Another Dreary Day of Heat and Smoke

 

When I was in high school, we had to raise fruit flies to study genetics. I had a little test tube full of some sort of oatmeal stuff, and the fly larvae ate it and became adult flies, and then we would look at what traits they had, like eye color. After we had finished this experiment, the test tube just sat there, filling with larvae as the flies bred, until one day I took it out and looked at it. The oatmeal was now grayish brown with their waste, and it looked like they were all dead because they had ruined their environment, but when I opened the test tube, a couple of weak little flies enjoyed their freedom and flew off into the halls of our school.

I am here to tell you that this earth is our test tube, and nobody is going to open it to let us escape the devastation we have wrought. Once it's ruined, that's it. Today we were supposed to get rain, but there was no rain again, and the smoke is not as bad as yesterday, but it's still bad. I thought maybe this was our punishment for how cruel we are to each other, and I wept while listening to Tupac as I walked around the house, since it wasn't safe to go outside. How can the world mourn five billionaires who chose to do something reckless when they don't mourn countless migrants who die at sea in a desperate attempt at a bearable life? I decided not to turn on the air conditioning in reparation for my own sins that have contributed to this mess, so I closed the windows and pointed a fan right at myself. It was over 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside. 

When Travalon came home, he turned on the air, and we went to the health club while it kicked in. We swam in the sport pool again, which is not as warm as the really warm pool but not as cold as the lap pool so it's kind of a Goldilocks pool - just perfect! Plus it has windows so you can feel like you're swimming outside on those days when the air is too poisonous to go out into it. I feel like I'm in one of those sci-fi movies where they have to wear gas masks to go outside. Imagine how the little kids Travalon works with must feel! If people tell them they can't go outside because the air is dangerous, will they develop a fear of the air? Will they always remember that week when they were five years old and the Big People said, "Careful! The air could kill you!" Or is this the new normal, and they won't remember it because that's just how it will be for them? I feel so bad for all the plants and animals outside that can't escape this. How dangerous is this smoke for a tiny creature like Squeaky the Hummingbird? How long can she survive this? They said it would be better by noon today, but then they canceled the outdoor concert this evening, and they're even postponing activities happening tomorrow. Right now it looks like there is no end in sight, and never any rain to wash it all away. I just want a good, old-fashioned thunderstorm right now.

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Dry and Smoky Day

 

This morning on the way to work I heard seagulls squealing, so I looked up and saw three of them chasing a red-tailed hawk. I often see several smaller birds chasing a hawk, but the gulls were the same size as the hawk, and it looked terrified. It flew away very fast with them in hot pursuit. Now I'm not saying the hawk didn't do something to deserve to get chased, but I did feel a little sorry for it. Later I saw three gulls, still squealing loudly, and I wondered if it were the same three... and what had become of the hawk.

Today Madison had about the worst air quality in the world, although they tell me that Ypsilanti, where my cousin lives, was even worse. I went for a short walk at ten while wearing a mask, and I couldn't see the other side of our relatively small lake, but I felt fine. Then at lunchtime I took a half-hour walk, and the rest of the day I had a headache and wasn't much use. Also, when I got back, there was a strong paint smell on our floor, so maybe that gave me the headache, not the smoke outside. Or maybe it was self-induced from thinking that I should have a headache from such bad smoke, but I doubt it, because one coworker also had such a bad headache that she went home partway through the afternoon. She blamed the paint smell indoors. There was supposed to be the first Concert on the Square tonight, featuring a famous salsa group, but due to the poor air quality it was postponed until tomorrow. I will plan to go then, unless the air quality is still bad and they cancel it completely... Usually Madison is so beautiful in the summer, but between this endless drought and the horrible smoke, it's a bit of a hellscape right now. It's hard for someone like me, who loves to be outdoors, but I did take my afternoon walk in our building's garage. Weird to think that the air was safer there than outside! I'm busy with fiscal year-end stuff right now, but when I look outside, it all seems a bit meaningless when it feels like the end of days is approaching.

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Ice Cream Social and Chancellor's Indoor Picnic

 

Today was a much better day than yesterday. The condo board got enough votes to go ahead with the siding and roofing project, and only my most easygoing coworker and I were in the office. He used to ride the bus with my colleague, and of course I am still in close contact with her, so the three of us met up at the ice cream social this afternoon, got free orange custard chocolate chip ice cream, and talked. The other two had not tried that flavor before, but they both liked it. (My colleague loves Blue Moon, but they didn't seem to have that flavor today.) It was such a warm, I guess collegial, feeling hanging out with them, maybe not quite love, but very strong like. So the workday was wonderful.

