Basque in Shakespeare?

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I went to the Just Bach concert. Today was choral works; they had two of Johann Sebastian's older cousins also on the program, and one of the pieces was "Furchte Dich Nicht" by Johann Christoph Bach, which I sang with the Lutheran choir ages ago, and which I listen to pretty regularly on YouTube. Which version? All of them! I hadn't heard it live before (other than when I was singing it myself), and it was so beautiful that I cried. The pieces by JS Bach were gorgeous too. Afterwards I saw Pete the Sailor Man and the guy we hiked with at the beginning of the pandemic, and they had a woman with them I hadn't met before. She said, "That was so beautiful, it was almost enough to make me change religions!" since she's Jewish. If you want to hear this music yourself, it will be posted on the Just Bach website on Sunday. You can always find previous concerts there as well.

The Professor Formerly Known As Banjo Player tagged me on social media with a post about how Shakespeare actually threw some Basque into one of his plays, but nobody realized it because it was nonsense words, since he didn't actually know Basque but was kind of familiar with the sound of it. This got me thinking about how, during the pandemic when I took that Basque class online, it made me feel twenty years old again because that was how old I was when I was living over there, studying the language. I am so far from fluent, but it started to come back to me, and even more interesting was when we discussed Basque culture and it actually sounded familiar to me, as if I had grown up in it, because I had lived in it for several months. I did feel a little weird when I was picking up the language more quickly than my classmates, who all had Basque last names, and it felt like they were sort of resentful. That's not to say that I wouldn't do another online Basque class, given the opportunity, but as far as I know, our teacher isn't offering them anymore. They did say I was an "honorary Basque," and they even said I was a distant cousin, since the Irish are supposedly the most genetically similar to the Basques. There is just no substitute for living in a place to really learn the language, and maybe if I ever get a chance to do the Camino, I'll get to speak it again, since that goes right through Basque country. And despite the pleas of many, many of us, DuoLingo shows no interest in creating a Basque course. Bummer!

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Basque Class or Basketball?

 

Travalon said I should blog about this, so here goes: as my readers probably recall, last week we didn't have Basque class due to "unforeseen circumstances," and I joked that the teacher probably didn't know his team was going to be playing that night. Then on Sunday Travalon told me there were actually March Madness games on Monday this week too, so I joked that our teacher would cancel Basque class again. Sure enough... he said he had been exposed to COVID (like we could get it via Zoom), and that just that afternoon he was developing symptoms. So I replied, "Yeah, I didn't know there were going to be March Madness games tonight either. I hope you feel well soon." Then after a few minutes I thought better of basically calling him a liar, so I sent a second email saying please don't kick me out of the class for being a smartass, and I would have done the same thing myself if the Packers were playing the Bears on a Monday night. So now he probably thinks I'm totally nuts, but whatever. If he's really deathly ill, then I will feel very bad for suspecting that he was just watching college basketball. Of course, if he cancels class next Monday, how will I know whether he is super sick with COVID or he is just watching the championship game? Rich says a college kid wouldn't get deathly ill with COVID, so there's that.

Here are some photos from today. First, there are crocuses blooming in our neighborhood.

Today Travalon picked up dinner from Liliana's, and he had some extra time, so he took a walk by a pond at McKee Farms Park, and he saw this muskrat.

Here he is watching basketball with the panda family!

This evening at Adoration I got very annoyed because a guy started praying really loudly in Spanish, so I couldn't finish my rosary. I went and sat in the library to finish it, and then I could hear that the jerk had shut up, so I returned to the adoration chapel. Anyway, there's a subreddit called "Am I the Asshole?" and I wondered if I was for ditching the chapel during my adoration hour, because then maybe other people were stuck there, since you aren't supposed to leave the Sacrament alone. Or was the guy the asshole? Seriously, there are signs in both languages saying it's a SILENT chapel. Of course, there are also Anglo types who refuse to wear a mask in there, so they are DEFINITELY the asshole.

