Travalon's First Full Day as an Orphan

 

Here is the photo I had promised of the Balearia commemorative cup from the ferry:

It just looks blue in this photo, but in real life it's greenish-blue. I'll try photographing it in different light at some point.

Today Travalon and I took the day off work, and we went to Sauk. We saw some eagles flying around at the VFW Park.

And we saw one in a tree on the island.

All we saw at the dam were lots and lots of gulls. Then we went to the bakery in Sauk and had coffee and treats (mine was not chocolate, since it's Lent), and after that we drove to Lake Wisconsin. It was a very cold day, but very sunny, so good to be in a car. We stopped by the spot to see the two little islands, and Owl's Head Bluff in the background.

We didn't see anything but gulls by Fitz's, so we went to Whalen Grade and saw Canada geese, gulls, scaups, and shovelers. First the scaups and a goldeneye, who were very far away from us.

This is a pair of common mergansers. The female has the brown head. They were also very far away.

Much closer, we saw some northern shovelers. (I don't know if there are southern shovelers.)

Then we went back to Fitz's for lunch: their famous haddock cake sandwiches, and I also had their famous salad bar. We drove back to Madison and tried to take a walk around Tiedemann's Pond, but the cold wind was unbearable, so we walked at West Towne Mall and didn't buy anything. I did look at a squishy axolotl pillow and an eye necklace, but do I need either thing? It seems like a good Lenten penance to not buy everything you want. 

Perhaps it had warmed up a bit by the time we got home, because I did go for a walk outside in the neighborhood. I went to watch the sunset, but it was not a particularly beautiful one today, so I didn't bother taking a photo. I like when they are pink and orange, and this one was just a tinge of yellow. 

I forgot to note that when we saw my mother-in-law on Saturday, she seemed agitated and was asking who was driving. I told her Travalon was driving, and she said, "Where are we going?" (she was hard to understand), and Travalon said, "Tahiti." I figured we couldn't drive there, so I said, "Holy Hill," since she loved it there. She laughed and said, "Hilly Hole," which is an inside joke because Travalon's Aunty Katie from Hungary called it Hilly Hole once, and another time she said she loved to go out in the evening and sit in her zucchini, meaning her jacuzzi. Travalon's mom loved to tell those two stories. I love that as she was dying, she could still joke and sing. Not sure what she was singing, maybe the first word was "Alleluia" and not "All," but I'm sure she had no idea it's Lent now. Not like that concert Tiffy and I went to on Saturday, where they did an encore after all those 16th century Italian songs of a German liturgical song of the same vintage (by Martin Luther), which I sang years ago with the Lutheran choir, and which ends each verse with two Alleluias. Now they really should have known better.

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RIP Travalon's Mom

 

Yesterday I worked on campus and took a walk with my colleague. We talked about my trip, and then I walked up Bascom Hill and got lots of staircases and vigorous minutes. As you can see, there wasn't much to say, so I didn't blog.

Today was my day to work from home, but I had a meeting on campus first thing in the afternoon, so since Travalon went to a rock concert with his buddy last night and got home late, he said let's sleep later and he would take me in when he left for work. That worked well for me; I got a lot of work done at home in the morning, then I went to my meeting and got more done in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Travalon got a call that his mom was going downhill, so he left work and drove out to see her, but he just missed her last breath by ten minutes. 

It was a gorgeous day out, reaching 70 at one point (in FEBRUARY???), so I enjoyed my walk down State Street to Adoration. I did stop for a bite at a coffee house first, and a woman talked at me, so I felt bad, thinking she must be very lonely but I had to go to Adoration. I thought Travalon might hang out in Oconomowoc with his brothers, but he came back and picked me up. He is very sad, of course. He will write an obituary for her soon that I will post here.

Tomorrow is supposed to be in the 20's - this weather could give a person whiplash! When we got home, we saw a lot of heat lightning to the north and east, and then the wind really picked up. This has nothing to do with the weather, but I found a little box around the house that fits Niko perfectly, so I've been using it to take Niko to work. When I showed Travalon, he said, "It's the Niko Nook!" 

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Beloit Brought It Out In Me

 

Sorry for two days of silence. Friday I worked from home and almost got caught up from being on vacation, and then in the evening I talked to Tiffy. Yesterday we were very busy. The first thing we did was go visit Travalon's mom, who is not doing well. She was a bit agitated at first, but then she seemed to be singing. I couldn't tell what song, but the first word was "All."

Then we met Tiffy in Milwaukee and went to the empanada restaurant for lunch. We took a short walk in the neighborhood, and we saw this in someone's yard.

