Make Music Madison: The Sequel

 

Today I wanted to go to a Quebecois jam at noon at a coffee shop on the east side, but I wanted to wear my muumuu to Mass and not the jam so we came home in between. (Also, that way I didn't have to bring my mandolin to Mass.) That was maybe not the right decision, since it was almost 12:30 by the time we got to the coffee shop, and I was famished and had to eat lunch before playing. A woman leading the jam saw me come in and brought me a packet of the music with a QR code for the website. I said, "Oh, I already know this website," and she said yes, the creator tries to keep it user-friendly, but personally that is not the description I would have used for this website. Somehow I ended up in the fiddle section and became best friends with the three women around me playing fiddle. OK, that's an exaggeration, but they were all so friendly. Also, to my shock, two of them had seen my band listed on the Make Music Madison website and had wanted to see us, but they were playing themselves at the same time, and the third one played with one of our fiddlers later yesterday evening at Folklore Village.

Travalon didn't stick around for the whole jam, but he did drive me there because he is a prince among men, so after the jam I said we could do whatever he wanted. He mentioned that the Brazilian drumming group was playing at Garver Mill, so we went there and watched a subset of the big group play, including one of my teachers and the guy who plays the little ukulele-like instrument in the other Brazilian band, and another student was one of the girls who danced to the drumming. The girls had elaborate costumes that didn't cover all that much of them, and Travalon enjoyed that. While that was in the air-conditioned comfort, the two bands we wanted to see next were outside, so we found a shady spot. The Forward Marching Band played first, and then Mama Digdown's Brass Junction plays New Orleans street jazz, stuff like "Iko Iko." Travalon really liked them too. I liked all of it.

It had been a day of a lot of music and very little exercise, so we thought we could escape the heat by swimming at Governor Nelson State Park. However, a sign said caution, there was E. Coli in the water, so we went to our health club instead. I was afraid the outdoor pool would be packed with kids, but it really wasn't too bad, and we were able to commandeer a small patch of the deep end to swim around in. Apparently it has been too long since I've been swimming, because twenty minutes of it and I felt like (and still feel like) my arms might fall off. Also, it felt like a lot of effort on my part, but my FitBit said only three minutes of it was moderate exercise, and none was vigorous. Why do my FitBit and I disagree so often? I will feel like I'm walking at my top speed for twenty minutes, and it will say four minutes of that was any effort, and then another day I'll be barely able to walk above a slow saunter and it will say vigorous exercise for the whole twenty minutes. It's a mystery. It bases it all on my heart rate, but why does my heart rate have so little to do with my lived experience?

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Make Music Madison 2025

 

Today was Make Music Madison, and I got swag:

I just wanted that to be the first photo on this post, because then it shows up as the thumbnail when you look up my posts. This morning Travalon and I relaxed, then when he went to turn on the air conditioning, he discovered that a mourning dove had built a nest on the window ledge outside our bedroom, so that we couldn't close the window. We looked at it, and there was a baby bird in it, so we couldn't knock it off the ledge. Mourning doves are notorious for building their nests in the worst possible places - there is an entire website devoted to stupid nest location choices by doves - and I wasn't surprised since I kept hearing the thing calling outside our window early in the morning. I wanted to take a picture of the baby bird, but the mother came back, and I didn't want to frighten her away so sorry, no photo.

When we did get going, we went to Garver Mill to have pizza and check out a flea market, and somehow we got really good parking there. Next Travalon ran into a local bookstore to find a new biography of Judy Garland, but they didn't have it. 

Our next stop was the grand opening of our favorite chocolate shop in town, or I should say grand re-opening in a beautiful new space. Even the bathroom was gorgeous. We got there at a weird moment; we just wanted to get some chocolate and then hear the local Latin jazz band, but they shooed everyone out for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. However, I begged to buy chocolate because my time was limited due to my own gig, so they let us get some bonbons, and then they shooed us outside for the ribbon-cutting.

