Hanging Out with Jilly Moose

 

This morning Travalon, our neighbor, and I went to a new French bakery, where we got fresh-baked croissonts, then we met Jilly Moose at Jiffy Lube for coffee and sat outside. It was a beautiful day. Our neighbor had to head to her son's barbecue, but she lent her pickleball equipment to Jilly Moose and me, and we played in the midday heat. We weren't particularly good, and one of the cranes was watching us. Every time I said something about "the crane is watching us," it perked up like it knew I was talking about it. I don't know where its mate was, and I'm not here to be judged on my pickleball game by modern-day dinosaurs. Then again, our mailman also could see us because he was pulled over across from the tennis court, and unlike the crane he could tell people how badly we play. 

Then Travalon joined us for a walk on Governor's Island, and we saw a lot of boats in Three Foot Bay. It was such a hot day that I thought swimming sounded like a great idea, but we didn't end up doing any swimming. We did get lunch at Athens Grill, then Travalon headed off to Milwaukee to meet with his old teacher and see Ringo Starr, while Jilly Moose and I went to Cherokee Marsh to take another walk. Even though it was shady there, we were still very hot. The flavor of the day at Culver's was midnight toffee, and I told Jilly Moose that is their very best flavor, so we stopped and got some. As we sat in the air conditioning enjoying it, we saw my neighbor's vehicle drive up. She came in and got four pints of custard, including one of midnight toffee. She said, "I heard you mention that it was the flavor of the day today, so I had to stop." Darn right! It's very dark chocolate with a hint of coffee, and then chunks of toffee mixed in.

Jilly Moose wondered where we could see deer, and I said I often see them in the woods across from the bluff near my house. We went there and took yet another walk, but we didn't see any deer today. By then we had walked over seven miles, so we just went back to my place and chillaxed on my porch with some refreshing iced tea. A lot of the people we know were at a eucharistic congress, but we didn't register in time to go to that. However, I'd rather have been hiking through the woods like we did on such a lovely day. Soon it will be cold out, so we have to take advantage of this warm weather while we still can.

Here is a photo our neighbor took of a maple tree at Devil's Lake.

And here are some cute mushrooms she saw there.

Jilly Moose says there is a very pretty tree she sees changing colors outside the window of her new apartment, so if she sends me a picture of it, I will post it. From her description, I'm guessing it is another maple. I just love maples in the fall!

Famous Hat

God Only Knows

 

Today was a bad day to work at home, because they are redoing the siding on our condo, and it was very loud. Also, the workers were listening to loud ranchero music, and while I don't hate ranchero music, having to listen to it for hours is not conducive to concentrating. At least in the morning I got quite a bit done, before things got so loud. I need to do some training videos, but not with all that noise!

In the evening Travalon and I went with our neighbor to Mariner's for fish. This time I had the walleye, which is a bit more expensive but so worth it. Plus the portion is so generous that I will get to have more tomorrow. Our neighbor loves the dinner rolls there and says that is what she will miss most when she goes to Florida for the winter. On the other hand, we were talking about conch fritters, and you can get those in Florida but not up here. I said I felt bad because this morning I took down the hummingbird feeder so the workers wouldn't wreck it, thinking it wouldn't be a problem because I hadn't seen a hummingbird in over a week. Then, wouldn't you know a few minutes later one flew by looking for the feeder? So I put it out again, but the hummingbird never came back, and I took it down once the workers started pounding right around the porch. Our waitress said she has a plant that the hummingbirds love, and from her description we thought it might be a fuchsia. I said those have edible fruits, and that reminded me that on Wednesday I went around eating crabapples from the trees in our neighborhood. The one that had such wonderful fruit last year seems to have four very pale fruit, high up in the tree, and that's it. Makes sense, since it had hardly any blossoms on it this spring. But to my surprise, some of the other trees have the larger, delicious fruit. How did I not notice this before? I told our neighbor I'll eat practically anything, like one year we had a decorative sweet potato vine growing in a pot at the entrance to our condo association, and the president at the time told me to take it out in the fall. There were sweet potatoes in the roots, so Travalon fried them up, and we ate them. Delicious! And of course there was the spring when my neighbor and I found all those morel mushrooms in our neighborhood. They haven't come back.

