Niko at the Easter Vigil Mass

 

Yesterday I had to go to a bank near East Towne to get access to our Union account, since I was voluntold to be the treasurer. There is a branch near our house, and a branch near the Vice President's house, but this branch was closest to the President's house. Ironically, he was sick, so he didn't come, but the Vice President and I met with a banker named Famous, who also hates being called Famy. Somehow the story of my band being onstage with a little frog came up, and I said too bad we didn't play the "Little Frogs" song about how little frogs have no ears or tails... and the banker at the next desk said, "I just learned about that song the other day!" How crazy is that?? It turns out we didn't even need the President there to add me to the account, so the deed is done.

Travalon's buddy was coming back from Florida with his wife, and his brother was supposed to pick them up at the airport but bailed on them to go out of state himself, so he asked Travalon to do it. We headed to the Milwaukee airport, stopping at a huge antiques mall where I found a couple of interesting rosaries, a necklace labeled "miraculous pendant" that was a Celtic cross inlaid with different color stones, and a very cheap plastic necklace that appeared to be a rosary with the starting beads and crucifix missing, so maybe I can fix that. We picked up Travalon's buddy and his wife and dropped them off at their car, then we took a walk at Brookfield Square Mall, which is in even sadder shape than the malls in our town. In Travalon's youth, it was packed every Saturday and was the place to be, but now more than half the storefronts are empty. Even Victoria's Secret closed!

In the evening we went to the Vigil Mass in the gym. They did have it beautifully decorated.

We got there just before things started and had to sit in the very back, but then we got a good view of the Easter fire and the priest marking the Easter candle. They ran out of programs, but thankfully the guy next to me gave me his. We started in darkness, and soon we all had lit our candles, but then to my surprise they turned on the lights before the "Exultet," which the deacon sang beautifully in English. I thought the lights weren't supposed to come on until the "Gloria." I was very happy to do a lot of singing, and I wore my new "miraculous pendant." The choir was amazing, and they had a small consort of instruments playing with them, strings and brass. I brought Niko with me, but I didn't squeeze him as much, since Travalon was with me so I didn't need to feel comforted. Nobody was accepted into the church at this parish, but the Mass still went for two and a half hours. Only at the very end did I realize we were sitting right behind a Polish faculty member, so we said hi afterwards.

As per a longstanding tradition I had with Rich, we wanted lamb after the Vigil Mass, so we squeezed into a not entirely legal parking spot at our church (where the Vigil Mass in Spanish was still going on) and ran to the gyro place on State Street. A woman accosted us and said why were people parking there? It was a Catholic church! We said yes, and Mass was going on, and she got all upset and said she didn't know, she isn't Catholic. The gyro place used to be open until all hours to get the crowd coming from the bars closing, but now it apparently closes at ten, so we had just missed it. I went into our church to powder my nose, and the weird woman was now in the church, demanding that a young guy who probably barely spoke English help her use the elevator. I texted Rich to keep an eye on her, then Travalon said there was a new Mediterranean restaurant open until 11 at the top of Willy Street, so we went there. We ordered lamb kebab wraps, and Travalon got an order of French fries that was so huge that we both ate some, brought the rest home, and still had enough to split today. Everything was really good, and they gave us free weird little baklava rolls that were green but tasted good, but the meat really tasted like beef, not lamb. I said something to them, and they claimed it was lamb but just cooked differently. I mean, it was delicious, freshly grilled, but it really tasted like beef. Later I saw the receipt they had emailed me... and it said two beef kebabs. Rich tried to get there after his Vigil Mass got done, but they had just closed so we went out and talked to him briefly. He said he saw the crazy woman, but she had safely left the church.

Today Travalon felt under the weather, so I left him at home and went to Mass in the gym. The homily was the same as last night, but the choir sang different pieces, and of course we sang "Victimae Pascali Laudes," only in English. During the Sign of the Peace, the guy next to me said I have a very pleasant singing voice. When I got home, Travalon said he would take me to the place where the pasque flowers bloom. This is much earlier than last year, but I'd seen people saying on social media that they were blooming already, and how fitting that pasque flowers were blooming on Easter. Here are some photos.

Hauser Prairie is up on a ridge, so you can get quite a view from there.

In the evening we went to Rich's house for Easter dinner. As always, he made rosemary lamb, and people brought various sides like salad and... French toast? The guy who makes fabulous desserts brought a mud pie, a chocolate orange custard pie, and a pistachio cake, and Rich had made chocolate mousse, but then he told us how he had set it out on the back porch to cool, and some animal peeled back the plastic and sampled it. He thought it was a bird because a raccoon would have made a bigger mess. He said someone was coming late, and he couldn't remember her last name but it was something like "neurology," and Mr. Dessert Guy said, "The nerve of her, coming late!" That took a minute to hit, but when it did hit, it hit hard, and I laughed for ten minutes straight. He had another good line when Cecil Markovitch said our old priest got mad when he joked that the baptismal tub was a cow trough, and Rich said, "But it is - he bought it at Farm and Fleet! Why would he get mad about that?" and Mr. Dessert Guy said, "It was when he called him Father Holstein," which is hilarious because it isn't that off from his actual name. There were a couple of people who had not been to Rich's before, but hopefully they weren't scared off - in fact, I feel like people (including me) were extra witty tonight, and the conversation was a lot of fun. I was wearing my "miraculous pendant," so maybe that helped. I'm tempted to wear it to work tomorrow to see if it helps there, but it's kind of big and very religious, so probably not appropriate for work.

Famous Hat