Pinocchio Feet

 

Last autumn I bought new sneakers because my old ones were too beat up and also too tight. At the time I was surprised by what size my feet had become, but the new shoes were big enough and very comfy. They seemed fine every time I wore them, but now all summer I've been wearing sandals, and my feet can spread out as much as they like. Apparently I have Pinocchio feet, because today was a little cooler so I wore the sneaks, and they were too tight! How is this possible? It's like every time I don't do weight training, my feet grow a little, just like Pinocchio's nose grew every time he told a lie. Is there no end in sight? Will I soon have to wear shoes fit for a professional basketball player? This is very mysterious to me, because these shoes aren't even a year old, and they fit perfectly at the time. How much bigger are my feet now? When will this insanity ever end? Is this from walking too much while I weigh too much? At least in the past my Pinocchio feet got too big for the shoes right around the time they were wearing out anyway, but this is a new one for me - the shoes are still in really good shape, but I barely fit into them. So strange!

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Epic Lotus Battle and Super Blue Moon

 

The Hive Mind has spoken, and they all think the odd "duck" we saw at Horicon Marsh was a juvenile gallinule:

Yesterday nothing too exciting happened; I worked from home and then went to Adoration. Today Travalon picked me up from work right when I got done, so we got home much earlier than usual and played some tennis. Wow, was I bad! Not that - and I can't emphasize this point enough - I was ever any good, but usually I could at least hit the ball and it would go... somewhere. Today I kept missing. Toward the end I was doing a little better, but then as we got tired, I was worse again, so we quit after almost half an hour. Maybe playing pickleball got me out of "tennis shape," not that I was ever in it to begin with...

Our neighbor did send the photos of us battling the lotuses in our boat. Behold our epic Lotus Battle! (Spoiler Alert: we won.)

The only other exciting thing that happened today was when I asked my colleague if she wanted to walk as usual at lunch, she said the button had come off her pants. (Unlike me, in my light top and shorts, she had checked the weather report before getting dressed this morning.) I asked the coworker most likely to have a sewing kit if she could help us, and she had the most elaborate sewing kit ever. She said she has an even better one at home. I have a very basic one at home and never thought to bring one to work. It took four of us to get the needle container open, but my colleague was able to sew her button back on. She said, "I came to the right department! You have a sewing kit and people that can open it!" So we were able to walk together, after all.

 

Just now we went out to look at the Super Blue Moon, and Travalon took this photo of it:

It was so beautiful. One of our neighbors said she saw the moonrise as they were driving back home, and it was glorious. I love when the rising moon looks like a big gold coin in the sky.

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Photos from Old Marsh Road in Horicon Marsh

 

Today I had to work on campus because we had an orientation for the new grad students. I told them three times that I couldn't answer tax questions, and what office to contact with those questions. Afterwards one of them said, "I have a question for you," so I said, "Sure, what it is?" and it was a tax question. Sigh...

After work I took a walk while waiting for Travalon to pick me up, and I saw these cool flowers at the Allen Centennial Gardens. My phone says they are silver cock's combs. They look more lavender to me...

When we got home, we tried to get the boat off the lift... and we did for the first time this summer!! For some reason nobody on our side of the condo pier has a boat except us, and there are all sorts of lotus pads in the way, so getting out was interesting. A neighbor laughed at us and took some photos, and she promised to share them, but she hasn't. I'm sure I was so photogenic as I was battling the lotuses. We did get out into the clear water, so we were able to put down the paddles and fire up the motor. Here is my favorite captain at the helm!

And here is the sunset we saw from the boat.

We went around the lotuses on the way back, so we only had to battle them a little. I did say to Travalon how frustrating it is that the new iPhones are too big for a regular sandwich bag, like our old ones could fit into to protect them from the water, and now I have to use the big freezer bag size. Then I said, "That's a real First World problem," and he said, "Why do these things always happen to moi?" which really made me laugh. Astute readers will realize that is a Miss Piggy quote, perfectly timed.

As promised, here are photos from our trip to Horicon Marsh on Friday. I don't know what this first duck is that we saw off of the boardwalk, but I have asked the Hive Mind and hope to have an answer soon.

On Old Marsh Road, we saw lots of egrets.

There were three geese on the road, and as we approached them, they got up and walked ahead of us as if they were our tour guides.

Eventually they got tired of us and flew away. They landed in the water near this young pelican.

There were some pretty flowers blooming. This is choke weed, a kind of wild morning glory.

My phone says this is spotted knapweed. I don't see the spots.

My phone calls this chicory. Like they put in coffee in New Orleans?