Yesterday I didn't blog because the Packer game made me too grumpy. They didn't show it on TV, only on Amazon Prime, but Travalon has that so we were able to watch it. I'm kind of jealous of people who couldn't watch it - it was so bad! The first half they were very balanced: the offense stunk, the defense stunk, and special teams stunk too. Finally in the second half they started to play, but it was too late - the Lions were too far ahead. So they lost at home. 

The other day someone posted about people who say there must not be a god because bad things happen, and he argued about why this wasn't true. I said I think of it like taking a dog to the vet; the dog isn't able to understand why you are torturing it. Some guy responded to my comment by saying it was a bad analogy because dogs don't wonder, and because God could explain it to us if He chose. I found his arguments problematic because first of all he must never have been close to an animal, and secondly it's sheer hubris to think that we can understand at the same level as God. Just like I could have told Rodney that he needed a shot, but he wouldn't know what I was saying, God could try to explain His plan to us, but we don't have the capacity to understand it. I just loved that this guy really thought he was equal to God in understanding, and the problem is just that God isn't talking to him. Whatever, dude. You sit down with God and have that conversation, and let me know how it goes. I know from personal experience that it's better to just trust God to have a plan even when I don't know what He's up to. Could He explain it to me if He used small enough words? I doubt it. I'm not omniscient. What really kills me is that some of these same people think space aliens would be at a much higher level of understanding than we are, but then they think God would be equal to us. So do they really think space aliens know more than God? It boggles the mind.

Famous Hat

That Insane Movie

 

Today I worked on campus, and my colleague and I tried to take a walk over our lunch hour. Only it started to rain really hard so she was walking at a really fast pace and I was struggling to keep up. I had a jacket and rain hat on, but she had no rain gear. She said, "This isn't even my fastest speed!" We got back to the hill where I split off from her, and I charged up it and then got a few extra minutes of walking under the overhang around my building, where I had that mystical experience a couple of months ago on another rainy day. It seems wrong to complain about the rain when I've been praying for the drought to end. On Monday my phone said the rain wouldn't come until 7:00, when I would be safely at home, but it started just as I went out to catch the bus, and I couldn't even be mad about it. 

This evening I was sitting on our porch (as I am now) while Travalon was in the living room, watching a movie. When I went through the living room, I asked him what he was watching, and he said, "The same movie, Asphalt Jungle." Meaning the same one as he'd been watching (or sleeping through) last night. Somehow I heard, "That insane movie, A$$hole Joe," and I said, "That does sound insane." Maybe it's time to get my hearing checked. 

One thing I forgot to mention about our trip to the corn maze is that while Tiffy and I were in the maze and Travalon was exploring the other amenities the "adventure farm" had to offer, he went to the beer garden. He said he had a really good strawberry blonde beer made by a local brewery. It sounded delicious, but after all that walking in the maze, I didn't want to go to the beer garden, which was quite a distance from the maze itself. No beer is worth walking another half-mile for after walking six miles. Maybe if it was dark chocolate...

Famous Hat

How to Fall Right

 

I thought that today would be a quiet day working from home and walking with my neighbor, but on our lunchtime walk we thought a UPS truck was about to run us down, so we moved over to the edge of the road. There was some mud there, and my neighbor slipped and fell. I asked how I could help her, so she said get some cardboard or something from all the construction going on in the neighborhood, since they're redoing our roofs and siding. I couldn't find any, but I called Travalon, who came with a sleeping bag. Meanwhile, another neighbor had come with a piece of cardboard, and yet another one (the mother of the late famous comedian) brought a chair, so my neighbor was able to pull herself up onto the chair. The mother of the comedian gave her a ride the short distance back to her house, and she sat with her foot up and put ice on it. I came over on my afternoon break and found her crutches and boots in the garage from previous times she has hurt herself, and then I gave her a ride to her vehicle so she could go to the doctor. No breaks, but her tendon is very swollen. To my surprise, despite the excitement during the lunchtime walk, I somehow got a twenty-six minute workout. How is that even possible? Sometimes I'm not sure about FitBit, like at night it says I only sleep six hours and some change, not over seven hours, because I am awake in the middle of the night... but I don't remember that. And yesterday my phone gave me no credit for charging up the hill from the Lakeshore Path, even though it usually gives me credit for four staircases. The FitBit did give me an aerobic workout for it, though.

