Shamrock Club St. Patrick's Day Party 2026

 

Today after Mass and recycling the plastic, Travalon and I had to hurry up to Waunakee for the Shamrock Club St. Patrick's Day party. We bought fifteen raffle tickets and then watched the Trinity Irish Dancers put on a show before dinner sitting across from the Irish Person of the Year. When Travalon asked him what the secret is to being named Irish Person of the Year, he replied, "Be born Jewish." He is Jewish, but his mother died when he was very young, and his stepmother was Irish so he learned a lot from her. He is very entertaining - he said in his capacity as Irish Person of the Year, he was declaring a Club song, which was that "I'm a man you don't meet every day" song you always hear at Irish singalongs. Despite all our raffle tickets, not one of our numbers was drawn, but someone gave Travalon a ticket because their number had been drawn multiple times, so he got some Irish tea and a tea towel that is green but not particularly Irish - it has owls on it. I wore the shamrock socks someone gave me at the last Shamrock Club party because his numbers kept getting chosen and ours never were. We are always unlucky that way. We didn't have any of our tickets drawn at the wild game feast either.

Then we had to rush to the cemetery because Richard Bonomo decided we would put flowers on Mr. Why's grave today without consulting me about whether it was a good day. It was a beautiful day weatherwise, so after Rich took the requisite photo of Kathbert, Pete the Sailor Man, me, and himself in front of the grave to send to Mr. Why's family back in Singapore, Travalon and I took a walk at Jackson's landing to try to see swans. It was too swampy to get to the place where we might have been able to see them, but he did take a photo of Mariner's from across the river. You can see the lighthouse that I hope they spare when they build the new restaurant.

We went back to Cherokee Marsh and saw a young eagle on a muskrat lodge.

There were lots of common mergansers.

I like this photo of a male mallard and female common merganser gazing at each other.

I heard a woodpecker and thought it was the pileated one, so I followed the sound and discovered a trail we had never seen before - we will have to come back and explore it. We went to the spot where we had seen swans last week, but all we saw were a ton of scaups.

This is another kind of duck, but I'm not sure what. It looks a bit like a ruddy duck, but not reddish enough.

Travalon also got some shots of goldeneyes, but they aren't clear enough to post. We went to Tenney Park too, but we didn't see anything there. Then we came home, and I prayed a rosary while fighting to stay awake. At one point I lost the fight and woke up thinking, "Who is that oil baron? Hey, don't get stuck on that magnate!" which is a pun, since "magnate" sounds like "magnet" and things get stuck on magnets. So that's what my brain does when it's supposed to be reflecting on the Third Glorious Mystery - it writes dad jokes. And not even good ones, if in fact it can be said that there are ANY good dad jokes...

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Spring Green Gig and Bach Around the Clock

 

Yesterday Travalon got some photos of northern shovelers from our dock.

He also saw goldeneyes and hooded mergansers, but those shots aren't as clear. My uncle in Chicago saw a possum in his yard.

Today Travalon and I drove out to Spring Green so that I could play at the General Store, as our band does on a somewhat annual basis. We got there in time to have lunch and my free latté, and we split a "chocolate therapy" brownie. The Dairyman's Daughter came out to hear us, and so did our superfan who is our leader's neighbor and also Hardingfele's feral cat trapping buddy, and they both tipped us, as well as a family who listened to us the whole time and even waltzed to one of our tunes. We got a whopping $5 in tips each. To be fair, that is probably all that we deserved, because one of our fiddles and our guitar player got confused and dropped out a lot. The accordion player and I kept it going with the chords, but when the fiddler dropped out, we had no melody because Hardingfele insists on playing the harmony. I love harmony as much as the next person, but it's really more important to have the melody. Several husbands were there who made videos, so I can see that I bop my head while playing. That is one advantage of playing the fiddle - it's harder to bop my head.

Today was both Bach Around the Clock and the International Festival at the Overture Center just like last year, but this year I didn't have to choose because I couldn't really attend either, since I spent most of the day in Spring Green. We did get back to town in time for me to see Just Bach (the group that does the lunchtime concerts at the Lutheran church where I used to sing) perform a cantata, and then there was cake afterwards for Bach's birthday. Travalon was a little bummed because he didn't enjoy his trip out to Spring Green that much, since there weren't really any birds around. He did take a few photos.

These couple of photos show some Frank Lloyd Wright visitor center, or, as Pa Hat calls him, Frank Lloyd Wrong.

