Art Exhibit Blocked by Secret Convention! Also, Meet Rodrigo

 

This morning the Wolverhampton rhinoceros that I had ordered for Travalon's birthday in December arrived. Since I had already opened my Christmas present of the Crystal Palace Jerry the Kraken, I told him go ahead and open the package. Isn't he cute?

Travalon named him Rodrigo, after one of the players.

Meanwhile, I had an eventful day. We were all standing around waiting for the shuttle this morning, and it was already late, but then it parked in another part of the vast Oscar Mayer plant parking lot and just sat there, as if it were early. We were all like, what?? I waved frantically at him, and then he came. Someone said maybe he got confused about where he was supposed to pick us up. Then midday we all got an email that the shuttle will be coming slightly less frequently, like every 20 minutes during peak time and every 30 minutes during non-peak time. This shouldn't affect me too much, since it will just come two minutes later in the morning and in theory four minutes later in the evening, when it already comes at whatever random time. 

The guitarist in our band creates artwork with return address labels (mostly chickens), and there was supposed to be a public exhibit of her art at the Pyle Center. Hardingfele, her coworker, and I walked as fast as I could go (so probably slightly slower than normal for them) about a mile to the Pyle Center, just to be told a big secret convention was taking up the whole third floor, so we couldn't see the art. Don't think I'm not dying of curiosity about the convention, and we were very disappointed, but we settled for looking at the art on the first floor, and we found two pieces by our guitarist.

Later on Night Prayer, when I was relating this story, one of the regulars said, "It was probably a meeting between the Big 10 and the SEC so they can become one REALLY BIG conference!" So we were joking that every college team would just be in one giant conference, but then they'd break into little regional subconferences.... you know, like the Pac 12 and SEC and the original Big 10. Ha! The thing is that it probably will go down just like that, because the current system is unsustainable. How are student athletes going to constantly go back and forth across the country? It's nucking futs.

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Conference on Aging

 

Today I went to a conference on aging, where professors at our university were presenting their research. The first talk was a very practical (and entertaining) one on preventing osteoporosis and muscle decline. The second one was on caregivers who take care of their elderly parents who were abusive, and the third one was on higher education availability over the last sixty years. My colleague and I skipped out before the fourth one, on caregivers who take care of adult disabled children - an important topic, but not relevant to either childless me or her with her two college-educated sons. We did get a lot of swag - check it out! I got this squeezy thing.

And when you squeeze him, his eyes pop out!

I also got this piggy bank, which as you can see I have already started filling up with random coins that were around the house. This was my ten minutes of cleaning tonight.

I worked the rest of the day, but most of the afternoon I was in a meeting. Then the shuttle to take me back to my parking lot was really, really late so I called Travalon, who said he could pick me up if need be.... and right after I talked to him, it finally came. This was the latest it's ever been, but what I can't figure out is if traffic and trains are holding up the shuttle I'm expecting, why are they not holding up the shuttle ahead of mine so that it arrives late too? Apparently that one is always on time.

The happiest of birthdays to Jilly Moose today.

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Halfway to St. Patrick's Day 2024

 

Today I worked from home, and just as I was about to leave for my lunchtime walk, someone buzzed our door. It was the postman, with Jerry the Kraken.

I didn't name him that - if you look online, that's what he's called. He's one of the "plush toys" on the website of another Premier League team that Travalon likes, Crystal Palace. Their mascot is an eagle, as is on Jerry's hat, so I can't explain why they offer a kraken wearing a toque, but I thought he was adorable, and I love the colors, so Travalon ordered him for me a few days ago... and he's here already! He can join Travalon's Crystal Palace bear Roy (which was named by Travalon for a legendary Crystal Palace coach):

Crystal Palace the team is named after a neighborhood in London which was named after the Victorian-era conservatory that is sadly no longer in existence. I remember fondly going to visit the "crystal palace" at Como Park, and this one was far more elaborate. 

After work I drove to Erin's Snug Irish Pub to meet members of the Shamrock Club, and Travalon soon joined us. We had a great conversation about Ireland and Scotland, especially since a couple had just gotten back from there and one of my buddies from going to the Irish play is going next May. I got the loaded colcannon with my bluegill, and I would go back just for that. I have to go back for the Guinness chocolate cake too, which I was too full to try tonight.

