Acing My Language Lessons Tonight

 

I have very little to blog about today, since I worked from home and didn't leave the house because it was so cold out. I didn't go for walks on my breaks, which was hard for someone like me who loves to be outdoors, and I felt under the weather and didn't go to Adoration tonight either. Which was a problem, because Cecil Markovitch has the adoration hour right after mine, and he brought a present for me to bring to the wedding in Florida, but of course I wasn't there for him to hand it off. It's okay, he lives across the hall from Kathbert, and at some point I have to go to her house to drop off some delicate plants for her to babysit, so then I can just pick up the gift.

Here are two dragons we got a Hmong stand at either a local festival or the Farmers' Market. I can't remember.

Despite not running on all cylinders today, I was doing well with my French lessons:

Then I did an Irish lesson and got 100% on that too, which is not my usual score in Irish, but Duolingo didn't make me a handy little brag sticker about that. Oh well, I know I aced Irish, and now you do too.

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The Green Comet

 

I knew today would be a crazy day at work, because I told everyone I would be on vacation starting next week so please get things to me as soon as possible. However, it was much worse than I imagined, because there were last-minute travel changes ("Can we change these five hotel rooms for one night to three hotel rooms for two nights?") and people wanting food delivered, but the delivery service options seem to be "now or never" so you can't schedule delivery for a later date and time. This meant faculty had to go pick food up, which did not please them, I can assure you, but I also can't change reality. Usually they just take candidates to dinner and then get reimbursed, but this time they wanted to do things at someone's house instead of going to a restaurant. I would think the candidates would prefer going to a restaurant, but what do I know? 

Tonight it was clear for the first time in weeks, and Rich had told me about a free app that tracks the green comet, so I went outside to see it. Unfortunately, the tracker said it was right where the moon was, so there was nothing to see. After dinner I talked Travalon into driving over to Governor Nelson State Park, where it is relatively dark, and then using the comet tracker I could see a green smudge in the sky. I looked through the binoculars and saw the smudge looking a little bigger. It was underwhelming, not like the beautiful comet with the long, sparkly tail I saw three summers ago, but it was indeed green. Travalon could see it with his bare eyes. When I told Rich the tracker had worked and I saw the comet, but that it just looked like a smudge, he said, "Well, it's only Level Seven." I said, "I don't even know what that means," and he said the brightest star is a Level One. Maybe I should go out now, when the moon is lower in the sky, but it's really cold out tonight, and I'm not sure how much more exciting it would be.

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Yidversary Party (Were They Ever Jewbacca?)

 

This morning we got up in time to go to our usual Mass, but then I got sick. I still didn't feel well enough to go to the later Mass, so we just sat around watching YouTube videos about Splash Mountain and Song of the South. Eventually we ventured out to the mall to get some walking in, and Travalon got a haircut. I bought a blanket with brightly-colored mushrooms on it from the rude workers at Spencer's Gifts. You know you are old when the teenyboppers working at the shops in the mall treat you like a nonentity, even when your money is just as valid of currency as that of someone younger and cooler... and you probably have more of it to spend. Travalon got a Funko Pop of Baby Yoda.

We went to 5 pm Mass at our usual church, which was shockingly crowded. I'd always heard that Mass is so lightly attended that they have thought about getting rid of it. Also, the homily was really long, but it would have been the same one at 9 am. Then we went to the Harmony Bar to see Yid Vicious, who were celebrating their 27th "Yidversary" as a band. I thought they had been around even longer than that, like back when I was in college, but that might have been a different klezmer band. I remember once seeing one called Jewbacca at the long-gone Cafe Montmartre up on the Square when I was in college. That made me wonder if the remnants of Jewbacca had reformed into Yid Vicious. I can see it now: some people in the band graduated and moved on, but the ones who stayed in town were like, "Why not start another klezmer band with a punny name?" I don't actually have an answer to this burning question, but we did get free Yid Vicious CDs with our entry fee. We sat at a table with some nice people we didn't know and had dinner while the band told terrible jokes ("What do they sing at Jewish-Catholic weddings? The 'Oy Vey Maria'!") and had guests join them that included a guy who "played" the plastic bags. How do you play plastic bags? Apparently you just shake them. They played a medley of standard klezmer tunes with surf guitar that they called "Dead Sea Surfing," and they also played a song by hip hop star Jason Derulo as a klezmer tune. Meanwhile, the same four people who had to be at least fifteen years older than I am, if not more, danced the whole time, and they were really good. I was once at an excellent New Year's Eve party at the lead dancer's house, and his entire basement is a dance floor. People sure do love klezmer music - when our band plays it, everyone in the audience loves it. Yet somehow those songs keep falling off our set list...

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And the Third Guy Ducks

 

Yesterday was a frustrating day at work with that requisition that has been a nonstop issue. Apparently there was something wrong, but it seemed to be something the approver did after I had already submitted it. I asked the support people what exactly was wrong and how I could fix it, and their unhelpful answer was basically: "Delete the requisition and resubmit it, but do it right this time." So if I don't know what's wrong with it, how exactly am I supposed to do it right this time? But the story may have a happy ending, because my colleague and I think we figured out what the issue was. I resubmitted the requisition, but then again, how do I know the approver won't change it again? You can see there are some flaws in the system.

