Day of the Dead in Kenosha

 

Yesterday Travalon and I drove to Kenosha and met Tiffy for lunch at Sooshibay, the restaurant with the sushi conveyor belt. Travalon doesn't like sushi, but you can order things off the menu, and then I've seen them come on the track above the conveyor belt. However, Travalon's food was brought out by a waiter, all old-school, so we wondered if the track was broken... until seeing other people get their food on it. What the hey? After that the three of us took a walk at Petrifying Springs Park. 

Those photos were taken by Travalon using his phone. Here are photos I took with my phone.

After we bid adieu to Tiffy, we got coffee at Summer Moon and then went to Mass at Holy Rosary.

On the way to Waukegan, we passed the Kenosha Business Park, where I had seen a very strange tree on the way to meet Tiffy. We went to find it and couldn't get closer than this, but you can see that in the dark it has a light on top, plus it has cellphone things on it, so my suspicion that it was a "tree" disguising a cellphone tower seems to be correct.

My phone identified a plant in this photo, so I wondered if it meant the "tree," but it said "cattails," which isn't right either, since the plants in the foreground are domestic corn.

We drove to the Genesee Theater in Waukegan to see Tower of Power and War, and they were both excellent. The crowd was a mature one (we were among the youngest people there), and very diverse and friendly. If you like funk music, you must be part of the "family" no matter what color you are. Enjoy this photo my phone took while I was trying to make a video of War singing my favorite song by them, "Cisco Kid." (Longtime readers may remember how this song woke me up the day we had lunch delivered by the robot.) (I did succeed in making a video, and it's pretty cool, so if people want me to post it, I can try putting it on YouTube and seeing if I don't get a copyright violation.) 

In case you were wondering (because I know you were), Travalon's favorite song by War is "Spill the Wine," which according to the lead singer is one of their oldest songs. Many people's favorite song by War is "Low Rider," so that's what they did for an encore. They played second; Tower of Power played first, and they just kept the funk up nonstop, whereas War's lead singer talked a little too much for our taste... but when they did bring the funk, oh man did they bring the funk! They funked so hard that I'm still funking just thinking about it!

We got back to our hotel in Kenosha around midnight and just fell into bed without showering, figuring we would swim first thing in the morning. The pool opened at six, and we were up at 6:30 due to the time change, so we had it all to ourselves. After showering and checking out, we went down to the lighthouse in Kenosha, on the shores of Lake Michigan.

After a lovely walk there, we went to the Mars Cheese Castle (as featured previously on this blog) and had an early lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich and some mac and cheese that I took home. I also bought another Mars Cheese Castle shirt, but this one is neon coral, not tie-dyed like the first one. It ought to glow under blacklight. We got home in time to watch most of the Packer game, and at half time I took a rosary walk in the neighborhood and saw these red trees with a very red car.

The Packers were struggling against Carolina, partly because the refs called a penalty on them every time they had a little momentum going. Worse, it was Jordan Love's birthday today - how sad to lose on your own birthday, and by a field goal! However, I didn't know they lost during my drumming lesson. My FitBit said I got a workout from drumming, but I can't see what it thought my exercise was because it's being weird. After that Travalon and I took a brief walk near Yahara Park, then I cheated and put my FitBit on my dominant hand so I'd get my move hours for 5:00. I got them, and then my steps for the day, and my FitBit thinks I did twenty minutes on an elliptical while I was playing Irish tunes on the violin. We had a really great session today, especially when we did "Si Bheag, Si Mhor" very gently and were really together - the air just sang. That was in honor of the souls of the departed for Day of the Dead, although the song about a big fairy hill and a little fairy hill really has nothing to do with Purgatory, but it seemed like a better choice for dedicating to them than, say, the frantic reel "Drowsy Maggie" or the complicated slip jig "Kid on the Mountain." Or really any hornpipe. 

My FitBit is finally showing me all my workouts today: Swimming this morning, the walk by the lake, the walk in the neighborhood, "rowing machine" while I was drumming, the walk by Yahara Park, and two different times it thought I was using an elliptical machine while we were fiddling. Who knew playing music could be such good exercise?

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