Peanut Butter Eyes

 

I apologize for several days of silence. Thursday I didn't have a chance to blog because I was at the Gold Mass that Richard Bonomo arranged. Masses are different colors for different professions, and the Gold Mass is specifically for scientists, but I asked to attend if I helped with the dinner afterwards. The Mass was a simple daily Mass with lovely hymns (as far as I'm concerned, "Let All Mortal Flesh" can always be the Communion hymn), then I went downstairs and helped Rich set the tables and serve dinner. There was a guy I didn't recognize also helping, so I said, "Hi, I'm Famous," and he said hi, he was the guest speaker. Really? At the University, guest speakers get treated like royalty, and here this guy was helping serve dinner?? After a simple dinner of pork, potatoes, and vegetables, Rich forced us all to get up and tell our name and science bona fides, which was embarrassing for those of us who weren't hardcore STEM people. Then the speaker gave an excellent talk on why theology needs science, then we had Rich's famous chocolate mousse, and then I was there until after ten helping to clean up. I wasn't the only one, either, so imagine if Rich had had to do it himself! He didn't ask any of us to help; we just knew he needed it done.

Friday I didn't blog because I was talking to Tiffy in what felt like the first time in forever.

Yesterday Travalon, Jilly Moose, and I drove to Literatus, the coffee shop in Watertown, and OK Cap met us there, then we all went to Tiffy's brother's house on Lake Nagawicka in Delafield. Tiffy was there dog sitting (and cat sitting), and we played with the friendly cat Tiki and the very friendly chocolate lab Reggie (or Register, as her brother calls him), but we never saw Ginger the unfriendly cat. Jilly Moose had purchased a Mad Libs book at Literatus, so we did a few. This is a story with certain verbs, nouns, and adjectives blank, so one person asks for us to fill them in without knowing what the story is, and hilarity ensues. We used to love Mad Libs as kids, and it was fun as adults because our vocabularies are larger. We sat out on the porch overlooking the lake creating these stories while Travalon went to visit his mom, then we walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant for lunch, and on the way we saw a white squirrel and a yellow warbler, and also those blue squills some people have in their lawns, so that this time of year their lawns look like fairy grass with all the little blue flowers in them. Tiffy had to give Reggie his peanut butter-filled toy to distract him so that we could leave, and I noted that he has peanut butter-colored eyes, so I said that would be a good blog post title. When we came back to the house, Travalon returned, and we wrote a naughty Mad Libs story with all adult words. To our delight, the basic skeleton of that story was about "Rockets," and it really worked!! If there is any demand, I might put the story on this blog at some point. I noticed a sign that said "Benice," and I thought it was a joke on Tiffy's sister-in-law's name, since her real name is Denise. When I mentioned this to Tiffy, she said, "It says Be Nice." It was just squished together. This is right up with the time that I pointed out to Tiffy that they had just painted M075 on the driveway to my condo's parking lot, and what could it mean? Was it a secret message to the moth-spraying planes? and she said, "You mean where it says SLOW?" Only if you read it upside-down...

Tiffy's nephew (who is now graduated from college) had done a drawing when he was a kid in school of two crabs in a death match tearing off each other's limbs, and it was labeled "Regeneration." I thought it was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen, and I said it would be a great birthday party theme, but Tiffy said we should do it for Rich's birthday, not mine. Then I said for my birthday I could take my smiley face pillow Emily out for a drink, because Tiffy's niece had just turned 24, and she took the stuffed Cherry Minnie Mouse Tiffy had given her for her third birthday out for her first drink, since Cherry Minnie was now 21. Tiffy pointed out that this ship had sailed for Emily, since she's well past 21, so then I thought next year I could have Emily's big 50th birthday bash. I wasn't sure if Emily had been a baby shower gift or a first birthday present, but I texted Ma Hat who verified that she had been the latter, so now I have eight months to plan Emily's 50th birthday bash. 

It was raining most of the day, so we didn't walk to the nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. Instead, we all packed into Travalon's car and we drove the half a mile to the restaurant. We had passed their sign earlier, and the soup of the day was shrimp bisque, while the cocktail of the day was a Peeps martini. Jilly Moose really wanted the Peeps martini, and it is as glorious as you imagined:

Jilly Moose took this photo, and I like how the brim glows on her photo.

Dinner was a lot of fun too, especially when we were talking about watching classic cartoons, and Travalon said how he had been having issues with them turning green, but he inserted his fire stick into a different hole, and then it worked. After our dirty Mad Libs story, we couldn't help but laugh about that! Then we went back to the house, and the sweetest thing was that Reggie stood right in front of the door when we tried to leave. He didn't want to say goodbye! Well, we are a lot of fun.

Here is a cross I bought at a shop right by Literatus.

And this is a boat full of "slow no wake" buoys we saw on our walk to the Mexican restaurant.

Today was cold and windy, and we didn't have a lot of time after brunch, so Travalon and I went to Patrick Marsh. He took lots of photos of the mergansers and grebes that we saw, so I'll post those tomorrow. At Irish class we had to talk about what we will do tomorrow, so I said write in my diary (I try to do that every Monday evening), and the others were fascinated that I've kept a diary since I was 18. Nothing too exciting at band practice; I picked up Hardingfele after the bus dropped her off, and Bongo the chocolate lab was just leaving as we arrived. Stay tuned tomorrow for photos from Patrick Marsh.

Famous Hat