There is a very partial lunar eclipse tonight, and I talked a reluctant Travalon into going outside to take pictures of the moon... and then he got really into it and took a whole bunch. It looks like there's a bite out of the top.

I thought I saw faint Northern Lights too, but it was hard to tell with all the light around here. Someone did post gorgeous photos of the Northern Lights on Sunday night, from right around the same time that I was trying to take photos of them, but she lives further north and in a darker area. Maybe she'll post some from tonight too. Travalon also went down to the dock, but he didn't see any himself, so maybe I was imagining it. Maybe someday I'll take a good photo of the aurora borealis.

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Remembering Random Things

 

Today was not a very exciting day. I was the only staff person in the office, and this afternoon the president of the whole university system was coming to talk, so I had some coffee in order not to fall asleep. It didn't even work, because I was fighting to stay awake, and then I really had to pee. I held out through his talk but had to pop out during the Q&A. However, I did make an important discovery on the way home: the shuttle ride is one rosary long.

Jilly Moose sent me a photo of the moose Travalon got her for her birthday during his trip up North. At my suggestion, she named him Chambord after the raspberry liqueur, since her moose are all named after coffee drinks or alcohol. I wish I could show you, but my computer just updated, and now I cannot get it to add a photo using Safari. No problem, I thought, I'll just do it in Chrome... and it refuses to even open Chrome. This is going to be a huge issue, since photos are a big part of my blog. I hope to have a resolution soon. Apparently this new operating system doesn't play nicely with Google, which is going to be an enormous issue.

Hold on - I just reinstalled Chrome and now I can add the photo!

The other day as I rode the shuttle to work, I saw a car with a license plate that said: "Zymurgy," and somehow I knew that meant fermentation, so the person was probably a home brewer. Then I was walking on the Lakeshore Path at lunchtime, and I heard a boat behind me and thought, "That's the Betty Lou!" and sure enough, it was. Why does my brain retain useless information like obscure words and the sounds of particular boat motors, but it couldn't remember the difference between a ketone, an ester, and an ether when I was taking Organic Chemistry? Maybe if I'd been able to retain that, I'd have a high-powered career as a chemical engineer or something. Instead, my brain only retains trivia, and probably not even the right trivia to win at Jeopardy or anything practical like that. Though our neighbor who took us out sailing said identifying the sound of the Betty Lou was extremely important on our lake, because you'd want to know if a huge boat was bearing down on you!

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Second Sail of the Summer

 

This morning we went to Mass at the gym, but there were tons of cars in the parking lot so we wondered what was up. This parish has always been a friendly neighborhood one, but today was a big deal because they made it the official cathedral of the diocese. We'll have to see if that totally changes the vibe; we do have other options. Then we tried the brunch at Garver Mill, and that was great. It's very convenient from where we've been going to Mass. This church did send us mail the other day, and we wondered if they actually knew who we were and were going to ask us to formally join the parish, but it was just an appeal from the bishop asking for money for the cathedral. I was both relieved and disappointed.

We watched a bit of the Packer game, but Jordan Love is injured so they were playing with the backup quarterback. They were doing pretty well, and they had quite a running game and some defense going on, although the Colts have the former Badger Jonathan Taylor playing for them, and he can run right through our defenses too. The Packers were up 13-0, but they seemed to stall, and our neighbor had invited us to go sailing, so we taped the game. Here I am manning the tiller.

And here is a tern on a buoy. We passed closer by it on the way out, and it didn't fly away.

Travalon got to man the tiller quite a bit too, and we both helped a bit with the sail, but without our neighbor there, we'd have no idea what to do. It was a hot day with very little wind, but out on the water we did have a bit of a breeze and got some sailing in. Then we came back and watched the rest of the Packer game - they won 16-10. Travalon watched the Wolverhampton game that he had taped, since it was right during Mass, while I went out for a rosary walk in the shade. It is so hot for mid September! The woman who hosts band practice doesn't have air conditioning, or at least she never uses it, so after an hour and a half I had to call it quits. I just can't take the heat anymore.

I forgot to mention that yesterday at the Arboretum, we saw a mother deer with two young, older than the tiny, spotted stage but still quite small. They were very close to us and didn't seem afraid of five people. Jilly Moose got some photos. 