We sat in the shade, listening to the Latin jazz band, until they took a break at exactly the time I thought we should leave. We headed home and rested a few minutes until we had to head to my bandmate's driveway for our own Make Music Madison gig. Travalon took photos and videos.

Someone else took this photo. It makes me laugh because the shadow makes it look like I have a mustache.

We were told to wear our black band shirts, and as you can see, I was the only one who did - even our leader, who made the proclamation, did not. She also told us to arrive fifteen minutes early and then arrived just before we started herself, and she held us up by several minutes because she had to tune. I'm kind of at the limits of my patience with her at the moment. She was also really struggling with chords, and in the videos you can hear me playing chords, but not her. However, on one song the fiddles were really struggling with the melody, so I jumped in and played that. I guess that's the role of a mandolin: "Clean up on Aisle Fifteen!" Show up where you're needed. As always, afterwards people said they really liked it when I played tremolo - that's a crowd pleaser. Nobody asked about my instrument, but they may have all seen it before. We had a surprisingly large crowd, maybe twenty people at the peak, and I think they were all friends of various band members. It was VERY hot, and as you can see, I had to sit in the sun more than the others. (The audience were all in the shade.) I debated about bringing my other mandolin, but the old taterbug mandolin is a real trooper, and she had no problem with the heat. The bassist and I agreed that it was hard to play when your hands are so sweaty, and the instruments do tend to go a bit sharp when it's so humid out, so we had to stop and tune now and then. Anyone who has ever been to an early music concert where they use period instruments will be familiar with this concept.

Travalon and I went home and had a light dinner of hummus and protein sandwiches in pita that only needed to be microwaved, chicken for him and falafel for me. Then we went to Warner Park, which is so close to us, to hear a band called Hirt Alpert. With a name like that, we expected they would play music of Herb Alpert and Al Hirt, and that is exactly what they did. The sponsor for that spot was Witkins Realty, and they were giving away the rainbow koozies and welcome packages for new home owners. They gave me one of each, even though we have owned our condo for eleven years. Can you believe that?

Our final stop was Rennebohm Park, which is very far from us, to hear a big band called All That Jazz. We only got to hear the last twenty minutes of their set, but it was worth the trip - they were so good! Travalon found both bands on the Make Music Madison website. Since it's on a Saturday this year, we decided we should actually hear some other groups besides mine for once.

I still needed steps, and I had not prayed a rosary, so I put on my high vis garb and took a walk outside in the dark.

No idea why my eyes look so crazy in this photo. Maybe I was thinking how crazy I was to go from air-conditioned comfort to the heat and humidity outside in the dark. We are cooling the outside a bit because we can't close the bedroom window, and Mama Dove must love it because now she is constantly on the nest. I can't say that I blame her.

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Ode to a Gallinule

 

Today I worked from home and had meetings all day. Four of them!! The first one is a check-in and usually lasts three minutes because nobody has any questions, but today they had all the questions, so it went well beyond its half-hour scheduled time. Another one ran over too. Also, I was very sore after our long walk in the marsh yesterday, but I have still managed to walk over three miles today, just very slowly.

This evening Travalon and I went to the new Turkish restaurant not too far from our house again, then we went to the music club we belong to. Usually I go there for Irish sessions or jam sessions, but today they had a concert of acoustic music. Travalon really liked it because they played his kind of music, and I enjoyed it too. The vibe there is so laid back, although the parking situation was bad so we missed the first song, and lots of people came in after us. The place was packed! We sat on a couch in the back, so it felt like being in a living room, especially since there were chocolate chip cookies and iced tea. A good way to celebrate the longest day of the year. As Colbert noted, last year the longest day was on June 21, but this year it's been every day since the inauguration. It was still light out when we got home, so Travalon fished off our dock while I joined Night Prayer. Tomorrow is supposed to be very hot for our outdoor gig, so hopefully we don't have an exploding violin disaster like what happened nine years ago at a different outdoor gig.

As promised, here are some flowers we saw at the marsh yesterday. This one is anemone sylvestris.

This one is sulfur cinquefoil.

And this one is spreading bladder pod, which sounds more like a disease than a flower.

