Stricker's Pond, Pheasant Branch, and The Journey

 

Yesterday was a very disappointing day. I worked from home, and then my band was supposed to play for Make Music Madison, but we didn't have an indoor venue to play at, and it was raining, so the gig was canceled. My neighbor did take a photo of me with some lilies much like a photo she had taken of me a few years back with some irises.

If you want to see my face, here you go.

Today Travalon and I had a quiet morning, waiting for the rain to let up. I was doing DuoLingo, and the green owl has done a lot of strange things to me, but this one takes the cake: it kept telling me every few minutes that Jilly Moose had unfriended me. Finally I texted her to ask why she had unfriended me, and she said she hadn't. I sent her a screenshot, and she said on her end everything was normal. I got out of DuoLingo and went back in, and then it didn't do that anymore. So weird!

About eleven the rain let up, so Travalon and I went for a walk around Stricker's Pond, and we saw a heron and three egrets.

Check out the breeding plumage on this egret!

We also saw this mourning dove.

On the walk around the pond, we also met Doug the Dog (who looked like a Newfoundland or a Portuguese Water Dog) and a cute little Westie. They were both so sweet and friendly. 

We drove to Middleton and had lunch at a place called Trio Ramen that was really good. Travalon had the ramen, and I was planning to, but then I saw yaki udon on the menu. We split a slice of matcha cheesecake for dessert, then we set off to find the eagle's nest someone had mentioned on our last walk around Stricker's Pond, when we had seen an eagle catch a goldfish there. The woman had said it was at the end of Pheasant Branch, so we went to a trailhead near Travalon's dentist's office, which was very lush and green. We walked a while but saw no sign of an eagle's nest. We did see a mallard family.

Here are some photos of the trail.

Then it started to rain, so we went back to the car and drove to a pond in an industrial area that looked, on the map, like the end of the Pheasant Branch Trail, because after that it turned and had another name. We didn't see any eagle's nest, and then Travalon wondered if it was in the main area of Pheasant Branch. We went there and parked at a spot we hadn't parked at before, where there was a stunning view. By then it had stopped raining.

There was a kiosk there that mentioned a viewing platform to see an eagle's nest. Ah-ha! We followed the trail and found the nest, with a young eagle sitting outside of it.

We also saw lots of wildflowers in bloom. My phone identified these, but many of them I already knew.

Asparagus

Purple coneflowers

Milkweed

Wild indigo

Smooth oxeye

Creeping bellflower

Butterfly weed

And here is the hill that was apparently built by the first nation people living here.

On the way home, just by Athens Gyros, we saw these lovely wildflowers.

My phone says the stunning red flowers are yarrow, which I don't think is right, and it refuses to identify the lovely purple blossoms that look like some sort of sweet pea because it's focused on the daisies. 

We came home and relaxed, then we were going to meet my colleague and her husband at the Journey for dinner, but when we went out to the car, our neighbor said there was a tornado warning and we had to get into her basement. I didn't hear the sirens, so I thought we should have gone, but we did go hide in her basement. My colleague and her husband got to the Journey, an Asian seafood buffet restaurant, and meanwhile it began to storm so we had to wait an hour before we could join them. If we'd gone right away, we might have missed the storm, but because we delayed, we did get a treat - a rainbow!

It's a double rainbow, even. We were driving right toward it, so that was fun. Fortunately my colleague and her husband were still waiting for us, so the evening was salvaged after all, and we got to spend a lot of time talking and laughing with them. They are such fun people!

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Vivaldi and Me

 

Today I worked from home and walked with my neighbor, who is moving soon. Travalon cooked hotdogs for the kids at work (he hates hotdogs), then he handed out fruit to kids in the neighborhood from a food truck called the Munchmobile:

Mmm! The fruit looks delicious!

