Pig and Snake (Goat and Centaur)

 

Travalon and I got a book about Chinese astrology from the bookstore in the mall some time ago, and last night I finally looked at it. For many years I had thought I was a Rat, but my birthday is before Lunar New Year, so actually I'm a Pig. But wouldn't you know that by month I am a Rat? I can't say what my Day Sign is because you need a huge chart, and my Hour Sign is a Rabbit. Pigs are supposed to have few friends but lots of acquaintances. Is this true for me? Maybe. Anyway, Travalon is a Snake, and Pigs and Snakes are supposed to be the worst match. Oddly, we are also supposed to be a bad match in Western Astrology, since Sagittarius and Capricorn are not supposed to be compatible. But Sagittarius is known for being adventurous, which makes a perfect match for me - when I say, "Hey, while we're down south during Mardi Gras season, why don't we go to a Mardi Gras parade?" then Travalon says, "Sure!" and finds one.

Speaking of being a Capricorn, I am really getting fed up with the clickbait stories that come up when I go to search for something, because whoever writes them obviously hates Capricorns and Scorpios. If it's something bad, like, "These are the three most vengeful signs," then either Capricorn or Scorpio will be the worst, and the other will be the second worst. But anything good, like "The most popular signs" or "The most generous signs," and guaranteed that neither of us is on the list. I don't know a lot of Scorpios, so I have nobody to commiserate with, and the ones I do know probably don't care, but I've never met a Capricorn who isn't interested in astrology. Except maybe our chair, because when I mentioned that Travalon and I are incompatible signs, she said, "How can you believe that nonsense?" I was curious if her husband is a Sagittarius, since he seems to contain all the wisdom of the world, but obviously I can't just ask her. Maybe someday his birthday will come up in conversation...

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The Memory of Strange Fruit

 

Someone suggested we listen to banned black music as Black History Month is coming to a close, and they specifically suggested "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holliday. The song is about the "strange fruit" hanging from the trees in the South, and it uses some pretty graphic language to describe lynching. Just over a week ago Travalon and I were driving through Mississippi, listening to the Delta Blues playlist on Spotify, and I felt like the ghosts of those lynched people were still haunting the place. Even the music, the really old stuff like Robert Johnson and Son House, sounds so haunting, like they knew they could be killed at any moment depending on the whims of white people. I felt like the only way those ghosts are going to get any rest is if they know things have changed and this can't keep happening. But have things changed? I think of that poor jogger who was shot by a couple of rednecks while a third one filmed the whole thing, and how the good ol' boys weren't charged with anything until someone somehow got ahold of the video and everyone could see it. I think of cops killing unarmed black men without any repercussions, and I wonder, will those ghosts ever rest? 

One thing I know is that anger is so powerful, it lasts beyond the grave. I was killed when I hadn't done anything wrong, and my anger was so strong that for several days I haunted the man who killed me, until he was involved in violence that made my death seem mild. The anger compelled me to argue with God about the details of my current existence. If my anger could be that strong, imagine the anger of thousands of people who were murdered for the flimsiest of reasons. Imagine how they must feel, seeing that people now want to ban any mention of their murders in history lessons. If we pretend these terrible crimes never happened, the ghosts will never rest. They will haunt us until we are forced to remember somehow. But if we make this country live up to the ideals espoused in the Constitution, equally for everyone, then maybe the ghosts will finally rest and we can stop smelling a faint scent of the strange fruit on the breeze.

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Badgers Women's Basketball Game

 

This morning Travalon felt very bad, so he went back to bed, and I went for a long rosary walk instead of going to Mass without him. Eventually he got up and felt a bit better, so we went to the Badgers women's basketball game. I had gotten free tickets through work for the game, and it was a very family-friendly affair with lots of kids, more so than then men's games. However, unlike men's games, they didn't have pizza. We hadn't eaten lunch yet, so I was getting close to panic mode until we found a concession stand selling macaroni and cheese besides the nachos and soft pretzels the others were selling. The game was really good, and a girl originally from Prague got 25 points. They beat Michigan, which was ranked 12th in the country, so it was very exciting. Here are some photos. First, the Dale Chihuly glass sculptures in the front entrance.

Here are photos of the game.

After the game we went to Mass, then we went to Rich's house. I saw two bright planets like a pair of eyes staring at me from the sky, so I told Rich he had to come out and tell me what was going on. He said it was Jupiter and Venus, and that someone else had called him about it too. I took a photo, but to the right there is a greenish artifact that looks brighter than the two planets.

Kathbert was already there, frosting Prairie Man's birthday cake, and she said she had noticed the planets on her walk over. She and Rich had made an angel food cake for Prairie Man, whose actual birthday was today. We had a very pleasant, small birthday party for him tonight. Happy birthday, Prairie Man!

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Back to Local Adventures

 

This morning I met a friend for brunch, and on the way there and back I listened to Jewbacca in the car. It was a very sunny day with little traffic, so the drive was wonderful. I found myself wishing that I played with this jazz band that hasn't existed for a quarter of a century, and I often feel that way when at an early music concert, thinking why didn't I practice the violin more so that I could play with them? It's like I can't just sit back and enjoy the music anymore. Then I realized this feeling started after the pandemic, when my choir disbanded and my band didn't practice as regularly. We haven't practiced in months, but supposedly we are getting together next month to start practicing for gigs in May and June. Maybe I just want to be part of a different band, a band that plays more klezmer music. We have a few songs from when Hardingfele and I went to Klez Camp and joined the huge klezmer band, but somehow they keep dropping out of our set list in favor of Norwegian waltzes, and I really don't know why. Our audience members seem to like the klezmer pieces too. It must be someone else in the band who doesn't like them.

