Monkey at Mass

 

This morning when Travalon and I got to church, we were greeted by a bunch of stuffed monkeys. You could take one home for a donation to the Vacation Bible School, so meet Bosco:

He's named after an old cartoon character that Travalon loves to watch. I loved to watch his hair blowing around in the AC in the car. After we recycled the plastic and had a quick lunch, we went on a walk. This is what greeted us at the trailhead:

We saw an equally cheery birdhouse along the trail:

It felt like rain was imminent, but my phone said nothing until 11 pm, so we hiked a while until it began to sprinkle. We headed back to the car, and not far from it we heard thunder close by. Yikes! Then once we got into the car, it really began to pour. We had a little time before my drumming lesson, so we went to the rail yard, but most of the cars have been cleared out. We did see a few with graffiti.

Speaking of graffiti, Travalon forgot to send me this sidewalk chalk advertisement for my blogpost on Friday:

No lies detected - we wished to go on a boat ride, and we did go on a boat ride. Thanks, Limnology! 

And here is a random photo I took this afternoon of my Belleek Irish village, if that village consisted of four castle towers and a cottage:

Plus an antique map of Ireland, a kid's book in French, and a treble clef that glows under blacklight.

Today at drumming my buddy and I felt a little discouraged, since three other women who have been in less classes than we have were given extra patterns to drum while we were struggling with the basic ones, and some other people were given other instruments to play. We were feeling a bit remedial and wondering if it was our age, a feeling that was reinforced when a guy who is older than we are passed us as we commiserated outside, and I realized he has been in classes as long as we have and also doesn't get asked to do extra things. I think my problem is that I am thinking of drumming as a musical endeavor, and usually I'm good at those, but it's also a physical one, and I've never been good at those. I can barely keep track of where my feet are, never mind noticing when the pattern is changing because someone is giving hand signals I can't remember that stand for the names of drumming patterns I also can't remember.

Band practice was the opposite, because now we are practicing for our gig at the annual Ukrainian picnic, and those klezmer songs come as naturally to me as breathing. Hardingfele asked if I had seen some work email, and I said, "I barely check my personal email on weekends! Why would I check my work email?" She said because this week will be a heat wave (which I knew) and the cooling system for the whole university is on the fritz (which I also knew), our buildings will both be closed after tomorrow. Now I'm not sure what to do - bring home my plants? If it's too hot for humans to be there, how is it safe for plants? She said she's not bringing her plants home. And I'm not sure what "Locked after Monday" means, like do they mean you have to have an activated ID card to get in (which I do) like after hours, or does it mean we absolutely will not be able to get into the building? Hardingfele said, "They're tropical plants, they'll be fine," and I said, "Actually, most of mine are desert plants," and she said, "Then for sure they'll be fine." But what if they aren't?

Famous Hat

Watertown, the East Side Club, and Jazz Fest

 

Today Travalon and I drove to Watertown, where we went to Literatus and tried their flight of iced coffees and flight of pies. This iced coffee looks like it's fit for a flapper!

I kind of hated that wild berry pie refresher at first, but a few sips in and I really liked it. In case you are wondering what we got, here's the list:

I ate a bite of each pie and half my southwest chicken sandwich, and Travalon and I split the iced coffees. We both liked the pumpkin pie chai one best. Then we went for a walk on Tivoli Island. Travalon took some photos with his good camera. This is a mama and baby duck.

We found a tree tunnel!

Here is the dam.

There used to be buildings on the island, and this might have been a fountain.

I took this photo of something in the water. It looks like a lamppost. 

While on the island we saw four girls who looked identical (one was slightly smaller than the others), and we heard a train horn. We had been planning to go to a park the train goes through, but there was no point because we had already missed it. Instead, we headed back to town and found a place off Fair Oaks where train cars were just parked, and we could get up close to them. So much good graffiti!

There was even graffiti on the bridge.

We went to the East Side Club and listened to a blues band for a while, then we went to State Street and got some blueberry-lemon flavored infused drinks. Then we went to the Union Terrace to catch some of Jazz Fest. We saw lots of interesting people there, including a guy carrying two radishes. The first band we saw was led by renowned trombonist Wycliffe Gordon, and they were really good, doing classic jazz. The warning whistle for the boats went off, but they kept playing, and everyone cheered. There was a glorious sunset.

You can kind of see the band in this photo:

I did buy a commemorative T-shirt to support the festival. The band after that was a funk band, and at first we kind of liked them, but then they just went off on these long grooves that were good but didn't go anywhere, so we headed home. The moon behind the clouds over these two churches was beautiful.

Here's a closer shot of St. Paul's.

Protest on the sidewalk:

The very colorful Overture Center behind some other buildings:

What a wonderful day of coffee tasting, island hiking, and listening to music. I love summer Saturdays!

Famous Hat