Imagine my surprise at Adoration this evening when I heard someone coming in on crutches. "That can't be my neighbor!" I thought, but it was a teenage boy. Still, what are the odds? In all the years I've gone to Adoration, I think I've seen someone on crutches there maybe twice. So why tonight? 

I'm not sure why my neighbor is so prone to falls, or why she always seems to get injured by them. She fell one winter on some ice right outside her garage, and then not long after she had finally healed from that, she got a job as a waitress and three days in slipped on some soda and broke her foot again. Plenty of us fall, but we usually just get right back up again. Why is my neighbor so unlucky that, when she falls, she ends up with a boot on her foot? I have sprained my ankle twice, it's true, but both times involved falling down poorly maintained stairs, not just falling from losing my footing on flat ground. What causes someone like me to just fall on my badonkadonk which is so well-padded and then get back up, while my neighbor always seems to do major damage? Maybe she doesn't fall right? As a kid, I once fell off a skateboard and just tucked and rolled, and I didn't break anything, just got scraped up. Maybe I missed my calling as a stunt double, except I hate heights, and they always have to deal with heights. No thanks!

Famous Hat

Illustrious Relatives

 

Today I worked on campus. I walked with my colleague and had leftover picnic food for lunch. It was not a particularly noteworthy day, but I did get a laugh when Travalon texted about one of the kids he works with, and spellcheck changed her name to an indigenous language of Mexico. Which reminds me - I have texted the word "beandzdzdz" to Tiffy so many times that now my phone suggests it if I start typing b-e-a.

I did forget to blog about the Packers game yesterday. We were taping it, and so was Tiffy, so we were trying to avoid any mention of it. However, we found out they were down to the Saints 17-0 at halftime, so then we said, "Good thing we're out enjoying this beautiful weather instead of watching that!" But while Tiffy and I were in the maze, someone texted her: "Amazing comeback!" So then Travalon and I were really looking forward to watching the game. We fast-forwarded over the first half, since who wants to watch that? The third quarter wasn't any better; the Saints' quarterback got injured, and their backup quarterback couldn't get any offense going, but we did nothing either, so it was 17-0 at the start of the fourth quarter. Even that seemed to start poorly, and Travalon and I were asking each other, "Did we misunderstand? How could they have won?" They got a lot of stupid penalties, but finally they got a field goal. Then they got a touchdown! And a two-point conversion! (That's important.) And another touchdown! We thought they must have forced a turnover to get the ball back so quickly, but they just shut the Saints down that fast every time they got the ball. Then the Saints were driving, and all they needed was a field goal to win... but they missed! The Packers could take a knee and win by one point! It's good to see such a young team not lose faith and just keep trying until they succeed. Of course, last week they had a double-digit lead going into the fourth quarter and still lost, so it was heartening to see them snatch victory from the jaws of defeat after seeing them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. (Stole that line from Tiffy's dad.)

Here is the icon we got yesterday. I asked Travalon which one he liked best, and he said this one.

And here is a photo of Tiffy and me in the corn maze, taken by Travalon.