My phone says this is flowering toadflax, or what we called it when I was a kid, butter-and-eggs. It's a type of wild snapdragon.

We saw a pair of swans hanging out with geese and sandhill cranes.

Here are some of the many cranes. The one mid-picture with an orange beak and no red on its head is a juvenile that hatched this year.

Here they are with an egret.

Another view of the bird party. 

More egrets.

And lots of pelicans with cormorants and a mallard.

Here's a cormorant.

Here is the mother black-necked stilt with her baby in the nest.

See how many pelicans there were? And plenty of cormorants too. They always hang around together.

A swan swims in front of some cormorants. There were two swans, and they began trumpeting to each other, and then they flew away.

Another view of how many, many pelicans there were.

Another egret.

The sandhill cranes were all looking in the same direction, as if awaiting a signal...

... and then, as if they had received it, they flew away! But not all of them.

We saw plenty of pied-billed grebes too. 

And of course lots of gulls.

We saw a swan as we were heading back out of the marsh.

Then we saw his wife and six teenage cygnets.

This picture makes me laugh: they're all preening, even the goose!

And here you can see Dad (maybe Mom?) in the background.

An egret flew overhead.

As we were leaving, a lone goose was sitting on the road, and it got up and led us like a tour guide.

Unlike the others, it didn't fly off. When we were almost out of the marsh, it turned to the left and wandered into the grass.

We went to the section where the white-headed goose is known to hang out, but we didn't see any birds there. Travalon took this scenic photo of it from the hill above.

I hope that these photos were worth the wait.

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Second Slow Irish Jam (You Lead This One, Famous!)

 

I know I promised photos from our trip to Horicon, and I finally went through them, and there are some good ones. But it got too late... again... so tomorrow. Tonight I will just blog about today. Travalon and I went to Mass at our usual church, and once again there were eight of us at brunch (not exactly the same eight people), so once again we were there for two hours. Finally we had to ask for the bill so that Travalon and I could go to Sauk for the rosary I'd put on layaway. The antiques shop had called while we were at Horicon Marsh to say that they had another Stanhope Rosary, and it's very similar to the one I already got there some years ago, plus it's missing one of the viewing windows, so I said I'd have to think about it. They still want a fortune for it, even though it's in rougher shape. I did get two other rosaries, and this blue ring (the one on the right):

Cali wanted to meet us at the Good Neighbor Fest in Middleton, and that was right on our way home from Sauk, so we stopped there. Travalon got some photos of old gas stations, and I got two pairs of earrings. I had to hurry home, because this evening there was another slow Irish session. 

I left a little early so I could get to the Slow Irish Session before it started so I could get a smoothie, but of course I got caught behind a long, slow train and got there just before it started. Last month our whole band had gone, but this time I was the only one representin' until Hardingfele showed up at least fifteen minutes into the session. Maybe that's why the leader kept saying, "Famous, this is one of your songs, so why don't you lead it?" instead of "Famous and Hardingfele." Our band had provided some more songs for the group to do, and today we did "Give Me Your Hand" and "Salmon Tails Up the River." I knew about a third of the songs we did, but the ones I didn't know were quite a challenge. I sat between a hammer dulcimer player who was a bit older than I am and who said she had learned all the songs by ear, and a much younger fiddler who also said she had learned all the songs by ear. Hardingfele "cheated" and used music, but I stubbornly tried to play the songs by ear, and it was very humbling! The funny thing is that I had asked Travalon, Rich, and the woman who sold me the earrings at the Good Neighbor Fest if I should bring the violin or the mandolin, and they all said the mandolin. I was kind of in a violin groove after our Ukrainian gig, but am I glad that I listened to everyone, because the mandolin is much quieter, so people couldn't hear me screwing up. Maybe once I know the tunes better, I'll bring the violin. The fiddler next to me says she has been coming for a year now, so that may be why she knows the tunes so much better. She agreed with me that the first time through is awful, then the second time you think you're getting it, and the third time you're so close... and then they only play through it three times. This time we had quite an audience, and they applauded every time we finished a tune, no matter how shaky it was. However, there were less players.

At the end of the session, I said to the fiddler next to me, "I never introduced myself. I'm Famous." She said, "I'm Famous too. So every time the leader looked over at us and said, 'Famous, this is your tune, so why don't you lead it?' I just about had a heart attack, but then I realized you must be Famous too." I also introduced myself to the hammer dulcimer player on the other side of me, and she lives in Florida but is visiting her sister up here. I also met a guy who has a big mandolin with five courses instead of four, which he says is called a cittern, and he asked if I was going to go to any of the other local Irish sessions. I said I didn't think I was ready, since the slow one was challenging enough, but he said they're very nice and won't care if you don't know what you're doing. Then Hardingfele said, "We should try the Fast Irish Session," so maybe we should look into that, but she could be in for a rude awakening if they don't let you use sheet music at the other sessions. Of course it's easy for her, reading the music. Let's see how easy it is for her when she's doing it the real Irish way...