Then I talked to Tiffy, and we both agreed that work seems more complicated now than it was a quarter century ago when we entered the workaday world. I said with the old way we did requisitions for years, I would create one on paper, then I would take it to the approver, then I would take it to Accounts Payable. Not only did I get more exercise, but it was easy to know when the process was done. With these new electronic systems, we never have to leave our desks, but there's nothing to remind us the requisition is still in process once we submit it for the approver to approve. I've run into this problem with setting up vendors in the new system - once I submit the request, nothing reminds me that I have a request pending if I don't think to look it up, and I don't get notified that the vendor has been set up. So it is very easy to set vendors up and then forget that you still have to pay them. Previously, there was a process that you saw through from beginning to end, but now it's all waiting for someone else to do their part, and if they don't do it, you forgot to follow up. It's a recipe for disaster.

Today was kind of a letdown of a day. It was snowing all day, but Travalon ventured out to a disappointing Badger basketball game while I stayed home and cleaned. I also took an hour walk in our neighborhood and watched some old episodes of Colbert. We were going to go see a Brazilian band this evening, but it was snowing harder, so we just sat at home, and I sorted paperwork but couldn't find the one thing I was looking for. Oh well, a quiet weekend isn't the worst thing ahead of our big trip.

Since this isn't a very exciting post, I'll leave you with a joke - the punchline is actually the title of this post. Two guys walk into a bar... and the third guy ducks. (Pause for laughter.) Okay, I'll probably write tomorrow and hopefully have something more interesting to report.

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What's Your Sign? In a Meeting

 

All of a sudden, this week it has still been light out when I left work. I can see what's outside the windows for half my bus trip home, but then the second half is dark. It must be getting lighter in the mornings too, because it isn't as hard to get up. Soon it will be that wonderful time before the scourge of Daylight Saving Time, when the morning sun wakes me up. When I was younger, that abomination didn't start until April, when it at least started to make some sense - by May the sun is coming up around five even in "fake time" - but at some point they moved it back to March, which is way too early. I look forward to the day when it doesn't happen at all, and our sundials are correct all year long.

The one goofy thing that happened today was after I had been in online meetings all afternoon, and I went to take a short walk. We have these signs with velcro on them so we can stick them to our office doors, and they say "At lunch," "On vacation," "Working remotely," and, "In a meeting." I must have tossed the "In a meeting" one back on the table with the velcro side up. Anyway, I got into my coat and hat and waited for the elevator with a couple of grad students. One of them said, "What's on your hat?" and I wondered if she noticed the bit of dirt on it that I keep meaning to clean off. I had thought there was too little to notice, but I said, "Is it dirt?" and she said, "No, it's a sign," so I pulled off my "In a meeting" sign. We were all laughing about that when the chair happened by, so she asked what was going on. I demonstrated how the sign had been stuck to my wool hat, and she took a photo with her phone. She said that she would send it to me, but I think she forgot, so I'm sorry to say that I can't share it with you. Maybe  in some future blog post I will feature this lovely photo. (She did show it to me.) So that's my sign: "In a meeting." At least for today.

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Up Close to the Train

 

Nothing too interesting to report about my day on campus, but yesterday while I worked from home, I did have a very close encounter with a train. I went out for a walk a little later than usual, and I was walking back in our neighborhood when I heard a train whistle to the west. I quickly turned and began walking up Westport Road, which is not really a treat because there are no sidewalks, and people tend to drive a lot faster than the relatively slow speed limit. However, the railroad tracks get very close to the road, and I thought it would be cool to see the train that close up. So I walked along the road, thinking maybe it was really a bad idea because the train whistle didn't seem to be getting any closer - if anything, it sounded further away. As I was about to turn around, I could see the train approaching at what seemed to be a slow speed, so I kept walking toward it. It blew its whistle just before crossing the intersection, and I crossed the road and walked alongside it, but even though it was going slowly for a train, I couldn't keep up with it. Maybe if I'd started running I could have kept up, but that seemed sort of crazy, to run alongside a train. It was kind of loud when I was that close to it, not even the whistle (which had been some distance away from me) but just the clacking of the wheels on the tracks. Still, it really made my day. I am a simple creature, and I like to see trains. Mission accomplished.

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Finalists in the Snowplow Naming Contest

 

Today was a frustrating day at work. I had to pay an invoice using our new system, but I couldn't pay it the regular way because there is a purchase order. In the old days I would just submit the invoice to Central Accounting and they would pay it from the purchase order, but there must be a way to submit the invoice using our new system. However, nobody seems to know how to do it. Also, I have to change the funding on the purchase order. The other big thing I had to do today was buy bus tickets for a bunch of people, and I successfully bought three on two different credit cards, but then suddenly the site kept saying there was an error. I called the number they listed, and they said the problem wasn't the site, it was with the credit card. So I called the credit card company, and they said there were three charges on that card even though I had only gotten one ticket. I contacted the bus company again, and they said the other two charges would drop off. Meanwhile, I need to buy four more tickets, but they won't let you buy them over the phone - they said the guests could buy them in person on their own credit cards, but then we would have to reimburse them, and what a pain that is. Meanwhile, the hotel reservations I had made for all these guests down in Chicago are irrelevant, because they had already made their own, so I had to cancel the ones I had made. Travel planning is always such a pain.