While I was at Bach Around the Clock, Travalon went to Leopold's, but then it got too crowded so he went to the Arboretum. He took a photo of a wild turkey, but it wasn't really in focus. I asked if there was anything I could do to help redeem his day, so when we went home, I played "The Battle of Evermore" on the mandolin along with the video on YouTube, then I played along with "Mandolin Wind" by Rod Stewart, and then I got out the ukulele and played along with "Ram On" by Paul McCartney, "Yer So Bad" by Tom Petty, and "Good Company" by Queen. The ukulele songs had the chords online; I didn't look to see if the mandolin songs did - I just tried to play them by ear. Travalon said that cheered him up quite a bit. It reminds us of the late, lamented rock jam at the East Side Club and also jamming with my uncle from Colorado. We decided we should do more of this. Travalon was singing along as I tried to play.

A funny thing did happen at Bach Around the Clock: I saw two former choir members, and I talked to the one we call Two Canoes, after a person the bartender at a bar in Jefferson told us about: if you say you have one canoe, this person will say they have two canoes. I know the expression "one-upped" already exists, but Travalon and I made this into a verb: "She two-canoed us again!" Two Canoes was talking about her amazing trip to France, and then she was saying she got to sing with the guy who leads Just Bach, and he has an amazing voice, like she thought I'd never heard him sing before. When he arrived, he asked me how my gig went, since he had seen me walking around the neighborhood earlier this week and we had chatted. So now it looks like I know him so much better than she does, and I didn't even try to make it look that way. Whether she knows him well, I can't say. He just sort of said hi to her, maybe like he knew her, or maybe just like she was a person who was there and he was being polite. Did I two-canoe her?

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Movie Night: O Brother, Where Are Thou?

 

Today I worked from home, and it was such a gloomy day out that at noon I was able to shine the blacklight on our stuffed parrot Jose and get this photo.

It rained on and off today, so Travalon and I could walk outside in the morning but had to walk around the house at noon. I took a walk outside at three, and another at five, when it was very foggy. I'd heard the train horn outside and hurried to where I could see the tracks. The engine was huffing and puffing as if it were pulling a very heavy load, but when it came into view, it was just a normal length for a train in our neighborhood, nothing too long. It was going very slowly. Then I prayed a rosary while walking outside.

When Travalon came home, we watched O Brother, Where Art Thou, a movie I have waited twenty-six years to see. This was the ideal time to see it, after spending some time in Mississippi on our trip, since the movie was set (and mostly filmed) in Mississippi and really captured the eerie, surreal vibe of the place. The soundtrack also had a lot of the songs we listened to while driving through the state, so I understood a lot more about this movie than if I'd seen it when it came out in 2000, and I hadn't been to Mississippi at all. I have been to almost every state (not Texas, Oklahoma, most of New England, and I don't really count Idaho since I went through the panhandle at night while asleep), and no other state has the same eerie feeling like Mississippi does. Alabama does a little bit, but not to the same extent. I freaked out the first time I entered the state because the sign saying "Welcome to Mississippi" scared me, specifically the S's, but it took me a bit to realize that it's because they look like nooses. Other people have noticed this too, but the state maintains it used an old font. Nice try, Mississippi. We know your history. I even found a story online by a guy who was driving north on the very eerie Highway 45 and found himself in a creepy town that he could never find again. I kind of believe it.

My one coworker believes it too. We have signs that a previous coworker made for us to put on our doors, like "In a meeting," "At lunch," "On vacation," and "Working from home." A couple of weeks ago my "At lunch" sign disappeared, and I searched high and low for it, but it was gone. I asked this coworker if I could use hers, since she never puts her signs up, so she lent it to me. Then on Wednesday as I was getting ready to take a walk with Seabird, the sign seemed to fall from the ceiling. I brought the borrowed sign (which frankly was in rough shape) back to my coworker, and she asked where my sign had been, so I told her the story, and she said, "Sounds like a poltergeist!" I said there had to be some logical explanation, but she just said, "I like to believe there are things we cannot explain." Fair enough - I think so too.

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Lots of Craic at the Elks Lodge

 

Still not done blogging about my plaid tam... I was looking at the red on it and it seemed so bright, so on a hunch I shone my blacklight on it. And check it out!