I was wearing my Mars Cheese Castle T-shirt, and a woman saw it and asked, "Do you work at the Mars Cheese Castle?" I said, "No, I just got the shirt because it's tie-dyed with a castle and Saturn on it," and she said, "My mom works at the Mars Cheese Castle." I asked which section, since there is a bar and grill, an ice cream counter, a bakery, a gift shop, and a liquor store, as well as an extensive cheese section. She said, "In the cheese section," and at first I didn't think anything of it, but later Tiffy and I were joking about how if you said, "My mom works at the Mars Cheese Castle!" and someone asked you in what section but you were lying, you'd say, "The, uh, CHEESE section! Yeah, that's it!" Then again, why would anyone lie about that? Can you imagine a situation where that would have cachet?

Person One: "My sister is the Supreme Court Justice of the State of Maine!" (Based on a true story starring my neighbor.)

Person Two: "My cousin is the mayor of Lahaina in Maui!" (also based on an allegedly true story)

Person Three: "My mom works at the Mars Cheese Castle!" (apparently also based on a true story)

Persons One and Two: "Stop! (or in Richmond, Illinois, Stob!) We can't compete!"

Famous Hat

Not Mr. A Corn Maze King

 

This morning Travalon and I were a bit poky, plus we had to get going right away after Mass, so we went to the church closer to our house. I noticed in the hymnal that there was music (which we didn't sing) by someone named Rawn Harbor. I thought that was an awesome name, so I googled him, and he's "one of the preeminent African American Catholic liturgists." Now I'd really like to hear his music! 

Yesterday we had been bummed that we wouldn't have time to go to Port Washington, since on Friday five flamingos were spotted there. All the bird nerds were posting photos on social media. As it turns out, my work picnic saved us a trip, because the flamingos were gone by yesterday. Can you imagine the first person who spotted them? They have never been seen before in Wisconsin! The experts say they were blown off-course by Hurricane Idalia. 

Travalon and I met Tiffy at Dogs N Suds, an old-fashioned drive-in in Richmond, Illinois. There is a building in town that claims to be St. Joseph's Catholic Church.

However, I am skeptical because a) the architectural features are much more typical of a Congregational church, and b) this is clearly a happy cyclops wearing a dunce cap. Don't worry, Dogs N Suds was just as surreal - check out their stob sign!

Then we went to the Richardson Corn Maze, which claims to be the "world's largest" corn maze.

The theme this year was dinosaurs. We found a display of their previous years' designs, and Travalon said, "I don't suppose they have a Beatles one." But then look what he found:

Too bad we didn't know about this place in 2013, right? I was surprised that Travalon was going to do the corn maze with us at all, and he said, "I'm not like Mr. A Corn Maze King or anything, but I'll try it." So he did a bit of it with us and then went to explore the other wonders of the Richardson Farm. There was a train for kids.

There was a petting zoo with a pony, baby goats, rabbits, and all sorts of fowl.

There were singing animatronic chickens. (I hope to post a video soon.) And for an extra charge, you could zipline over the whole thing or get rolled around in a giant hamster ball in something they called "zorbing." Here's a picture of what it looked like inside the maze:

As opposed to the eight punches we have to find at the corn maze we go to closer to home, this one had twenty-four, but they were all marked on the map, so the only challenge was reading the map. I prefer having to "think like a Treinen" to find the punches. Tiffy and I were in the maze quite a while while Travalon was entertaining himself, but we did find all the punches and walked over six miles. 

On the way home, Travalon and I passed a Greek Orthodox monastery. Only four brothers live there, and one came out to see us and was very friendly. He showed us inside.

We asked if they sold icons, and they said they would give us one for a donation, so we picked one that I forgot to take a photo of. He gave us all these snacks for the road too, and asked us to write our names so that they could pray for us. He was so nice!

I did remember to take photos of the jewelry I bought at the North Side Festival yesterday. First is the Evil Eye Protector ring. I don't know why my hand always looks a hundred years older in photos than in real life - you'd think I was my mother-in-law's age from this photo.

And this is the bracelet with the tiny Niko on it.

Niko is not very big himself, but he looks enormous next to Tiny Niko!

I forgot about the Slow Irish Jam today, and of course I missed Irish class and band practice, but they might have assumed I was at the Slow Irish jam. So even if I'd been in town, I would have skipped both things anyway.