Then in the evening I walked to the Chancellor's house for a shared governance leadership picnic, only due to the air quality, the "picnic" was moved inside. Also, they have closed the pedestrian overpass over Campus Drive but gave no warning until you actually get to it, so then I had to double back to where I could actually cross University Avenue. Still, I wasn't too late, and it was the cocktail hour anyway, so who cares when you get there? Travalon arrived not long after they started serving the actual food, and we sat with a delightful couple. We thought it was so funny that when the berry parfaits were handed out for dessert, the wife picked off all the mint leaves because she objected to "green stuff" on her dessert. "I don't want lettuce on my dessert!" she said. She even picked it off her husband's parfait too, while he was off talking to someone else. Then the Chancellor came over and wanted a selfie with both of them, so the husband asked her to text the photo to him, and his wife said, "Oh, you're going to regret giving him your number!" The Chancellor said she could airdrop the photos, but the guy didn't have an iPhone, so she did have to text them to him, after all. Maybe she should have emailed them... I think this guy is planning to retire soon and looking for a replacement to badger the upper administration about the needs of the little people on campus, and I kind of think he's grooming me for that position. I'm not sure how good I am at speaking truth to power, but I guess we'll find out... If I see injustice, it's hard to shut me up!

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Mostly Frustrating Monday

 

Today was a frustrating day. Work was frustrating, and dealing with one of the companies I have to pay as treasurer of our condo association was frustrating (you can't send a bill three weeks after the due date on it and then immediately demand to know why it hasn't been paid yet!), and worst of all, I couldn't walk outside because it was so smoky. At first I thought there was a fire in our neighborhood, but then I saw there was an air quality alert, so it must still be those Canadian forest fires. You could actually see ashes like snow swirling around in the wind. When Travalon got home, the smoke was barely noticeable so we tried to take a boat ride, but due to the drought, the river is so low that we couldn't get our boat off the lift. We gave up and decided to go to the health club, where we swam in the sports pool. Finally, something that went right! That really lifted my mood. We got forms at the health club to participate in some contest where you log how many miles you walk every day in the summer. I figured it was a good one for me, since I generally walk five miles a day, and you have to have a partner, so Travalon is doing it too. He walks a lot at work, taking care of kids. The challenge started a week before yesterday, and last week I walked almost 38 miles while Travalon walked just over 29 miles, since the day he hung out with his old high school buddy they didn't do much walking. So we are well on our way!

Someone posted this photo of our band at Make Music Madison last week.

She posted a really good video of us playing my favorite song, "Metsakukkia," but I couldn't figure out how to save a video from MyFace. It's not obvious how to do it, like saving photos is. The one Travalon took of us during our gig in May playing the same song is even better, so I'll have to throw it on YouTube and share a link here sometime.

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Eucharistic Miracle in Travalon's Ancestral Hometown

 

This morning I didn't wake up until it would have been time to leave for Mass downtown, and Travalon slept even later, so we missed the last English language Mass at our church for the foreseeable future. Next week Mass will be at the same time, but it will be bilingual. We went to the church near our house with the later Mass, but we found out their new Mass time next week will be 9 am! So if we have to get up anyway, we might as well go to our church, even if it's further away. There was a reception after Mass for the priest who will be leaving for another parish, and we were the only ones who sat outside and then realized we were locked out, but fortunately someone let us back in. There was also a Eucharistic Miracle exhibit at that church. Travalon was amazed to find out there was a Eucharistic miracle of wine turning into blood in the village his grandparents are from. He took some photos of the exhibit.

They have a festival every September in honor of this miracle, so some year we'll have to go for that. Oddly, there were no miracles in this country. Some countries had quite a few. 

I took this photo of the flowers outside of that church because I liked the colors so much.

Richard Bonomo had been keeping the plants from our dock at his house all winter, and he brought them over today to put back on the dock, but one had died. It's hard to keep outdoor plants alive inside all winter. Kathbert came with him, and then the four of us took a walk on Governor's Island and another one at the bluff near our house. Travalon took a couple of photos of the bluff.

When we came back, Kathbert was looking at the plants outside of our building, and I took this photo of a sundrop.

I had Irish class for the first time in forever, since our Irish teacher and (it seems) all my classmates were over in Ireland becoming more fluent, while I was sitting here doing French on DuoLingo. Still, to my surprise, I understood a lot of what they were saying, even if I couldn't say much myself. I kept fearing I'd open my mouth and French would pop out. When I said (in Irish) that French is easier, they disagreed.

After my class, Travalon and I took a walk at Jackson's Landing, and he took a photo of me on the bridge so I'd have something to put on the blog.

You may be wondering why I wasn't wearing Niko when he would go so well with the heart on my shirt. It was very windy today, so I was wearing Niko earlier, but he was blowing around my neck, and I was afraid he would strangle me. Also, Kathbert found him very freaky. I think he is so cute, but I guess I can see how a one-eyed heart is maybe a little freaky. Guess I better never wear my eyeball earrings and eyeball bracelet around her.

