They'll Love Me in Munich!

 

This morning I was jolted awake by Travalon hollering, "It's 8:15!!" The thing is, I was sure I had set our alarm for 7, but it never went off, and when I looked, it didn't appear to be set. Even so, I don't usually sleep that late. I was supposed to be at work at 8:30, and he was supposed to be at work by 9:00, so we rushed out the door without breakfast or coffee. We have coffee at work, so I had a cup, but my mug there is smaller than my mug at home, so I went to have seconds. There was no more left, and I didn't want to brew a whole pot for just one cup... and then my coworkers were joking that I needed more coffee, since my brain never seemed to wake up today. I ate my lunch for breakfast, so then I went to the cafe in Hardingfele's building, and we went out a door marked "Not an Exit" to eat out in a shady, overgrown courtyard. Hardingfele thought we might be locked out, but she was unconcerned: "I can call the building manager, and he'll let us back in." However, the door was unlocked, so there was no problem, except for a labeling one, since it clearly WAS an exit.

I did have a Teams meeting with a woman in Germany, and the business part of it only took a little bit, but she was super friendly so we started talking about, you know, whatever. I really had her laughing about how everyone is lazy, even my plants that used to stand up straight until they were pushed against the wall at Rich's house, and now they need something to lean on. Sometimes I think maybe I missed my calling to be a standup comedienne, since it must be my delivery. A phlebotomist once told me I was her funniest blood draw of the day, and when I participated in an improv class, I had my partner rolling on the floor. But doesn't everyone secretly think they are funny? My brother once said he wanted to be a standup comedian, and I laughed because that was the only funny thing he'd ever said. He was always notoriously bad at telling jokes; he'd get to the punchline and everyone would stare blankly, and then he'd be all, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that she was a nun!" and then we would all laugh really hard, but at him, not with him. Still, maybe that's why he thought he was so funny. It could be a schtick - tell a joke so badly that it's funnier than the original joke. That might be a better routine than talking about lazy plants, but my routine worked on this German woman. Maybe I should do standup in Germany...

Famous Hat

Afternoon on the Union Terrace

 

Today at one we had a very important administrative staff work meeting that was more of a going-away party for my boss, who will only be my boss for three more days. (And does Saturday even count?) Our department chair came too, but our former coworker named after a Norse god did not make it, although he had said he would try to be there and even bring his baby. It was a perfect afternoon, and we sat around drinking beer and hard cider until everyone else left around four, and then I went for an hour walk down the Lakeshore Path before my next meeting, at five, with the Union people. That lasted until about six, and then Travalon joined me, and the two of us hung out for another couple of hours.

It was open mic night tonight, and Travalon had never heard Art Paul Schlosser before, so he really enjoyed that. Art Paul did a song about pink pants that included the line, "Your late great-uncle Nate" as someone you should give pink pants to. There was an amazingly talented young girl who sang and played the electric guitar - her name was Famous too. There was a guy who played the Grateful Dead on the banjo, and there were some less interesting people too, like a girl singing Taylor Swift songs along with a karaoke machine. That's Open Mic Night for you - a wide array of talent.

There were some interesting watercraft out on the lake too. We saw a boat that looked like it was from the 1940's, and there was a really fascinating contraption that seemed to be two hammocks strung up above a boat. I took a couple of not-too-great photos.

Travalon was down at the refreshment stand when it passed by, so he got a closer look at it, and he said it was indeed a couple of hammocks strung over some sort of boat, with a little motor, but only one guy in it. And here I thought I was living the life of Reilly, spending the entire afternoon on the Terrace - I got nothing on this guy, hanging out in a hammock as he glides across the lake. That's really living!

