Blooming Cacti and a Lone Lizard

 

I did take photos of some of the stuff I got yesterday. Behold the smiling flower and the fan.

There doesn't seem to be a choir during the summer at Mass in the gym, but somehow the length of the Mass has crept back up to over an hour even without all the fancy music. Afterwards Travalon and I went to the Nature Conservancy land by Spring Green to see the flowering cacti. Usually this is right in the middle of the time they are blooming, but things are early this year, so there were only a few blossoms left. We did see lots of other wildflowers.

Leadplant

Spiderwort

Blue vervain

Cinquefoil

Evening primrose

Spurge

We also saw lots of butterflies and all sorts of odd bugs, but I only got a photo of this one.

And not a very good one, at that. We did see plenty of cacti by the entrance.

Here is the lead plant again, this time from Travalon's camera.

We also saw a lot of smooth sumac.

The landscape is so interesting there.

We saw a six-lined racerunner, a very pretty little lizard.

And here I am.

We walked quite a way along the path and didn't see any more cacti, which kind of alarmed me, since we used to see them all along the path. When we turned around, we met some people who said the cacti were further along the path than we had gone, which didn't fit with my memory. However, as we were walking back, I realize there were lots of cacti hiding among the taller plants.

Right as we were leaving, we saw this beautiful flower, which my phone tells me is called callirhoe.

This evening I went to band practice for the first time in what felt like months, and I really enjoyed it because we are practicing for the Ukrainian picnic we have played for the last two years. The music tends to be minor key and peppy, so more my taste than the boring major-key Nordic waltzes. I will let my readers know when this picnic is once I find out myself.

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International Festival: Summer Edition

 

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:

Here's Jilly Moose's:

She bought a crocheted flower from the Ukrainian stand:

Travalon left to go to Paul's Bookstore, Sunshine Daydream, the Union Terrace, and the Veterans' Museum, while Jilly Moose and I listened to Yid Vicious, watched Lithuanian dancers, ran into the Daughter of Denni and her family, including her brother-in-law who had played with the Spanish guitar group, listened to a Colombian band, and watched Bolivian dancers. My "lunch" of four little dumplings hadn't been enough, so I went to the West African food stand and asked for jollof, but they were out of both lamb jollof and chicken jollof, so they gave me vegetarian jollof with chicken from the chicken yassa. Later I also had a cannoli from the Italian Workers' Club. We went downstairs and listened to a duo called Last Gaspe who play French Canadian and Irish fiddle tunes, then Travalon returned and we listened to a Cuban guy singing and playing guitar. He actually did most of my favorite Cuban songs: "El Carretero," "Chan Chan," "Candela," and my absolute favorite, "El Cuarto de Tula." People were even singing along to that one, possibly including the author of this blog. Travalon made a video of that one, and I can hear people singing, and I think it's not just me... Someone shouted out a request for "Guantanamera." which I believe is Travalon's favorite Cuban song, but the guy didn't hear, or he didn't know the song, because he never played it.

Afterwards Jilly Moose, Travalon, and I took a walk on Governor's Island. There was someone in Three Foot Bay BLASTING music, and it wasn't even good music, but like weird club remixes of "Enter Sandman" and "The Safety Dance" and random things like that. As we walked along, we saw the boat police, and after that the volume of the music was at a reasonable level. Here is a photo Jilly Moose took of the Capitol Building from Governor's Island.

After that, Travalon and I went to the grocery store. Know who else went shopping together today at Costco? Rich and Kathbert. If they are not an old married couple, they are doing a good imitation of it. Rich told me that they did that on Night Prayer, because he knows I always joke that only married people go to Costco together on a Saturday, and I told him that Travalon said we are just like them, shopping together on a Saturday. Surprisingly, it wasn't crazy busy by the time we got there, but by then it was no longer afternoon but early evening.

