Trivia with the Grads and Irish Soda Bread

 

Today I walked with Seabird and heard all about her trip to Lisbon and Seville, then we had a party for the grad students with lunch and cake and a trivia game. There were two cakes, mixed berries and mango, so my coworker and I took a sliver of each. We sat with mostly the same people as last year, since our team had won trivia. This year the faculty member on our team said our team name should be Winners 2025, so of course we came in last, but we were laughing through the whole game. During the "two truths and a lie" segment, the question said a particular grad student had never broken a bone, so my coworker said, "We can take care of that," and we all laughed. Then two questions later, it was that my coworker had never broken a bone, so everyone said to the grad student, "There's your cue!" 

In the afternoon I met with Famie to speak Irish, but none of the grad students could make it, so she and I chatted in English. She had made a ton of soda bread, so she gave me some to take home. Then I walked with Hardingfele. Not my most productive day, but I promise that I did do work in between all that.

Meanwhile, Travalon went back to the wood duck ponds again, and here is what he saw: wood ducks, mallards, a green heron, and a great blue heron.

I love this photo because Mr. and Mrs. Wood Duck look like they're made of plastic:

Also, the pelicans are back to hanging out around the island in Cherokee Marsh:

No idea where they've been all this time, but it's good to have them back.

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Two Concerts in Episcopal Churches, a Ghost Train, and a Terrible Trivia Host

 

Travalon has provided some more photos of Tux Duck on our boat slip.

And also a wild-type mallard drake at Stricker Pond.

Yesterday we met Tiffy at the usual Park and Ride, then we drove to Wauwatosa because Just Bach was performing the same concert there as the one they did Friday night during the tornado. I always think of Wauwatosa in a rosy, golden light after my brief sojourn there last summer for Irish Fest Summer School, since I was able to walk everywhere, and we played so much music. Yesterday we went to the restaurant with the North Woods theme, and Tiffy knew it because she had gone there with her brother and his family over Christmas. The food is really good, and they play loon calls in the bathrooms. Then we walked to the chocolate shop, and this may really be why I think of Wauwatosa so fondly, because the chocolate gave me kind of a buzz. We had affogatos and truffles, but not whatever "tirimasu" is.

I am a fan of tiramisu, but we didn't get that either. Then Travalon dropped us off at Trinity Episcopal Church for the concert, which was supposed to last an hour. There were still several songs to go at four, and we had to be in downtown Milwaukee by five for our next concert, of Chinese music, so we snuck out between numbers. I felt a little awkward doing so, since I know several of the people in the group, but one of the leaders knew we were going to the Early Music Now concert, so he probably understood. It was such a good concert, and when Travalon said it would only take eighteen minutes to get to our next venue, I was so bummed: "We could have heard the whole concert!" I was all for sneaking back in, but Tiffy said, "We're out now, let's just go." 

Of course we got to the next place, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, with lots of time to spare, so we took a walk and admired these fritillaries in bloom.

Nothing like a checkerboard flower! This concert was also very enjoyable, but we were sitting way in the back, in the cheap seats, so we hoped to see the interesting instruments up close afterwards, but the performers rushed off the stage with them. Meanwhile, Travalon saw the Amtrak train and discovered a pedestrian bridge that used to be a railroad bridge.

He picked us up, and we went down by the lake and saw these cool clouds.

He told us about the pedestrian bridge, and how it has a light show called the Ghost Train after dark, so we went there and discovered it happens at 9 pm this time of year. We went to Indulgence Chocolate and got more chocolate (that we didn't eat until today), and then we had dinner at the Three Lions Pub, which was started by three actual British guys. We got done not long before the Ghost Train, so we went to see it, and while we did see the light show, we didn't hear the promised whistle and train sounds.

Today Travalon and I relaxed a bit after Mass, then I said I'd like to see birds but wondered if there was time before my first drum lesson of the new session, and he said let's check out a place nearby where there are often coots. And were there ever coots!

There were also two Tux Ducks, and one was almost black.

There was also a pied-billed grebe.

The straggling coots were rushing to catch up with the big group.

And we also saw a killdeer.

We had a ton of people at the drum lesson today, many of them new. My buddy from the other sessions was there, just back from Costa Rica. It was new for all of us, because we played a different kind of drum today, a big bass drum as we stepped back and forth. The guy who plays the little instrument like a ukulele never seems that impressed with me, but today he asked if I would be at the next Brazilian jazz session, and he said, "I heard you were killing it over there!" Oh, but I desperately need to practice! It's one thing to be a great sightreader at your first session, but there's no excuse for not having looked at the music since then. I definitely want to learn this music!

