Lovely Walk and Irish Tunes

 

Today I worked from home, and right after work I took a very satisfying rosary walk. I saw a slow train, a flock of tundra swans, and a beautiful sunset. This time I took some photos.

When Travalon came home, I said I wanted to see Mama Digdown's Brass Band play at a Mardi Gras party, but he checked the venue's website and it was sold out, so we went to Alt Brew to see the Irish band that plays there every second Friday. Neither Famie nor the red-headed flute player were there, and I felt a little down, wondering if they were off together doing something else. I think Famie was going to be out of town, so probably not, but sometimes those middle school fears pop out at you even in middle age. (Maybe it's just me - Ma Hat tells me I was born with FOMO and would cry in my crib because I wanted to hang out with the adults and hated missing out on whatever they were doing.) I was more surprised about the flute player, since she often sits in with the band. Of course, she sent us a text about some other gigs this Irish band was playing this week, so maybe she was going to those and had other plans tonight. I couldn't make either extra gig myself. To my surprise, Travalon seemed more up for the Irish band tonight than the Mardi Gras party, but it was a much earlier night, not to mention free. Our only cost was a gluten-free beer.

I once again have some exciting DuoLingo news for you:

And also:

That second one was actually from yesterday. I saw Seabird got the February Challenge badge at the same time I did, and we're both doing Portuguese. She actually plans to visit Portugal, while I'm just hanging out with a bunch of Brazilian drummers. Between the three semesters of Portuguese I had three decades ago and all the Spanish I learned on DuoLingo, Portuguese on DuoLingo is not much of a challenge. DuoLingo keeps noting that I am "acing Portuguese with 97% accuracy." That must be because 3% of words in Portuguese are too different from Spanish that I can't guess them.

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Happy Big Birthday, Rich and the Adoration Chapel!

 

Today I worked on campus, but it's always quieter on Thursdays because less people are around. It was beautiful out, and I thought about praying a rosary on my lunchtime walk, but I emailed Hardingfele to see if she wanted to walk, figuring she would blow me off. To my surprise, she did want to walk. Then my aunt in Colorado sent this gorgeous picture of a friend's garden.

This must be from the summer. I figured we could all use some flowers right about now. Travalon was excited to see open water around here.

After work I took the bus to our old church, where Richard Bonomo and Hockey Girl had organized a Latin Mass to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Adoration Chapel. About half the people were Anglos and half were Latinos. I ran into two regulars from Night Prayer on the way in, so the three of us sat together. Before Mass someone started a rosary, so I did get one in today. There was a quartet that sang, but it wasn't my OTHER choir director's quartet, which Kathbert is part of, and I don't know why. Were they unavailable? Had a better-paying gig? 

Today was also an auspicious day because Rich turned seventy. Wow, that sounds old, but I swear he looks almost exactly like he did in the documentary he appeared in during his late twenties. Of course, Mamastep told me I have looked the same to her in all the years I've known her, and I KNOW I've gained a crap-ton of weight during that time. 

Speaking of gaining weight, there was a reception after the Mass tonight, and at first I hung around outside the church hall, figuring there wasn't enough food for all the people gathered inside. Travalon came to pick me up, and then we checked it out. In fact, there was plenty of food, so I tried a little of everything: a skewer with cherry tomatoes (ew!) and mozzarella, a skewer with two meatballs on it, a skewer with a bacon-wrapped chestnut (okay, so I had two of those), a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a chocolate-covered strawberry, a lemon bar, and a homemade chocolate truffle that was so good that I had to go back and make sure by having another one. After all that, I had no appetite for dinner. So that was quite a party for the birthdays of both Rich and the Adoration Chapel. I got a special invitation, being a regular adorer, and I saw some of my fellow adorers there, but it was really open to anyone.

The funniest moment of the night might have been when Rich made an announcement after Mass in Bonoman, as he often does, so I turned to the Latino couple behind me and asked, "¿Que dijó?" and they shrugged... and then it occurred to me that if they didn't know English, how would they have known what he said? Someone else said, "He said to keep your program," so I did, and it came in handy during Night Prayer when the host asked me to sing the closing hymn from the Mass. I said I didn't have the words in front of me, and he said, "You took the program home, didn't you?" Indeed I did!

