Jamming on a Monday Night

 

Today I got a couple of messages to do nothing, and you don't have to tell me twice to be lazy. The first one was from my FitBit, which said I have been overtraining lately and shouldn't exert myself too much today. The second one was from my new boss, because the new system went live today but she said there were some problems mapping people so don't do anything, and that is an order I can get behind! I did help a faculty member use the form for the new ticketing system, and it's not nearly as self-explanatory as I'd hoped. She and I were laughing about how useless it really was. Sigh... this means I'll have to train all the faculty in how to use it.

In the evening Travalon drove me to the music club for another Moldy Jam jam, and then he went fishing, but he got rained on. That wasn't in the forecast! I really enjoyed the jam today and felt like I was doing a good job figuring out the tunes I didn't know. When it was my turn to choose a tune, I chose "Butterfly," since I like a) slipjigs and b) any tune in E Dorian. Then the next guy chose "Redwing," which I know, and the next woman chose a tune I know (can't remember what it was now), and I had to recycle some water, but the next guy chose "Kitchen Girl," and it's in A Mixolydian, and I'll stay for anything modal. Also, it was great to have so many tunes in a row that I knew. Oh yeah, the woman chose "Out on the Ocean," which is one we play at the Slow Irish Session. They do some Irish tunes at this jam, but they do more Appalachian fiddling tunes. I should get braver and suggest ones I knew from childhood like "Devil's Dream" and "Rakes of Mallow," because they never play them there, but one of the leaders said they knew them. The thing is, if I suggest a tune, I have to lead it, and it's been forty years since I played "Rakes of Mallow." The bassist in my own band wanted some fiddling tune suggestions, since she is a fiddler first, and I suggested that one, so maybe my band will play it. The other thing is that sometimes the version I know of a tune isn't exactly what they play at the jam, but it's generally close enough to fudge it.

Travalon got home just before I got off of work, so we took a short walk to the dock, and I saw Lazarus was opening its flowers even though it wasn't dark out yet.

However, it wasn't releasing any fragrance at that time. When we got back from the jam, it certainly was. I looked it up online, and if the bugs around here pollinate those flowers, it will make orange berries. It didn't say if they were edible, so I'm guessing not. Since Lazarus's kind are native to sub-Saharan Africa, I'm not sure if the right bugs are around here to pollinate it. The important thing is that the bugs outside are eating the evil bugs that were all over Lazarus and the other monocots. You can see the yellow spots on Lazarus's leaves from where these evil, fuzzy bugs were sucking juice out of its leaves. I can't ever seem to get rid of the bugs no matter what kind of spray I try, but they do disappear in the summer when I take the plants outside. Greg is too big to take outside now, so it will just have to fight off the bugs on its own. It was looking terrible, but it's looking happier, so maybe it is winning the fight. I have had these plants for at least sixteen years, going by my blog posts, and somehow they still keep living to see another day. That's the beauty of dracaenas. The downside is that they are apparently very prone to stupid fuzzy bugs.

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Niko's Serbo-Croatian Day

 

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?

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Baby Gallinules!

 

This morning we checked out of our hotel, and I took a picture of this cutie who greets everyone at the front door.

Then we went back to Rib Mountain and hiked the Green Trail, which is much less strenuous than the Blue Trail we hiked yesterday. Travalon found this rock with what looks like a snake trail on it. I said it was probably created by water.

We also saw this woodpecker pecking away at a tree.

Then we went to Cedar Creek Grill for the sandwiches we remembered being so good, the grilled vegetable and goat cheese one for me and the walleye one for Travalon. We drove to Lomira, a small town near Horicon Marsh, for a cookout hosted by my old college friend. Tiffy was there, and so were some family members of my friend, including her hilarious sister. After the Chicago cousins had headed home, the five of us hung out with my friend's dog Pluto for a while, until Travalon and I headed to Horicon Marsh. It was getting near dusk by then, so we thought it might be a prime birdwatching hour. And guess what we saw? A gallinule with babies!

Can you see the little babies with the same red nose as the mama? They kept swimming around really fast, and it was hard for Travalon to focus on them, but he got some good shots of Mama Gallinule.