After my drum lesson, Travalon and I went to the East Side Club for a member event consisting of a pasta dinner and a trivia game. I should have taken a picture of the setup - it was a colorful stand with four spots for contestants. Travalon and I were a team against another couple, and we were pretty closely matched, but this wasn't the trivia I'm used to, it was identifying clips from movies, TV shows, and songs. Travalon was much better at it than I was. A couple of ladies who sat with us at dinner went before us, and they beat the team they played against, but the one lady was laughing about how terrible the host was - he was always playing the wrong clip, like he'd say, "Identify this TV show by its theme song," and then he'd play a clip of someone saying. "I am your father," or whatever, and then he'd go, "Oops, wrong clip!" The ladies told us we would have won our game if the host had been consistent about deducting points for wrong answers, since he did it to us and not the other team we played, but we lost by one question. It was hard to care, since it was so hilarious how bad the host was. Travalon went over to the prize table after we played, and I had to remind him that we didn't get to choose a prize since we'd lost, but he was coveting a Bucks baseball cap, so toward the end of the game I said since there were tons of prizes left, and nobody was paying attention, he should just take it. All the prizes were booze swag the club gets since they buy so much alcohol for the bar, and his cap said Jagermeister on it. During the game Hardingfele texted me to say they were all at band practice, and was I coming? but you will be shocked to learn I never made it to band practice. Next week.

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Trivia Newton-John

 

Today I worked on campus and walked with Seabird during our morning break and again at lunch. It was sunny out, but very cold. Whatever happened to a winter day just below freezing? What's with this "feels like single digits" stuff? Also, I was extra busy today because I agreed to help another colleague with her workload, but all the expense reports I needed to do for her were for one particular faculty member who apparently has no idea how to submit an expense report. Where do they get the idea that they can just request repayment for things without any evidence? So almost all of them are on hold while I wait for actual documentation of expenses and events.

This evening there was the monthly ukulele strum at Lone Girl, and today we sang songs about destinations. There was one called "Coconut Grove" that I had not heard before, but it triggered a long-ago memory of my band playing a St. Patrick's Day gig at a community center, and someone was asking us to play that song. None of us knew the song, and this gentleman was getting very frustrated, but the closest thing we could think of was that song about putting the lime in the coconut. Weird that even the older members of the band had no idea about this song, since it was before my time but seems like it should have been something from their era. Generally in my band we don't do "singalong" songs, so already this gentleman was kind of out of line - you wouldn't ask a symphony orchestra to play a song you could sing along to, would you? Then again, maybe he would. 

Travalon came right toward the end of our strum, then he and I went downstairs to have dinner. There is always a trivia game on Wednesday nights, and tonight one of the teams was called "Trivia Newton-John." I thought that was the best name for a trivia team that I'd ever heard. And if you don't get it, I don't know how to help you, but go watch the video for "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John right now, because it is peak 80's. I don't know if you will understand me completely after watching that video, but it was from my formative years, and I was in fact an aerobics addict in my teens. Kind of wish I still had that addiction...

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Cruise 2025, Day 6: Orange Party

 

Happy Boxing Day! We didn’t notice this at first, but the parrot we got in San Juan can be stuck on the mirror.

We named him Jose because we both think that was the name of the captain on our sailboat ride, but neither of us is sure.

We had breakfast in the formal dining room with a couple and a woman named Willy, then we got coffee in the fancy bar (not nearly as crowded as the usual place), and then Travalon went to a very interesting talk on the real pirates of the Caribbean while I enjoyed the view. He enjoyed the view when I went to another watercolor class and sat by Willy from breakfast.

After lunch we went to play bird trivia and joined some other people to make a team. We got a perfect score… and then the woman running it played a dirty trick and said the second half would be identifying celebrities by just their eyes, and we weren’t so good at that. I mean, it’s not what we signed up for. Travalon and I went back to Deck 10, then I went to the promenade on Deck 3 and walked around the ship one and a half times. I thought Adult Coloring was at 3:00 so I showed up really early to get seats, but it was at 3:30 so when I got there they were still making portraits with construction paper. Here is what I made.

This character actually dates from the 80’s because I created him in my teens. Check out the surfing gator that Travalon made!

Isn’t he great? We didn’t stay for coloring, which was like pages from a coloring book and not, as we’d hoped, a chance to draw whatever we wanted. After that we swam in the adult pool, and then we had pizza and drinks (I had a banana daiquiri), and then we watched another tropical sunset.

Tonight everyone was supposed to wear orange for the big Orange Party later, so when we went to the formal dining room, almost everyone was wearing orange. We sat with a couple who live in Florida and one of the women from our first formal breakfast. I had Indonesian food, and for dessert, this chocolate tulip. Isn’t it lovely?

When we got back to the room, we found this little towel reindeer! He’s so cute!!

We went to hear the house band play funk again, but they did a long jam on “Sissy Strut” and didn’t have time for Earth, Wind and Fire. Then we went to the Orange Party. It makes sense, since Holland America is a Dutch line, but how did everyone know to bring something orange? We didn’t - I just happened to bring my ancient orange sundress, and Travalon happened to buy an orange Jimmy Carter T-shirt. The party started with line dancing: Cupid Shuffle, the Wobble, YMCA, and then we made a conga line. Some people had light-up orange earrings or light-up orange shoes. (Makes me think of Grandpa Glitter from the East Side Club with his light-up shoes and hat. He would have fit right in.) Then they played music for dancing, including two EWF songs. Here are some photos. 

Crew members brought around Dutch delicacies for us to sample, and photographers kept taking photos of me, that I’m sure they’d be happy to sell me at an exorbitant price. After about an hour, the music got louder and less familiar, but everyone else seemed to know it. We decided we were too old and called it a night. Still, most of the evening it was a lot of fun.

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