Randy Rainbow for President?

 

Yesterday Travalon and I went to visit his mom and give her the Croatian pillow, which she seemed to like. Two of his brothers and one sister-in-law were there too. After we came back to Madison, we went to Olbrich, where we ran into someone I knew from Slow Food circles and her friend. The four of us wrote messages on the new tiles that will go onto the Thai pavilion, then we went into the conservatory to see orchids and dinosaurs. Here are some photos. First, a couple of quails.

Some art installations.

Then we ran into a faculty member from my department. It seems like sooner or later I run into everyone I know there. Travalon and I went out for a walk in the outdoor garden, and here is the view from the Rose Garden Tower.

I have featured this view during other seasons, but maybe not this one before? 

When we came home, I did some DuoLingo, and it gave me this sticker.

In the evening we went to see Randy Rainbow, a very gay comedian who sings show tunes with new words, mostly about one of the people running for president. Travalon loved it when he closed the show with a song based on the "Trolley Song" made famous by Judy Garland in Meet Me in Saint Louis. Randy Rainbow claims he is running for president himself, and his catchphrase is FAGA, which stand for (something) America Gay Again. Neither Travalon nor I can remember what the F was, and we can't find it online. It was on pink baseball caps. 

Today I had some more coffee after getting to work, forgetting that I had a meeting until the fifteen-minute reminder came up. You better believe that I sat near the door so I could make a quick escape! Then in the evening when I went to catch the bus, there were a whole bunch of people who showed up just before it came, and I thought it was unfair that they would get on before me when I'd been waiting for a while, but somehow when the bus pulled up, I was right in front of the door and got to go onto it first. Did the college students actually defer to me and let me go first? Or was it just that I was waiting off to the side but the bus pulled so far forward that it was right in front of me? It was like magic!

This evening Travalon and I risked going to the health club to swim. Most of the month of January you cannot get a locker at the health club no matter when you go, but I figured it was late enough now that most of the New Year's resolution crowd would have given up, and indeed there were only the usual number of people there tonight. It was so wonderful to swim, but my FitBit is not giving me credit for moving vigorously. I ran earlier today, but it only gave me two minutes of vigorous activity, so I thought swimming would surely count... and it only gave me credit for moderate movement, not vigorous movement. It's based on your heart rate, and lately it seems like no matter how hard I try, I can't get my heart rate up high enough. According to Google, this either means that I'm very fit or that I'm in heart failure. Personally I don't think either of these things is true, I just think the FitBit is getting stingy. My phone is the same way - it keeps cheating me out of one staircase a day. So annoying!

Famous Hat