Famous Hat

Department Picnic 2023

 

Yesterday I went to the doctor's office because they thought I might have a precancerous lesion, but it seems to have vanished, so there was nothing to remove. Instead, they gave me shots, one for the flu and one for shingles, and today I felt under the weather. I went outside to walk with my neighbor, but I confessed to not feeling very well, and she said she didn't either because she had had the exact same shots yesterday, plus one for pneumonia. They had mentioned giving me that one too but said three in one day would be too many. Also, aren't I way too young to need it? Anyway, we both felt like taking a nap - I didn't sleep well because both my arms were so sore all night - so we went home and lay down.

Eventually Travalon and I took a relaxed walk on Governor's Island, then we went to check out the North Side Festival, which had seemed like such a dud last year. This year there was even less to it, and we wondered why they had even bothered. However, I did get a ring and a bracelet with evil eye protectors on them - the bracelet one looks like a tiny Niko - and we had a pass from the co-op to get half-priced food, so we got delicious lamb kebabs from an Uyghur stand for a really great price. We sat in the dugout, where it was shady, and another couple started talking to us, so that was fun. On the way out I got a gift bag from the co-op, and we got some cookies for half price. The gift bag reminds me that a couple of weeks ago I went to Community Pharmacy and didn't realize it was their birthday. There were balloons everywhere, and they gave me cake and tea and a little gift bag. So fun!

In the evening we had our department picnic. I sort of consider this unpaid work time, since I feel like I have to be there early to help set up and stay to the bitter end to help clean up. Also, at first nobody was talking to us because the faculty hung out with each other and the grad students hung out with each other, and my fellow staff members all had excuses to miss the picnic except for our boss. So after enjoying some food from the Banzo Bar and a Leinie's Peach beer, Travalon and I took a walk along Brittingham Bay. To my surprise, when we came back, people did come over to talk to us, so then I was a little happier. We talked to a grad student and the chair's husband the most. When almost everyone had left and I was helping clean up, my boss's wife wondered what happened to all the boxes of wine. I said no idea, I'd had beer, but maybe they were drunk up. She said, "No way, that was the equivalent of twelve bottles of wine! I'll bet one of the grad students took them. I was really looking forward to having one..." There was no leftover baklava either, but plenty of hummus and pita bread and chicken and falafel. We brought home a bunch of food, and so did a lot of other people, and some is going back to the office. This seems to happen every year - we order food for five hundred or something. There were some really cute kids and a very cute dog at the picnic, so that was fun, and the Turkish instructor loved all my evil eye protector jewelry, so I showed her Niko. She gave him a squeeze and said, "It's so cute! Where did you get it?" I told her, "Galena. You should go there." Then again, I think everyone should go to Galena. All the answers to life seem to be contained in those fun, funky boutiques.

Famous Hat

Mysterious Puff of Wind

 

The Dairyman's Daughter is in Trinidad, and am I jealous? Maybe. She's been posting beautiful photos of the tropical foliage and the beach on social media, and she was talking about the interesting things she's gotten to eat. She got knocked down by the waves at the beach, and her swimsuit was full of sand. That sounds like a perfect day to me! To our surprise, she logged into Night Prayer tonight with her two genial hosts, so that was really cool.

Today I had a meeting for yet another committee I am on - this one specific to the college, not the whole university. There are some new people on the committee who seem pretty cool, and it was so good to see the returning ones again. I guess this is what the term "collegial" means, that warm feeling you get from seeing people where it isn't strong enough to be love or even real friendship, but you always enjoy seeing them and talking to them.

Then after work I went with a couple of my Union peeps to the Labor Temple to... well, we weren't quite sure. We thought we were filing things, but it turned out we needed to print off the meeting minutes first and then file them, and in my opinion this could have been an email: "Please print the meeting minutes." I guess nobody had access to them to print them off while we were there? There was a computer in the office, but I didn't notice if there was a printer. 