I also forgot that we were talking about weird movies that other people had talked us into watching, and I said once Antoshka talked Cecil Markovitch, the Single B-Boy, and I into watching an Icelandic movie called Noi Albinoi that was very depressing. He was always fantasizing about moving to Hawaii, and at the end everyone but him died in a volcano eruption. I said we had been making fun of the movie (much to Antoshka's annoyance), saying we should make a sequel called Noi 2: Noi in Paradise or something like that, where he goes to Hawaii. Then Rich had the brilliant idea that all his friends in Hawaii could die in a volcano eruption. Why did we never think of that all those years ago? Of course!

Tonight there are faint Northern Lights, but neither Travalon nor I could get good photos. Mine look like clouds, not those cool Northern Light photos people always post online. Someone told me to use the delayed exposure on your phone, so I tried that, and I got some cool cloud photos. Check this one out.

That was more interesting than what I could see with my bare eyes, but it's not Northern Lights.

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Day in New Glarus and the Arboretum

 

Yesterday I worked from home, which was a relief after my crazy day on Thursday. The package I'd been expecting did arrive. Meet Luna.

She is the same as Tenebrae (a dragon rabbit), only white. Apparently they got a lot of requests for this. Here are the two of them together.

In the evening, Travalon and I went to the Monona Terrace for an astronomy event. There were supposed to be all sorts of stations with telescopes pointing at various heavenly bodies, and the people at the entrance gave me a map that showed Station 16 would be pointing at Saturn. I found Station 14, 15, and 17, but not 16, and when I asked a volunteer, he said, "Oh, that was my station. I didn't bring my telescope because it's kind of cloudy tonight." Indeed it was, but the moon looked beautiful.

We did look through a telescope pointed at a big crater on the moon, so that was cool. 

Today we had a very relaxed morning, and I did a lot of DuoLingo.

Travalon watched some Premier League game, then he started to watch the Badger game against Alabama, before we met Jilly Moose at Richard Bonomo's house to drive down to New Glarus. The four of us met Tiffy down there, since she'd been dog sitting in Monroe, and we went to a Swiss restaurant for lunch. Afterwards we walked around New Glarus, which is a very cute little town. A lot of the buildings look like this:

We saw lots of flowers there, like this passionflower. 

We went to a number of shops, and I got a necklace. (Sorry, no photo yet.) In one shop, they must have had problems with people walking into the mirror.

After Tiffy bid us adieu and the rest of us returned to Madison, we picked up Kathbert and went hiking at the Arboretum. Here are some photos. First, my phone won't identify these berries.

It was so beautiful and peaceful on that path.

In the garden area, we saw interesting snapdragons.

Weirdly, a lot of spring flowers were in bloom, like these crocuses.

And this magnolia, and a lot of lilacs.

This magnolia had such interesting seed pods.

There were interesting oak trees with very interesting acorns.

Look at this magnolia covered with seed pods.

This cedar looks like a UFO. Is it really just one shrub?

By the way, the Badgers lost 42-10, which is about what I'd expected. I guess in that game, we were the cupcake team! 

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Sleeping in the Meeting

 

Today was just one of those days. Yesterday I struggled to stay awake in a meeting but lost the fight for a few minutes, and this morning my boss was on my case about that, saying usually I'm so professional. Is it unprofessional to fall asleep in a meeting? It would be like farting in a meeting - unless you did it on purpose, it's just an unfortunate physical reaction. But my boss wanted to know what I would do in the future to keep this from happening, and he said better to be caffeinated and have to leave the meeting for a few minutes to powder my nose than to fall asleep in it again. He even said I could take sick time if I didn't feel well, which don't tempt me - every time we have a meeting, I'll be a bit (cough, cough) under the weather. I was actually exposed to COVID on Monday by our student hourly (undergrads are almost as bad as toddlers for being germ vectors), but two days seems too soon for it to manifest with symptoms. Our chair was also all worried, saying yesterday I wasn't my "usual, sparkly self," but that today I was back to normal, which seems odd because my FitBit says I slept unusually well two nights ago and unusually badly last night. It did remind me of that scene in Office Space where the guy forgets and puts a cover page on the memo, and everyone calls him to remind him that they were no longer putting cover pages on memos. 