The good news is that the finalists for the snowplow naming contest have been released, and out of over 1200 submissions, Tiffy and I each had two chosen. Plus they seemed to have combined two more of my submissions into one, but I'm not saying someone else didn't submit it, just that it is just like two of mine combined. I don't know if I'm allowed to say what they are until after the contest is over, but if there is any demand for it, I could post all the names we came up with at the party. Nobody else who was there had any of their submissions chosen, so Kathbert said maybe Tiffy and I should go into advertising, since we are so good at coming up with ideas that people like. I don't know if Tiffy would want to leave the world of auditing for advertising, but I have always thought I would be good at coming up with jingles. I just never knew how you got a job in advertising. Maybe after I retire from my career as a low-level public servant, I'll look into that, if I'm not too busy playing the ukulele. That seems to be what all the retired people I know do.

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What If I Were a Vegetarian?

 

Today I saw a meeting on my calendar for Friday, and it had a room listed. This is an infrequent meeting a committee I am on has to discuss campus protests, and the last time we had one, it was online. I emailed the organizer to ask if it would be online again this time, or if it would be in person, since there was a room listed. I said, "I generally work from home on Fridays, so please let me know if I do need to come into campus this Friday." For most of the day I heard nothing, then suddenly I got a request to remove the meeting from my calendar because it had been canceled. Makes sense, since I don't recall any protests on campus since the last meeting. Unless they were only canceling the meeting for me so I didn't have to come to campus... I mean, I would have come in for the meeting. Maybe I could have worked from home on Thursday instead. My new boss seems more flexible about these things than the former one was.

One odd thing about yesterday at the Nitty Gritty was that I ordered a falafel burger, and it came a choice of a side. I asked about the soup, and the waiter said it was cheesy vegetable soup, so I said, "I'll take that." You would think he would assume I was a vegetarian if I'm ordering falafel and vegetable soup at a burger joint, right? When the soup arrived, it was that Italian wedding soup that is creamy with spicy sausage, and it was really good, but it struck me as weird that the waiter didn't think to warn me that it was not the vegetarian soup he had described but a completely different soup that contained meat. Maybe not many vegetarians go to a burger joint, but it is the "birthday bar," so you would think some would come just to join friends on their birthday. What if I had been a vegetarian? I'm not, so it wasn't really a big deal, but I just found it strange that the waiter didn't consider that maybe I didn't want meat. What do my readers have to say about this? Am I making a big deal about nothing? After all, I didn't ask him to specify that there was no meat in the soup. Still, even ignoring the meat issue, you would think the waiter would come tell me, "Sorry, I was really wrong about the soup - it's Italian wedding soup. Do you still want it, or would you rather have fries or a side salad?" Is this bad customer service?

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Coffee-Colored Kalanchoe and the Virgo Dog

 

Today after Mass and brunch at Cafe Hollander, Travalon and I went to Klein's so I could use my birthday coupon for $5 off a plant. I looked at a bunch of plants and finally settled on a succulent that was an interesting cafe au lait color. My phone will tell me what a plant is if I take a picture of it, so I did, and the phone said it was a "copper spoon plant," which is a type of kalanchoe. Until just a few years ago, I thought that word was pronounced "kah-LAN-choh," but a bus buddy kept pronouncing it "KALL-an-koey," so I looked it up, and she was right. Here's my coffee-colored kalanchoe. 

This is another kalanchoe I have. This type is called "mother of thousands" because it grows little baby plants on the edges of the leaves. This photo was from a couple of months ago; unfortunately, it doesn't look as happy now. I had been underwatering it, so I was doing better and it looked very happy, as you can see, but I think the last time I overwatered it. Hopefully it recovers.

Later Travalon and I went to East Towne Mall to walk, and I showed him the orange opal and the blue-green stone (which he liked better), but what he bought me for Valentine's Day were the earrings and necklace that go with the ring I bought yesterday. 

Then we went to the Nitty Gritty for Mamastep's birthday party. I recognized some of the people there from previous years. Today was Lunar New Year and the start of the Year of the Rabbit, so Mamastep and I were talking about our Chinese zodiac signs, and I said I'm a Pig in the East and a Goat in the West, so I'm just a barnyard animal. That inspired her to have everyone go around the table and say their name and their Eastern and Western zodiac signs. The guy across from me was a Virgo Dog, which sounds like a great name for a band or something, but the weird thing is that I was sure I'd never met him before, yet we know a bunch of people in common. It all started when Mamastep was saying she knew most of the people from Steampunk, but she and I knew each other from a Mideastern band, and I said how both Mideastern bands I was in were weird, so from now on my rule was not to join any Mideastern band that didn't have actual Mideastern people in it. I should have known it was a dangerous thing to say, because then Mr. Virgo Dog asked me what bands, and he knew people in the weirder band. We also both used to be in the Society for Creative Anachronism, so we know people in common there. We must have at least eight mutual friends on social media. Hopefully he doesn't tell the two I know from the weirder Mideastern band that I thought they were weird, since I'm still friends with them on social media, although honestly the person I had the most issues with was the owner of the house where we practiced, who had two badly behaved rat terriers that jumped all over me and my family heirloom violin, and it seemed like he never cut their toenails. How hard would it have been to have put them into another room for the couple of hours we were practicing? I think what bugged me most was the soap opera aspect of these Mideastern bands, where married people were getting together with bandmates that weren't their spouses, and ex spouses who shared a kid named after a color were having fights that bled over into both bands. I guess that's the nature of musicians...? Although if such things were happening in the church choirs I sang in, I certainly never heard about it.

Some people got fancy with their Eastern signs and said they were a Wooden Rabbit or a Metal Pig or whatever, so I told Mr. Virgo Dog that he should say he was an Atomic Dog. Might as well bring George Clinton into the story whenever you can!