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Formative Basque Experience

 

I really enjoy Basque class, and it's more than just the fun of learning a very different language. I've always believed that people have a formative time in their lives, usually in their twenties, that defines who they are. For Travalon, it was the summer he worked at Glacier National Park. For Kathbert, it was living in Russian House in college. For Rich, it was his time at Case University. You can usually tell what a person's formative experience is because they always talk about it, and as everyone who knows me knows, I never shut up about those two weeks in France for World Youth Day. But maybe my formative experience was actually the summer I lived in the Basque country, because it was my first time outside of the US, and it really made an impression on me. I'm the only one in my class who isn't Basque by heritage, but I can get nostalgic for the Basque country with the best of them, and I do know enough about the culture to not feel completely left out. I was young enough at the time (only twenty) for it to sort of become part of my identity, a part that I haven't had a chance to live again until now.

Here are some recent photos. First is a better shot of Travalon's new Amoco Bear.

These are a bunch of Popeye dolls that Travalon just got in the mail: Olive Oyl, J. Wellington Wimpy, Bluto, Popeye, Eugene the Jeep, and Swee'Pea.

I can't remember if I ever posted a photo of our newest dragon. Meet Pistachio. 

And here are all our dragons: Pistachio and Zephyr in the back, and Solstice and Indigo in the front.

This morning it was -17 degrees Fahrenheit out, but I was fine because I looked like this:

One long, heavy coat, two pairs of pants, two hats, and the thing I got from the Turkey Trot. (I can't remember the technical term for it.) Plus gloves and boots. On my later walks today I also wore sunglasses, so then even my eyes were covered, but the problem is that they kept fogging up. Not like there's much to see around here anyway, except snow.

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When Basque Dreams Come True

 

This morning I woke up from a dream where I was learning Basque over Zoom, the way I am currently learning Irish over Zoom, and then I thought, "Why not? I could learn from people in Spain! It doesn't matter where they're located with Zoom." Now that I am so fluent (not) in Irish, why not brush up my Basque that was never that good to begin with? I could understand children, and they were just like kids here. We were at a fireworks display, and a woman behind us kept saying, "Isn't that pretty?" in Basque (which I cannot remember how to say), but the little kid kept stubbornly saying, "Es!" which means no. Then a particularly spectacular firework went off, and the mother said, "Isn't that pretty?" and the kid reluctantly said, "Bai," which means yes. Another time a mother and a preschooler were walking down the street, and no matter what the mother said, the preschooler said, "Zerbat?" which means why. When I used to babysit, I remember that well - everything was, "Why? Why? Why?" Anyway, getting back to my story, I googled Basque online discussions but couldn't find anything, so I tried social media and found something right away. I emailed the guy, and he said he has a class starting this Monday, like right after I log off of work. So my dream literally came true! And it's taught in English, and it's free, although donations are gratefully accepted. So I am even crazier than you thought, because I'll be doing Irish class on Sunday afternoons and then Basque class on Monday afternoons.

Today Travalon went for a walk in our neighborhood, and he saw our neighbors.

Then, when he was done doing Door Dash, he went up to the Token Creek Conservancy and took a walk at Culver Springs.

Then he came home, and as soon as I was done with work, we went to Governor Nelson State Park again. It was such a warm evening for this time of year. He took these first couple of photos of the sunset with his cell phone.

The rest of these photos are with his old good camera, which is now my good camera, because we thought maybe it took better nighttime photos than his new good camera.

Here is the Christmas tree again, and maybe a little better than before.

Here is the Madison skyline, I'd say much better than before.

And, if you can stand it, one more sunset photo.

Here are my year-end statistics from DuoLingo. Apparently I'm in the top 2% of... something.

These are the rosaries I got at the shop on Willy Street. I prayed with the purple one on the left tonight - seemed appropriate for Advent.

And finally, shirts from my various athletic pursuits. Here is the Mount Fuji Challenge shirt.

And here I am wearing the Turkey Trot shirt and neck warmer. I thought this was a really good photo of me, but maybe that's because you can't see my neck.

If I'm not totally exhausted after eight hours of work immediately followed by two hours of Basque next Monday, I'll let you all know how my first Basque class went, and if I can actually remember anything besides "How much does this beer cost?" and how to sing Happy Birthday. One weird thing that did occur to me today is that the word for person in Basque is "duna," and in Irish it's "duine." Like, practically the same word! How weird is that??