Sorry that I forgot to take photos of the stuff I got today, including earrings, a fan, and thank you cards that say "Miigwech," which is the only word I really know in Ojibwe. When Travalon and I drove through the Bad River Res on the way to Tiffy's mom's funeral, we stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom, and we also bought some amazingly good pretzels (probably thanks to the artificial butter flavor listed in the ingredients). I said "Miigwech" to the guy and he had a huge grin, but I don't know if he was pleased that a white woman knew how to say Thank You in his language, or if he was trying not to laugh because I pronounced it so badly. (Did I? I have no idea.) Either way, I made him happy.

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Mysteries of the Killer Building

 

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.

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Alexa, Why Do You Smell Like Cloves?

 

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.

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Steel Drums at Olbrich Gardens

 

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.

There were some people there handing out fans and bags to advertise their natural burial place. It's in Verona - I had no idea there was one so close by! I would love to have a natural burial, but as Catholics, do we have to be buried in a Catholic cemetery? I must find out more about this. Years ago I had a dream that sounds weird, but I woke up in such a good mood: I died and was buried in the side of a mountain, and my body went back into the soil because I wasn't embalmed and didn't have a casket. That was better than this morning's dream that I woke up from, where we were at Mass at some huge church we had never been to before, and they said Communion was going to be delayed so I went downstairs and wandered around to get my move hours, but then they announced Communion was going to start, so I kept trying to get back upstairs and got there just as they were about to finish... and then I woke up. Not the first time I've had a dream where somehow I missed Communion. I hate those dreams!

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Florida Panthers Win the Stanley Cup

 

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.

When we got to the restaurant, I excitedly told my colleague that if she peeked out the door to the right, she would see the rainbow, but she demurred and said she had seen plenty of rainbows before. She and Travalon agreed that I am like a little kid, excited about EVERY rainbow and EVERY sunset, even though they happen all the time. Yes, that's true. I will never be tired of rainbows and sunsets.

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Steel Drums at the East Side Club

 

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.

We saw an egret by the edge of the pond.

We could see another, bigger pond, but the trail turned away from it so instead we went to a parking lot with a good view. Along the way we saw this industrial thing. The four things on top looked like crenelation from a distance, so that it looked like a castle tower. 

By the side of the pond we saw a pair of sandhill cranes. 

And we also saw this Canada goose in its cute but awkward tween stage.

Here is a shot of the pond.

We saw a mallard duck with two adorable, tiny babies.

Here is the mallard family among the geese.

This is a picture of Pheasant Branch Creek from the bridge that goes over it.

Then we went back to the main part of Pheasant Branch, thinking we'd go to the springs. Instead, we went to see the eagle's nest again. You can see the young eagle perched above the nest.

We did stop for Culver's custard because the flavor of the day was chocolate heath crunch, and while we enjoyed it I checked my emails for messages about band practice tonight. There weren't any, but to my surprise there was an email from a pizza place in a city in Iowa saying they missed me. I didn't remember the pizza place or even the city, but I wondered if it were from our trip to Nebraska two years ago. Travalon did some internet sleuthing and found this pizza place had closed over a year ago, in March 2023, so it must have been some sort of scam. It said "Click here to find out what's new," so I most assuredly did not. Who knows what it would have done?

Then we went to the East Side Club to see Panchromatic Steel, a steel drum band, and Jilly Moose joined us. Unlike the last few days, the weather was perfect. Here are some photos Jilly Moose took with her phone of the view across Lake Monona. Her phone can really zoom in!

We had really good soft pretzels and cheeseburgers, so a healthy day of eating all around. Here we are, posing with angel wings on the side of the East Side Club Tiki Bar:

For some reason Travalon did not pose with the angel wings. Jilly Moose took a photo of the sunset.

There was going to be a bonfire at sunset for the solstice at Olbrich Park right next door, and I was a little curious, but we drove by and it was a bunch of people much younger than we are. Also, it might have been really pagan. I am not the best Catholic, but I only celebrate celestial events as reflections of the glory of God; I do not worship them. Marking the longest days of the year by sitting next to a lake and listening to steel drum music is probably a good enough way to commemorate the solstice.

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