Another Stop on the Beer Passport Tour

 

I feel like such a mooch, because I love Christmas lights but contribute very little to the cause myself. We do have a fiberoptic tree in our window... but we lost the cord, so it doesn't light up. I do have these Christmas lights in our loft:

Today was very cold, so Travalon and I were going to hole up inside the house, but my neighbor is visiting from Florida, so I crossed the street to talk to her. Brr!! Despite walking around to music, Travalon and I were going a little stir-crazy, so we decided to go to another brewery from the beer passport. This one is called Starkweather Brewery, and it's where Next Door Brewing was located. I really enjoyed their coffee blonde. We thought we would get another one off the list; Working Draft is nearby, and I told Travalon maybe he should call them to make sure they were open with the cold weather (like we did with Starkweather), but he figured they were open because the website said they were. We got over there and of course they weren't, but at least it was on the way home, so no big deal. We debated about going to another one but ultimately decided to head home. Tiffy is busy with family, so I surprised everyone by being on Night Prayer. I'm never on Night Prayer on Friday nights.

I'm starting to get a little creeped out, because tonight on social media I got an ad for the 2023 Beer Passport. Now I haven't looked anything up online about it, so either they remembered that I bought one last year, or they are listening to our conversations, because it has been a big topic of conversation for us the last couple of days. I really think my phone and computer are listening in...

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Beer Passport Emergency

 

Today was supposed to be a very snowy day, but it didn't really seem that bad, just cold and windy. I worked from home, and at first I only left the house to bring something to a neighbor. I got steps from walking around inside the house with Travalon and our various stuffed animals. Then I read my blog post about what we gave each other last Christmas, and we had both forgotten the beer passport I had given him. There are only a few days left to use it, so we decided to brave the cold tonight and go out to the brewery that specializes in gluten-free beer. They have gluten-free pizzas too, so that's what we had for dinner. Then we drove around looking at Christmas lights in a nearby neighborhood.

I am wearing a bright pink hoodie today, and as I was debating about changing into something else to go out (like it mattered? only the bartender was there), I looked in the mirror and thought wow, actually this color looks really good on me. Suddenly I had a Christmas memory from long ago, when I was home visiting from college. My brother was in the choir at our high school, and I went to their Christmas concert with my parents. Someone had made a video of it, and at some point I was watching it with my parents. To our surprise, whoever was making the video zeroed right in on me singing happily in the audience along to some carol where we were all invited to sing. I did seem to glow in a bright pink sweater, with my (back then) very blonde hair. It was funny that I was more the star of the video than my brother, who was actually on the stage. My guess is some young guy was making the video, and he was focused on the "hot" co-ed in the audience. Nobody would call me hot now, but bright pink still flatters me.

Here are some photos. I've had these two Christmas bears since before I was a hot co-ed in the audience. They used to have hats, which are probably somewhere in the house.

Today my uncle asked how things were in Madtown, and I said we were out drinking beer. I said I'd seen a meme on social media: "Bad weather alert. Southerners, avoid travel. Northerners, wear your big coat." And it's so true! Nothing keeps us from beer. He sent this photo.

Here are some photos of houses in a neighborhood not too far from ours.

Tomorrow is supposed to be very cold and very windy, but we might try to get out to another tavern or two. I doubt that in the week we have left we can hit all twenty-five of them.

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Very Christmasy Day

 

I forgot to mention that yesterday morning I was a bit groggy at work, despite my usual cup of coffee at home. I went to the break room to pour myself a cup of coffee, and I took one of the little creamer containers, opened it, threw the cream in the wastebasket, and threw the empty container in my coffee cup. Whoops! It's so hard to make coffee when you need coffee. I have tried to make it without grounds, without water, without a filter, and without the pot underneath to catch the brewing coffee.