Today Travalon and I went out to Sauk to look for eagles. Now that it's Lent and I have given up buying things I don't need, we avoided the antiques shop. I have also given up sugar, so we also avoided the Mixing Bowl bakery. That left eagle watching, and from the VFW Park we could see an eagle perched in a tree across the river.

Here is the bluff across the river.

Of course we went to the dam too. We saw a young eagle flying overhead.

And here are more bluffs across the river.

We drove along the south shore of Lake Wisconsin. Here are the two little islands.

This bluff behind the larger island is Owl's Head Bluff, on the north shore of the lake.

People have been posting photos of the tundra swans having returned to town. I haven't seen any in our neighborhood, although I have seen and heard the cranes. They usually return on the first of March, so they're a bit early this year. Travalon and I went to the open water by the Tenney Locks, and we saw lots of Canada geese and mallard ducks (and a woman feeding them). We did see one grumpy swan, that kept picking on the geese around it for no obvious reason.

Maybe it was grumpy because it's alone. I said maybe it lost its mate, and Travalon said it was a crotchety old bachelor swan. We watched it go toward the geese and then chase them away several times. After all, a swan is nothing but a bigger, meaner, whiter goose, and geese can be quite nasty in their own right. Then again, all of them ain't nothin' but updated dinosaurs. I read once that the birds that are least evolved are the ones in the chicken family and the ones in the duck/goose/swan family, so they are the ones most like dinosaurs. They are also the tastiest birds, so maybe dinosaurs were delicious. I'm guessing they were.

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Photos of Hannibal and Coe College

 

Today I worked from home again, then we had a condo board meeting. It wasn't a very exciting day, but Travalon took pictures of Hannibal that I wasn't able to post the other day, so here they are:

Years ago I ate at this restaurant with Tiffy and another college friend.

Here are a couple of photos from Wakonda State Park. It's not far from the Wyakonda River.

On the Coe College campus, you can see that we are definitely back in the land of winter!

The squirrels in Iowa are browner than our very gray squirrels in Wisconsin.

This says: "Hello Kohawks." The Kohawk is the mascot of the college. It appears to be a raptor, but Travalon didn't take any photos of it.

They had a little skyway with exercise equipment in it.

That should be all our photos from our road trip. If I forgot any, I'll post them later.

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Photos of Key Largo and the Everglades

 

Yesterday I worked from home and was a little pokey getting outside for lunch and again for my afternoon break, and both times trains went by just before I got out, so that I would have seen them if I hadn't been pokey. Today the weather was terrible, so we all worked from home except one intrepid coworker of mine, who actually did go in but said it was an awful commute. The bad weather is supposed to continue until at least noon tomorrow, so we'll probably all work from home again. I did go out for a walk at lunch but didn't leave the house again, not even to go to Mass and get ashes. I can't remember the last time I missed Ash Wednesday Mass - once I even went while very sick with a cold, and then I saw a coworker at Mass when I hadn't been at work. Busted! But he was like, "You gotta go to Mass on Ash Wednesday." Unless the weather is bad, apparently.

Here are some photos from the resort we stayed at on Key Largo.

I really wanted to post this one on Valentine's Day.

I don't know what bird this is, but it's cute.

This old general store was part of the resort complex.

This is the actual boat from the movie The African Queen!

Then we went to John Pennekamp State Park, which was a bit north of the resort. Here is a mangrove swamp in the park.

This is one of the beaches at the park.

There was this tiny island visible from the beach.

Here we are on a boardwalk near the beach.

This is a trail in the woods at the park.

This is me by a gumbo limbo tree.

We saw a small lizard.

This is the other, larger beach at the park.

We saw a cormorant hanging out on a buoy.

And a bigger, more colorful lizard.

And this really colorful tree.

On the drive to the Everglades, we passed a couple of groves of silver palms.

And when we stopped for gas, we saw this very odd tree. Is it a ponytail palm?

These photos are from the Shark Valley Visitors' Center in the Everglades. We saw lots of alligators and birds.

This is a cattle egret.

This is a tricolor heron.

Another tricolor heron.

This flower is called a Florida swamp lily. Sounds about right.

And another tricolor heron. I have never seen one of these in Wisconsin.

This is a snowy egret.

And this is a female anhinga. The all-black ones are males.

I think this is a great blue heron.

Here we are on another boardwalk.

I guess this is a wild magnolia...?

After that we went back to the boardwalk just off the highway where we had seen so many birds on the way down. We saw plenty the second time too, like this crow.

The juvenile anhingas were still hanging out.

And of course we saw alligators.

Here a male anhinga is on a nest.

Here are two female anhingas and a male one right near each other.

This is a female anhinga.

Another alligator.

Tomorrow I will try to post photos of Hannibal, Missouri that Travalon took. Now that we are back home, Boethius my computer is behaving like a gentleman. I guess he got tired of being on the road.

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