I came home and was reading more about Tibetan spirituality, but everything seemed normal. The roofers were packing up for the day, and they seem to be mostly done with our roof. It looks beautiful, but I don't really know enough about roofs to say if they did a good job. I was sitting on our porch, and then Travalon came home, and while he was in the other room, a puff of wind came into the porch and blew around the banner we have on the wall of a sailboat with its spinnaker up. Suddenly everything felt surreal, like I was in an altered state of consciousness, or like the world was fake. We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and I noticed that I enjoyed it, even if I didn't feel like I was really there. Whatever it was, the feeling soon passed, and I feel normal now. Did I get lightheaded from something? But it seems like it had to do with that puff of wind, because generally we don't get breezes into our porch, since it faces east. Maybe I will never know what that was all about. I'll let my readers know if I ever figure it out.

Famous Hat

One of Those Days

 

This morning as we got ready for work, Travalon and I heard the roofers working. Was I glad to be working on campus today! It was one of those days where nothing seemed to go right; for example, a website I have to use said I had to change my password, so I did, then it said the new password was incorrect. I tried again, thinking maybe I'd made a typo, but it still said it was wrong. So I tried to reset it again, and then it said I had made too many attempts and was locked out. It took a phone call to fix that. I also had prepaid for hotel rooms in a foreign country (not for me), but the hotel wouldn't give me a receipt. They said I would get one once I'd paid, but I said the charge hit my credit card last Wednesday, so then they said you're right, you already paid, but we won't give you a receipt until the guests check out. But I kind of need to reconcile the credit card now... And yesterday a faculty member and I had a long meeting to figure out how to spend her grant... and then today we got word that she can't use it for most of what she was planning. "Here, have some money, but you can't use it for anything." Today made me think of a conversation I saw on social media:

Guy One: "Someone with bangs please tell me which planet is making me sad." (A dig at astrology?)

Guy Two: "I'm bald, but it's Earth." Truth!

Here are some photos my neighbor took of the roofing job today.

This is the rosary I got at the shrine in Champion and the crystal I got at the Willy Street Fair.

And here is the dragon I got at the Packer Pro Shop.

Travalon said we should name him Dorsey, after the former Packer Dorsey Levens. Dorsey the Dragon - it has that pleasing alliteration going on. And it goes with Davante the Unicorn that we got there too.

Famous Hat

Oktoberfest at the Fluno Center

 

Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why Oktoberfest celebrations are always in September. It's just one of those mysteries, like why Muskoda is pronounced MUSS-ka-day instead of Muss-KOH-dah. (We even have a book about all the place names in Wisconsin, and it doesn't explain it!) Does Septemberfest not sound as cool? Is October a month earlier in Bavaria? I do know why it's named "eighth" when it's the tenth month, because Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus decided to stick two months named after themselves into the calendar, and of course they chose summer months. And why wouldn't you, if you could name a month after yourself? Would you really name February after yourself?

Today the Fluno Center, which is a convention center on campus, was having Oktoberfest. They had a German food buffet, and this was the beer situation:

True confession: that made me laugh way too hard. Travalon has a bit of a cold, so he wasn't super enthusiastic about Oktoberfest, but it turns out he thought it would be a raucous time with people singing at the top of their lungs to an oompah band, while in fact it was a bunch of professionals eating quietly on their lunch break. The food was very good, and he particularly liked the chicken. There was also pork schnitzel, Brussels sprouts, roasted potatoes, bratwurst (but I didn't see sauerkraut), and pretzel sticks, as well as an extensive salad bar - I had the cucumber salad. For dessert there was black forest cake, which we didn't try, bread pudding which Travalon tried, and I had a miniature Dutch baby with cherries and whipped cream. That was absolutely delicious, with a slightly undercooked inside that I just loved.