This purple one was called hairy vetch, which makes me wonder about the pink-and-white one I always just call "vetch" - is it actually smooth vetch or something? Sorry, no photos of that one, but I have posted it on this blog previously. Just search for vetch.

Hmm, I think my phone's plant identification skills suck. I googled spreading bladder pod, and it looks nothing like my flower, so I tried my app specifically for plant identification, and it said it was bird's foot trefoil. That sounds right, and it looks right when I google it. I thought about getting rid of the plant app, since I have to pay for it (not much, like $30/year), but I'm keeping it for now. I don't trust my phone.

I did write a poem about our experience yesterday: 

Candy corn beak,

Giant yellow feet,

You thought you could hide,

But you must admit defeat.

I felt like a fool,

But now I see you, gallinule!

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Niko and the Gallinules

 

I realize that today's blog post title sounds like a garage band, but the only band involved in this post is a Brazilian one. Stay with me. The day started with some reflection on what Juneteenth means, then since both Travalon and Tiffy had it off of work, I had requested a vacation day so we could all go to Horicon Marsh. I put Niko in my pocket, and we met Tiffy at Guth's in Waupun for coffee, breakfast sandwiches, and those famous peanut butter cups we usually get at the Schultz Cheese Haus, then we all headed to the marsh in Travalon's car.

Our first stop was the floating boardwalk, where we saw lots of terns and of course red-winged blackbirds. We also saw this barn swallow lying on the boardwalk.

We thought it was injured, but finally it flew away. We saw a mama duck with some babies, but she seemed too small to be a mallard, so we're guessing she's a blue-winged teal.

I didn't hear any gallinules in that section of the marsh. As my regular readers may remember, when we went to the marsh with Anna Banana II, we could hear them from the boardwalk, and they sounded very close, but we couldn't see them at all. It had been hot and sunny, but when we returned to the parking lot, it had clouded up and cooled off quite a bit, so we sat in the shade and enjoyed the breeze that had blown up. I was a bit concerned about the thunder we could hear in the distance, so we decided to continue on the auto tour, and we saw a lot of egrets. Here are at least seven together.

Here is a close-up shot of one.

And we saw a black-necked stilt and a blue-winged teal right next to each other.

We drove to Old Marsh Road and saw a lot of people coming off of it because of the approaching bad weather. I asked what they had seen, and they all had seen gallinules. Now in all my times going to the marsh, I have never seen one. I've heard their weird, whinnying call many times, but they are elusive to my eyes, and I am pretty good at spotting birds. I have the skill set to be an excellent hunter-gatherer, always spotting birds and always remembering where plants are located. Some other guys were undaunted and headed onto the road, so we did too. We were rewarded with the weird call of the yellow-headed blackbirds, like a cross between a very rusty door and a cat being strangled. Then we saw them.

We also saw black-necked stilts.

And turtles.

I was very excited because Tiffy and I saw a gallinule with something big in its mouth (maybe a frog), but Travalon didn't see it. He did get more photos of the yellow-headed blackbirds.

And the black-necked stilts, which make a very loud noise.

Here's a killdeer.

And another egret.

And another black-necked stilt:

The killdeer laid an egg right in the middle of the path, so someone put sticks around it so nobody would step on it.

Here's a black-necked stilt flying.

We saw lots of terns, but they were too quick to photograph. We saw a swan way in the distance, and one pelican flew overhead, so it was a Three Big White Bird Day for those keeping track at home.

The two guys came back, and we asked if they had seen the ibises everyone was talking about. They said we had passed them, so they brought us back to where you could see them in the distance.

We actually saw two of them.

These birds are very unusual to see in Wisconsin. Are they breeding here? We have seen them in Florida. After the two men had shown them to us, one walked ahead while the other hung back and chatted with us, and he pointed out that there was a gallinule. This time Travalon got a fantastic photo.

There were actually two of them. Look how small they are compared to the geese!

Then a pair of sandhill cranes flew into the scene. Here is one of them.

And another turtle.