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Looking at Jewelry with Jilly Moose and Cali

 

Today Travalon wanted to go to Milwaukee to watch his old high school's basketball team, and he left a little early to bring his mom the Croatian teddy bear that had finally arrived for her birthday present. I met Jilly Moose and Cali for lunch at Gus's diner, then we went to my church and ran into Kathbert, so we talked to her for a while. I had been surprised that Kathbert was not interested in going on a candlelight hike tonight, but in person she explained why, and it made perfect sense. Nobody else was interested either (it was at Patrick Marsh, which I have featured on this blog many times), since it was cold out today, and the hike seemed geared toward children. 

Jilly Moose, Cali, and I headed to East Towne Mall to get some walking in, and Cali wanted to show us an emerald ring she loved at JC Penney's. It seems the ring has been sold, but I was surprised to see one very much like my triangle opal and pink sapphire one that I wear all the time (it has powerful sparkly unicorn energy), only with a lighter and a darker blue topaz. There were only two people working in the jewelry department, and they were both busy, so I couldn't find out how much the ring was. We went into the mall and walked for twenty minutes, then we went to other jewelry stores and looked at rings. There was an amazing orange opal one that was two grand, so I said, "I'll mention it to my husband for Valentine's Day." Another place had a teal-colored stone that was apparently some sort of manmade something or other, and that ring was only $600, so I said, "I'll mention it to my husband for Valentine's Day." Then we went back to JC Penney's, and the two people were both still busy, so I sent Travalon a photo of the ring and told him that's what I want for Valentine's Day:

Finally one of the people who worked there came over, and she showed me the ring. It wasn't very expensive, and then with all the discounts it was less than half that price, so I just got it. I told Travalon he could always get me the matching earrings or necklace for Valentine's Day.

Jilly Moose, Cali, and I went to a Colombian restaurant for dinner, since Cali is from Colombia so she knew about it. She got us some empanadas, then I had a bean stew that was really good and came with plantains and avocado. The waiter had a quartz necklace on just like I did, so for some reason Cali thought that meant he was the same sign as I am (no idea why, since my birthstone is garnet, not quartz - nobody's birthstone is quartz), but he was actually the same sign as Jilly Moose. Her birthstone is sapphire, and they did have a sapphire ring like the one above, but she didn't get it. The ring I got is the birthstone for Travalon.

When I got home, I told Travalon about the orange opal ring and the other teal ring, so I did mention them to my husband and wasn't lying to the salespeople. However, I didn't tell him to get me either one. It's kind of like yesterday, when my boss was (I think) getting annoyed that I still hadn't done the requisition for our new copier because the directions were so confusing. I said I would need to contact someone to help me, and he said to copy him on the email, so I figured he thought I was shirking. I was about to chat with my colleague, as we do every Friday afternoon, so I told him I was going into a meeting to discuss the requisition, and then I told her we needed to discuss the requisition so that I wouldn't have been lying. To my surprise, she had purchased a copier not that long ago herself, so she said, "Share your screen, and I'll show you what to do." Just like that, I was done with the requisition! So then my boss was satisfied. That's part of the reason my colleague and I chat every Friday - because it seems like all the time one of us will say, "I have this problem," and the other one will say, "I know what to do!" But the other reason is just social, because we never see each other in person anymore. We'll have to get together soon...

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Merlin Bear Goes Baaa

 

Today a big box came for Travalon, and I figured it was the Merlin bear that he had ordered. When he came home, I showed him the box, and he picked it up and turned it over... and it went "Baaa!" I said, "Did they accidentally send you one of those stuffed sheep that go 'baaa'?" and he said, "No, the packing slip says Merlin bear." He pulled it out, and it was beautiful, with a sumptuous robe and elaborate necklace. It's a limited edition Hermann bear, number 144 of 500, made in 1994. There wasn't anything else in the box, so we weren't sure what had been going "Baaa," and when he handed me the bear and I turned it over, it didn't make a sound. We thought that was an odd mystery... and then the bear said "Baaa!" again. So it was the bear!! I found the listing on eBay ("Item has been sold"), and it said the "growl box" was intact, so that explains that. I will say it sounds more like a sheep than a bear. Here is a picture of the Merlin bear.

He seems to go really well with my Irish bear.

Don't they look like a perfect pair? A druid and his wife. I don't think the Irish bear makes any sound, but honestly I hadn't thought to check. I will let you know if she does.

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Bad Lip Reading

 

I have been sort of addicted lately to a YouTube channel called "Bad Lip Reading." The premise is that they take videos of sports figures, political figures, or other famous people, and then they make up what they are saying. It always looks like that is what they are actually saying. There are some presidential debate ones that are just genius, and the football ones are hilarious. There was one where Aaron Rodgers said, "I own forty-one traffic cones." What did he really say that looked like that? It got really late tonight because I was watching those instead of blogging, since there was nothing exciting to say about my day except that there was a lot of snow this morning, so I worked from home this morning and went into the office in the afternoon. Also, our new requisition system is driving me crazy. I have step-by-step instructions and still can't figure it out. But after a long day of not successfully creating a requisition, I can always come home and watch Aaron Rodgers talk about his forty-one traffic cones, and somehow that will never not be funny.