Famous Hat

Shamrock Club Picnic

 

Tonight Travalon and I went to the Shamrock Club Picnic. It was way down in Fitchburg, so even though I got off of work at five and he got off of work forty-five minutes later, we got there at virtually the same time. We sat with a couple and another guy, who said he was going to Germany in mid-September. He asked when the next club event would be, and the other guy said probably September 17, which makes sense - it's halfway to St. Patrick's Day - but it also means the guy going to Germany will miss it. The food was typical picnic food: little turkey and cheese sandwiches, pasta salad, a fruit and vegetable platter, Rice Krispy treats, and these really cute frosted sugar cookies that looked like shamrocks. The one guy talked sports a lot with Travalon, and it turns out the other couple is going to Alaska, so that's something I can relate to. Then this very friendly woman came over and started talking to us, and it turns out we have three friends in common on MyFace, so I asked who they were, and they are all Irish class peeps. Why none of these people belong to the Shamrock Club is beyond me, since they seem to be very into everything Irish. So the friendly woman and I became friends on MyFace, and then I mentioned that the tartan blossom on my hat is for Clan Hat, so I have a Scottish maiden name. She said she did one of the genetic tests I have done and was surprised to find out that she is more Scottish than Irish. I am a bit skeptical that a test can really tell that, since they are genetically identical, but maybe it meant she was related to more people in Scotland than in Ireland. I had thought the Second Sight was a Celtic thing, but some of the things I read said it is specific to the people of the Scottish Highlands, so is that where I got it? Everything I've read about it fits with my experience: it's always something bad that you foresee, and it's never useful. It's just a sense some people have, the way some of us seem to have keener senses of smell. And at least that's useful, if you want to be a sommelier or something. The Second Sight doesn't exactly open up any job opportunities, or really any opportunities to make money, because not once have I ever been able to predict lottery numbers.

Famous Hat

Monday Evening Boat Ride

 

Mondays aren't so bad when you work from home. I slept a bit later, rolled out of bed, and thought about walking before work but just chilled. Then it was a crazy busy workday, but at home I can concentrate better and get more done. Everyone is submitting reimbursement requests because I suppose they just realized the fiscal year ends on Thursday, and if they don't use up the funds I've been warning them about for a year, they lose them.

Then I went to my garden plot with some trepidation. Last time the guy who has the plot to the left of me was there, and he was all up in my face: "I've never seen you here before! (Well, I've never seen him either, and I've been gardening in my plot for years.) I was wondering whose plot this was! I thought maybe it was abandoned and I could take it over so I could have two adjacent plots." He was a skinny twenty-something white guy who was very hyper and very annoying. Who wants to feel like someone is eyeing up your plot because you don't weed often enough for their taste? Also, if I have too many dandelions in my plot, but I'm eating dandelion greens, then technically aren't they a crop and not a weed?? Not that I set out to grown dandelions, mind you, but I'm making the best of a bad situation. I didn't stay long that evening because that guy really weirded me out. Today the guy who has the plot to the right of me was there, but he was about my age and sounded like he was from Africa, and he was super nice and was telling me how great that black plastic stuff is that he had put down because he never has to weed. Now that is advice I can use!

When Travalon came home, we had dinner (quesadillas made with mushrooms we had gotten at the Farmer's Market, and all sorts of greens from my garden plot), then we took a lovely boat ride out into the lake. It was a calm evening, and the sun was setting so everything looked gilded. Travalon did run into a buoy, but there was no damage to either us or the buoy. He said he couldn't see it around me. I know I'm wider than I should be, but come on. It was such a beautiful evening; we haven't been boating much this month because it has either been raining or over 90 degrees F, so it was wonderful to get out when the weather was just about perfect. Hopefully we will get out more the rest of this summer.

Famous Hat

The Peach Hour and the Enchanted Hill

 

Today I went to just the Mass I needed, up in our neighborhood. There was a visiting priest from Kenya talking about how his diocese has twenty-two churches and only two priests, and they haven't had rain for five years, and it really made me think about just how lucky we are here in Madison. Also, there were a lot of people of different colors at this Mass, so it made me feel like part of the universal Church, and not just a club of wealthy white people, like I sometimes feel at my own church. We avoided downtown partly because we weren't sure if people upset over the recent Supreme Court ruling would disrupt Mass, but apparently they didn't. They wouldn't have disrupted the Mass we were at because it would be un-PC to harass an African priest.

Then Travalon and I went for a hike in the shady part of Tiedeman's Pond, the shady part of Stricker Pond, and the shady part of Pheasant Branch. Here is a great blue heron at Tiedeman's Pond.

And a sandhill crane right nearby.

Here are a couple of killdeer at Stricker Pond.

And I love this view of the hill at Pheasant Branch, with the creek in front of it. It almost looks like a magical, enchanted mountain with a vast river in front of it.