All I had to drink was water (Travalon had hot tea), no caffeine other than my usual cup of coffee first thing this morning, yet on my walk to my office I was in the aerobic zone for almost the whole walk and burned nine calories per minute. Considering that on a brisk walk I generally am in the fat-burning zone for most of it and burn seven calories per minute. Why was I so motivated today? I didn't notice that I'd been walking any faster, but I did hear a train and was rushing to where I might be able to see it. No luck - there was a building in the way; at the next intersection I could see the train tracks, but by then it was long gone. The rest of the day, I definitely felt that workout! I either need to go to Oktoberfest more often or hear trains in the distance more often. And surprisingly, all that eating wasn't terrible for calories, according to my diet app. This past weekend did a lot more damage. Now it's time to get back on track...

Famous Hat

Is That on Defeat Drive?

 

Happy birthday to Jilly Moose!! I hope it was a great day for you! Today was not a very exciting day for me; I worked on campus and got grief about daring to take two days of vacation. But I do have some photos to share from Travalon. First are some animals at the petting zoo where we stopped on the way home from Holy Hill. These chickens look like miniature cassowaries!

I love the alpacas' haircuts.

Here I am at Cherokee Marsh on Thursday.

These are photos from the park in Chicago.

This is the Australian restaurant: Barangaroo's Aussie Pies.

Here I am eating my pie! It was chicken and (Jilly Moose, don't read this part) mushroom. You can see the Australian sodas in front of me. Mine was blood orange, and Travalon's was lemon-lime.

This photo of me at the bar with the aquariums is kind of cool, but there are weird shadows on my face.

You can see how underdressed I was for such a swanky place. There was a fish in the tank with a long snout who was about the same indigo as this photo, or as Niko, who kept coming over and looking at me. Then when I would look back, it would swim away... but it would be back looking at me again. Maybe it liked my sea foam green hoodie.

Some things I forgot to mention: when we took the Lambeau Field tour, our guide asked who the original teams were, and I said, "The Cardinals, the Bears, and the Packers." He was stunned - he said, "NOBODY ever gets the Cardinals! You should go on Jeopardy! I wouldn't want to play against you in Trivial Pursuit!" But he did stump me later with a question about who blocked for Bart Starr's quarterback sneak in the Ice Bowl. (I guess it was Jerry Kramer?)

When the middle boy was rowing the boat on Thursday evening, the oldest one was singing at the top of his lungs, and he shouted some random thing, so I said, "That's like saying, 'I didn't run over a cat today,' or, 'It's not my fault the sun set.' You know, something everyone assumes so you shouldn't have to say it." So then he was shouting: "I DIDN'T RUN OVER A CAT TODAY! IT'S NOT MY FAULT THE SUN SET!" So much for anyone hoping to enjoy a peaceful evening on the lake...

I found a news story about the crash we saw Friday morning on the way to Green Bay. It said there was a pedestrian hit by a semi, which would explain why there was a sandal in the road, and then another sandal further down the road. The pedestrian was dead at the scene, but the question remains: why would there be a pedestrian on the highway? He was right around my age, so you'd think he'd be old enough to know better. Either he was trying to kill himself, or his car broke down and he was walking along the highway to get help. It didn't say his name, just his age and that he was from Appleton. 

When we were trying to find the restaurant in Green Bay, I said it was on Victory Avenue, and Rich asked, "Is that near Defeat Drive?" So then we were thinking of other roads in the area, like Blowout Boulevard and Shutout Street and Annihilation Avenue. Later I said something was a Perfect something road - Perfect Pine Road? Rich do you remember? - so that could be another road in this totally bizarre subdivision we are not at all planning to build.

Famous Hat

Herb Alpert and Jilly Moose's Birthday Bash

 

Yesterday Travalon and I headed down to Chicago, stopping in Rockford for lunch. I thought we should have Mexican to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, but Rockford is the only place we know where you can eat at the Beefaroo, so we went there. When we got to Chicago, we checked into our hotel and then went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, but it was inexplicably closed early. We weren't the only confused people, and there weren't even people lingering inside of it, so maybe something happened? We went for a walk on a boardwalk around a pond that seems to be part of the zoo, and there were two weddings going on beside the pond. Here is a photo of one.