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Dino Family

 

Not too much to report today. I went to a Just Bach concert at noon and saw Pete the Sailor Man, the guy we hiked with during the pandemic, the Professor Formerly Known as Lute Player, and one of our grad students. Then I had to take a long walk to pick up some parking passes, but no longer than my usual lunchtime walks, and yet I was very sore afterwards and am totally worn out. 

This evening Travalon heated up his lavender-filled panda Ming in the microwave. This is what you are supposed to do with Ming, but it was the first time he had tried it. Then Ming was toasty warm and smelled wonderful. I also took a picture of Daddy Dino and Dino Jr.

Travalon got both of these at the Dino Stop on the way back from my parents' house. He got the big one a few years ago, and he just got the little one at the beginning of this month. Stay tuned to see if he will acquire any more members of the Dino family....

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Night Prayer Bloopers

 

Tonight was not my best night leading Night Prayer. I went out after my adoration hour for that free slice of pizza, using the coupon we got last night, since Travalon went to the Badger basketball game. The clock in my car is still set to Daylight Saving Time, so I thought it was almost time for me to lead Night Prayer and that I was going to be late. I got home quickly, set everything up... and waited. Nobody came into my Zoom meeting, and when I checked where Rich was using my Rich tracker, he wasn't at home. I texted him and asked if he wasn't doing Night Prayer tonight, and he texted back that Night Prayer wasn't for another hour. Oops!

During Night Prayer I muted myself as usual while Rich sang the hymn, then I meant to unmute myself, but instead I stopped sharing my screen. That meant none of us could see the breviary we pray from. For a second I wondered what had happened, then I realized what I'd done, and I couldn't stop laughing. I shared my screen again and started reading the psalm... and a few lines into it, Rich said, "You're muted, Famous." So then I couldn't stop laughing again. Not my proudest moment leading Night Prayer!

Here, by request of nobody, is a photo of my rick rack cactus.

It looks kind of like a Christmas cactus, but the woman at the plant store told me it's more like a regular cactus, which is bad news. I cannot seem to keep regular cacti alive. I have better luck with Christmas cacti. This one seems somewhat succulent, so I'll try treating it like the other succulents. Hopefully that works...

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I'd Rather Be Woke

 

Today Travalon and I had the day off of work. It was supposed to rain all day, so he suggested we go to Waukesha to check out one or both antiques malls. We started at the one that is downtown, and I found three beautiful rosaries.

I also bought two cheap pieces of St. Patrick's Day jewelry and a Valentine's Day bear.

We had lunch at a nearby diner, then we stopped into a resale shop, and I bought these two necklaces with Celtic designs.

Then we went to the antiques mall on the east side of Waukesha, and I found several rosaries, but things there seemed to be somewhat overpriced. I did buy the rosary on the right, and then the proprietress said one of their dealers is in hospice now that he's 90, but he's been a dealer for 70 years. She said he liked to make rosaries and give them away to people, so she showed me a jar full of rosaries he had made, and I picked out the one on the left. I love getting free rosaries like that, like back when the monks sent me a free Christmas rosary in 2010 because I had bought so many rosaries from them that year.

We went for a hike at Lapham's Peak, although it was cold and wet, and then we hurried back to town for a Martin Luther King Day event at the Overture Center. It started with a gospel singalong in the lobby, and I took this photo there.

Then there was a program in the Capitol Theatre with a big gospel choir and lots of speakers. The keynote speaker was Reverend Ralph Abernathy's daughter, who told a funny story about a girl telling her father in college that she was too sick with a cold to go on a date with him, so he went to the event alone... and saw her with Dr. King. The two men became good friends and both dumped the girl to happily marry other women, and of course they worked together to fight racism. The talk was very entertaining but quite long, so it was after eight when we got done. We grabbed some pizza from Ian's, and they were out of sauce for our breadsticks, so they gave us a coupon for a free slice. Then we hurried home, and there was a package for Travalon. He wondered if it was already the Merlin bear he had just ordered, but it was the Snuffleupagus he had ordered on a whim while we were at Octopi. 

Isn't it cute?? We thought it was so cute when he stumbled across it while he was looking for Snuffy Smith, and that's why he ordered it. 

The program tonight was the exact opposite world view of a very strange theologian I came across online, who says that God is the ultimate capitalist and would rather see us burn in Hell than help us, and that we are being unbiblical if we say we should help others. If that is the opposite of "woke" - and I suspect it is - then I would so much rather be "woke." It seems much closer to the actual teachings of Jesus to care about others and consider everyone as equal, so woke. I mean, what's the opposite of woke, in a coma? I'd definitely say I've come across people who are in a spiritual coma, and they all act like "woke" is a dirty word. I know which side I want to be found on when Jesus returns.

Edited to note that while I was writing this blog post, Travalon discovered Baby Yoda (you know, the one the rest of us have known about for like three years), and now he can't stop watching him. Baby Yoda is awfully cute, I'll grant you that. Any day now I'm expecting a package in the mail containing a stuffed Baby Yoda.

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Crossing Helen's Bridge

 

I completely forgot to mention that last night before dinner, Travalon, Jilly Moose, and I went to Octopi Brewing because Travalon said they had a really good candied pecan pastry stout. He got a small one, and I tried it, but it wasn't my thing. Jilly Moose got a cherry a la mode sour, and I tried that and it was exactly my thing, so Travalon got me a small one. So good, and such a beautiful red color. And the music they were playing in the background was really good too. My phone can tell you what a song is if you ask, and these songs were from the last two years, but I had not heard them. One was "Photo ID" by Remi Wolf, which has a really trippy video; one was "Witchoo" by Durand Jones and the Indications; and one was "Thr33 6ix 5ive" by HoneyLuv. (Isn't it funny that you can read that song name with no problem?) Why does the hip hop station I always listen to not play this music when it plays plenty of crappy non-hip hop music? This was all dance music, so more like hip hop than some of the garbage they play.