As we sat admiring the view, a couple of people paddled by in a two-person kayak, and that made us really want to kayak there. Also, just as we got there, we saw a great blue heron flying away. Travalon kind of captured him in a photo, but the above photo is a better one of the hill. True story: once Richard Bonomo felt I was getting too soft while dating Travalon, so he dragged me up that hill as fast as I could go. Today Travalon and I felt no need to climb it.

Since Boethius is being cooperative, I'll post some more photos. These are from the Bat Cave in Gotham.

These are from our cruise last night. We saw this kingfisher hovering over the water and then diving.

And this is the crazy little island that I think was created by a guy in the 19th century who piled rocks on the ice every winter, so they would sink in the spring, until after a number of years he built an island. The story I heard is that everyone laughed at him until it worked, and then they promptly outlawed creating your own island.

Here is a view of the beach we often swim at in Governor Nelson State Park.

Here is a view of the Capitol.

And this is the Killer Building where I work, twice a week in the summer.

Here is Governor's Island, where we often hike.

And this is Maple Bluff, where some of the rich people live.

Another view of my Killer Building, with a sailboat in the foreground.

We think this is a loon, but it's hard to tell what it is. It isn't a mallard.

Another sailboat. The couple from Iowa sitting on the bow with us were disappointed there were so few boats out and about, but I chalk that up to the iffy weather.

Here is another view of the Capitol.

This is the Edgewater. The Boathouse restaurant is down on the lower right.

Here is the Union Terrace, packed even when the weather is iffy.

And here are the boats moored near the Union. Some of these belong to the sailing club, but I think a lot of them are private boats that just rent a spot.

We saw a great blue heron fly overhead.

This is the sunset. You can see why Tiffy called it the "peach hour."

This is the view as we headed back up the river to the dock. The peach hour has given way to more of a lavender hour.

This evening Travalon and I went to Mariner's for a drink, since it was such a beautiful evening. They told us we had to order at the bar, so he went inside to do so, and I sat at a table. There was a goose family picking at the grass, except for one, I assume the paterfamilias, who was giving me the side eye. He kept looking at me suspiciously, and then when Travalon returned with the drinks, I pointed the goose out and we laughed at him, so he seemed even more suspicious of us. Even as we left, he was still staring daggers at us. I think it's really annoying how people say we shouldn't anthropomorphize animals, because they aren't like us. Please! Anyone who spends any time around animals can see they have recognizable emotions like joy, sorrow... and suspicion. 

Speaking of other life forms, for the last few days I have been pondering something: space aliens are always depicted as these creepy, ugly things, but why? When I think of other life forms on our own planet, whether palm trees or tigers or flamingos, they are incredibly beautiful. Even fungi are often just adorable. So why should alien life forms be ugly? Granted, they are from other planets with different conditions, and I'll concede that turkey vultures and mosquitos are not the most beautiful things, but in general life is beautiful. Why wouldn't alien life be gorgeous too?

Famous Hat

My Password Is the Last Eight Digits of Pi

 

The title of this blogpost is from a T-shirt I caught a glimpse of today on State Street, and the person moved too fast for me to be sure, but I think that's what it said. If so, it is brilliant.

Yesterday I was at work when Roe vs. Wade was overturned, and now I see one of the justices also wants to overturn the right to contraception. It has really disturbed me how many people I know of who have daughters getting their bodies surgically altered at a young age so they are no longer female, but honestly now I think they may be onto something. I have always wanted to have children myself and thought they would regret it when they were older and couldn't have them, but I would rather have no children than be forced to have children I didn't want. They looked at the way the Christian Taliban is taking over this country, and they said, "Nope!" and I totally get it. It does seem like in the not-too-distant future women might be forced to have as many children as they possibly can, and who knows what else they are going to do to us? Now I am personally very disgusted by abortion, but I am even more disgusted by the idea that men might soon be able to force women to bear their children, and I can understand why young teenagers are staring down the barrel of this possible future and deciding to cut off childbearing as a possibility.

