A Birthday Party and a Scary Ride Home

 

Yesterday Travalon went to his hometown to hang out with high school buddies, so I relaxed around the house and then went on walks with Jilly Moose on Governor's Island and by the bluff before she had to leave for work. Eventually I went to Rich's house and swept his floor before the birthday party for the Dairyman's Daughter. The guest of honor brought squeaky cheese curds, Cecil Markovitch brought his "smelly" (not "stinky") spinach salad, R Van the Terrible and my OTHER choir director brought wine, Luxuli brought Italian bread and bang-bang shrimp, Kathbert brought ice cream, the Single B-Boy brought himself, and I brought two kinds of vegetarian ravioli, whole-wheat spinach and feta, and four cheese. Rich made pork roast, grilled vegetables, and of course the Black Magic cake. The coffee ice cream went so well with it; there was also butter brickle, but I didn't try that. The Dairyman's Daughter got cards (but not from me - I forgot to find a good cat one) and a bottle of wine. Prairie Man came a little later, and then Hockey Girl came later still, bearing blackberries and strawberries. After most people had left, Prairie Man gave Kathbert and me some puzzlers to solve, and I was scaring them with how fast I was solving them. For example, Prairie Man said, "Think of a state capital, remove the first two letters, and rearrange the rest of the letters to spell something you find on the coast." Before Kathbert could even process those instructions, I said, "It has to be a long one, so Tallahassee? Oh yeah, if you remove the TA, you can spell seashell." There was another one where you took the first name of an old movie star and switched the second and third letters to make a color, and then you changed one letter of the last name to make another color. I said, "The first name must be Gary because that would be gray, but who was an old movie star named Gary?" Kathbert said, "Gary Cooper," and I said, "Oh yeah, copper!" I wasn't any help at all on one where it was a two-word phrase for something you take camping, the first word seven letters and the second five letters, and all the consonants are in alphabetical order, but between the two of them they figured out Coleman Stove. Then Kathbert and I started talking about music, and I guess we got too nerdy because Prairie Man left. By then Rich was done with Night Prayer, so the three of us cleaned up.

Today Travalon and I were a little late to Mass because the road we usually take was suddenly closed for road construction, so we had to find a way around it. We took a walk at Pheasant Branch and ran into the Married B-Boy and Mo-Girl and their daughter, then we got octopus balls and refreshing drinks at Trio Ramen, and then we walked on Governor's Island before my Irish class. In the evening we met Cecil Markovitch at Fete de Marquette to see Marcia Ball, and Travalon and I got Jamaican food since they didn't really have any French food. It felt like a storm was coming. After eating, I went to check out a zydeco accordion player, but I heard thunder, and they said the show had been canceled due to weather. I checked my phone, and it said we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. I hurried back to Travalon and Cecil; Marcia Ball had stopped playing, and Cecil had already started biking home. Travalon and I had a long walk back to the car, but we made it before the rain started. When we were not too far from home, the rain really started coming down, and then it began hailing. The streets were flooding, so we tried to find a route home on higher ground... and then we came across a downed power line, so we had to turn around. We pulled over for a while and then figured out a good way to go, and then the rain had become a drizzle, so we had a calm ride the rest of the way home. When we got home, we saw a rainbow.

Here are some photos of our recent adventures. Travalon ordered a hat for me after the Panthers won the Stanley Cup.

It's never the wrong time for some DuoLingo bragging!

Here are some cute mushrooms Jilly Moose and I saw near the bluff.

And what is this thing that looks like a carrot on Governor's Island?

My black calla lily has two blooms and two buds.

There was a tiny frog on our front door when we came home tonight.

Jilly Moose sent me this photo of one of her moose tucked into bed.

And finally, here is the rainbow.

You can see that it was a bit of a double rainbow, and that it seemed to be landing in the marsh near our house. After our scary ride home, we went onto the porch to relax, and we could see it really well from there. It took half an hour to fade away.

Famous Hat