This morning Travalon and I got up as early as we would on a workday, because we were meeting Cecil Markovitch and the Single B-Boy at 8:30 to head to Milwaukee. We ended up getting to the Croatian church half an hour early, so we grabbed some coffee nearby. The priest was not Croatian (I believe he was from somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa), so the parts he did were in English, but a lot of the Mass was in Croatian. I had read the readings first thing this morning, but ironically the only one I could remember was the Gospel reading, which was the only one in English. I was puzzled because at least a third of the congregation had matching shirts on, dark blue polo shirts with trim around the neck and short sleeves that was a sort of floral red and green pattern. Were we supposed to wear a uniform?
After Mass it all became clear: the people in the matching shirts were the tamburitza group. I may have mentioned how I think that little instrument Travalon found for me in an antiques shop, that I was calling a "bouzouki," is actually the smallest size of tamburitza. We paid $10 to attend the concert in the church hall, and that included lunch of grilled stuff and random salads. There were desserts for a minimal cost. We sat with a friendly guy who is a pillar of the congregation and Croatian by marriage, and he and Travalon and Cecil talked about their Croationness while the B-Boy and I, who are mostly Celtic, had little to add to the conversation. There was well over an hour between when Mass got out and the concert started, so I took a walk outside, where I discovered a bike path and even saw a train. The day was cool and rainy, but that was a pleasant change after all the intense heat lately.
The concert was really good. It reminded me of the balalaika group here in town. Here's a sample.
Despite the rain, we went to the Milwaukee Lakefront and walked out on the breakwater. It has a lot of cool graffiti and artwork on it.
I couldn't back up enough to get this whole one into the picture without ending up in the lake, but it seems to tell a story:
I just loved the colors on this next one, but it's not so artistic:
And here are pictures that Travalon took:
It was very foggy on the lake and downtown.
After walking there, we went to South Shore Park and walked some more, ending up sitting on a fishing pier. Travalon took a photo of a fabulous catamaran moored there.
I like the view of downtown from this angle.
We went to Old Towne Serbian restaurant for dinner at five sharp. It's right by St. Josephat's Basilica.
They seemed not quite ready for us; they opened a few minutes late and then seemed surprised that we had reservations for five. The food was delicious, and we were there for over two hours, laughing really hard about everything, like Cecil had never heard of "animated shorts," which is what I've always heard short cartoons called, so he imagined it was an item of clothing. Then he told a story about how he was once wearing shorts and some guy told him he had great legs, so he went walking on Park Street all the time hoping it would happen again, and the B-Boy said, "No, that happened on Wilson Street." So we were all like, "That's why it never happened again!" and he said he needed animated shorts and it would happen again. You may be wondering why we went to a Serbian restaurant when the rest of our day was Croatian, but there apparently aren't any Croatian restaurants in Milwaukee.
The sun had been hiding all day, but it came out as we drove west toward home for a spectacular sunset. When Travalon and I got home, I checked on Lazarus the Corn Plant Dracaena. The flowers had been open last night, but this morning when I went to take a photo, they were closed. However, when we arrived home well after dark, they were open again.
They are kind of pretty, but it's really the fragrance that is what makes them wonderful. I wish I could post that for you. It was lovely having Jolly Bob bloom in the house when it bloomed, because it filled the whole place with the fragrance, but since Lazarus is outside, insects might pollinate the flowers. Maybe I will get corn plant dracaena seeds. I wonder how hard they are to grow from seed?
Famous Hat
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