Swimming in the Wisconsin River and Going to the Parish Festival

 

This morning there was a different priest at Mass; I think the regular one was on vacation, and this was a retired one. His homily was very good, talking about how we need to look at our own sin, and suddenly the thought struck me that it's monstrous to deny God's love to another person. Not that we really can, because we don't have that power over God, but people regularly tell other people that they are going to Hell. It would behoove people on both sides of the political aisle to pray for the conversion of the other side's candidate and work to get their own candidate to renounce sin, instead of saying their own candidate is God's tool on earth but the other one is irredeemable. Nobody is irredeemable, but you wouldn't know it from hearing people talk about the political opposition.

In the afternoon Travalon and I went to Sauk. There were some pelicans at the dam, and Travalon took some photos, but it got too late so I'll post them tomorrow. There is a park in Sauk with a splash pad, so we went to take a look at it, and then we realized there was a beach on the Wisconsin River. Since we had brought our swimsuits, we swam in the river (and my FitBit says that was quite a workout!), then we rinsed off (since there were no showers) by playing in the splash pad. We had a beautiful view of a bluff while we were in the river, but unfortunately Travalon had left his camera in the car, so we don't have a photo of it.

Our next stop was our "parish" festival, which was at a modern church just off the Beltline that also doesn't have Mass at it anymore. They have squished together four churches in our pastorate or whatever they're calling it, and basically one has Mass. This pastorate has both Hispanic and Anglo parishioners, but this festival was basically Fiesta Mexicana, with Mexican music, Mexican food (we ate elotes, or street corn, and tacos, and Travalon had horchata to drink), and Mexican stuff for sale. You will all be shocked to know that I bought a rosary.

I needed some more steps, so we took a walk on Governor's Island, since it is so shady and has lake breezes, so it's one of the few bearable places to walk outside when the weather is so hot and humid. Then I went to band practice for the first time in what feels like forever, and the hostess does not have air conditioning. Also, two members were very late, so the rest of us were sitting around waiting for them for a while in the heat. Then we practiced our Ukrainian music for the upcoming picnic, and I love this music, which tends to be minor-key and peppy, but at a certain point I hit a wall and told them, "I have to go - I have to work tomorrow." Was it the heat? Was it because I had hardly eaten anything to try to even out my calorie intake after my calorific day yesterday? Am I just out of playing shape? But I played for two hours with no problems at the Slow Irish Session last Sunday. I think it was the heat.

Famous Hat