After our walk, we went to Bellitalia to get pizza. In all the years I have been going to this restaurant, I never noticed that there is outdoor seating on a little porch along the side. It's wonderful! We will definitely have to go back before the outdoor dining season ends.

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Limnology Open House and Super Relaxing Saturday

 

Yesterday I worked on campus, even though my boss had said that during the summer we could all work from home on Fridays, because my colleague is back on campus. I may have mentioned that she left the Killer Building to go work at the medical school, against my advice and that of several others. It only took her a year to see her folly, so now she is back in Letters and Science. We met at the Limnology Open House and got free ice cream and a free boat ride. Here is a photo she took of me with a sample of water I had collected that was full of water fleas.

After we got off the boat, we looked at the water fleas under a microscope and checked out some water plants. Here is a photo of a pitcher plant's bloom.

Then I had some time before Travalon came to pick me up, so I took a rosary walk and headed toward the Allen Centennial Gardens. I saw this interesting flower there.

That was right at the entrance to the gardens, because then I heard a train, so I hurried to where I could watch it pass by. It was very long, which seems obnoxious for rush hour. Can't they run the long trains through town at a less busy hour? 

Travalon and I were very tired after our exciting couple of evenings, so we just picked up some Chinese takeout and went home, where I talked to Tiffy. Even though we had just seen each other, we never seem to run out of things to talk about. 

Today we were still feeling like relaxing after all that running around, and it was a bazillion degrees out (over 90 F), so we went for a walk at the air-conditioned mall. We did end up buying some stuff; Travalon got a book about John Lennon, I got a book called Dirtbag Astrology, and we got this giraffe with a lot of attitude at the alpaca wool shop, or whatever you want to call it.

He has giraffitude! And he glows under blacklight! Or is it a she? We haven't decided yet.

I wore bright tie-dye and Niko to the mall. Here I am modeling the pink bucket hat I got for National Pink Flamingo Day (which was yesterday) at the Forward shop.

Here I am modeling some hats in Hot Topic. It's hard to see the mushrooms on this beret.

This is like a flower or something - makes me look like an elf.

We had lunch at Portillo's, including their cake shakes because Tiffy said they are so good. We swore we had ordered small shakes, but they were huge! Unless the large is even bigger...? Then we came home, and I read my new book. Once the sun was lower in the sky, we went to the health club and planned to swim in the outdoor pool, but suddenly it began to rain really hard. I said, "Is that all we needed to do to end the drought - plan to swim in the outdoor pool?" But just as abruptly, the rain stopped, so we did swim in the outdoor pool for quite a while. Now we are sitting on the porch listening to the beautiful sound of the rain, which we haven't heard in maybe a month. It's been such a bad drought! Hopefully it is finally over.

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Doobie Brothers and Forward Game

 

Yesterday our gig at Make Music Madison went okay, but I had to play melody because only one fiddle could make it. We had a big audience at first, but they dwindled after a few songs, and I thought it was my fault as I struggled to play the melodies that I was basically sight-reading. But later one of my bandmates sent a couple of videos which are not high enough quality to post here, and I could see that the fiddle messed up but there was the mandolin, resolutely plunking out the melody. It's funny how sometimes a person's self-concept is different than objective reality.

In the evening Travalon and I went to see the Doobie Brothers at Breese Stevens Field. They were awesome, especially the saxophone player. They played all their hits, and also "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and Steely Dan's "Pretzel Logic." I wore tie-dye and also Niko as a necklace; I was going to put the photo here, but of course Blogspot loaded the photos in reverse order again, so look for that at the end of this post.

Today was a crazy day at work because it was my first day back after three days off, then in the evening Travalon and I met Jilly Moose and OK Cap at Breese Stevens Field to see the Forward play Lexington in a soccer game. (I got free tickets through work.) OK Cap noted that it was her second night in a row there, and I said, "No way! Were you at the concert too?" We never saw each other. 

The game was so much fun, and they gave us color-changing straws, flamingo visors, and 3-D glasses to watch a very short movie before the game and another one at half time. We also were part of a world record for the most people standing on one foot at the same time. The Forward scored two goals early in the game, and we happened to miss both goals. Then Lexington scored two goals, but the Forward scored again, and this time we all saw it. The final score was 3-2. Here are some photos. You can see that I wore Niko as a necklace again, and he even went better with this outfit than the tie-dye.

This is the pink smoke they release when the Forward win.

Travalon took a really good photos of us ladies.

And here's the photo of how I dressed for the concert: with eyeball earrings, the eyeball bracelet, and then Niko is kind of an eyeball necklace.

One of the faculty saw Niko today (the one who commented about how I was so into eyeballs), and she said Niko was "kind of cute." I think he's really cute. Maybe I'll wear him as a necklace tomorrow too.

