn't get there in time because I had forgotten to set my alarm and woke up a quarter of an hour late. Fortunately Travalon was able to drive me to work, so I did get there just in time. Then I found that people are sending things to my work email address about activities happening over the weekend, so I don't find out about them until Monday morning. Other people are sending things to an email address I rarely use and often forget I have - I'm not even sure how they got that email address! Seriously, I have had my personal email address for over two decades so you would think that would be the one everyone would use.

Yesterday I was complaining about feeling stuffy, but I said it had to be allergies and not a cold because my eyes were itchy and watery. I sang a couple of lame verses to "That's Amore":

"When some dust hits your eye and it just makes you cry, that's allergic!

When you sneeze without end and alarm all your friends, that's allergic!"

Then Travalon sang:

"When you see a whole pie and you just can't deny, you're a Fat Bear!"

Then we drove out to the International Crane Foundation, since we can go for free whenever we want, as members. Also, we were going to meet Jilly Moose and OK Cap out there. We took the Merrimac Ferry across Lake Wisconsin, and Travalon got some pictures of fall colors from the ferry.

Then we got to the Crane Foundation. The blue cranes were busy preening.

I tried to get them to look up by singing Gallus to them, and this one did look up.

Just then a volunteer came by, so I was a little embarrassed. I hope he didn't think I was harassing the cranes! We moved on to the black crowned cranes.

We never saw the gray crowned crane, because her mate had just died so she was hiding in her house. We did see the demoiselle cranes.

And the wattled cranes, who were busy digging in the dirt.

The female Eurasian crane posed for us.

In the distance we could see Crane City with autumn foliage behind it. This is where they breed the cranes, and usually on Members Day you can get tours of Crane City, but they didn't have them this year. Also, Members Day was when I was hanging out in the corn maze.

The red-crowned crane is always so graceful.

This is a brolga, a crane from Australia.

This photo of the black-necked crane made me laugh. It looks like a big, angry chicken.

Here is a crane fountain right outside where the black-necked cranes and brolgas are. It's right by the prayer wheels.

This is the white-naped crane posing just for Travalon.

The whooping cranes are so beautiful.

I love the reflection in this photo.

Travalon's favorite, the Siberian cranes.

I bought some crane socks in the gift shop, but we never got to meet up with Jilly Moose and OK Cap because they arrived just as we had to leave so I could get to my Irish class on time. 

We had been listening to the Packer game in the car, so we knew that they beat the Washington Football Team, but in the evening we watched the first half of the game. This evening we watched the second half. A radio announcer said the Packers are the least penalized team in the league, which gives me pause, because does it mean that they play politely, or that the referees favor them? I wouldn't have guessed that they were the least penalized, since they get plenty of penalties when I watch them. Some are richly deserved, like when one player tore an opposing guy's helmet right off his head, and other ones I don't get, and often the announcers don't either. Sometimes I swear they are just making new ones up, because they'll come up with something I've never heard of before. How do they know what's a penalty? Do they have a special referee school? I'd rather be a color commentator - Travalon already has to listen to me do that through the whole game, so why not get paid for it?

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GLEAM

 

Last night after I blogged, Travalon and I went to GLEAM, an art installation at Olbrich Gardens. They had timed entries, and the earliest one we could get was 9:30 pm. We got there a bit early, and they let us in without any questions, and then we were done by 10 so I thought about doing another quick blog post, but instead we watched Popeye cartoons. In one they were supposed to act refined, and at one point they were supposed to "converse," so Popeye started the conversation by saying, "Language is used for conversin' more than any other, don't you think?" Yes, I do, Popeye. Yes, I do. For some reason that sentence made me laugh so hard that I almost couldn't breathe. Anyway, here are some cool photos from GLEAM:

These are reflections on the path:

This is a mirrored box, I think they called it a "tesseract," inside the Thai Pavilion:

These spooky eyes also hooted like an owl.

I should have known there would be some blacklight art there!

This was our favorite: what looked like enchanted trees arising from the pond.

This sphere was cool too.

There were swings under these rainbows. Travalon tried to take a photo of me swinging, but none of them turned out. If you look to the far right, you can see these rainbows reflected in the windows.

Here we are in the tesseract!

A couple of videos: first, the tesseract, so you can see how the lights changed with the music.

This isn't great, but you can hear the hoots that went with the spooky eyes.

Today we went to the Crane Foundation again, and Travalon took lots of great photos, but it has gotten late. I will post them tomorrow.

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