I did take photos of some of the stuff I got yesterday. Behold the smiling flower and the fan.
I did take photos of some of the stuff I got yesterday. Behold the smiling flower and the fan.
Today Travalon and I joined Jilly Moose at the International Festival at the Overture Center, puzzled that this year they were having it in midsummer. Usually it's in late winter. I tried to call Cali, but her number was disconnected, and Tiffy wasn't interested in coming to town for it. Travalon wasn't that interested either; he said if a Spanish guitar session had the brother-in-law of the Daughter of Denni, then he would have gone to it. Jilly Moose and I stopped at a booth outside of the Overture Center selling various things, and she bought a Lady of Guadalupe necklace while I bought an Infant of Prague necklace and a smiling crocheted sunflower. Then we went into the festival and watched some Scottish Highland dancers, before meeting up with Travalon to check out the different vendors and have some pelmeni (me), goulash (Travalon), and chicken curry (Jilly Moose) for lunch. Jilly Moose and I had our names written in Chinese characters. Here's mine:
Today I worked on campus, and nobody else seemed to be around, yet suddenly a freshly brewed pot of coffee appeared. I had a cup, but for a long time it didn't look like anyone else had any... and then at the end of the day, there was hardly any left. I saw one faculty member, but he said he doesn't drink coffee, so this mystery may remain unsolved. Also, at one point when I was on the first floor, all three elevators were opening and closing and making beeping sounds. That kind of scared me, but I didn't want to climb eight flights of stairs, so I got into one when it was open and pressed my floor, and it closed, went to my floor, and opened like nothing was wrong. This building! With all the rain we've been having, the first floor has been flooded several times. It was so badly built.
This evening Travalon was watching the debate, and when I came home, I watched it too. It really bums me out that people gravitate toward a lying bully, but the message he's selling is seductive for some people, I suppose: you can do whatever you want - steal from contractors, cheat on your multiple wives, lie constantly - and still be a "Christian." What surprises me is some of the people I know who have bought into his message, because I thought they were moral people. I suppose he will win and be president again, but he's really going to try to be a dictator. Can our democracy survive his narcissistic nonsense? He might be able to do more damage than people realize. Some people actually want him to be a dictator, because they think he will usher in a Christian theocracy, but I think it's more likely that he would outlaw worshiping anything other than himself, like the Roman emperors of old. That's his dream.
Famous Hat
Today I worked on campus and walked with my colleague during my lunch break, then Travalon picked me up from work and we went to Jilly Moose's place. She lives in a very large apartment complex, and we had a lot of trouble finding her building (it was just as hard as the first time I went there), and then once we were in her building, we weren't sure how to find her apartment. We did find her, and she introduced Travalon to the moose - his favorite was one called Maverick that was one of her first moose. Jilly Moose made lasagna and garlic bread and salad, and it was all delicious. She asked how it compared to Richard Bonomo's lasagna, but I said it was so different that I couldn't say which was better. Rich's actually tastes a lot like my dad's, so I suspect it is Sicilian style, since my dad learned to cook from a Sicilian when he was in the monastery, and Rich learned from his Sicilian mother.
After dinner we swam in Jilly Moose's pool. Unlike the pool at my old condo complex, this one was warm and had a lovely clubhouse with bathrooms - so handy not to have to run all the way back to a faraway apartment building when you have to go! Maybe it's osmosis, but after twenty minutes in a pool, I almost always REALLY have to go. Tiffy's pool is in between for convenience: warm, but no nearby toilet facilities. As we swam, I thought I saw a green heron fly overhead and land in a nearby tree, and then later Travalon saw it too, when it landed in a different tree. Green herons usually hang out around water, and I'm not familiar with any nearby water, but Google Maps shows there is a small pond on the other side of the road. Or who knows, maybe the pool is good enough water for a green heron, although there wouldn't be any fish in it... that I know of. I sure didn't see any.
The funniest part of the whole thing for me might have been how we were pestering Jilly Moose's Alexa with questions, and then I went into the bathroom and thought there was another Alexa speaker there, so I started asking it questions... until finally realizing it was a diffuser making the room smell like cloves. Maybe it was responding to me by putting out more scent? You can see what a Luddite I am, that I am so amazed by a small speaker answering questions that I assume anything looking like a small speaker can answer questions.
