Small Business Saturday in Galena

 

I forgot that yesterday's blog post was supposed to be titled "Four Forks for Fat Bear" because at the Essen Haus Travalon kept appropriating the serving forks for each dish for himself, until he had at least three, maybe four. Today he mentioned that "Fat Bear and the Four Forks" would be a great band name.

This morning we watched the Wolves, who lost because there were so many penalties on them, which was mystifying to us. It looked like the Bournemouth players were purposely getting in front of them so they could say they'd been tripped. This is why I can't watch soccer - I don't understand it well enough to not find it completely aggravating. Why did that goal get taken away? Why does one team get penalized for something when the other doesn't? It's all a mystery, and half the time I can't understand the British accents of the commentators.

Then we hit the road, stopping in Mineral Point for lunch: Cornish pasties! Now that I know I'm quite a bit Cornish (per the DNA tests), the place is even more meaningful to me. We got to Galena mid-afternoon and immediately started shopping for Small Business Saturday. At the first shop I went to, I got a cuddly globe and two pairs of socks because they were half off. We went to Travalon's favorite shop, Strawberry Lane, where he got a Rolling Stones T-shirt. We went to Beyond the Horizon, where I bought yet another evil eye protector decoration. We popped into some shops where we just looked. At Flashback we got a bunch of T-shirts: Van Halen and Beach Boys for Travalon, and Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, and an Office T-shirt for me. We went to a sports shop where Travalon got a Minnesota United (Loons) (soccer team) T-shirt. At Poopsies we got a peppermint snail - this is the shop with stuffed everything, but this time they didn't have any avocado-corns. We went to the root beer shop and split a birch beer, which is bright red and tastes a bit like root beer. Then we went to the crystal shop, and I got one light green crystal that says it is garnetulite? Or something like that.

We are in Galena for Small Business Saturday/Travalon's birthday, and we had no idea there would be a Christmas parade. It was decorated jeeps: spangled with Christmas lights, topped by inflatable creatures like a rubber ducky with headphones or Camo Santa, and/or with floodlights underneath (which I believe are illegal in Wisconsin). Here are a few examples.

I took a lot more photos that didn't turn out, and we couldn't even watch until the end of the parade because we had to hurry up the hill to a church built by Father Mazzuchelli. The stained glass windows were shining, and when we entered, the lighting was golden and the air was warm, so it felt welcoming and wonderful. It was decorated for Advent, but not too many people attended, and they were all our age or older. The music was an enthusiastic alto who had a good voice but insisted on singing everything down a few keys, so it was very low for me, accompanied by a guitar. The priest gave a good homily about expecting the end, when we go to meet the Lord: will we be excited like his ten younger siblings on Christmas Day after he and his father had spent all night putting their toys together, or will we be dreading it like how he felt as a kid when his mom said, "Wait till your father gets home!"? An excellent question: I often ask myself if I'm on the right track, and then I get assurance that just by asking that question, I'm on the right track. Perhaps it is the people totally assured of their righteousness who will be surprised, and not in a good way. As we were leaving, I saw a basket with those cheap homemade rosaries, and I was initially attracted to a crimson one with pink Our Father beads, but then I saw an orange one with yellow Our Father beads that looked like it might glow under blacklight, so I couldn't decide. I asked Travalon, and he couldn't decide either, so we decided we could take one of each for each of us, since there were a lot there. I've never found a rosary for sale in Galena, but now I have rosaries from Galena.

Galena seemed like the right place to wear my Third Eye toque, and I did get some compliments, so I wasn't wrong about that.

Once Travalon and I got back to Irish Cottage Inn and Suites, we went to the gift shop, and I bought yet another Celtic design necklace.

And here are photos of some of the other stuff we bought. (Not the T-shirts.)

We had dinner at Frank O'Dowd's Pub, which is part of the complex: we sat in our favorite snug and had our favorite dinner, the snapper with crab meat, spinach, and mashed potatoes, then we split a pot de creme for dessert, and Travalon had a coffee drink. After that we went swimming in the cool (but not too cold) pool and sat in the warm (not too hot) hot tub. We have a hot tub in our room too, and we filled it with hotter water, then I sat in it a bit but couldn't figure out how to turn on the jets. Travalon figured it out, and he spent quite a bit of time sitting in it. Now we are sitting in front of our (fake) fireplace. 

What a relaxing evening!

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Thanksgiving 2024

 

Yesterday Travalon and I had a very relaxed morning, watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade. Travalon's favorite balloon is the Sinclair Dinosaur one, so he collected all his dinosaurs to watch it with him as he wore his Sinclair gear.

We went to the Essen Haus (which currently has no closing date) for Thanksgiving "dinner" for lunch. It was very popular! They had a traditional dinner with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, dinner rolls, green beans, and cranberry sauce. For dessert they had pecan or pumpkin pie, or apple or cherry strudel; we chose strudel (apple for Travalon and cherry for me) because that seemed more fitting for the setting, and I had already had a slice of pumpkin pie that morning. 

It was bitterly cold outside, and the mall was closed, so we walked around the house, then we watched travel videos about Tahiti, and then we went looking at Christmas lights. A lot of them aren't up yet, but we did see a few. More photos soon; they are on Travalon's good camera. Here is a house not too far from us that does it up like this every year.

Then we watched the Packers play the Dolphins at Lambeau. Maybe the frigid weather threw the team from Miami for a loop, because the Packers handily beat them. They handily beat San Francisco last week too, but between Irish class and the Slow Irish Session, I missed the game and had to watch the highlights reel. Speaking of which, if you want your mind blown, watch the highlights reel of the Cowboys vs Commanders game from last week. It starts slowly (at halftime they were 3-3), but in the last three minutes they scored 31 points between them. It was CRAZY!!!