Travalon and Tiffy were both amused by my story about the French restaurant that advertised kangaroo and ostrich. Ethel and I went to it, and she ordered ostrich while I ordered kangaroo. The waiter said they were out of kangaroo, and I was disappointed, but I asked what it tasted like, and he said, "Eland." Is that a thing? Has everyone in France tried eland? All I know is that they are the largest antelope, but I've certainly never encountered one on my plate.

Then we went to a coffee place, and I was telling Tiffy how Travalon and I were once making up rap songs for the geese, and he was particularly good at it. He said, "Beloit brought it out in me," and I said that would be a great blog post title. We dropped a few goose rhymes right there, and she said we should send them to an actual rapper. She suggested a couple, so I said, "No, Drake." Then we both laughed till we couldn't breathe. I was imagining Drake in his multimillion-dollar mansion in Toronto opening this letter with rap songs from the point of view of geese, and I just couldn't stop laughing. He does have the (almost) perfect name for it. Maybe we should write some rap songs from the point of view of ducks...

Tiffy and I went to a concert of 16th century Italian music performed by a group from Switzerland, then Travalon (who had gone to a dive bar called Wolski's) met us at a nearby Irish restaurant, but they had an hourlong wait, so we went to the Irish pub in Wauwatosa, Mo's. I got my usual grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup, and Tiffy and Travalon were getting soup before their meals, so the waitress asked if I wanted my soup ahead of time too, and I said sure. Look - they wrote in my soup!

Then when my sandwich came, there was another cup of soup with it. You know how I can't waste anything, and I figured it was just liquid and mushed-up tomatoes, so I ate it... and then I felt very ill. I still don't feel so well today. It was way too much soup!!

Today Travalon and I went to Mass in the gym, then we went for a long walk at Tenney Park, all the way to the good chocolate place which was open for once today. The proprietress even gave us free tea to drink with our good chocolate. Here are some photos from our walk. First, a coot.

A pair of mallard ducks.

Railroad tracks that cross the Tenney path.

It was so warm someone was canoeing. In February!!

This is one of the bridges we walk under on the path.

Then we went for a hike at Cherokee Marsh, and there was quite a loud bird party there with the tundra swans, Canada geese, gulls, and even a crane or two. My birdsong app only recognized the geese, but it did say there were white-fronted geese too. I thought the swans wouldn't come back until March, but maybe they never left. The cranes have apparently been back for weeks, and they didn't leave until mid-January, so at some point migration becomes a ridiculous waste of time. Anyway, here are some photos of the swans and other birds. 

I love this photo of two swans kissing:

Here are the gulls.

Travalon left to visit his mother, bringing a CD of big band music to play for her, and I went to the Slow Irish Session, along with most of my bandmates. It seemed to go really well for me tonight, so maybe I have learned most of these songs. My fingers seem to know where to go. They did play some songs that I know for sure, like "Si Bheag, Si Mhor" and "Ashoken Farewell," which is not a traditional Irish tune but kind of sounds like it. Boy, Spellcheck hates both those songs! I had a mango spinach smoothie and a pink lemonade cookie at the coffeehouse that hosts the Slow Irish Session, then I stopped for actual dinner at the Subway on the way home. I brought my mandolin into the restaurant, not feeling safe about leaving it in the car, and then I sat on one side of a booth with the mandolin on the other seat so that it felt like I was having dinner with her. When I told Travalon I'd had a romantic dinner with my mandolin, he wasn't jealous at all.

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Sea Creatures in Bimini

 

Today I worked on campus again, and it was in the sixties, so I enjoyed the weather but didn't feel good about it. Sixties?? In FEBRUARY?? That's just wrong! I don't have much else to say about the day, so enjoy some photos of stuff we acquired on this trip. First, from the antiques shop in El Paso (Illinois), I got a beaded cross, a necklace (which I wore to work yesterday and today), and a graceful ceramic crane. The cross and necklace hardly cost anything.

At the same place, Travalon got this old gas sign.

He got this little gas pump from an antiques shop in Tennessee.

I got the rosary on the left from the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche in St. Augustine, Florida, and the one on the right was in a basket of giveaway rosaries at the church in Mobile, Alabama. I really wanted a rosary from Mississippi, but we never encountered one.

These pretty little ornaments were from the gift shop at the Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine. The Fountain of Youth on Bimini has no gift shop. It just has a well and a couple of benches.

This travel mug is from Elvis's birthplace gift shop in Tupelo, Mississippi. It doesn't actually indicate that it has anything to do with Elvis, but as a musician I love the design.

And here is a short movie I made of the videos Travalon shot of the jellyfish (which are apparently Cassiopea or "upside down jellyfish" although they weren't upside down) and sharks of two varieties: nurse and bull.

And as a bonus, here is Ming the Red Panda on the job, being warmed up in the microwave:

Enjoy these videos!

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