Today was a pretty good day! I had some time before adoration last night, so I bought little tile coasters with Madison designs on them for my coworkers at one of the small shops on State Street. My one coworker had already given me some boughten cookies, so I knew we were all going to exchange presents. Today my boss gave me delicious homemade truffles that his school-aged sons helped him make, and another coworker gave me a basket full of homemade cookies, some trail mix that is super addictive, fridge magnets, glow-in-the-dark silly putty, Andes Candies, and some other random stuff. Wow! Even the basket is very nice. My other coworker and I were talking about how it was going to be an adventure bringing it home on the bus, but then we each found bags in our office to put the baskets in. Best of all, the faculty gave us all generous Christmas bonuses. 

I was feeling very in the Christmas spirit when I went to confession tonight, and it helped that the organist was practicing "O Holy Night." The person before me was in there so long that I expected a biker with tats who hadn't been to confession in ages, but it was a little old lady. What could she possibly have done wrong that would take that long to confess?? I will admit that I felt sort of pathetic after her, because I stated my sins, and the priest was just like, "Okay," and didn't ask for any details or clarification, and he certainly didn't laugh. Back in the day I could ALWAYS make priests laugh during confession, but now I'm old and boring and don't take hostages in the church parking lot anymore. So I was done in five minutes and sat praying my five Hail Marys, and then when I got home, Travalon was already home. We are now holed up here, with no plans to leave the house until Christmas Eve Mass, or possibly Christmas morning Mass. They are saying we are going to be blanketed by snow, and then there will be fierce winds blowing it around, so travel will be difficult. I can work from home tomorrow, and Travalon has the day off, then we both have Friday off. My exciting snowed-in plans are a Christmas cleaning of this place.

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Driving to Work

 

Yesterday was not a particularly noteworthy day until the evening, when the Packers actually beat another team! It was the Rams, who are the defending Super Bowl champions, but you wouldn't know it because they stink this year, even more than the Packers. This means our playoff hopes live to see another day, but the day they die will probably be Christmas, because that is when we play the Dolphins, who are having a stellar year, in Miami. Maybe Travalon and I should have tried to get tickets, because while I don't relish watching the Packers lose live, I would love a trip to Miami for Christmas.

Today was more noteworthy because I drove to work. The parking lot right next to the Killer Building said it was "full," which seems inconceivable when nobody is on campus right now. Fortunately I had a Plan B and that panned out, because I had no Plan C. (Not totally true, but Plan C would have involved a long walk.) The reason I drove was because I was going to a retirement party on the other side of campus, so I drove to that building and parked, and then right after the really fun retirement party I drove to the dentist's office. From there I drove to Adoration, and I got there a little early, so I went to Little Luxuries to find gifts for my coworkers. I also found a really cute stuffed moon, so I got that. There was still a little time before my adoration hour, so I went into the library, and the weird little stuffed "mer-cat" that has been there for ages has been moved to another spot, as if it was in the way. I felt bad for it, and it has grown on me over time. It must be abandoned if nobody has come back for it by now, so I brought it home too. Here they are.

Then this evening when I did DuoLingo, I got this sticker!

Boy, that's a lot of time messing around in Irish and French, and I'm still not fluent in either one.

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Came for the Swans, Stayed for the Eagles

 

Today Travalon and I really overslept, so once again we went to the later Mass. To our surprise, when we got back home The Beautiful Game was still going on, because France had tied things up with Argentina, and they had gone into extra periods with neither team pulling ahead. We watched the shootout, and the French goalie missed everything, so that was it - Argentina won.

It was so cold out that we didn't want to go for a walk outside, so we walked around the track at the health club and then shot hoops for a few minutes until some people came into the gym and started throwing a football around. As we were leaving, Travalon got into a boxing match with this giant snowman.

Travalon suggested we go to Picnic Point to see if the tundra swans were still around. As we got out of the car, a bald eagle flew by. Then we saw another one sitting in a tree, and Travalon said, "This is even better than Sauk!"

We walked along Lakeshore Path, and we could see two pairs of swans in the bay.

There were a lot more swans right along Picnic Point, so we walked there to see them.

I love how this one looks like it's laughing!

We took some videos too, so I'll try to edit those and post them at some point. Travalon's video is better, but his audio isn't as good. My phone can't zoom in as much, but it must have a better microphone, because it really picked up the sound of all those loud swans.