Today Travalon had the day off of work, so I used my last vacation day. We spent a lot of time in the garage, going through bags and boxes of stuff he had brought back from the storage shed, and I found a lot of stuff that I'd wondered about or just forgotten about. Still no sign of my poetry journal, but there were several bags of books that we just brought straight upstairs without going through them, so I still have hope. Then we ran errands, taking our change to the credit union to get cash for Small Business Saturday tomorrow and dropping off a bunch of stuff at Goodwill, where I bought a pair of bluejeans and a pair of black jeans. In the evening Travalon dropped me off at an early music concert while he went to the bookstore, then we both went to Leopold's for their pumpkin spice ice cream drink. It had a brown, star-shaped garnish that I thought was chocolate, but it had the consistency of wood and a strong flavor of anise, so that was a bit of a shock. After that we drove through the Fantasy of Lights. Every year they have some new ones, and here are a few we saw. Of course Blogspot loaded these in the wrong order, so my grand finale is first - the Christmas outhouse!

A polar bear family.

I've never seen this snowman before, although there are plenty of snowmen every year.

Who knew that deer played slots?

I like this biplane.

This looks like the Sinclair dinosaur with a baby.

This is new - an old-fashioned!

So here's my grand finale - a pink bunny and a major award! It's the leg lamp from A Christmas Story!

And my contact in Vilnius sent a photo of their Holiday Train.

Looks like a fun ride! If I'm ever in Vilnius around the holidays, I'll have to check it out.

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Cardinary Moment Five Years Ago

 

Today I worked on campus, and I had a surprising amount of work considering that nobody was around. I did see a lovely sunset from the dirty office windows.

Travalon had the day off of work, so he met up with a high school buddy, and they went to the Dells and to an antiques mall that he and I have gone to several times. Look what he found.

Here are some other photos I am finally getting around to posting. This is Travalon's koala bear Ricky that he got because the A's are leaving Oakland.

This is the shirt I got at the Celtic Christmas Market. It says "Happy Christmas to you" in Irish.

And these are the earrings I got at the same market.

And I never posted a photo of this octopus we got at the grocery co-op.

It was made by artisans in Kyrgyzstan.

Sometimes it feels like five years ago, when Travalon and I went to Eau Claire to hear a choir perform the piece set to a poem I wrote, was a cardinary moment in my life. (For more on that word, check older posts on my blog - just search the term "cardinary.") It felt so magic, and everything since then has felt magic - in fact, this year has been so wondrous ever since the start of the Year of the Dragon that I was thinking of writing a book called My Wondrous Year of the Dragon. Is the magic over? Was it only meant to last five years? 

I am just waiting for the "Let's Go, Brandon!" crowd to start going on and on about how we have to respect the president even if we don't agree with him in 3...2...1... It was rather disheartening when Travalon and I found "Let's Go, Brandon!" stickers in our old church. Considering that the phrase is a cover for a vulgar one, it seems really wrong to find it in a church, but it did confirm my suspicions that our old church has fallen to the far right crowd. We are definitely better off at the church on the far east side. I keep seeing articles about how we all have to come together and put our differences aside, but how can a person even have a conversation with someone who only believes lies? I am curious about how the Right Wing Lie Machine will twist every failure of the incoming president to say it is somehow the fault of the Left, even though the Left currently has no political power. No, there is nothing to discuss with these people. There is no common ground when they don't even acknowledge objective reality. 

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Some Stuffies

 

It was a quiet day of working from home, but I do have some photos to share. First, the pillow and a tiny bear that we got at the Celtic Christmas Market:

Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the shirt and earrings I got there, so maybe that will be tomorrow's post. Then I don't think I ever posted a photo of the red panda Travalon got up north. She has a very, very long tail, so he named her Talia.

Lastly, this is a teddy bear that used to belong to my neighbor's mother, so it is probably really old. It has a music box inside of it that plays "The Teddy Bears' Picnic," and my neighbor was impressed that I knew the song, so she gave me the bear.

She was getting rid of things left and right before she moved, so she also gave me a bowed psaltry. It's missing some strings, but it does have a very cute little bow, and it seems easier to play than the sitar, which I may never figure out. If I can ever afford to retire, maybe I'll learn to play it.

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Just Ducky

 

Today I worked on campus and walked alone, since my colleague is on vacation this week. My phone had said it would be 44 degrees F out, and it was wet early in the day, but when it dried off, it got really cold. In the evening Travalon and I went swimming in the warm pool. Ahh!

As promised, here are photos from yesterday, but first, look who came to visit Travalon's work last week!

A giant duck - it's Maynard the Mallard! And here are some more waterfowl. First we have some green-winged teals (and Canada geese).

Next, some buffleheads. The male is the one with more white on him.

Here are a whole bunch of mallards.

And these are northern shovelers.

I'm not sure what swimming stroke this male bufflehead is trying to do...

Here two male buffleheads are busy preening.

I was concerned about this little female bufflehead. She was all by herself, which is strange for such a social breed of duck. I wonder if her mate died and she is in mourning?

We also saw lots of sandhill cranes fly overhead, usually in pairs but sometimes in larger groups of up to six. Apparently Travalon didn't get any photos of them, but there are plenty of photos of our neighborhood cranes on this blog already. Check out some of the posts from May in previous years going back to 2020, because that's when there are cute baby crane photos.

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