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Black Cat Alley and Explorium Beer

Sorry that I didn't blog yesterday. It was a weird day, because one of the lights in my plant room burned out, and then when Travalon tried to put in a new bulb, the whole fixture came off the ceiling! Because it's connected to the other three, I was afraid it would pull them all off, but we propped it up with some books, and that took the pressure off the others. Richard Bonomo came over, and after we fed him a takeout fish fry from Mariner's, he fixed it. He did point out that two other bulbs are about to burn out, so hopefully we don't have to go through this whole adventure again. Then I talked to Tiffy as usual, and I was saying how I used to want to write screenplays, but as a teenager I didn't really understand the laws of physics, so I would have the main character rolling under a moving car and not getting run over. Tiffy said with CGI you can do anything, so why not have that happen? Then I was talking about a musical I wrote about Pizza Bear, basically an extended version of the double entendre "He REALLY delivers!" and Tiffy said, "Oh, so this wasn't a children's story?" I said no, he was delivering to lonely female large cats, like Mrs. Lion and Mrs. Tiger and Miss Panther. Somehow we had Pizza Bear rolling under the moving car, and I said, "What about his pizza?" and Tiffy said, "He could throw it over the car and catch it on the other side," and I said, "That's genius!" But don't look for this movie at a theater near you anytime soon - the screenplay still needs a lot of work. 

I get all sorts of random emails, like from both sides of the political spectrum, and for some reason a lot about travel. I enjoy reading those, which are often lists of "Craziest road side attractions," or whatever, and sometimes I have actually been to one or two of the places they mention. The other day I got one about the five coolest murals in the country, and one was in Milwaukee! How could I have missed something so close by? So this morning Travalon and I headed to Black Cat Alley. 

Our ride there was almost interesting enough to be its own blog post. A car ahead of us had a license plate that said "LMBO" and I said, "Look at that! It says 'Laughing my butt off!'" but Travalon pointed out that it was a Packers license plate, so it was probably a contraction for Lambeau, as in the field where the Packers play. Then I had brought a "rosary" from Brodhead, but one "decade" only had six beads, and another had a missing bead... and then as I was praying the Joyful Mysteries, I realized about two decades in that there were two extra decades! It must have been a Franciscan rosary of the Seven Joys of Mary, and I don't exactly remember those, but they are basically the Joyful Mysteries, and I think the two extra are the Visit of the Magi and the Resurrection of Jesus, so I just added those two. I would not have expected this rosary to be a Franciscan one, since it didn't have a San Damiano crucifix, but it just goes to show you really have to count all the beads on these antique rosaries because you never know what you are getting.

We got to Milwaukee and got lattes before setting out for Black Cat Alley, which is an outdoor gallery of murals. We took loads of photos. Then we walked to a spot from which you can see the lake, and then we drove to place where we could park for free and catch the Hop, which is the free streetcar that goes through downtown Milwaukee. We took it to one end and saw a Christmas lights display in a park, then we took it to the other end and saw some fire pits, so we walked over and found a brewery called Explorium, which had some very tasty beer. We had a flight with turtle cheesecake tart, peanut butter cup stout, and toasted coconut porter, and we also got a taster of creamsicle ale and a sip of peach gose and what they called a "Big A-- Pretzel." (We had to take two thirds of that home.) Wow, was the beer ever good! We bought some cans of the peanut butter cup and coconut to take home. The craziest part of that was that our waiter is from a Basque family, so he actually spoke a little Basque to me! Our trip home was uneventful, and now Travalon is watching the Badger game that we taped. We saw bits and pieces of it in Milwaukee, and I think it didn't have a happy ending for us, but we don't actually know yet.

Here are a bunch of photos of the murals in Black Cat Alley. There was art everywhere, even on the sidewalks!

This is the sign outside of the alley. We have been by it many times and never knew it was there!

We also found this outside the alley on the other side.

And there was a lot of artwork just outside the alley too.

These are photos from when we took a walk to a place with a great view of the lake.

And here are some shots of what we saw from the Hop.

Update: now we have learned that the Badgers lost to Northwestern, so Travalon just deleted the recording of the game after we saw the one beautiful touchdown they did manage to score. They kept turning the ball over, and who needs to watch that??

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