Ukrainian Picnic 2024

 

Sorry for the delay in blogging. Thursday I got home just before Night Prayer, and then I was leading it, so afterwards I was too tired to blog. Friday I had to work on campus, but my colleague and I did get a free boat ride. We each took selfies, but hers is way better, more of an action shot.

We also made dried flower bouquets under the tutelage of someone from Allen Centennial Gardens.

Mine is the one on the left. We also saw a gull pretending to be a duck, paddling around with all the mallards, but that photo didn't really turn out.

My band had an emergency practice right after work, so Travalon picked up Hardingfele and me and drove us over to our bandmate's house. I thought we were just practicing one song we hadn't really nailed, but they wanted to make it a regular practice. After an hour and a half, I was too exhausted after a long week on campus, so Travalon picked me up (he'd been hanging out at Leopold's), and I went home and chatted with Tiffy.

This morning I had a very relaxed morning. Travalon had been planning to go to the funeral of a brother of an old high school friend, but he has something going on with his left leg, so he didn't think he could drive that far. (It was all the way in Sheboygan.) He watched some Premier League games, then we went for a gentle walk on Governor's Island to stretch out his leg, and after lunch we went for another walk at Cherokee Marsh. 

We met Jilly Moose at the annual Ukrainian Picnic, which this year was at the park in Middleton with the splash pad. This was a huge improvement, because the shelter was vast and shady, and there was an inside part for the vendors. I bought a necklace. (Photos to come.) Travalon got this dog he named Dmytro; he's Dieter's Ukrainian cousin.

The decorations were beautiful.

The musical act right before us was a pair of bandura players up from Chicago.

I thought we did terribly, but Travalon made a video of one song, and it sounds great! So clearly I am not the best judge of these things. Jilly Moose and Hardingfele's coworker also both said we sounded good. Still, we did not sound as good as Kommuna Lux, the band Hardingfele, Travalon, and I saw at the North Side Cabaret a few weeks ago. Can you believe they were there? They had a different drummer, not the guy who was like seven feet tall but a normal-sized guy. They had everyone on their feet and dancing, and our bass player (who wore a flapper-style dress rather than the band T-shirt) was particularly good. She taught me some Balkan-style steps. The general happiness even seemed to affect Hardingfele's husband, who actually had a conversation with Travalon. He can often be standoffish. 

Our band got food tickets (everyone else had to buy them), but two people didn't want them, so we got even more. Of course, by the time we played they were out of a lot of stuff, so they gave me borscht, a chicken sandwich I split with Travalon, and two piroshkis stuffed with cabbage, so Travalon didn't want the other one. I gave it to Jilly Moose, and Hardingfele said they may have been the ones she made. I also had some buns stuffed with onion and eggs, and a dessert that was cream between wafers. It was all pretty tasty. Oh yeah, and some fancy lemonade drink.

After all that food, I wanted to go swim it off. Travalon went to the warm pool to help his leg, which was feeling better already after our gentle walks, while I went to the outdoor pool. Nobody else was in it at that late hour, so I swam very hard and luxuriated in having a whole pool to myself. Oddly, my FitBit didn't think I had swum as hard as usual, when I was sure I'd swum much harder than usual, but sometimes it has a day delay before the actual effort for swimming shows up. 

I did get another DuoLingo badge this morning:

I texted it to Travalon, who texted back: "This bear wants to break your streak!"

This is a sign he saw on his trip up north. I will post more photos from his trip soon.

Famous Hat