Though, to be honest, lately I have been struggling to stay awake during my Adoration hour, so maybe there is some deeper issue going on. My brain is also sort of fried because not only is it the start of the semester, so everything's coming at me at once, but I also have a new computer I'm struggling to adjust to, and of course there's my new mode of transportation to get used to. It's a lot for my old brain that is already overloaded with menopause.

As if the day hadn't already been five weeks long, this evening I had to go to a meeting on campus right after work. As I was heading out the door, I saw the shuttle going by at the time it's supposed to but never seems to show up when I'm waiting for it. The meeting was plagued by audio issues, since some of us were in person and some people were on Zoom. At least I thought a package would be waiting for me when I got home, since I'd seen it listed in our daily digest from the Post Office... but in fact it was something for Travalon. Sigh. At least tomorrow I can work from home.

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Shuttle Adventures

 

This morning the shuttle came late for the first time that I have taken it. I got there in plenty of time to catch the 7:58 shuttle, but no shuttle came until the next scheduled one at 8:13. I asked the driver why the previous shuttle had never shown up, and he replied that he WAS the previous shuttle, but he'd gotten held up by a train. I got to work fifteen minutes late, and just then my boss walked into my office, so I told him what had happened and asked if I had to make up the time when it wasn't my fault. He said not this time, but he hoped that it wouldn't keep happening. If it does, I'll have to start taking the earlier shuttle - someone on the shuttle this morning said a train always passes by at that hour, but then why was the shuttle always punctual the other times I had taken it? And as we were driving to campus, we saw a train heading to the crossing, but luckily it stopped, and not on the sensor but before it. I hate when they set off the sensor, so the gates come down, and then they just sit there. At rush hour. Really? 

Oddly, this afternoon I went out at 5:00, feeling like it would be wrong to sneak out early to catch the shuttle at 4:55, and then the one at 5:12 came right on time. I have never seen that one before - it's like it just vanishes, and then I have to wait for the one at 5:29. When we stopped at the hospital, a woman got on and sat across from me, and she had sat across from me this morning too, so I pointed it out, and we talked a bit. She is literally working to cure cancer, and I just move money from Column A to Column B. But we're all important in our own way, right?

I forgot to mention that when Travalon and I went up North, I forgot my toothpaste, but I wasn't too worried since Travalon always packs toothpaste. Only... he forgot too! Fortunately I found a small tube in my purse. I was sure I'd packed floss, but no, and there wasn't any of the little sample size ones from the dentist in my purse. Ah well, two days of not flossing should not ruin my teeth. And we did both manage to remember to pack a toothbrush.

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Corny Tuesday

 

Today I worked from home, and during the course of the day I had some popcorn and some Inka corn. Then at dinner we had corn on the cob, and I said, "I've had a lot of corn today," so Travalon said, "It's a corny Tuesday," and I said, "That should be my blog post title."

I now have a new aspiration: to be the person my phlebotomist thinks I am. I have made phlebotomists laugh in the past, but I've never made one cry before. Some background: I am in a cancer prevention study, and they asked me to do a blood draw, so I had to go to a particular place. No problem, it's not far from my house, so I got there in plenty of time... and they said I was at the wrong place. They gave me a map, so I carefully followed it and got to another building with visitor parking, so all seemed good... and they said I was in the wrong place. By then I was nearly in tears: "Are you sending me back to the first building? They said that was the wrong place!" So the security guard led me in his car to yet a third place, and that was the right one. A very chipper phlebotomist ushered me in, and I said they like the veins on my left arm when I give blood, so she said, "You give blood? You are such a good person!" (True confession: I have not given blood since that time they took my driver's license and didn't give it back, and they never called to tell me they had it, yet they can call me every other day to ask for my blood. I feel like I'm being followed around by a vampire toddler: "Give me your blood. Give me your blood. Give me your blood. Give me your blood.") I said yes, I'm Type O+, and she said, "You have saved so many lives!" then she said something about how people don't register for marrow donation, and I said, "I'm registered for that too." At that she got tears in her eyes and said, "You are such a good person! Don't ever change! Don't let the world change you!" It was an interesting moment, because my first impulse was to tell her that I'm not nearly as good as she thinks, but I bit my tongue and then began to wonder if I am a more selfless person than the majority of humanity. I don't want to get a big head over it, but it is true that I do a number of things that don't benefit me directly to try to help others. Though after a while they did start to benefit me directly, because I won that Staff Excellence Award and get to go to events with the Chancellor. But the point is, that isn't why I did those things. I had no idea they would lead me to such blessings. Maybe I am almost as good a person as the phlebotomist thinks.