Then I met Tiffy downtown, and it was really hot so we decided to go to the public library. There is a room called the Bubbler where you can make art, but she wasn't interested in arts and crafts. We ended up getting a Choose Your Own Adventure book and reading it in a little private room in the children's area, and that was crazy entertaining. The subject was trying to find people who had disappeared in the Amazon, and we got eaten by piranhas, stabbed by a deranged pilot, and achieved enlightenment, among other possible endings, some so lame that they were like, "And the next day you will set off with the search party. The End." 

Travalon met us when he got off of work, and we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant on State Street, then he kindly drove us out to the outdoor theater so we could watch Hamlet for at least the third time, while he went fishing and to a bar called the Bat Cave in Gotham, which is a tiny town actually pronounced "Goh-tham," not "Gah-tham." He took some photos, but Boethius my computer is having one of those days and refuses to post them to the blog, so maybe look for them tomorrow if he's in a better mood. Travalon also discovered a cool bar in Spring Green where they play jazz records.

This morning it was very rainy, and we slept quite late, then we met Tiffy downtown for coffee. I was concerned about violence downtown if there were protests, not from the leftist protesters but from people who don't agree with them and have been emboldened to use violence against them by recent court decisions, and this isn't an idle fear - a man in Iowa ran over some pro-abortion protesters with a pickup truck today. However, Tiffy said nothing was going on downtown, so we hung out down there: going to the Farmer's Market, shopping on State Street, and eating lunch at the place we usually go to for Sunday brunch. It was drizzly all day long, and a thunderstorm was predicted right around the time we were supposed to go on our Betty Lou Cruise this evening, but at some point the weather forecast changed to just overcast. The cruise did happen, and everyone else beat us and a couple from Clinton, Iowa on board, but shockingly nobody else wanted to sit on the bow, so the five of us got to sit out there. I have been on so many Lake Mendota cruises that I just naturally started giving a tour talk to the Iowans, which they seemed to enjoy. The sun started to come out at what I call the "golden hour," not long before sunset, but Tiffy pointed out that today it was more of a "peach hour" because of the cloud cover. It may not have been a bright, sunny day, but it was a fine evening for a cruise, and we saw a kingfisher hovering over the water, something we think was a loon, and a blue heron flying overhead, as well as ducks and geese with babies. The Union Terrace was packed despite the cooler weather. Travalon took some photos, and if Boethius is more cooperative tomorrow, look for them here.

Famous Hat

Dinner in the Garden

 

I was not on campus today, but I do enjoy the waves of fragrant bushes and trees there. The crabapples and lilacs have long since bloomed, but right now the catalpas and Japanese lilacs are in full, aromatic bloom. Kathbert doesn't like to call the Japanese lilacs anything with "lilac" in the name, even though we could see from the leaves that they are closely related to the purple shrubby lilacs, because they smell very different. They are trees with yellowish-white blossom clusters, and she prefers to think of them as "poofy trees." It's like how carob is delicious if you're expecting carob, but it's a horrible surprise if you're expecting chocolate. Even the tulip tree blossoms have a faint scent reminiscent of other magnolias, as I discovered when I picked up the fallen blossoms. They are too far up in the trees for much scent to get down to a casual passerby, but if you can smell one up close, they're lovely.

Today I worked from home, which has its own charms. At lunch I went for a walk and was surprised to see a rather large, colorful bird fly by not much higher than my head. It had a bright yellow bill, a reddish-brown neck, and a dark green body, and I realized it was a green heron. Then I went to pray the rosary in the shady spot near the little bay, and on a log in the bay was another green heron, so maybe the first one got chased off: "This is MY spot!!" It watched me leerily as I walked around in the shade, praying, and then it vanished. Maybe that was because there was now a black-crowned night heron standing in the bay. Who knew there would be such good birdwatching in the heat of the day?

This evening I weeded in the garden, then Travalon joined me for a community dinner at the garden. They used to have pizza made right there in their ovens, but of course during the pandemic they had nothing, and now it's different groups. Tonight they had garden strata and pesto pasta salad, and you donated as much as you wanted. Then when we got home, there was live music at Mariner's, a man and a woman singing and playing acoustic guitar, so we went over to sit outside and listen to them. The waiter asked what I would like to drink, and I said a Skinny Island Girl, since they made a delicious one at the sadly defunct Nau-Ti-Gal. The waiter didn't know what that was, so I found a recipe: vodka, unsweetened cranberry juice, lime juice, stevia syrup, and diet ginger ale. He said, "I have regular cranberry juice, simple syrup, and regular ginger ale," so it was a basic Island Girl... and a lot more calories, as I found out when I entered it into my diet app tonight. Maybe I should have just had that ice cream drink I really wanted...