Today Travalon and I overslept and went to the later Mass, then we met some of the regulars and Mr. Icon for brunch. This evening Mr. Icon is leaving (or perhaps has already left) to go back to Kodiak, Alaska. It was an unseasonably warm day, more like March than January, so Travalon and I went for a walk on the boardwalks in Cross Plains. Here are some photos.

We went to Crossroads Coffeehouse for a warm drink and then headed to Mazomanie to hike on the Wolf Run Trail along Black Earth Creek. Instead of starting at the north end as usual, we drove to the high school and started at the south end. There are several boardwalks going from that end.

We saw this cool hill to the east.

Here are shots of Black Earth Creek.

And there are all sorts of hills around the creek.

We came across Helen's Bridge. Who is Helen? You tell us, and then we'll all know.

Here is the bridge with a hill behind it.

There were some rapids on the creek.

Here is a shot of Helen's Bridge.

The tracks ran alongside the creek most of the way, but we never saw a train. I should have posted the train video in front of Lake Marion on this post, since it's a Mazomanie post. Oh well, you can go back a few posts to enjoy it, if you so choose. 

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Amazing Pool and Eagle Day

 

Yesterday I didn't blog because I was hanging out with the Ladies. Jilly Moose, OK Cap, and I met at Klein's, where they were having a 20% off sale on plants. I wasn't going to get one, but I saw a rick rack cactus that I have wanted for a while. I picked it up and thought, "I'm just going to kill you, little plant. Would you really want to come home with me?" and strangely, I felt like the plant said yes, so I got it. I brought it home, then we had fish at Mariner's, and then Jilly Moose and I stayed at the Hilton West. This place has an AMAZING pool that has splash pad amenities, like the Curtain of Water, the Mushroom of Rain, and the Dumping Bucket, plus a really fun slide. We swam really hard for twenty minutes and then played in the splash pad part. We were so tired that we just watched a little TV and then went to bed early (for me) and slept really hard.

This morning we met Travalon for coffee at Yola's, but it was crazy there, so we went to EVP. Then we went out to Sauk for Eagle Day, and it was crazy out there too. The only place that wasn't packed for lunch was the Village Pub, where we had a pizza. We saw eagles flying over the bridge into town, then we saw some interesting birds by the island. For example, this is a mute swan, not a wild swan. What's it doing swimming on the river with the Canada geese?

And is this a young eagle or an osprey? It's hard to tell.

Here is the landscape across the river.

We did see an eagle on the island as we were driving back from the dam (where we only saw gulls), but there were a lot of people at the lookout spot, so we went to the Mixing Bowl for treats and then the antiques mall, where I didn't find any rosaries I wanted. (There were cheap plastic ones they wanted $10-12 for.) On the backwater part behind Lucky's, we did see what appeared to be young eagles sitting on the ice. This was the best photo Travalon got of them.

Then we drove to the spot from which you can see the two little islands, and we got there just around sunset. It was too cloudy out to see much of the sunset, but there was a little pink in the sky.

On the larger island there is an eagle's nest. You can see it in the middle of this photo.

Here is the larger island with the landscape of bluffs behind it.

And here is the smaller island with a bluff behind it.

We drove back to Madison and had dinner at Athens Gyros; I had an eggplant pita sandwich, since I'd been so bad earlier today. I keep reading that the Mediterranean Diet is the ideal one, and maybe the eggplant sandwich would have been allowed on that. They say it's easy to follow... After that I came home and ran/walked for twenty minutes, but my FitBit hates me because it isn't showing that I had any workouts today, even though we went for two walks that felt like they were long enough to count. I really wanted the running to show up, to see if it was higher than the 13 calories per minute that I reached the other day while running around the house. Since we'll never know, I'll just say it was 18 calories per minute. That's what it felt like.

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Why Can't I Say That?

 

Once when I was four, I was very impressed by a toilet-related event and excitedly told Ma Hat that I couldn't wait to see my five-year-old neighbor to tell her about it. Ma Hat said, "Don't tell her. It's not an appropriate topic of conversation." Of course I didn't listen, and the moment I saw my friend, I told her all about it. She was just as interested as I'd hoped, and then I revealed that my mom hadn't wanted me to tell her, but I didn't know why, and she didn't either. Now as an adult, I would definitely not find this an appropriate topic of conversation, but here's the thing - maybe it is one for two preschoolers. Children definitely find different things interesting than adults do, and while I can see the value of teaching children not to talk about such things around adults, who cares if they discuss it with their equally immature friends?

Then I thought maybe there is a deeper, spiritual side to all this. A preschooler can't comprehend why toilet topics are not appropriate, because they seem very interesting to a little kid. I don't think we can explain to them why it isn't a good topic when to them it clearly is! But as you grow older and wiser, you understand why some topics should not be discussed. Maybe we are like preschoolers in our understanding of spiritual things, and when God says don't say or do something, and we don't get why, there's a really good reason for it. As we grow in the spiritual life, we begin to see the value in religious commandments; they aren't just there to take away all your fun, because as you mature spiritually, those things aren't really fun anymore. You can see how they hurt others, or society, or God Himself. And just like some adults do still find toilet humor funny, some people will never reach that level of spiritual maturity. The really odd thing is that some of these people do consider themselves religious, and sure they go through the motions - in fact, the way one goes through the motions is of utmost importance to them - but they have no spiritual understanding. Personally, I'd rather hang with the preschoolers talking about poop than people who care how reverently Mass is celebrated but don't have any sense of charity. At least there's hope that the little kids will grow up to discuss other things.