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Niko's First Trip to Lambeau Field

 

Yesterday Travalon had the day off of work, so I took the day off too. We had a leisurely morning and then headed to Horicon Marsh, stopping for lunch at Higher Grounds in Beaver Dam. It's a coffee place, and the lavender latte is delicious, but so is their simple grilled cheese sandwich. Travalon took a ton of photos, but I am too tired to download them from his camera tonight, so look for those tomorrow. We saw lots of egrets, a number of swans, hundreds of pelicans, and even four whooping cranes in flight. We also saw some sort of sandhill crane convention, and a black-necked stilt with a baby. Photos soon!

In the evening we went to the Monona Terrace rooftop for the final Dane Dance of the year. There was a mambo orchestra visiting from Chicago, and they were wonderful. They did a lot of salsa songs that I knew. To our surprise, we ran into Cali, so that was fun. She even got us to dance a little, which was quite a feat after we had walked for six miles at Horicon Marsh. Here is a photo of the Capitol from the rooftop.

And here is a pink cloud around sunset.

Today we had to get going as early as if it was a work day, and we still didn't quite get to Lambeau Field on time because of traffic. (I did see a whooping crane fly over us as we passed near Horicon Marsh.) We found parking for free in a nearby neighborhood, and as we were walking toward Lambeau, we could see kickoff on the jumbotron over the field, so Travalon said, "At least we didn't miss kickoff." We got to our seats (or actually other seats nobody was sitting in) midway through the first quarter, and as you can see, we had missed a Packer field goal.

Here we are!

I was wearing Niko, which you can't see in this photo, and nobody commented on him at all. However, a number of people said they loved our hats. I got mine some years ago at a shop on State Street, and Travalon ordered the same hat this past week, and it arrived in the mail yesterday. 

This was a preseason game, so there was a bit of experimentation going on. Lots of going for it on fourth down, and the Packers kicker tried to make a field goal from more than halfway across the field (57 yards).... and HE MADE IT!!! We all watched the ball float through the uprights in disbelief. The weather was lovely and cool for most of the game, but midway through the fourth quarter the sun came out, and it got a bit hotter. The Packers scored and were up again, but with just twenty-two seconds left, Seattle was in the red zone and looked poised to score. If we could hold them to a field goal, we'd win by one point, but if they got a touchdown, then it was game over. I prayed for an interception - and we got one!... but it was ruled an incomplete pass. Then the Seattle quarterback launched one into the end zone... and our guy got it!! Game over!!! I was so excited in those last few minutes, jumping around and waving my arms, that my FitBit said I was biking for nineteen minutes. Maybe it just calls exercise "biking" when it isn't quite sure what I'm doing, since that was what it called it when I put it on my right hand during a gig, and it registered a workout.

Afterwards we went to the Packers Pro Shop, which was an experience. Every square inch of floor was packed with people, and we had trouble finding the checkout line, but at least it moved quickly. We bought this Packers unicorn, which Travalon said we should name Davante, after my favorite former receiver, Davante Adams. 

I have read that the only NFL team that has to reveal its earnings is the Packers, because they are a nonprofit while the others are all for-profit teams. This means that when people try to figure out the NFL's revenues, they extrapolate from what the Packers earn. I think this must skew their data, because the Packers have an unusually loyal fanbase who buy Packer everything, and their games are always sold out. This is not at all true of other football teams. I remember growing up one state over, and now and then you'd see someone wearing a Vikings jacket, but it's not like here, where people have Packers pajamas and Packers car flags and Packers pillows and Packers jewelry and Packers unicorns and of course cheeseheads. Maybe it's that football-shaped G - it's just so aesthetically pleasing. Much more so than a disembodied Viking head.

On the way back the traffic was just as bad, so we took another route, Highway 55 which goes along Lake Winnebago. It was very scenic and went through little towns like Pipe and Stockbridge. When we got back to Sun Prairie, we went to dinner at a new African restaurant. We had jollof rice with chicken, and I had hibiscus and ginger juice. We also had "sweet" buns that weren't that sweet, so they were perfect, kind of like the fritters at the Dorf Haus. Just deep-fried balls of dough - yum! We'll definitely go there again.

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