Famous Hat

Train on Campus

 

Today was another annoying day at work. I had to take some online training, and they provided a Word document with lots of places for notes, because there would be a final exam. There were quizzes in each module, and I did fine on those, but I took copious notes for fear of how detailed the final exam would be. Then finally I finished all the modules and got to the final exam... and it was one question: "Did you complete all the modules?" Who's going to answer No?? So I took all those notes for nothing. Sigh...

At least on my morning break there was a train, and I heard it coming so I could get into position to make a video. Now most trains that go through campus have about five cars, but only once I was committed to filming did I realize this was going to be a five-minute train. But, fear not! It's not just five minutes of train going by, because there's something odd going on that I didn't notice in person but realized once I watched the video on my computer: some guy seems to be taking photos of me! Now who would want to take a photo of a plump, middle-aged woman making a video of a train?? I am standing in front of Agriculture Hall, so it's possible he was just taking pictures of that, but it looks like he spots me and then decides to take photos of me from different angles. You can judge for yourselves. This is looking down Henry Mall at Engineering Hall.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, so ideal for taking a video of a train from this lovely vantage point. I just wish it hadn't been quite so long. And I'm sure all the cars you can see accumulating on the road had drivers that wished the same thing!

Famous Hat

Make Music Madison 2022

 

Today we had our annual gig for Make Music Madison, and I took off early from work and picked up Hardingfele on campus. Just like last year, we played in the driveway of our bandmate's house, where we always practice, and she had music going all day. Her two teenage grandchildren were there, looking kind of bored. We got there in time to hear a brother and sister duo play duets on the piano; they were eleven and ten but looked even younger. Or maybe that's because everyone looks young to me now at my advanced age. They were pretty good! 

We had a decent crowd for our hour, including Jilly Moose. Some people had parasols because it was such a hot day - it was pushing 100 F - but we were kind of in the sun ourselves. I said, "I forgot sunscreen," and our guitarist said, "It's four. You don't need it at this hour," but later Hardingfele told me that I had some sunburn. I'm so pale, I can get a moon burn! It was so hot that my hands were really sweaty, and I was in dire fear of dropping my mandolin. I didn't, and none of the instruments exploded like what happened to our now retired fiddler six years ago, so in that way it was a successful gig. Jilly Moose tells me we sounded really good, but I think we were all too hot and stressed to notice. We got some tips, so afterwards our hostess was counting them frantically because she thought I had said I needed mine right away, but in fact I had only said I needed to leave right away - I am no hurry to get my buck two-eighty in tips. As we headed downtown, me to my adoration hour and Hardingfele to catch her bus, she said to me that the hostess might have some heatstroke from being outside all day for Make Music Madison. (She played in several of the groups throughout the day.) I said in that case I should have insisted on getting my share of the tips, if only to keep her in the air conditioning longer, but Hardingfele was of the opinion that her teenage grandkids could keep an eye on her. Anyway, she seemed to be having a lot of trouble counting, so I might have missed adoration for a buck two-eighty in tips. So not worth it.

Unfortunately I do not have photos yet. Will I ever? I don't remember anyone taking any...

Famous Hat

Family Resemblance

 

My aunt sent this photo of Ma Hat in high school:

Compare it with this photo of me in high school:

When I was a kid, people always said I looked just like Ma Hat, but I am not sure. Maybe I look more like Pa Hat. (I don't have a picture of him in high school.) Probably I look just like the two of them put together. That's how genetics works, right?

Famous Hat

Stuffed Mushroom (Cuddly, Not Delicious)

 

Sorry for the silence the last few days. Friday I worked from home for the morning, then I took the bus downtown to meet Tiffy, and we had lunch at the Globe, sitting outside in the shade. We walked down to the Union Terrace and got a table, and then we got a pitcher of beer and enjoyed the beautiful afternoon and evening. Travalon joined us, then Jilly Moose did, and we sat there until the sun was going down. The Mallards were having fireworks that night after their game, and we debated about trying to watch them from the Terrace or drive up to Bierock and watch them there, but Tiffy suggested the roof of her sister's building, so we went up there. We could see the fireworks from there, but they looked very far away. It was a beautiful night, and I took some photos from the roof of her building. Here are the two best.

