Trail Magic and China Lights

 

Yesterday Travalon and I had a relaxed morning, and I finished the novena to St. Francis that I'd been doing (the final prayers). I put on my Tau cross rosary necklace, and we took our boat out for a long ride into the marsh and out into the lake far enough to see the Capitol building. Then we headed to Delafield to have lunch at a pizza place that gives Trail Magic for the Mammoth Hike Challenge, which in this case was a discount. We got our photos taken in the big yellow chairs, but I'm having trouble finding where exactly I'm supposed to post this photo.

We also went to Blue Collar Coffee and got Trail Magic (a discount) on drinks - I had a cranberry orange matcha latte, iced - so good! Then we went to Voodoo Brewing because they were having an event. We got our photo taken with the Mammoth!

I bought a commemorative shirt, and Travalon bought a hat, and we got a commemorative mug from Voodoo that has a clip for a handle, so you could put it on your belt buckle. You got one free pour with the purchase of the mug (sorry, no photo yet), so we had a very tasty sour beer. Delafield really wants you to shop there - check out this sign.

On the way to the Ice Age Trail segment we were going to hike on, we passed Merton Millpond and saw one egret kind of close and two on the far side of the pond, but while Travalon had his good camera with him, the photos didn't really turn out. Then we hiked on the Loew Lake Segment, along the Oconomowoc River. It was an unseasonably hot day, but that segment is very shady, so we were fine. Here is a photo of me along the path.

Then we went to a Franciscan Convent in the town of St. Francis, but it was not open. We had dinner at a place called Pho Ever - I had the seafood pho, and it tasted as wonderful as it smelled. In the evening we went to China Lights at the Boerner Botanical Gardens, as we do every year. This year's theme was Prehistoric Sea Creatures. Here are some photos. 

This little beaver popped up from the flower it was hiding in.

This room was full of fiberoptic jellyfish. It was so beautiful!

It makes me laugh how Travalon's perspective was so different, since he's so much taller.

The floor was a mirror so they seemed to be beneath our feet too.

My favorite thing about this was the toddler whose dad was holding her up to the jellyfish. I've never seen such a happy human in my entire life!

This butterfly pavilion was constantly changing colors.

Our Chinese Zodiac signs: I'm a Pig.

Travalon is a Snake.

They always have the huge dragon every year.

There are lots more photos, so I may do another post on a slow day.

Today after Mass Travalon and I went out to Cross Plains to have lunch at the coffee shop there (Trail Magic = discount), and we walked a bit on the trails outside the coffee shop. Here is Black Earth Creek.

Then we went on a hike with Rich and Kathbert at the Cross Plains State Park. Rich took this photo of Travalon and me in front of Blue Mound.

Then we took a hike on the trail in a direction we hadn't taken before, and we saw some cool rock formations.

That was more hiking than we meant to do today, after walking over six and a half miles yesterday, but now we are a quarter of the way done with the Mammoth Challenge just counting actual hiking. Of course, one fun thing about this challenge is that you can get bonus points for attending events and using Trail Magic, and if we add all those in, we're almost done. But we'll still probably try to get all the miles from hiking anyway because that's how we roll.

In the evening I went to the Slow Irish Session, and about half my bandmates were there, as well as Famie my Irish teacher. I completely forgot to tell her that my Irish Fest Summer School T-shirt has a pattern that glows under blacklight! Our bass player brought her fiddle, and she asked where my fiddle was. I should bring it to the session, since it needs some love too - Mandy shouldn't get all the love - but I was tired after hiking so much, and the mandolin is like an old friend. I should bring her to band practice and the fiddle to the Irish session. Tomorrow there is a Moldy Jam jam, and I'll bring the mandolin because she is quieter, so people can't hear as much when I make a mistake on these tunes I am just learning.

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All Saturned Out

 

Yesterday I worked on campus and walked with Hardingfele at lunch. Upon returning home, I went out on the dock to join some neighbors for Thirsty Thursday, which was a lot of fun. The friendly little dog Lucy was there and climbing all over me, just like when she was a puppy. She is a Havanese and very small.

Today I worked from home, and at lunch Travalon and I walked on Governor's Island. We didn't see any strange watercraft, but the other day on the way to work we did, one boat that looked like a grandstand and the boat used to install lifts, and my coworker said he went on a boat ride with a buddy in Bishop's Bay last weekend, and they saw an ice fishing shanty motoring along, and a raft with a tent on it. 