Right after work I drove to Holy Name Heights for an organ recital by my OTHER choir director, and since the Dairyman's Daughter works there, she was able to reserve a conference room for us to have dinner. She picked up a lasagna, and I told her to add a salad and garlic bread and I would pay her for it. Rich brought juice and mints, Kathbert brought homemade gingerbread for dessert, Jilly Moose brought veggies and homemade garlic bread, and another woman brought strawberries, raspberries, and red wine. The Single B-Boy thought he was going to fly to Northern Wisconsin, but the weather wasn't good enough, so he was able to join us too. There were some pretty flowers in front of Holy Name Heights.

After dinner we went up to the chapel, and then our group scattered because Kathbert and the other woman sat with some people they knew, Rich and the Dairyman's Daughter sat with the man who makes fabulous desserts and his son, and Jilly Moose and I sat with Pete the Sailor Man, the guy Travalon and I went hiking with at the start of the pandemic, and another woman. The penultimate piece of the concert was an arrangement of Romanian dances by Bartok, but the last piece was the Bach transcription of the Vivaldi Concerto in D Minor from L'Estro Armonico, and I was in heaven while listening to that. Kathbert said she looked over and saw the look of pure bliss on my face.

I can't say if my life is a series of wacky coincidences or a carefully scripted story, but I like to believe it's the latter. Vivaldi taught me to read music as a child, as I may have mentioned on this blog before, when I loved his Concerto in A Minor for one violin so much that I would follow the written music while listening to it. In college I listened to L'Estro Armonico over and over, and when I pondered what had moved him to write such wondrous music and then learned he was a priest, that was one of the main things that attracted me to the Catholic Church. Once I became Catholic, I would pray for his soul in Purgatory (was it there? who knows?), and once I had a dream that if I went to Mass every Wednesday and Saturday, I would see a miracle. So I started going every Wednesday and Saturday, and I had a dream that in Paris I saw the Pope on a see-through bus, and he saw me and smiled and waved at me. When we were actually in Paris for World Youth Day, Ethel and I got separated from our group and were so far back from the Papal Welcome that we decided to cut out early and go to a Vivaldi concert at Sainte-Chapelle, but all the nearby metro stops were closed, so we were running, trying to get there in time. Suddenly they wouldn't let us cross the street, and then along came the Pope in a see-through vehicle, and I waved at him, so he saw me, smiled, and waved back at me. Just like my dream!! And it was all because of Vivaldi! Ethel pointed out that was the miracle that I had been promised, and that maybe it meant Vivaldi's soul had been released from Purgatory. I have often felt that Vivaldi is pulling some strings for me from heaven - he even found me a husband who shares his name - and tonight I felt like we were in total communion. If it is all true, I hope he is one of the first people to meet me when I get to heaven. If it isn't true, then that is a seriously crazy series of events.

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Official Spaceship Church

 

Yesterday after I wrote, in fact as I was taking a shower, it occurred to me that what I should have said to the girl who called me a pig in Spanish was, "No soy cochina, so conejita," or I'm not a pig, I'm a bunny. Not rude at all, kind of nonsensical, but driving home the point that I totally understood what she was saying. Why do I always think of these things twenty-four hours too late?? When I told my colleague the story today as we walked during lunch, she wanted to see my Look of Death so I tried, but she said I just looked surprised. I said, "I'm not angry right now, so I can't summon that look of pure hatred." She conceded the point. In a sense the kid's not wrong about me being a pig, since I was born in the Year of the Pig, but somehow I don't think that's what she was getting at.

Tonight Rich and I went to see a movie called Jesus Thirsts, about the Eucharist. I'm not sure who the target audience for this movie is, since non-religious people probably wouldn't see it, and practicing Catholics know this stuff already. There were some interesting parts about a Vietnamese bishop who was in prison for years, and how his family snuck him wine and hosts by labeling them as medicine, and various languages were spoken in the movie because parts were set in Slovenia, Vietnam, Uganda, and Italy, among other places. There was also a part I liked about people in New York City reacting to an invitation to eucharistic adoration. Maybe rather than making movies about the Eucharist, the best way to introduce people to it is, in fact, to invite them to eucharistic adoration. I personally was drawn to the Eucharist even before I really understood it. I remember one day walking down the sidewalk and being drawn into a local hospital, then into the chapel, then right to the tabernacle... and this was a modern-looking chapel, so the tabernacle was not in an expected place. I may have been a practicing Catholic by then, but I hadn't even realized there was a chapel in the hospital, or given it any thought. It was like the Eucharist literally called me in off the sidewalk.

