Niko at Bach Around the Clock

 

I forgot to post this photo of a wreath at Travalon's mom's funeral yesterday:

I believe his oldest brother and his wife bought it. Afterwards nobody wanted it, since it's so large, so we just left it in the chapel.

Today Travalon wanted to watch his old high school basketball team play out of town, which was perfect for me because then I could spend the day at Bach Around the Clock. First I grabbed my keys, my wallet, my phone, and my Niko, and I met Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, and Pete the Sailor Man at the cemetery to put flowers on Mr. Why's grave as we do every year sometime within the month of the anniversary of his death. Kathbert had to play at Bach Around the Clock, so she left, but Rich, Pete, and I had lunch and then went to the Episcopal church that hosted the festivities. We got there in time for a tribute to Peter Schickele, AKA PDQ Bach, the oddest of Bach's twenty-odd children, also the last and the least of them. We had PDQ Bach records around the house when I was a kid, and I remember finding them hilarious, but you really have to see the gags in person to get the full effect. We laughed until we cried. I did have the good fortune to see Peter Schickele perform years ago, and it was everything I could have hoped.

Groups continued to play throughout the day. There was a huge group of cellos, some of them very small because they were being played by surprisingly young kids, and that was about as good as you'd expect. It also took a very long time and really pushed the schedule back. Kathbert and a woman from my choir played in a recorder ensemble that was really good, and the Professor Formerly Known as Banjo Player sang in a group that did "Jesu Meine Freude," and I really enjoyed that too. Rich took off, but the woman from my choir joined Pete and me; she knows him because her husband sails with him. 

The final concert was scheduled to take an hour and was originally supposed to end by 5:15, so no problem getting my final move hour. (I took breaks and walked outside to get my other ones.) Because the cello conglomerate had pushed things so far back, I knew I'd have to take my FitBit off and shake it to get my final move hour. Proof my FitBit hates me: it never said "9/9" but I opened the app and it said I had gotten all nine move hours, which made sense with the number of steps it said I had gotten by shaking it. However, just now I checked my final stats for the day... and it said I'd missed my final hour. It did this to me once with Tiffy when we were sitting in a restaurant - it's like it knows I cheated and revokes the hour of movement it previously said I got. What the heck?

Around six we went downstairs and had cake. It was a white cake with raspberry filling and roses on top, and I happily ate my rose. Pete the Sailor Man and my choir mate's husband got into an animated discussion about whether a recently deceased friend's "wife" who suddenly appeared on the scene is a scammer, but I had told Travalon I'd be home by 6:30, so I left and still didn't get home until almost seven. He was watching his high school's girls' basketball team play for the state title, and they won!

This is the first time the girls have won state. The last two years they were beaten by the same team they beat tonight. Travalon says when he was in school, the girls were winless for three years in a row. This is their first state title. The boys had a three-peat last year, and they won the sectional final so they will go to state again. That was the game he watched this afternoon because it was in Watertown, which is a lot closer than Green Bay, where the girls played. His old buddy's daughter is on the girls' team. Congratulations to both teams!

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