Wisconsin Craft Night

Yesterday evening Jilly Moose and I met for dinner at Brocach, then we went to the Union for Wisconsin Craft Night, my birthday present to her. It was mostly women there, and I saw two former coworkers, one of whom has also left that place. We each got a ticket for two drinks, and there were snacks like veggies, popcorn, pretzels, cheese, and crackers. There were also door prizes, and I entered to win a mini Union Terrace chair while Jilly Moose entered to win a water bottle, but neither of us won. We tried our hand at screen printing, which doesn’t take much skill, but I am still so bad at it that I got red paint all over my Packers Shareholder hoodie. Fortunately the paint comes out with soap and water. We also tried our hand at painting the Madison skyline. I did it freehand, not realizing that you were just supposed to paint a background and then decoupage paper cutouts of notable buildings like the Capitol and Camp Randall onto your painting. I painted the Monona Terrace and Capitol Building as seen from the lake (a Betty Lou Cruise view) at night, and people could tell what it was even though I completely forgot that the windows in the Monona Terrace are arched, so my rendition has square windows. I will try to post a picture of my painting on this blog at some point. Jilly Moose followed directions and created a painting of the sun and a palm tree with the Capitol and Camp Randall. The people who sat at our table were all very friendly, and the woman on the other side of me didn’t paint a Madison skyscape at all but some sort of abstract swirly thing, and her friend painted Madison as an aquarium, with fish swimming around the buildings. Some people at another table were really talented and painted cool things like pictures made of words or a psychedelic paw print on a black background. They were younger, and maybe they were art students, considering their talent. The third activity was pottery, but that took the whole time and you had to be able to come back three more times to work on your pottery and then pick it up, so we didn’t bother to do that. It was a super fun night, and if they do it again, we are totally going!

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Does Race Exist?

Sorry for my silence yesterday. I was sick, and who wants to read about that? Nothing serious, just your garden variety cold, but I do notice that I get a lot less of them ever since embarking on the program to walk 10,000 steps per day. Exercise must be even better than apples at keeping the doctor away! I did manage to get my steps yesterday, believe it or not. A walk out in the fresh air, away from other people so you can’t sneeze on them, is probably just what the doctor ordered anyway.

Lately some more conservative types seem to be on this kick that “race doesn’t exist.” Where does this idea come from? Yes, there is very little physiological difference between the races, and we are supposed to see everyone as a child of God no matter what color they are, but it seems disingenuous that the people who are saying this are the ones who seem to have the most racist attitudes. I personally think it is easy to say race doesn’t exist when you have never been on the receiving end of institutionalized racism. Not that I know how that feels either, but I can clearly see that it happens. I have seen too many nonwhite people passed over for promotions or made to take “proper English” classes that the rest of us didn’t have to take, or even just get pulled over by the cops in disproportionate numbers, to really buy that these white people don’t believe race exists. They just don’t want to do anything about racism, like examine their own beliefs. We can’t end racism by saying that race doesn’t exist; that is like the solution our town had for a problem neighborhood – they just changed the name of the neighborhood, so that the “Street Name Here” problem vanished. Of course the underlying problem was still there, but you couldn’t say that the problem with that specific name existed anymore!

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Ukulele Lessons and the Presidential Debate

Last night I had my third ukulele lesson. We learned the G chord, which is actually harder than the G7, if you can believe that, and we played a lot of songs using our Coke-Pepsi strumming. We used words like that when learning rhythms in my Suzuki violin lessons years ago too, like one rhythm we did was called “Minnesota Vikings” but of course this was in Minnesota. I am enjoying ukulele lessons so much that I signed up for Ukulele 2, another five-week series. Poor Travalon is never going to see me! If anyone would like to take Ukulele 1, it is being offered again as soon as this round ends, so in mid-October. Let me know and I can get you in touch with the teacher.

Then I came home and watched the debate. I don’t want to talk politics too much on this blog, but my general impression is that one candidate was well-prepared for the debate and the other one wasn’t. If you don’t take running for president seriously, would you take the actual duties of the office seriously? I was talking to a coworker about it today, and we both agreed that there is no way we would ever want to be president. Have you seen how much Obama aged during his tenure? Who needs that kind of stress? And he was a young man when he started out, but these two candidates are already retirement age. What will being president do to either of them?