Tiffy has a new polling place:

I love that it is officially the Spaceship Church. Apparently the ominous line about the change in ownership and facility use of the former space is because it is no longer a church but a daycare. The same thing happened to a Lutheran church here in town too. While I'd prefer people to be Catholic, I am saddened by all these Protestant churches closing lately. A Methodist church not far from us just closed. Then people complain that they have no Third Spaces anymore (i.e., not home or work), but church was a very popular Third Space for previous generations. It's free, too, not like a bowling alley or bar. They like you to donate, but they don't force you to.

I know everyone was waiting on pins and needles to find out if I won the Diamond Tournament. Well, wait no more!

I actually came in third. Sorry to disappoint you. But everyone in the Top Ten (I think?) won the tournament, so in a sense I am a winner. At least in a DuoLingo sense.

Famous Hat

My Bucket List

 

Today was a quiet day of working from home, but in the evening I did join an online meeting of the "secret" club I'm in to discuss what is awesome. I said four-horned sheep and then was called upon to explain this shocking topic. I should have asked to share my screen to show photographic evidence...

I have been lucky enough to cross a lot of things off my bucket list, like seeing a total eclipse and going to the tropics, but of course there are still things I want to do. Here is a non-exhaustive list:

• Going to Antarctica - not the South Pole, just the coast where all the penguins and seals are
• Tasting breadfruit - it's supposed to be very popular in Hawaii, yet I never saw any there
• Riding on a sailboat with the spinnaker up - this shouldn't be so hard living on a lake, yet here we are
• Experiencing pregnancy - guess I'll have to wait for my next lifetime
• Doing the Camino - I said I'd do this after paying off my student loans, I just never said how long after
• Riding in a hot-air balloon - maybe this isn't a good one with my incredible fear of heights?
• Playing (or singing) in a salsa band - I've played almost every other kind of music but my favorite
• Going to Tahiti - it's like Hawaii in French!
• Going to Rio de Janeiro - it's right on the Tropic of Capricorn, which seems perfect for me
• Seeing a cassowary in the wild, but from a safe distance
• Going to Mont Saint Michel and getting stuck on it at high tide
• Taking an around-the-world cruise - a good way to see the world without flying!

I know there are others, but this is what I can think of right now. I'll let my readers know if I accomplish any of these in the next few weeks.

If Pa Hat happens to read this blog post, Happy Father's Day a little late.

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I Was Not the Cause of the Problem, but I Could Be Part of the Solution

 

This morning I worked on campus, and things started in a most unsettling way, when I went to the bathroom, and as soon as I flushed, a cockroach scurried out from under the toilet seat with its wings outstretched. Had I been thinking, I would have "unalived" it (as the kids are saying, probably due to some TikTok filter), but due to both my shock and my natural abhorrence for killing another living creature not for eating or self-defense, I just ran out of the stall and washed my hands extra well. After all, I was not going to eat the cockroach, and it certainly wasn't threatening my life. Today it was only we ladies working on campus, so I warned the others, and my young coworker said, "I am not using that bathroom for the rest of the week!" and then she ordered some cockroach spray. I reported the cockroach to the building manager, who said he would have the exterminator come look at things. Now I find a cockroach a lot less scary than cockroach spray or whatever the exterminator uses - who needs to breathe in all that poison? - but I seem to be in the minority. I continued to use the bathroom the rest of the day, figuring the cockroach had moved on to darker pastures, and I never saw it or any of its relatives again.

I was on campus for our monthly Congressional meeting, where I hung out with my Union peeps. We're kind of a bloc of people there. There are other blocs, like the Trades people. My colleague used to be in Congress, but now she's a different class of employee so she can't be in it. I think it's my fault that my Union peeps are now in Congress, because I convinced them that, since Act 10, the Union can't do that much, but maybe we could change things via shared governance. There were cookies and beverages at the meeting, and there were lots of leftovers, so I took a couple of cookies for Travalon and a second bottle of water for myself.