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Pizza Bear and Hieronymus Bosch and the Etruscans

 

This weekend I told Tiffy about how Richard Bonomo and I did a dramatic reading of that scene of a children's play that a faculty member randomly received in the mail, and she asked if I had ever written a play. So I told her about Pizza Bear, the musical that was basically a double entendre ("Pizza Bear REALLY delivers!") back when I was in high school, and we both must have terrible memories because according to this very blog, we discussed Pizza Bear back on 20 November, 2020. I don't think the script exists anymore, but lonely Mrs. Lion, lonely Mrs. Tiger, and lonely Miss Panther each had a sad song about why they were so lonely (answer: Mr. Lion was leaving her alone with all the kids so he could bowl with his buddies, Mr. Tiger was always working late, and there was no Mr. Panther), and then the Greek chorus of giraffes sang in Andrews Sisters-style harmony: "Oh Pizza Pizza Pizza Bear, he brings it here, he brings it there, oh Pizza Bear delivers!" Tiffy thought we could do something with the script, like it would need a denouement, and I said I vaguely remember that it had one where Mr. Lion, Mr. Tiger, and Miss Panther's friend Mr. Leopard wondered why the ladies were ordering so much pizza. But this is a memory from more than three decades ago, so who knows how it really ended?

The next day at coffee I was thinking that I had written another play, and it started to come back to me. In college I was at a party where this guy was fascinated by the concept (or at least the name) of Hieronymus Bosch, and then his friend said, "Yeah, Hieronymus Bosch was my neighbor. I used to play with all the little Bosches. And then there was Mrs. Davis-Bosch. She was always... different." From that starting point I had written a play where Mrs. Davis-Bosch was a lounge singer who disappeared, and Hieronymus went to find her and somehow time-traveled back to the Etruscans. Hence the name: Hieronymus Bosch Meets the Etruscans. I believe the denouement of that one was that just as the Etruscans were about to kill Hieronymus, Boethius appeared in a deus ex machina that was just a sports car, and they drove away. Did they ever find Mrs. Davis-Bosch? I think she had decided to leave Hieronymus for a hot young Etruscan warrior, if I remember correctly. Since I have saved virtually every notebook I ever wrote in since college, it is always possible that this masterpiece is still lurking around here somewhere.

Tiffy thought that play sounded too pretentious, exactly like what someone who is a sophomore in college would write, so she thought we should focus on Pizza Bear. Though we can't even remember that we came up with a great plot twist two years and two months ago, with Pizza Bear being chased by a car (maybe driven by Mr. Lion?), and he throws his box of pizza up in the air, rolls under the moving car, emerges on the other side unharmed, and catches the box of pizza. After all, if Pizza Bear doesn't have to stick to his own species in matters of love, why should the laws of physics apply to him?

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Disappointing Football and the Train in Mazomanie

 

Tonight I was going to finally post the video of the train we saw in Mazomanie by Lake Marion, but it's taking forever to process. I don't know why; when I upload videos from iMovie, it only takes a few minutes, but this is raw footage from my iPhone. Is it that much harder to process? It says it's going to take half an hour, and of course I started this project too late at night, as usual.

This was a very disappointing week in football. The Packers were terrible on Sunday night and totally deserved to lose to the Lions. They especially had some weird penalties, like when the Lions were going to kick a long field goal, but then Rasul Douglas just walked up and picked up the ball, so then it was a much shorter field goal and easier for them to make. Or when a Lion was injured, and the trainer rushed onto the field to help him, but Quay Walker shoved him and got a huge penalty and ejected from the game. This was the second Sunday Night game he was ejected from, so people on social media were speculating that there was a show on at ten that he always watches, football be damned. I don't know why our defensive players were doing such strange things rather than, say, stopping Jameel Williams, who I wish was still a Packer. Can he ever run! 

Then last night the College Championship game was already disappointing because neither Michigan nor Ohio State made it in, and then the Georgia Bulldogs trounced the TCU Horned Frogs 65-7. Not to mention that Georgia also stole the G's on their helmets straight from the Packers. Who wants to watch something like that, even if you aren't a TCU fan? Even if you were a Georgia fan, it wouldn't really be fun to watch. 

Okay, I guess YouTube was kidding about the video taking half an hour to process. Here it is.

I hope it was worth the two-month wait. Of course I stopped making the video just before the train blew its whistle. I should have filmed the whole thing, but my video was already two minutes long, and the train went on for another three minutes. It was very long. Anyway, this gives you an idea of how pretty it was in front of Lake Marion in Mazomanie.

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Random Birthday Thoughts

 

Today was a very quiet day, although the sun art is back, since it was sunny out. It's something to look forward to in mid-January, anyway. I heard a couple of random things on the radio on my actual birthday, since I had to drive that day. First, in the early evening they have "Not Headline News" on the hip-hop station I listen to, and it's always a sentence or two about a story in the news with a snarky retort. They have never mentioned celebrity birthdays before, but on my birthday they did - they said, "Today is Mel Gibson's birthday... he's expecting a dinner invitation from Trump!" and, "Today is J.R.R. Tolkien's birthday. He was the original George R.R. Martin. But unlike George, he could finish a book!" 