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New Glarus Oktoberfest

Our first autumn weekend of 2016… sigh. I am always sad when summer is over. Friday evening Travalon and I joined Catzookz, Rich, and a bunch of people we didn’t know for Twins Fan’s birthday party at Mr. Brews. Travalon gave Twins Fan replica tickets to the World Series in 1990 (?) when the Twins played, and Charlie’s Angels stickers, only they didn’t have Farrah Fawcett ones. It didn’t matter, Twins Fan thought they were great. They came from an antiques store in Oconomowoc.

Saturday Travalon and I met Rich and the Rosary Ladies (except OK Cap, who was out of town for a cranberry festival) at the usual place for coffee, then Travalon watched the Badger game at a bar on State Street while we ladies prayed a rosary in a beautiful garden near our church called the Period Garden. It is a city park, and I had no idea it existed, but Luxuli took us there. I have never seen orange trumpet flowers before! It has all kinds of flowers still blooming this late in the year, and a fountain in the center. Then Travalon and I drove to New Glarus and went to their Oktoberfest, where of course we had New Glarus Oktoberfest beer, as well as a giant pretzel and a roesti on a stick, which is sort of like a hash brown popsicle. We went to Mass in Belleville, which was celebrated by our former parish priest, and he remembered me. On the way back to town we stopped in Paoli at the Hop Garden and sat outside enjoying a drink, then we went to the Monona Terrace, but the little café on the roof had just shut for the evening, so we went to the nearby bar in the Hilton Hotel. They no longer have a wonderful drink called 40 but Hot that Jilly Moose and I enjoyed one evening, something like hot chocolate with Cointreau in it, but the bartender made us chocolate martinis. We discovered they serve food there too, and we had a delicious dish with chicken confit, gnocchi, and asparagus. One of the bartenders told us he saw someone do a “Statue of Liberty” shot by dipping their thumb into a shot of green chartreuse, lighting it on fire, and drinking the shot before putting out the flames. Not sure I’ll be trying that myself anytime soon, though as regular readers of this blog know, I am one of the few people who actually likes the taste of green chartreuse.

Yesterday I went to a baby shower, and I was caught off-guard both by the fact that no lunch was served despite the hour (just little snacky things like meatballs and deviled eggs), and by the number of gifts everyone else brought the honoree. I only gave her one gift and then felt really chintzy. Am I completely out of touch with how much a person is expected to spend on a baby shower gift? We did watch part of the Packer game at the shower, and then I headed home for the second half. The offense was amazing during the first half, but then they couldn’t get anything going during the second half, while the defense seemed to lose the ability to stop the Lions, so suddenly the game went from a blowout to a narrow victory. Travalon had gone to Oconomowoc for a family birthday party, so when he returned, we went to the little bar on Crystal Lake for “lupper” (since it was early for supper but late for lunch), then we went to Sauk City and investigated the flooding there. The Wisconsin River has gone over its banks, which doesn’t affect the town, since it is on higher ground, but I’m afraid some of the trees will not survive having their roots submerged. The birds loved it – we saw ducks, geese, gulls, and two beautiful white egrets exploring the new expanse of water. Then we went to Rich’s house for a birthday party for Antoshka, who had made chicken that he marinated in a mixture of mustard and mayonnaise. It was … interesting, but I was still full from “lupper” so I only had a small piece to try it. Rich made brownies instead of a birthday cake, and Mr. N’Awlins made a fruit salad for dessert. I did have some of both of those and then had to run in front of the TV after we got home to burn off those calories. Hopefully our new downstairs neighbor (the rumor is that we have one) doesn’t mind!

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Mandolin Lessons?