We bid adieu to Tiffy and headed home, stopping at Patrick Marsh, where we saw lots of pelicans.

My Union peeps were having another training session tonight, but we realized I would never get there on time even before we stopped at Patrick Marsh, so we went to the Brazilian party instead. The long story short of this is that we saw a Brazilian band some months ago, and during their break I asked the guy who played a little instrument like a ukulele about playing it. He said it was tuned like a mandolin, so I said, "Then I could just pick it up and play it," and he said first go to the Brazilian drumming class. The teachers from this class said the band would be throwing a party tonight, so we went and had Brazilian food while listening to the band play what they call "bar samba" because it's quieter than the loud drums. I mean, it has drums, but not such loud ones. This was a very happy party with every color of person you can imagine at it, and a lot of people talking in Portuguese. We danced a little, then when the band took a break, I talked to that same guy and said okay, I've done Step One, what's Step Two? It turns out there is no Brazilian jam session like the Irish ones in town, but he said they are thinking of starting them. Sometimes I think I'm the luckiest person ever, and other times I think no, I make my own luck, but the real answer may be that I am open to the opportunities God gives me. Anyway, I need to learn the Brazilian rhythms well, and when I said the teacher is always using me as a negative example, this guy said he only does that to people he sees potential in, because he doesn't want to discourage the people who are struggling, so I thanked him for telling me that. It does make me feel better.

When we got home, there was a beautiful sunset, so we went on the dock to enjoy it.

I did take some photos of flowers we saw at the marsh today, so I may post those tomorrow. Blogspot seems upset about the number of photos on this post and stopped letting me post them at one point until I saved, closed, and came back into the post. No need to antagonize it further.

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Two Fragrant Bushes

 

Today was a very rainy day. I had to go on my lunchtime walk earlier than usual due to more hands-on training in the new system, and Seabird was okay with that because she said we'd avoid the rain that way. Then she said never mind, it's raining now, let's not walk. I didn't even think to ask Hardingfele, and maybe that's subconscious because I would have had to go out into the rain to get to her building, but this way I just went out and walked around my building under the overhang on the third floor. I didn't pray the rosary since the Rosary Ladies were doing so this evening, so I just listened to music on my phone as I walked. Too bad I didn't bring my wireless headphones to work. I did forget to mention that when Hardingfele and I walked at lunchtime last week, we saw a leucistic house sparrow among a flock of these invasive birds, but it was too far away to get a good photo with my phone.

For the last week, when I was working from home I would walk between the multiflora rose growing at the edge of the marsh and a neighbor's mock orange bush. They were both in bloom, and they both smelled so wonderful, but very different from each other. They were both so fragrant that you could smell them from some distance away. Yesterday they were still fragrant, but most of their blossoms were past their prime, and I suppose after all the rain we've had today, even the few good ones have been washed off. Sadly, the multiflora rose is invasive, just like the house sparrows. Here's a photo I took of it last year.

Sorry, I don't have a photo of the mock orange.

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Night Prayer Party 2025

 

Today I worked from home, and all my neighbors saw I was around and they had questions and comments, since I'm on the board. The most noteworthy thing was that toward the end of my workday, as I sat out on our porch, I saw a pair of orioles figuring out how to drink from the hummingbird feeder. It might be too much work for them to keep doing it, since they can't hover and have to hang on at a weird angle while flapping their wings furiously, but it did make me think I should finally put up that oriole feeder, if for no other reason than to keep them away from the hummingbird feeder. They were so beautiful, especially the male, and I would have loved to grab Travalon's camera and take a photo, but if I'd moved that surely would have scared them away.