I saw two yellow-headed blackbirds and heard one with its distinctive call, but we didn't go far enough into the marsh to see the black-necked stilts and all the babies everyone is posting photos of on social media, because we saw lightning in the distance and heard nonstop thunder. We did drive around the auto tour and saw at least ten rabbits, which is surprising because we never see rabbits there. We joked that there was a bunny convention at the marsh. Then the rain started, and we kept encountering geese on the road. We did get home safely, and I saw that Lazarus the Corn Plant Dracaena is now in full bloom and smells amazing. I will try to get a photo tomorrow.

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Independence Day on Rib Mountain

 

Late this morning Travalon and I met Tiffy for an early lunch at the Venezuelan restaurant, where I got their coconut tilapia and the sugar cane juice that is fresh made there. She headed off to our old college friend's house, while Travalon and I drove up to Wausau. We took a vigorous hike on the top of Rib Mountain, where we saw this snake.

Here are some more photos from our hike.

After that we spent some time trying to figure out if we could watch the fireworks from up there. That is the reason we came here, and apparently it was a perfect view in the past, but a few years ago they started setting the fireworks off at the airport, and the trees block the view. We talked quite a bit to the ranger, who said she heard people could no longer see it except from the tower, and that would be crawling with teenagers. Another guy said he thought we should be able to see them from a certain spot on Rib Mountain, but he didn't know for sure. So we went to the boat launch the ranger had recommended and checked it out before having shrimp at Panda Express. I've never eaten there before - it's not bad. 

During dinner we discussed whether we should take a chance on Rib Mountain or go to the boat launch, which seemed like more of a sure thing, plus it had a real bathroom as opposed to pit toilets. We did go there, and Travalon got a chance to fish, but all he caught were weeds. People kept arriving, so we knew this park was definitely a good viewing spot. The fireworks started ten minutes later than scheduled, but they were great, especially a perfect red spiral. I was a little bummed that they ended with those extremely bright, extremely loud white ones that are my least favorite, but most of the rest of the grand finale was in fact grand. Here are some photos. There were lots of forget-me-nots at the river's edge.

This is me before it got dark.

The view to the north was gorgeous.

We saw a lot of herons fly by.

We saw an osprey sitting in a tree and flapping its wings.

The view to the north again.

There were lots of lit-up boats.

Here are some fireworks.

As soon as they were over, we noticed a group of kayakers that were all lit up, and one had long strands of lights dragging behind the kayak in the water. This photo kind of shows it. A boat photobombed it on the left. The kayak with the long strands is the one closest to the boat.

Then we came back and swam in the hotel pool. From 10-11 pm no children are allowed in the pool, so we figured that was the perfect time to go, and in fact nobody else was in it. We swam for a while and then went into the hot tub built into a fake grotto. This entire hotel has a North Woods theme to it, so the pool area looks like a lodge. We kind of feel like we're up north too, with the river and the woods. Sometime this summer we will have to truly get up North.

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Halfway to One Hundred and Seven

 

Today was my half-birthday, and as my regular readers know, I often celebrate it. I hadn't thought much about it this year until Tiffy asked about it. Two Christmases ago Travalon had given me a $50 gift card to Ishnala so we could go for my half-birthday, but I forget why we didn't go last year. It was on a Wednesday, so that may have been part of it. This year I had no meetings (for once), and everyone else was taking it off, so both my bosses said I could have it off. 

In the morning Travalon and I went to Ogden's, a little diner on North Street that we pass every Sunday when it's packed. We thought if we went early on a Thursday we'd be okay, but there was still a 20-minute wait, so we took a 20-minute walk. I ordered a quiche, and Travalon said it was a quiche muffin:

I should have looked at the specials board, because they had a smoked gouda omelette today, and I love smoked gouda. Then we walked across the street to the bakery/coffee shop/brewery to check it out and bought a couple of bakery items we haven't eaten yet, plus Travalon got a mocha. When we got back home, I did DuoLingo while he got ready for work. I got this comment:

Travalon sent me a photo of a toy where he works that looks like Stalin:

Propaganda?? He says this is the train conductor. Speaking of trains, we heard one as we were going back to the car, and yesterday I saw one on campus. 