Yesterday evening at band practice I learned to play two chords that I had been fudging all along (meaning that I figured out how to play something on two strings that sounded a fine; a real chord should involve at least three strings): B minor and F# minor. They are not particularly hard chords, but they don’t come up that often in folk music, and so I had never bothered to actually figure them out. The thing is that the mandolin is wonderfully set up for keys like C, G, and D, and so it was really easy for me to figure out those commonly used chords. I told my bandmates that after taking ukulele lessons, I am wondering if I should take mandolin lessons to actually learn how to play properly, and the guitarist said why not, but the fiddlers were not super enthusiastic about the idea. One told me she would never take violin lessons because she has been playing for more than sixty years, but a teacher would tear apart everything she was doing and make her start over, and another said, “You’ve been playing fine all this time. You just have your own unique sound.” It’s true that I have been a semi-professional (very semi) mandolin player for fifteen years with this band, and I played with other bands before that in public, if not for pay, so if I don’t know this instrument by now, what’s the point? Other than learning weird chords like B minor and F# minor, that I could probably just learn from a book for the rare times they come up. What do you think, readers? Should I take mandolin lessons once I have mastered the ukulele?

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Beautiful USA Rosary

As much as I find the transition from summer to autumn depressing, it is enjoyable getting back to evening activities again. (Though it is sad that then I see a lot less of Travalon!) This week has been particularly crazy because Monday I had my second ukulele lesson (in which we learned some strumming patterns and the chord progression C-Am-F-G7), then last night I had my first Irish class of the year, and fortunately our teacher is easing us back into it, and then I went to Light Bright’s house to celebrate her birthday (which is actually today). Her baby (who is ten months old now) was in bed already, but she, her mother-in-law, and I had a great time just talking and laughing. They made a delicious dinner with vegetables from their garden, and I brought dark chocolate that we had after dinner with decaf coffee and red grapes. I gave Light Bright a sock monkey wine bottle cozy, and she LOVED it!! I figured it would be the right degrees of silly and practical. Tonight I have band practice AND choir practice, which isn’t uncommon on Wednesday evenings, but honestly I often skip choir practice. When you have been singing the same songs for two decades, sometimes practice feels a little redundant.

I love my beautiful new Ghirelli rosary, which was made in Italy but has a USA theme, with a crucifix that looks like the flag, a center medal that looks like the country, and the abbreviations for each of the fifty states on the Hail Mary beads. It is extremely well-made, especially considering its incredibly reasonable price. I was not expecting something so heirloom quality for what I paid! I have been praying for each of the states as I do the rosary. Speaking of which, there will be a guest blogger at some point: Travalon writing about his impressions of each of the states! Now that he has visited them all, I asked him if he would be willing to write something for the blog, and he said sure. This is a very beautiful country, and I have been lucky enough to visit quite a bit of it myself. I am missing about ten states: Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, the two Carolinas, and most of New England. I did go through Idaho on the train but was asleep both ways, so I’m not sure if that really counts either. Anyway, watch this space for Travalon’s summary of the fifty states.

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I Love Bright Colors

This weekend at the Willy Street Fair I saw a girl of about eight wearing a shirt that said: “My favorite color is sparkle!” I can get behind that sentiment. Why do some people act as if adults wearing bright colors is a problem? Thank goodness at my current job nobody has complained about my propensity for Hawaiian shirts, but back at my last job, where they didn’t like anything about me, one of their complaints was that I wore too bright of colors. I didn’t even wear Hawaiian shirts there much, because there was a strict dress code (that did not ban Hawaiian shirts), but nowhere did it say you could only wear beige and gray. Now it is entirely possible that my boss at the time just disliked me so much that she was prone to criticize anything about me, and beige was definitely her favorite color, but she actually wrote that in a formal complaint against me. Maybe to some people the wearing of bright colors signifies a certain lack of gravitas, but my job there was not one that required a lot of gravitas. In fact, part of my job was being friendly to visitors, and in my mind bright, cheery colors are friendlier than beige and gray. This boss did also mention in the formal complaint that I had plants in my office, even though lots of other people did too and that apparently wasn’t a problem, so truly she may have just been looking for anything to pin on me that she deemed “unprofessional.” However, it does seem like there are other people who also think bright, sparkly colors are only for little girls. I say there are whole cultures that do not accept that dictate, so why should I?

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