Here are some more photos showing the pond and boardwalk.

We had dinner at an Australian restaurant that only sold meat pies and Australian soda, but they were delicious. It didn't have a bathroom, and it barely had any seating, but there was one table outside, so we ate there. Then we went to a beautiful bar full of fish tanks for fancy cocktails. Mine had gin and green chartreuse in it. Travalon took a photo, but he hasn't sent it to me yet, so watch for that. We saw so many trucks with Mexican flags flying because of the holiday, but we didn't even have Mexican cocktails. I don't particularly like tequila.

The reason we went to Chicago was to see Herb Alpert. Everyone said, "He's still around???" and yes, he's 88, but he played and sang, and so did his wife of 50 years. She did some Brazilian songs, and he did a medley of Tijuana Brass hits, then he and the band did some other stuff, like a long jam on "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Puttin' on the Ritz" and for an encore, "Copacabana." It was a great show in a historic old theater called the Vic - as Herb Alpert said, "I love playing in places that are older than I am!" He told quite a few funny stories. There was an obnoxious drunk guy hollering from the back, which was annoying because it was a more intimate venue and Herb Alpert could hear him. Sometimes he answered him with good humor, and sometimes he just ignored him. I'm so glad we got to see him live! Here are some photos of the interesting backdrops he had.

This morning we went to Mass at a church near our hotel, and they didn't do the Creed! Is that allowed? They did a blessing of the catechists, but it didn't include any renewal of baptismal vows, and then they launched right into the Prayers of the People. Also, during the Gospel reading, a very fidgety altar boy stood holding a candle right in front of the altar - I've never seen that before. On the way back to the hotel was a Turkish Restaurant called One Thousand Tales, so we went there for a wonderful brunch. Next door was a Turkish grocery store, so we got some pomegranate and pistachio Turkish delight for tonight's party. Then we headed back to Madison, listening to the Packer game.

The Packers seemed to be doing very well in Atlanta, so we missed the fourth quarter and went to the Willy Street Fair. We got baobab shakes and duck fat fries, and I got a citrine crystal that looks like orange sherbet and vanilla ice cream swirled together. Here is a photo from the Fair:

This is not atypical of what people wear to the Fair. It's a time to be as extra as you want and get your freak on. Though most people don't wear such elaborate costumes, I'd say nobody's dressed for work. Meanwhile, the Packers had blown it in the fourth quarter and lost by one point, but still I'd say it was a respectable game against a tough opponent on the road. 

We had to hurry back for my Irish class. Am I rusty! And everyone gets on my case for not going to all the Irish classes and stuff that they all go to. As a committed dilattente, I just don't have the time to get so into things like other people do. They always want you to go to ALL the stuff and become an expert, whether it's the Irish language or the ukulele or whatever. How am I supposed to learn everything if I actually have to focus on getting good at just one thing?

In the evening we went to Rich's house for Jilly Moose's birthday party. There were at least two dozen people there, and a lot of people had brought stuff, so there was a lot of stuff. Rich had made lasagna, and Jilly Moose brought garlic bread, and there were all sorts of salads. For dessert there was a Black Magic birthday cake for Jilly Moose, and the guy who always brings fabulous desserts also made an incredible berry pie. Anna Banana II and her husband were also there, because tomorrow they are heading back to North Dakota. It was so good to see them! Jilly Moose got all sorts of presents, including a stuffed camel from Luxuli and Prairie Man and a card from the Dairyman's Daughter with a rhino on it, prompting R Van the Terrible to wonder if Jilly Moose was branching out from moose. Not that we know of... Here is a photo of the moose she got at the Packer Pro Shop and named Reggie, after Reggie White, the Minister of Defense:

Sorry, no photo of our dragon yet. It doesn't have a name yet, either. I thought Travalon might come up with one, but while he seemed delighted with the dragon and said how cute it was, he didn't suggest a name for it. I'll see if I can think of one myself.

Famous Hat