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Photos of Kohler-Andrae and Sheboygan

 

Today I took the day off of work, since I had originally thought my band would play several times for Make Music Madison. We are only playing this afternoon at 4:20 (dude!), so I have spent my day straightening up the house, sorting paperwork, watering plants, and now blogging. I did take a walk at Governor's Island again, and this time I ate some mulberries. There are quite a few mulberry trees on the island. Warner Bay really stinks right now - we desperately need some rain to wash away all that blue-green algae. There is no rain in the forecast... sigh.

Here are some photos from Travalon's weekend. I think these are all from Sunday, when he went to Kohler-Andrae State Park and Sheboygan. Here are some photos of the beautiful sand dunes at Kohler-Andrae.

These must be photos of the marina in Sheboygan.

I love this little sandpiper. The birding people tell me it's a dunlin.

The water is so clear, especially compared to our much smaller lakes.

Wild roses growing on the beach.

It might be a while before I can post about how our gig goes this afternoon. Tonight we are going to hear the Doobie Brothers, tomorrow we are going to a Forward soccer game, and I'm not sure if I'll have time to blog on Friday night before my usual chat with Tiffy. We'll see.

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Back to Reality: Condo Association Meeting

 

This morning Tiffy and I got up and had breakfast at the hotel, where a TV was showing a news station that has been sued multiple times for lying, and when they won the suits it was by saying they are entertainment, not news, so everyone knows not to believe them. Anyway, they were all hot about a particular news story, and a woman saw it and got all excited, thinking all the people in a political party she doesn't like are going to be rounded up and shot now. This apparently really made her day. I am hopeful that she is not right about this, but listening to her was really getting to me, so we left.

We drove back to Madison, stopping for a short walk in Mineral Point along a path where butterflies danced around us and we could hear the running water of a small creek beside us. Then Tiffy left, and I went for a long walk on Governor's Island, marred only by some loud music coming from a boat in Three Foot Bay. The plants all looked very stressed from the drought we're having. 

This evening we had a condo association meeting on the lawn; we have to do an assessment for new roofing and siding, so I expected it to be really contentious, but people were surprisingly adult about it. Then Travalon and I sat on the dock and talked about our weekends. He went to a coffeehouse and a brewery on Friday evening, then Saturday he went fishing during the day, had lunch at Rookies, and met Cecil Markovitch, the Single B-Boy, Rich, and Kathbert at the Union Terrace to hear some live music for Jazz Fest. Sunday he saw his family and went to Holy Hill for Mass, then he went to Kohler-Andrae State Park and Sheboygan. Monday he hung out with an old high school friend, the one we always used to spend New Year's Eve with. So he had a really fun weekend too.

Here are the crystals I bought in Galena. Three of them are jasper, and the greenish one is something that I can't remember the name of, but it has little purple flecks that glow under blacklight.

Here is a photo of it under blacklight. It's hard to see in this photo.

I saw my T-shirt was glowing under the blacklight, so I took this sketchy selfie.

When Travalon went to Mass at Holy Hill on Sunday, he bought me a rosary!

He knows me all too well!

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Castles and Palisades

 

This morning I woke up early and took a sunrise walk around the pond in the backyard of our hotel.

Tiffy and I went to the Dubuque Arboretum and fed the koi, like Travalon and I did. Here are some cool flowers we saw there, like foxtail lilies, clematis, and delphiniums.

Remember when Travalon took a photo of these white flowers? Now they are mostly done blooming, but they have cool silvery foliage.

And this is lupine.

After the Arboretum, we went to the Mines of Spain to see the Julien Dubuque monument, which looks like a castle tower. We stopped at McDonald's so I could try a Grimace Birthday Shake, which is kind of meh. It tastes vaguely like berries. Then we drove south and stopped at the overlook at Bellvue State Park.

 

We went to Eagle Point Park in Clinton to see the other castle tower. We climbed up the tower, then we went to the overlook.

After that we headed north again and drove around Sabula, the town on an island in the middle of the Mississippi. We went to Savanna and had a late lunch at a restaurant recommended by some women on the next boatel when Travalon and I stayed in Sabula a few weeks ago, called the Sippi-Side. I had a BLT with a fried green tomato, and we had duck wontons for an appetizer. Everything was delicious, and we had quite a view.

There are train tracks right there, and a train went by as we were having lunch, so that was excellent. Then we went to Mississippi Palisades State Park. These are photos from that overlook. In the first one, you can see the bridge to Sabula.

When we came back, we hung out on the back patio of the hotel, overlooking the pond, and listened to birds. We heard lots of robins, an oriole, a catbird, and a cardinal with a different song than I'd ever heard before, among other birdsongs. It was a beautiful evening. We had a late, light dinner at a Mexican restaurant (and I brought most of mine back to the hotel room fridge), and after resting a bit, we will swim again in the wonderful hotel pool. Tomorrow we head back to reality.

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