On the Terrace there was an "Art Cart" with free arts and crafts things, like coloring book pages and pins and beads for making friendship pins. I thought some of the beads looked like they might glow under blacklight, so I checked at home, and they do!

Yesterday I went downtown and met Tiffy and Jilly Moose for coffee in the back garden at Fair Trade, then we went around the Farmer's Market on the Square because Tiffy had seen some cool succulents up there earlier in the morning. By then they were picked over, but I did find this colorful pillow that makes me think of a sunset.

I thought it might glow under blacklight, but only this band of pink does. This almost makes it look even more like a sunset!

We went to the New Age shop across from our church, and as we headed there I told them I'd dreamed of a shop that looked like that, but when I went in, the woman behind the counter asked my sign and then said, "Capricorn? That's the worst one! Get out of my shop!!" But of course when this shop opened, even though it looked just like my dream, the woman didn't say anything like that at all. Tiffy was saying I was the rarest sign, and I said, "I'm a rare bird!" just as we entered the shop, so the woman behind the counter said, "Welcome, rare bird!" I told her the whole story, and she said, "Oh, I would never say anything like that!" Tiffy said, "I'm just a commoner - I'm the most common sign," and the woman said, "Me too! Are you a Virgo?" She mused about why there are so many of them, and the other woman behind the counter (who never revealed her sign) said because it's nine months after Christmas. There were two other shoppers in there too, and they said they just had a palm reading and tarot reading done, and it was amazing. I don't really like that stuff, but I am a sucker for crystals because they are so beautiful. I bought these two - can't remember what kinds they are.

OK Cap had said she was just putting on her shoes and was on her way, but it seemed like she was taking much longer to get downtown than we expected, so the other woman behind the counter and I started joking about what incredibly elaborate shoes she must have, were they those Victorian boots with like six thousand buttons up the side? We went to Dubai for lunch (sitting outside, of course), and OK Cap joined us. We sat on the roof of Tiffy's sister's building talking for a bit, then we took OK Cap to the New Age shop, and the one woman behind the counter said, "Her shoes don't look too elaborate," so then I had to explain the joke to OK Cap, who said she had gotten a phone call that delayed her. We all went to get bubble tea, and as we sat outside drinking it, the Virgo woman from the New Age shop came by to get some. She must have thought we were crazy - we weren't moving too far that day! Actually, I did walk six miles, but it was just a lot of back and forth in a small area. Then we all went to Little Luxuries, and I got this adorable stuffed mushroom that doesn't have a name yet.

Jilly Moose got some more Mad Libs books, so after we left the shop (and OK Cap had to take off), we three ladies went back to the roof of Tiffy's sister's building and did Mad Libs. Even more entertaining, we started sending each other texts where we wrote a word or the start of a phrase, and we just kept choosing the next word our phone suggested. That really had us laughing! By then Travalon had returned from a graduation party for his high school friend's daughter, so the four of us tried the pulled noodle restaurant on State Street, and then we went to the Broadway show Ain't Too Proud, about the Temptations. That was fantastic! Tiffy's sister had given her four tickets, and then when we got there, we found out they were in a box! Boy, did we feel swanky! And the music in the show was so good.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Travalon's dad, so he went to visit his mother and brothers. Rich also wasn't at Mass, because he had a high fever yesterday and found out he has COVID. Tiffy joined me and the rest of the usuals at brunch, then she and I took a walk on Governor's Island, and then we joined Kathbert for a long hike in the Arboretum. And of course we had band practice outside tonight, so that is three days of being outside almost all day long, and I am a bit sunburned, even though I tried to stay in the shade. But oh, does it boost your mood to get all that fresh air! I love sunshine, even if it doesn't love me.

Famous Hat

Giant Mallards Beach Ball

 

Yesterday when I was walking on the Lakeshore Path during my lunch break, this big, cool moth kept flying around me. It's clearly a hummingbird moth (note the fanned tail), but I can't figure out from Google what species it is. Isn't it striking?