Travalon had his first day of cooking at the Club. He kind of enjoyed it, but he did say it was hot in the kitchen. It probably didn't help that it was so hot outside, getting into the 90's. I walked with my colleague, but we went slowly and stayed in the shade.

Travalon picked me up from work, then we went to the health club and swam in the outdoor pool. That was wonderful, but I was bummed to have forgotten my shampoo and conditioner at home. Then in the locker room, as I was getting dressed, a girl of about nine pranced in, followed by her mother. They didn't look Latina, but they were speaking in Spanish as they put stuff in a locker not far from mine. The girl was saying, "She's a pig, she's a pig!" and the mother was saying, "Don't say that!" so I assumed she was talking about a kid in her class... and then suddenly I realized she was talking about me! Now let me assure you that this kid was not thin herself, nor was her mother, so kind of the pot calling the kettle black, in my opinion. I looked over, and she was looking at me, so I gave her the Look of Death (which I'm really good at, when necessary) and pondered telling her to F--k off in Spanish, but I let my glare speak for itself. Now maybe she just thought I was angry that she was speaking Spanish in this country (which actually doesn't bother me at all), but I kind of think she realized I knew exactly what she was saying, because she shut right up and ran off, followed by her mother. She reminds me of a girl I taught years ago in a catechism class, who was also fat and unattractive but really mean and proud of herself. She was kind of the leader of the other girls, although I have no idea why. She was not one bit appealing herself. I always wondered how she turned out, now that she must be about thirty. She's probably either in prison or the CEO of a company. Whatever factory is turning out these fat, ugly, proud, mean little girls, I wish it would stop.

Famous Hat

Blue Streak in the Sky

 

Last night I didn't sleep well at all, so this morning I really had to drag myself to Mass in the gym. No choir today, so it was a "Fifty minutes or your money back" sort of Mass, but then I made Travalon stay for the postlude because it was the same Bach transcription of a Vivaldi violin concerto that my OTHER choir director had played as the prelude at our wedding, because Kathbert had told him how much I loved Vivaldi. Besides the nostalgia value, I just love the piece.

It was a very hot day, so we walked in the shade at Lake Kegonsa State Park. Travalon hadn't brought his good camera, but he took some photos with his cell phone.

We also took a walk at Governor's Island, where a friendly black Lab came running up to us, picked up a stick, and begged us to throw it. We took turns, but when it was Travalon's turn and he didn't pick up the stick fast enough, the pup picked it up himself and dropped it in front of Travalon again, as if to remind him. There was a lovely breeze when we were close to the lake. Here's a photo.

Here are a couple more photos that Travalon sent me. This is one of the fish that he caught on Friday evening.

Yesterday Travalon and I took a walk in the neighborhood between the cruise and the ballgame. We went out on the dock, and when we were about to come back, the crane family was starting to come onto the dock. We all stopped and looked at each other, then the cranes went across the dock and into a neighbor's yard, so we went the long way around to avoid them.

Because of the lack of sleep, I didn't feel up to Irish class or band practice. Travalon said, "Come away with me to the dock, and let us watch the setting of the sun." (That's not a direct quote; I'm taking some poetic license.) Only we got there after the sun had already set. We did see some interesting stuff. First, some photos from my phone of the afterglow from the sunset.

Here are photos from Travalon's good camera.

We saw Midnight Splash coming in for the night.

And a boat with green and purple lights and a dog at the helm.

Then we noticed this weird blue beam in the sky, like a spotlight.

I think it might have been a contrail, because it started to get wider.

And then it vanished.

You know me, always making Travalon take photos of the moon.

The sky was more dark blue than black, but when Travalon focused on the moon, the background became black. He can focus in more on things than I can with the binoculars. When I think of how beautiful the comet back in 2020 looked through the binoculars, I wish he had been able to get a photo with the good camera. I think a comet is supposed to be coming this year, but maybe it already came. Hopefully someday we can get a good photo of a comet on this blog.

Famous Hat