In the evening Travalon and I went to the Edgewater Oktoberfest, which was more lightly attended than last year. They still had kasespaetzle at that late hour, and the proprietor said, "I made twice as much as last year (because they ran out so early), and there are half as many people this year." We had the spaetzle, and Travalon had some chicken schnitzel, but we were unable to finish the spaetzle so we took it back to the car. (Guess we could have split one order.) The band was not an oompah band but some country band that played a couple of good songs (we think one was a Bob Wills song), but then they played some sappy waltzes, so we left.

Our next stop was the Monona Terrace for Moon Over Monona.  I was dressed all appropriately in my glow-in-the-dark T-shirt with stars in the pattern of a loon, my planetary Hawaiian shirt, my planetary socks, and my star earrings. (Sorry, didn't take a photo.) Last year we attended this free event and nobody had a telescope pointing at Saturn. This year, every line we waited in ended up at a telescope pointed at... Saturn. It's my favorite planet, partly because it rules Capricorn but mostly just because it has rings, but it started to feel like a joke by the fourth time we looked at it. People would say they thought the line was for Neptune, or the Andromeda Galaxy, or the Moon, but it was always just Saturn. Even the ones I didn't wait in were all pointed at Saturn. Finally we found one that was pointed at the bright, shiny moon. I was chatting with the couple behind us in line, and the woman said, "You have a lot of interest in astronomy! Or is it astrology?" I said, "Both, really," but I don't think she knew enough about either for me to bother asking her sign. I did tell them about the solar system along the bike path, starting with the Sun at the Monona Terrace, and the woman behind them in line chimed in to talk about it too. I will say that we saw several moons around Saturn tonight, so that was kind of cool. What a change from last year.

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Blacklisted Band

 

Today I worked on campus, and both during my morning break and at lunch I walked with Seabird. She sent me some photos of birds from the Bronx Zoo, since she knows I love birds.

I walked with Hardingfele during my afternoon break, and she said she had some gossip for me. I asked what, and she said, "You were right." I'm thinking, am I not always right? but I said, "Do go on." So she said during the band practice I couldn't attend because of Anna Banana II's farewell party and the quasi-ELO concert, the bass player "gleefully" (Hardingfele's words) told the rest of the band that our band has been blacklisted, and that nobody will work with us, because of that gig in the high school gym. I said, "But didn't you say you worked with the caller on a gig after that?" and she said she must have been mistaken. So I am wondering how extensive this blacklisting is: are the gigs we used to have regularly, like the Mackenzie Center in the spring and the orchard in the fall, also casualties of this shunning? They told us they didn't want us anymore right after that. They both said they don't do live music anymore, but Hardingfele says they do; they just don't want us. This happened two months before the pandemic, so it wasn't obvious at first because of course we got no gigs during the pandemic, but I did notice things did not pick up for us afterwards. I chalked it up to several of our members being well over eighty and just not playing at the same level we used to play at, though I'm not sure we were ever all that good. I do remember a wedding years ago where it felt like we were really unprofessional with not having our music ready to go easily from tune to tune... and really, why do we still need music for these tunes we have done for years? Neither Hardingfele nor I could remember if we were part of the problem during that disastrous gig, because the big argument was whether or not we should be miked, and apparently the band said no and prevailed, but the caller felt the kids lost interest in dancing because they couldn't hear us. This was in January of 2020 but it feels like a million years ago, and I remember some tension but can't say if I contributed to it or if it was all between our leader and the caller. One fiddler had a broken leg during the gig. All I remember is the caller being short with us, but I wasn't sure why. Now that I go to the Moldy Jam jams, she is in those, and at first she glared at me but I wasn't sure why. She seems to have softened towards me, since I follow all the Moldy Jam rules, so I might try to ask her if I contributed to whatever misunderstanding we all had that fateful evening.

On a lighter note, a piece of that mysterious tradescantia that started growing in the pot with the fuchsia (which has since died) broke off and started growing on the ground, and it's so happy that it's blooming.

Speaking of flowers, I had my post-operative appointment yesterday, and I loved this painting in the exam room.

The surgeon said I have "graduated," and unless I have more issues, she won't need to see me again. She said everything looked good, and I asked if there were anything to explain why I could never get pregnant, and she said nope, no obvious issues, sometimes it's just a mystery. I know I was a little older, but I've known plenty of people who had a kid or two in their forties, so it's not that strange to think I could have too. Guess I was just never meant to be a mother.

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