Tonight Travalon treated me to a Mallards game. He got good seats, kind of behind home plate, and between innings they do different things like throw giant beach balls around, but there weren't any getting tossed around near us. Just as the beach ball toss was ending, one hit Travalon's beer and spilled half of it, and he scrambled after the ball and got it. Isn't it cool? We can play with it at the beach.

We have smaller beach balls we got from rock concerts, but we keep losing them. Big old Maynard will be hard to lose! 

The game started slowly, with the second baseman making a lot of errors and giving up two runs to the Dock Spiders at the top of the second, but then in the bottom of the second the Mallards scored three runs. They didn't let the Dock Spiders score again, while they racked up quite a few more scores, including a three-run homer and later a two-run homer. No grand slams, but still impressive. They ended up winning 12-2, when they dispatched the Spiders quickly at the top of the ninth. What a fun game for our first Mallards game of the 2022 season!

Famous Hat

Things Beyond Our Comprehension

 

I have been thinking a lot about people who say that if we can't see or explain something, it doesn't exist, and this strikes me as the height of hubris. Who can say that we understand everything in this world? Maybe we aren't even capable of understanding certain things. Here is an analogy:

Say I was a dog, and my master asked me to bring in the paper every day. I have no idea what could be interesting about the paper to my master, and I never will. Dogs can't learn to read. Then another dog says to me, "Why do you bring in that stupid paper for your master every day? It would be a lot more fun to tear it to shreds! Or just ignore it. Why should he make you do something so useless?" Then I would respond, "I don't know why my master wants the paper every day, but it makes him happy when I bring it to him, and I trust him. If there is something about that paper that I don't understand but he does, I accept that."

Maybe this isn't a perfect analogy, but you can see how it applies to, say, getting up and going to Mass every Sunday. People will say to me, "Why don't you just sleep in?" and honestly I could, since I'm Catholic and they have Masses at all sorts of times, but that's beside the point. Maybe to an atheist it makes no sense to go to Mass because they don't think there is anything in this world that they can't understand. I am not so sure of my own intellect as to think there aren't things beyond my comprehension, so if God says it's important to go to Mass, I do. If He says I should believe He is a Trinity, I do even if I don't really understand it. It makes Him happy, and I trust there is something there that I just don't understand, but that doesn't make it nonexistent.

Famous Hat

Killer Building Tries Again

 

First things first: remember the thing I bought for like a buck yesterday because it might glow under blacklight?

It does glow under blacklight!

Here are some photos of sunsets. First, the sunset as seen from the East Side Club.

Here are some photos Travalon took of sunsets from our dock.

These are some of the pelicans he saw in Sauk on Saturday, while I was hanging out with Tiffy.

Once again Blogspot uploaded this last bunch in the wrong order. Yesterday there was a lot of wind in Madison, and they lost power, and a number of trees blew down. We didn't see it, since we were in Horicon and Columbus. Today I went to see if the tulip trees were still blooming, and one had lost an enormous branch, so I picked this flower off of the downed branch.

This weed peeking over the fence at the antiques mall in Columbus just made me laugh.

This is a llama behind the Roxbury Tavern (which has a new name now). Travalon saw it on Saturday.

Here are photos Travalon took of Devil's Lake on Saturday, in backwards order. Here is the sunset.

This mysterious mist rolling down the hills makes me think of Ireland.

Today I was the only member of the admin staff on campus, but there were some random graduate students around. I went for a walk at lunch, even though the temperature was pushing 100 F, and when I got back to the building, it seemed a bit warm inside too. I figured it was so hot out that even the air conditioning wasn't able to keep up, but my coworkers were trying to get a hold of me to tell me there was an AC outage in the Killer Building, and was I okay? Around two there was a horrible loud noise, and the grad students and I all gathered by the elevators, thinking one had crashed. There didn't seem to be an issue with the elevators, and after that the temperature in our Killer Building did cool down a bit. Only then did I realize my coworkers were trying to get a hold of me, but I looked on the university outage page, and the outage at the Killer Building had been fixed right when we heard the terrible noise. It's always an adventure, working at a building that is trying to kill you.

Famous Hat