Famous Hat
Today I worked from home, and it seemed quite warm, but I was determined not to turn the air conditioning on if it was under 90 F outside. What I didn't realize was that it was 92 F outside, so I was suffering for nothing, breaking my own arbitrary rule. I went for a walk in the woods across from the bluff during my lunch break, and the mosquitoes were so bad that I continuously swung my arms. This must have confused my FitBit, because it didn't say I got a workout - it must not have known how to categorize the exercise I was doing.
In the evening Travalon and I went to Olbrich Gardens to see Panchromatic Steel, the steel drum band, again. I wore my new Panchromatic Steel T-shirt, and we got there promptly at six... and then the band was setting up and sound checking for an hour. Some people seemed to know this and showed up at seven, but other people around us were complaining, "Wasn't this supposed to start at six?" "They must be on Caribbean time!" There was an Asian food truck, so Travalon got us Thai iced teas, and there was also a stand selling bougie popsicles, so I got a salted caramel one for Travalon and a blackberry ginger lemonade one for me. They were both delicious.
The band had said they were going to play different songs than they did on Sunday, but it seems like they just played a shorter set, ending well before 8:30. At least they did the same Earth, Wind and Fire and Steely Dan medleys. The concert was outside, on the big lawn area, and fortunately the weather had cooled down and a breeze had picked up. The vibe was very festive, with people playing with hula hoops that lit up as the evening grew darker. Right at the very end, during the Stevie Wonder medley, it began to rain a bit, so people were packing up and leaving. We stayed to the bitter end, and I said I was going to suggest that they do some Xavier Cugat, but Travalon said they wouldn't know who that was. He was right about that, at least with the person I talked to, but she did appreciate my shirt. I just think it would be fantastic if they did "Brazil."
As we were leaving, there were cotton candy clouds.
Today I worked from home, and it was sunny and hot. When Travalon got home, we went for a walk on Governor's Island because it was shady and had those wonderful lake breezes. We had been planning to go to Pheasant Branch again, to see the bubbling springs this time, but it was so hot, and there is no shade in that part of Pheasant Branch. My phone said there wouldn't be thunderstorms until 3 am, and it said that as I went to my condo board meeting. However, as we were in the meeting, the sky darkened and the wind blew up, and then the rain poured. I could see flashes of lightning. The condo board president's wife said, "I didn't think this was supposed to come until 3 am!" and I said, "That's what my phone said too!"
The storm hadn't let up by the time our meeting was over, so the president kindly drove me home, even though it's only a block away. I don't care about the rain - I'll dry off - but the lightning really scares me. And it hasn't let up much since then - I think it might storm all night. Now there is a flood warning for our area. The water is higher by our dock than it has ever been. Maybe that's why the vice-president's sailboat got its keel stuck in the mud? I haven't seen it, but he said it can't move - it's just stuck off the side of our dock. He said, "I don't know if this is a season-ending problem or a boat-ending problem." So different from last year, when the water was so shallow that we couldn't get out at all. Now it's more like nobody can get out because you never know when a storm will blow up.
However, Travalon is very happy because his Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup. (For those of you who don't care, like me, that's hockey.) They won the first three games so they only had to win one more... and then they lost the next three games. And not just lost, but were blown out with scores like 8-1. So this was the last game, make or break time, and they won 2-1. Because I have bought Travalon so much Florida Panthers stuff over the years, the team thinks I care, and they always send me emails like, "Panthers win!" Of course, as soon as they won, I got an email about all the championship stuff I can buy for Travalon, like hats and T-shirts and what looks like a commemorative puck. Pucks are cute, but I find it hard to care about a game without a ball, or even something called a "ball" that is clearly not round but is still an inflated thing. Also, I kind of find hockey elitist. I mean, it's not polo, but Pele became the greatest soccer player of all time learning to play with a grapefruit, and inner city kids can become basketball or football stars, but you pretty much have to have upper-middle-class parents to learn to play hockey, with all the equipment and the ice time. I guess it offends my egalitarian sensibilities. Anyway, here is Stanley the Panther celebrating the Stanley Cup.
Travalon took a photo of the rainbow on Saturday evening too.
This morning Travalon and I went to Mass in the gym, and afterwards we talked to the woman who always seems so happy to see us. Now we know she is from the South, but we still don't know her name. Then we went back to the section of the Pheasant Branch path that starts at the dentists' office, and this time we walked further on it than yesterday. To our surprise, it really wasn't that far to where we could go to see the pond. Here are some photos along the path.
More random than a rabbit on a B-17!