I went downtown to meet Tiffy, and we had lunch at the Globe, got bubble tea, and hung out on the top floor of her sister's building until Travalon was back from work, and then the three of us drove to Ishnala for my half-birthday dinner. They told us it would be about a two-hour wait, which turned out to be very accurate, and that sounded perfect. We went to find a hiking trail, since the restaurant is in Mirror Lake State Park, and a rowdy trio of middle-aged women in a convertible followed us and asked if we were leaving so they could have our parking spot, but we said no, just going for a hike. We couldn't find the path, so we went down toward the beach and sat around a barrel to have a mocktail and listen to "Dennis," who was singing and playing the guitar. The rowdy trio of ladies were going to sit at the next barrel, but a man in a high-vis vest told them they couldn't, someone else was going to sit there, and they said, "You're the guy who said we couldn't park in the spot we found either!" He ushered a couple to the barrel, and Tiffy said, "Are these barrels by reservation only? Did we take someone else's barrel?" so I gestured at the two barrels side-by-side nearby and said, "I reserved a double barrel!" One of the rowdy ladies, apparently named Heidi, got up and sang with Dennis at his invitation, and she was actually really good - "I'd rather listen to her than him," said Tiffy. Heidi was a pistol, and the Dennis and Heidi show was pretty entertaining, probably lubricated by the old fashioned cocktails they were both drinking.

It was quite hot out, so after we finished our mocktails, we tried to find somewhere to sit in one of the indoor, air-conditioned bars, but they were all packed. We found a shady spot on a patio overlooking Dennis, who also played the fiddle quite competently, and we chatted until the buzzer went off, letting us know our table was ready. I had the daily special, a filet mignon in a pistachio pesto with goat cheese, and the sauce was delicious, but the meat was too good for a sauce. Travalon and Tiffy had surf and turf, a tenderloin with butterfly shrimp, and then we all had ice cream drinks: I had a grasshopper, Tiffy had a chocolate brandy Alexander, and Travalon had a salted caramel one. They even gave Tiffy and me tote bags for our leftovers! 

As we were leaving, we saw a little golf cart that must take people to and from the overflow parking lot, since it's quite a ways away. Travalon said that might be a fun job, so we imagined him wearing a high-vis vest, driving a golf cart, and telling people what barrels they can and can't sit at. We saw a lot of deer along the side of the road heading back home, but downtown was very quiet so we had no problems with pedestrians while dropping Tiffy off. Then we got to our area of town, and there were police barricades everywhere, and a very rude policeman wouldn't tell us how we could get home when they were forcing us to go south, but Travalon figured it out. Still, a twenty-minute drive from downtown took us an hour! But then I came home to an unexpected surprise: the guy who leads that secret club I'm in had sent me a Happy Half-Birthday video! He said be sure to celebrate it because Adultitis hates that. Believe me, I've been celebrating it all day! But I appreciate the message.

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Free Weed

 

Time for a True Story: I was down on Library Mall some time ago when some students handed me a red plastic cup full of dirt, and they said that if I watered it, I'd get flowers. I did water it faithfully, and it grew and had some little white flowers.

Know what this is? It's American Black Nightshade, aka a weed. And I can prove it's a weed, because yesterday when I came into my office, it had shriveled up like I hadn't watered it in weeks. I debated about throwing it away, since it's a WEED and all, but I felt bad for it and watered it. And you know it's a weed because within twenty minutes it looked like this. No plant you would actually want to grow would recover so completely when just a few minutes earlier it was all desiccated and already looking dead. The real question is why did these agricultural club students want to promote themselves by giving me a cup full of WEEDS?

Speaking of weed, at our weekly department meeting this morning, the chair was saying that as she cleaned out her old office in preparation for moving back into it from the chair office, she found a really old bus schedule for Route E from when all the bus routes had letters. Then they went to numbers, and now they have either, or both, like my route the D2. I said I remembered that, and one day these two young guys who were clearly stoned had grabbed a bunch of the schedules and were making words with them, and one guy said, "Dude, I spelled Jamaica!" Later I mentioned that last week was my eighth anniversary in the department, and two of the others were reminiscing about taking a walk on one's first day where they got baked, meaning it was hot out, but another coworker said, "You got baked?" and I said, "Did you make words out of bus schedules?"

Speaking of buses, the other day Travalon and I saw a car with a license plate that said "1 Big D," and I was surprised because it was a family-type car and not a sports car like you'd expect from someone bragging about his size on his license plate, and then we saw the Big Bendy B Bus, but I accidentally called it the Big D Bus. Now before the shuttle I always took the D bus (technically the D2, since there's also a D1 bus), and it had never struck me as dirty before, but somehow the Big D Bus sounds dirty.

Stand by for some important DuoLingo announcements:

You may now return to your previously scheduled activity. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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