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Monday Musings

 

This morning I took the shuttle, and my shuttle buddy was there again. I left work a few minutes early, figuring I'd gotten there a few minutes early, and there was my shuttle buddy! A lot more people got on at the hospital than when I was on the later shuttle last week. There's supposed to be one in between this early one and the one that doesn't seem to come until 5:30, but it's like that one vanished.

Today I wore the necklace I got at an antiques shop in St. Augustine, and this evening a thought suddenly popped into my head: would it glow under blacklight? Indeed it does!

I got yet another sticker from DuoLingo:

A couple of people have challenged me to "duels" on DuoLingo, but when I go into the app, I can't find the duel. They're always trying crazy new things, but how crazy is a thing you can't even find??

Sometimes you see strange things on campus. Earlier in the summer there were two dead baby birds that looked like they had just hatched on the sidewalk outside my building, and they stayed there for days. There was also part of a long leg, like from a crane, and it stayed there for weeks. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw a flat chipmunk on the Lake Shore Path. Now that path is only open to pedestrians and bikers, and they don't weigh enough to flatten a chipmunk, but every once in a while a maintenance vehicle goes by on it, and this unfortunate chipmunk must have had a fateful encounter with one of those. However, what I saw on campus today was alive and well: a squirrel that was darker than the usual gray ones, but not quite as dark as the jet-black ones you see in the northern woods. It was a gray-black squirrel.

Speaking of animal sightings, Travalon saw five cranes the other day:

If you look closely, two of them are more orange, and those are the young ones, almost grown. The pair that lives near the dock raised them. The fifth crane seems to be one of the pair that lives behind our building. I make up stories about the cranes, and one story is that one member of this pair is the offspring of the pair by the dock that came back to raise its own families here. That pair has had babies, but none survived to adulthood. Sadly, one of that pair seems to have disappeared, so my guess is that the fifth crane is the aunt (or uncle) of the young cranes, and either the daughter (or son) or daughter-in-law of the other pair. They are letting it hang out with them because otherwise it would be all alone. We have seen it alone a few times lately, and early in the morning it was calling piteously for its mate. What happened? I have no idea, but there are a lot of cars around here, and we hear coyotes all the time.

Today is Tiffy's birthday. Happy birthday, Tiffy!

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Niko in the North Woods

 

Today Travalon and I didn't want to deal with the road closures for the Ironman Triathlon, so we went to Mass at 10:30 up in Waunakee. I was thinking it wasn't a very inspiring Mass, and then the Consecration was very solemn. It was a beautiful day, so after that we spent the afternoon at Indian Lake County Park, where we ran into some people from my department. Travalon loved the little dog Lotte, and she loved him too. Then in the evening I took a Benadryl before band practice, because I sit between Hardingfele and another woman who each have multiple cats, or maybe it's the dust where we practice, but I always have allergies at band practice. Today I did not... but I could barely stay awake. Good thing Travalon had given me a ride! I wouldn't have been safe to drive back...

Here are photos from last Sunday. First, some photos from the resort where we stayed. This first one is the cabin where we stayed three years ago, the Laughing Loon.

The resort is on Rest Lake.

There were two very cute little mushrooms outside the door.

Here are some photos from our bushwhacking hike.

Views from the bridge:

You can see why there are more photos of me than of Travalon!

This one's for Jilly Moose:

Here are some photos from our hike at Trout Lake:

These are apparently ghost plants (Indian pipes) that have gone to seed.

This is our cabin.

This is a small lake with an observation deck.

At that same park, they had these adorable cabins.

Across the street was Rest Lake Park, where we saw this colorful catamaran.

This is the cute bridge we saw in Winchester.

This is the sun creating a rainbow sunburst on my cell phone screen at WinMan Recreation Area. This is how it looked taken by Travalon's cell phone.

And this is how it looked with his good camera.

Finally, this is my chocolate martini, partially consumed.

Sorry, no photos of Niko. He enjoyed his time in the North Woods, but he stayed safely in my purse and didn't go on any hikes or boats. But Travalon said something about "Niko in the North Woods," and it just sounded like a great blog post title.

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