After that we went to Leopold's for a warm drink, then Travalon headed to Oconomowoc to visit his mother while I met Mamastep for dinner at Bellitalia. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, so we talked for over two and a half hours. She's really active in Steampunk stuff, and they have social groups they call "airships." I guess my airship is the Rosary Ladies. Or maybe it's the Night Prayer gang. Of course, there is a lot of overlap between those two groups. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a little hot air balloon with just Travalon, and that's okay too. We always seem to want to go the same direction.

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First Eagle and Zoo Lights

 

Last night Travalon and I went out to dinner with our neighbor, who has had a rough year. Her husband died on her birthday, and then a few weeks ago she had to put her dog down. But not to worry - she already has a new puppy picked out. After dinner, I talked to Tiffy, and she sent me some photos of Christmas light displays in her area.

I also took a photo of my Advent calendar crystals up until that day. One day there was none in the window, but another day there were two, so it evened out to eight. I imagine that the last group will only have seven because of the doubled-up day.

This morning I watched a lot of my YouTube videos on the TV, then Travalon and I drove out to Sauk, where we saw the first eagle of the season.

It was a winter wonderland out there.

We went to the antiques shop in Sauk, and I got a rosary, a bracelet of the Ten Commandments, and several holy medals.

Here's a closeup of the bracelet and holy medals: Mary, Joseph, and a six-way medal.

On the way back we went to Maple Bluff to see if there were any swans around. At first we didn't see any, but then we saw two fly by. 

In the evening Travalon and I went to Zoo Lights. Here are some photos.

On the way there and back we passed the house lit up like a gingerbread house which I featured on this blog last year. On the way home we also checked out a neighborhood near us with some good lights, but I didn't take any photos of that. They weren't as spectacular as the ones in Sun Prairie.

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Gloggfest and the Decorated Neighborhood in Sun Prairie

 

This morning on the way to work we saw two crazy things: a bus driver hanging his lunch out the window so it would stay cold, and a car with Christmas lights on it. It was snowy, but not as bad as last Friday, so imagine our surprise that the schools were closed when they were open on Friday. Travalon didn't have to go into work (like he did on Friday), and my boss worked from home. I wore purple for a retirement party, because it's the retiree's favorite color, but after I got to work I found out that they postponed the party until next Tuesday... when I have a dentist appointment. Do I really want to reschedule the appointment? Maybe I can go to the party and then sneak out early to the dentist...

At least the other reason I came into work today did happen, Gloggfest! (I think there's supposed to be a line through the o, but whatever. I don't do accent marks - just ask Duolingo.) They haven't had it since the pandemic, but before that people had brought ukuleles, so this time I asked if I could bring mine too. It turns out one ukulele player is no longer around, and the other had a broken pinkie finger, so she asked if I could lead the playing. She sent me the chords, and they were easy on the mandolin but not chords I know well on the ukulele, so I brought the mandolin to work today. The ukulele player and I ran through the chords briefly before Gloggfest in the room where they had brewed the glogg, so it smelled wonderful. Glogg is mulled wine. There were lots of other treats there too, and they are Scandinavian cookies so they aren't as sweet, which means I like them better and ate more of them. I was a little scared to play these songs I barely knew, but after people had treats and glogg, they were happy to sing with great gusto, and I think we instrumentalists did a good job keeping them in tune. Success! I'm not sure what I was so scared about, since playing the mandolin is second nature to me. The ukulele, now that's a different matter. I have played it in public, but only among tons of other ukuleles. Travalon came in time to hear me play, and he got some treats too. He didn't really care for the glogg. On the way home we drove up to Sun Prairie to check out a neighborhood where people really decorate their houses. We took some photos.

And here are some photos from earlier in the day, of the Winter Wonderland on campus. Some of these are the same scenes I featured back in October, when the foliage was so colorful.

And remember the two little snowmen I posted a few days ago? Someone rebuilt them with more detail.

Now they are even cuter!

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