The big excitement today was the party for a Night Prayer regular who is in town for a little bit from the state of Oregon. Travalon and I had to pick him and his wife up at a house not too far from ours and bring them to the party, and then other people came in, most from a prayer group that used to meet in the 70's but some other Night Prayer regulars like Rich, Jilly Moose, and the Dairyman's Daughter. Cecil Markovitch was there as well, but I don't think anyone else there has a name on this blog. It was also the birthday of one of the old prayer group guys, so we sang him Happy Birthday, and then I sang him Happy Birthday in Basque (Zorionak), and then another couple arrived so the host made us sing it in English again. We brought the street corn-flavored tortilla chips we've been addicted to lately, and Cecil brought crackers and cheese, and there were lots of desserts. I had way too much sugar. We all had to sit around in a circle and say something about who we were, and I made the mistake of saying I'd been a toddler when they started their prayer group - oops! But I quickly had them laughing about something. One guy is the local eccentric who plays music and paints with I'd say more enthusiasm than talent, but he's so entertaining that he's a Madison staple. One of the characters he paints is "Santa Ant," and I have to admit, that's pretty funny. He did a song about wearing pink pants at an open mic on the Union Terrace some time ago that had Travalon and me rolling on the ground laughing. 

The party was only supposed to go until 8:30, but it was still going strong at that hour. Some of the Night Prayer regulars left so they could log into Night Prayer from home. Anna Banana II hosted, since clearly she could not attend the party from North Dakota. A few of us did Night Prayer from the party, then we quickly headed out. It was a lot of fun, but I must have had my sugar quota for the whole week. Month, maybe.

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Jamming in E Dorian

 

Today I worked on campus because we had another training session. I think I've mostly mastered the art of creating expense reports in the new system, so today I wanted to work on paying honoraria. I did one with split funding for a domestic speaker, then I tried to do one for a foreign speaker, but even with two people way above me trying to help me, none of us could figure out why it didn't ask for different forms like the wire transfer form, the I-94, the passport, and the Homeland Security stamp. In the current system, you couldn't even submit a request for payment without these things, but the new system didn't ask for them at all, and indeed there was nowhere to put them. I'm not saying it wasn't user error, but the other two women helping me couldn't figure it out either. I also walked with Seabird at lunch, and she said she will be moving back into my building (yay!), but she will have an office without a window (boo!). Currently she is in a shared office overlooking the lake. I said she could come join me in my office overlooking the carillon anytime.

This evening I went to another Moldy Jam jam at the music club, and once again I found myself in the mandolin section. Just like how at parties all the Capricorns seem to find each other and talk about how they are Capricorns, all the mandolins seem to end up in one spot. One woman demanded at one point to swap mandolins for a tune, so I figures why not, she wasn't some rando off the street. When we went to swap back, I somehow conked myself in the eye with her mandolin, so if I have a shiner tomorrow, that will be very interesting to explain. "This black eye? It's from a mandolin. No, not Amanda Lynn - the instrument! Yes, I'm aware that most people don't get beat up by inanimate objects, but I'm just that special." Then I swapped with the guy next to her, but he had trouble playing my little round-back mandolin. They play a lot of American folk tunes, but they do throw in some Irish ones, so toward the end of the evening a guy suggested "Road to Lindisfarne" followed by "Swallowtail." They were both in E Dorian, and I would have been satisfied with that, but everyone said, "One more tune!" so I timidly suggested "Drowsy Maggie," which is also E Dorian. I thought nobody would want to play yet another Irish E Dorian tune, but they happily played it. I was in heaven!

Things just got better when I left. A couple in the group offered me a ride to my car, but I said it's okay, it's just a couple of blocks away. I was walking on the sidewalk as it crossed the railroad tracks when I heard the crossing a few blocks away start to ding. I looked, and a train was coming, but it didn't blow its horn. There was a crossing right where I was, so I made a video. I love how the red crossing lights reflect off the train. Enjoy!

I don't know why I can play tunes I don't even know if they're in G major or E Dorian, but other keys really throw me for a loop. We played something in A major that took me forever to figure out. So many sharps! Who needs that many of them?

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"What Do You Call Your Little Guitar?"