On the one hand, this probably means the hat isn't that old, since I don't think they made yarn that glows under blacklight in the 1920's. Google AI says it wouldn't be more than thirty years old at the most. But on the other hand, come on, isn't it cool? Every day there's something about this hat that just makes me love it more.

This morning Travalon didn't go to Cherokee Marsh, since it was so foggy out; he only ventured as far as our dock to go birdwatching. The ring-necked ducks look a spooky in the fog.

They were joined by a couple of buffleheads.

Meanwhile, I was on campus but had a very quiet day since not too many people were around, although my coworker whose birthday is coming up on St. Joseph's Day talked to me quite a bit. Hardingfele was busy, so I took a long rosary walk at lunchtime. It was fairly warm out, so I wore my lighter coat and my argyle beret, but it was very misty.

In the evening Travalon and I went to the Elks Lodge again for the second First Thursday Irish Session. We saw a bunch of Shamrock Club people there, and the red-headed flute player was playing but came over to talk to us at the end. I also thought I saw an old coworker of mine, so I called her name, but she didn't look my way. I sent her a message on social media in case she saw it in time, which she didn't, but after getting home she verified that she was there. I also saw some Moldy Jam people. It was truly craic - not just good music and good food, but good fellowship. The red-headed flute player and my Irish teacher Famie (who was not there tonight) were very happy to hear that I'll be at the Slow Irish Session and the St. Patrick's Day singalong at the music club not this coming Sunday but the one after. I had thought about going to a Cathopalian Mass in Milwaukee, since they only have those sporadically, but Cecil Markovitch was lukewarm about going, and the red-headed flute player couldn't believe I'd want to miss the "high holy days" around St. Patrick's Day. Truly, Travalon has been dreading the coming two weeks for over a month now - he's already feeling over-Celtic'd. But he can go play against Bald Bull while we're playing Irish tunes and singing Irish songs the Sunday after next, and there is a tamburitza concert in Milwaukee next month, so then he can get his Croat on.

We are pondering joining the Elks. We already belong to the East Side Club, the Shamrock Club, and the music club, and I also joined the St. Andrews Society and so far have gotten nothing for my dirt-cheap membership, not even a lousy email. Still, the Elks Lodge is beautiful, and they have food most nights of the week, and the people are very friendly. They were having a salad dressing contest, and I voted for the two that were submitted by the two women who talked to us about joining, so now I'm really on their good side. Neither one won the contest, which surprises me because they were popular with all the Shamrock Club people, and even Travalon liked the peanut butter sesame one. Maybe we can have these two ladies make the salad dressing for our next Shamrock Club event.

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Circus Tent Hat

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I walked with Seabird. I'm thinking of making a collection of people's reactions to my plaid tam:

Tiffy: You sure are getting your Irish on!

Three people on campus: I really like your hat! It's so stylish!

Hardingfelde: That hat is so 70's!

And my new favorite:

Seabird: That hat looks like a circus tent!

She's not wrong, and now I can't unsee it. Here's the photo that made me fall in love with it, which I stole from the seller's site:

Cue circus music. Ah well, maybe I'm a dork, but 50% of the comments indicate that I'm a stylish dork. And now it's a protest hat, with the little red hat pin on it. Of course, I already have a protest hat, and my neighbor said she might be able to get me a full-sized red tasseled hat. Someday I will blog about something other than my hat, but right now I'm kind of obsessed with it.

Meanwhile, Travalon took some photos off our dock and at Cherokee Marsh today. First, some hooded mergansers.

Some ring-necked ducks.

Two female mergansers among the Canada geese. 

And now... swans.

This photo just killed me.

Check it out! A two-headed swan! (Just kidding, of course.)

Some male common mergansers.

And back to swans.

I was planning to go home and relax tonight, but then there was a Union meeting at 6:00, so I was going to go home, get into play clothes, and log in from home. Then another email came saying oops, it was at 5:30, so I sighed and stayed on campus. I got to the meeting place not long before 5:30, but the Leprechaun had not started the meeting yet, so the organizer (who was supposed to be in person but had to go home for some reason) sent a new link, so when we few in-person attendees finally logged into the Zoom meeting, there was nobody else there. The Leprechaun had forgotten his phone, so the other person had to notify him about this. We finally got it together, and the organizer had promised the meeting wouldn't last more than an hour, but it was dragging on, so at 6:30 I took my leave. If I didn't catch the shuttle back to my car, the next one was half an hour later. So now I am exhausted. I'll try to get to bed on time tonight, for once.

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