Then the late night DJs always talk about random things, and that night they were talking about a girl they knew who met a guy she really hit it off with, but then she said she couldn't keep seeing him because they were incompatible signs. The DJs were mocking her, and they wanted people to call in, so I was sorely tempted to say forget about that, I'm a Capricorn happily married to a Sagittarius. Some girl called in who was a Leo who would only date Sagittarii, and they asked if she was single, so she said, "I'm working on me right now." The DJs felt this proved their hypothesis that women who care about astrology end up with cats. 

When Travalon and I were at the mall yesterday, he wanted to go to the bookstore, so I was looking at a book about relational astrology, and as always it says Travalon and I would be a challenging match. I don't feel like we are at all, so either you can't base anything on that, or my Capricorn Sun goes with his Cancer Moon, and his Sagittarius Sun goes with my Leo Moon. I do know from when I worked at a place dealing with state retirees, an awful lot of people married someone whose birthday was about a month away from theirs, so they all should have been terrible matches, astrologically speaking. Maybe people born in the same season are compatible, like Travalon and I both know the anguish of winter birthdays. That is a suffering someone like the Dairyman's Daughter will never know, since her birthday is right in the middle of the summer so she can have big outdoor parties. Even Tiffy can usually do things outdoors for her birthday, although in September it sometimes does rain. I remember once treating her to a Betty Lou Cruise on a very rainy day. Still, it seems unlikely she would have a birthday party canceled due to a snow storm, like I have. (Actually, it wasn't canceled completely, because Kathbert and Mr. Icon both managed to make it to Rich's house, but I couldn't, so there was a birthday party without the birthday girl. Fortunately Tiffy was staying at my place, so I wasn't snowed in alone on my birthday.)

Here are some recent photos. First, our church was still decorated for Christmas yesterday.

This is the Irish teddy bear Travalon got at the Oconomowoc Antiques Mall, to go with my French teddy bear. Unlike the French one, which is supposed to be a girl but is kind of wearing traditional male garb, this one is wearing very traditional female clothes.

 

And once again, some DuoLingo bragging:

One thing about my birthday that was kind of cool was that I wrote in Mariah, my diary, and it was the last entry in Mariah Fifty-One on my fifty-first birthday. I love how that worked out!

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Snowplow Naming Birthday Party

 

I forgot to mention that right when I woke up on the morning of my birthday, Travalon kissed me and said, "Happy birthday," and I replied, "Happy birthday." Not awake yet, I guess. It's like when someone sells you a ticket to get on a train, and they say, "Have a nice trip!" and you say, "You too!" Here is a photo of the French teddy bear Travalon gave me. He gave me an Irish teddy bear yesterday, but I haven't taken a photo of that yet. Soon.

Friday I took the day off of work, and I met Tiffy downtown for lunch at Himal Chuli. We went to Olbrich and admired the flowers there, some of which were arums.

We walked up to the Capitol Square to look at Christmas lights, but none of those photos are worth posting. Two twenty-something women came up to us and asked us if we had any name ideas for snowplows. I said Kathbert had submitted one, but I didn't have an idea. Then while they were talking to someone else, I remembered that Kathbert said we should think of snowplow names for a party game, so I told the two newspeople once they were done talking to the other people, and they said, "Say that again on camera." So I did. Then Tiffy took me to dinner at the Edgewater, and then we went back to her sister's apartment. Here is the sparkly lobby.

And here is the fireplace in the 13th floor common area, with rainbow reflections of the flames.

We went to her sister's apartment to watch the 10 pm news, and I was on it!!! They asked a lot of confused people about snowplow names, and then I was all chirpy about how this would be the party game at my birthday party. I was the last person, presumably because I was the most entertaining.

Yesterday Travalon and I met Tiffy and Jilly Moose for coffee, then Travalon left to visit his mother while we three ladies went to brunch at Marigold Kitchen. I like this sign they had there, because it kind of looks like it says, "Hell Winter," which is my feeling about it.

Then we went to the 13th floor of Tiffy's sister's apartment building and played Mad Libs. We saw a beautiful sunset.

Richard Bonomo hosted my very small birthday party, since I'd had such a huge one last year. We had lasagna and peas and garlic bread, and Jilly Moose brought a delicious salad. We also had red wine, white wine, pineapple wine, and Bailey's Irish cream liqueur, thanks to Jilly Moose and Tiffy. Rich made a black magic cake for dessert. Kathbert and the Dairyman's Daughter were there too, and Mr. Icon was in town, so when he came back from dinner with a friend, he joined us for Mad Libs. We did a Calvinist-themed one and a Buddhist-themed one. We also played a game Jilly Moose gave to Travalon and me, to try to guess how well you know the other people at the party. Kind of like the Newlyweds Game, I guess. We did think of a bunch of punny snowplow names, so I just submitted them.

Today was a quieter day. After Mass a group of us went to brunch at the Edgewater, then Tiffy, Travalon, and I got bubble tea. Travalon and I went to walk at East Towne Mall, and there are some new stores out there. Now we are about to watch the Packers. If they win this one, they're in the playoffs! I wouldn't have minded if they lost and the Lions got to be in the playoffs, but unfortunately the Lions got eliminated because the Seahawks beat the Rams in overtime. So now we have to win.

Famous Hat