 

Today after Mass we went to Fitz's in Okee, because they were advertising a "tiki buffet" for Father's Day. We sat outside, overlooking Lake Wisconsin and listening to live music, and Travalon ordered the buffet while I ordered a seafood boil, so that we could both try both things. I got a free salad bar with mine, and Fitz's has the best salad bar, so I was set for a while. Travalon went up and got his barbecued meat and mashed potatoes and coconut macadamia shrimp, and I took a few of the shrimp. At first I wasn't too concerned that the seafood boil wasn't showing up, but when people who had arrived after us got theirs, I became a bit annoyed. The waitress told us there was some snafu with the kitchen taking it off of the order, and she kept assuring us my order would appear soon, but we waited and waited with no sign of it. Finally they took it off our bill, which was fine with me because I was fairly full... and then someone came out with it. It was so delicious that I said they should put it back on our bill, because it was definitely worth paying for, but they said they couldn't. Travalon also got a coconut mule, which tasted very tropical, and he got a sundae bar as part of the buffet. It had everything - he even had Cap'n Crunch on his sundae! He was also supposed to get either soup or a salad bar, but he never bothered to get either. I feel bad that we got the expensive seafood for free, but they were definitely doing brisk business, and after all Travalon saved them money with not getting the salad bar.

After that we went for a walk nearby and saw these crane sculptures.

There were beautiful hills across the lake.

We took the ferry across the river, and as we waited for it, we watched old Cap'n Crunch ads. (He was created by the same person who did Rocky & Bullwinkle.) The ads were rather silly, especially the ones with the Crunch Berry Creature, but there was one for a smaller, snack-sized box of cereal that caught my attention because it was called a "munch box." As a kid I probably would have just thought that was a funny pun on "lunchbox," but adult me found it really dirty. I pictured myself saying to him, "Cap'n, eat my munch box!" Maybe things were simpler back in the 80's, but I can't imagine them calling something for kids a "munch box" now. Would Cap'n do the dishes afterwards? Okay, I'll stop talking about cunning linguists now.

Our next stop was the dam at Sauk, where there were plenty of pelicans.

We could see black birds hanging out with the pelicans, which usually wouldn't be so strange since cormorants are always hanging out around pelicans, but these didn't look like cormorants. Travalon took a photo of them, and they were turkey vultures!

I have never seen turkey vultures hang out on the ground around water before. They are usually either circling around in the sky or sitting in trees. Here's a pelican and a turkey vulture together.

Are they hunting cooperatively now? This is very new to me.

We hurried home so I could grab my mandolin and go to the Marquette Lakeside Festival at Yahara Park, to play with my Slow Irish Session peeps. I got there just in time, and there were only about six of us until a really good local fiddler joined us. People seemed to enjoy our traditional Irish tunes, and afterwards I asked about swag from the music club, if it was for sale, but the owner said, "No, take it," so I was sort of paid with a tote bag. Travalon and I explored the festival, which was similar to other festivals in town, but smaller, and much closer to water - Lake Monona was right there. Each end of the park had a stage with a very loud rock band on it (the music club had acts playing between sets, as one band tore down and the next one set up), and neither of us liked the music, so we left and went to a sub shop near where band practice would be. (Our new fiddler hosted it.) You couldn't sit in the sub shop, and they didn't have a bathroom, so Travalon bought my sub while I went across the street to the Regent Street Co-op. They had a decent bathroom, but oddly they didn't have regular water (the sub shop had been out of it too), so I settled for some strange infused water that Travalon liked better than I did, so I gave it to him. We also picked up some necessities for the week there, like coffee and pita bread and bananas.

We practiced in the new fiddler's living room, sandwiched between a baby grand piano and an upright piano. The fiddler has a little boy who had just turned three yesterday and received a toy trumpet, so he tooted along with us a little. He told his mom to ask me this question: "What do you call your little guitar?" I told him it was called a mandolin, and that I could play chords like a guitar but also melody like the violins. Best of both worlds! Tomorrow I plan to go to a Moldy Jam jam, and we'll see if I play melody or chords... or both. Moldy Jam did play at the music club tent at the festival, but when they put out the call, they said only people who had played with them for a long time. Whereas I was personally asked to come to the Slow Irish Session performance, which makes sense, because I'm one of the regulars. Maybe if the music club has a tent at the festival next year, I'll be asked to play with Moldy Jam too.

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