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Ursula and Coventry

 

Today I have absolutely nothing to blog about, because I felt a bit unwell in a way that might have been contagious, so I worked from home. Also, I was so light-headed that just the drive to the shuttle stop sounded scary. It made for a very productive day, but I missed Seabird bringing in red bean mochis and also an early music concert at lunch, as well as our department meeting. At least the concert was recorded, so I can catch it when they post it early next week. I did take a walk right after work, hoping to see a train as confirmation that I was right to stay home, but all I saw was a lovely sunset which I did not take a picture of. Sorry.

Speaking of pictures, here are Ursula and Coventry together.

Travalon always has his stuffies getting into romantic relationships, so why shouldn't I? And here is Ursula with the stuffed bubble tea that matches her.

Here is Coventry the Christmas Dragon with a stuffed Christmas tree.

And here is the Hawaiian Capricorn keychain I thought was a necklace.

Guess my reading comprehension sucks. It's from the same place as my grandma's Cancer necklace. Maybe I can make it into a necklace. More likely I'll just take it to work and hang it up with all my evil eye protection things. Once a very Catholic former grad student stopped in to say hi, and she was taken aback by the evil eye protectors. The astrology thing wouldn't have helped. The thing is that I don't really believe the protectors do anything - I just really like the way they look. I especially love my cuddly evil eye protector, Niko. He's sitting her next to me, protecting away.

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Heart Hoya Surprise

 

Today I have even less to say than yesterday. I worked from home and walked outside every chance I got. FART 5 had a meeting this morning, and our boss said there is a nasty cold going around, but I remember thinking, "I feel fine." However, by midafternoon I was stuffy and sneezing - power of suggestion? I took an allergy pill but didn't feel better, just sleepy, so I called in sick to Adoration. (I did lead Night Prayer as regularly scheduled.) Thought I was feeling better and would get the rest of my steps today, but once I got up and started walking around to music, I didn't have the energy. Will go to bed soon and see if tomorrow I am back to myself or have a full-blown cold. Weirdly, while I feel feverish, the thermometer says my temperature is just fine. That's a hopeful sign, anyway.

Here's the exciting news in my life, which I have already mentioned: the heart-shaped hoya leaf I have had for years is sprouting a new shoot!

This is maybe not the best photo of it. It was easier to see when it was in the tiny pot it came in and had been in for years. I just transplanted Big Keith the Dracaena and my money tree, so while I was at it, I transplanted this too, since if it's actually going to grow into a whole plant, it will need more room. However, this pot seems too large for it, so hopefully it doesn't die. Not sure why pots that are too big are bad news, since in nature a plant is in an infinitely large pot, but I remember years ago I took a leaf like this from a hoya plant when I worked at the greenhouse on campus, and it was happy for a long time until I transplanted it... and then it died. I hope that isn't the fate of this plant. As you can see, the bottom of the leaf is getting a little brown, and I thought it was finally dying after all these years; I'd read these "zombie leaves" can live for years but never have any new growth so eventually they die. So I was expecting it to die any day, but instead it sent up this shoot! Also, a piece of my rick-rack cactus broke off, so I stuck that in a pot, and the bottom turned black but the upper part has all sorts of shoots coming off of it, so I removed the black part. I hope that wasn't a mistake too, and that it was perfectly happy as it was. Plants are so mysterious. Sometimes I get plants that die right away, but often they seem very happy for a long time and then they suddenly start dwindling away, and I can't save them no matter what. I have a gasteria right now that looks awful, so I took a photo of it with the plant app that can supposedly tell you what the problem is, and it just said, "This plant is okay, but it could be better." Um... thanks? Am I overwatering it? Underwatering it? Please, just give me a hint! Useless app.

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Animals We Saw in Florida

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I walked with Hardingfele. She must have found the weather tolerable, because she didn't have any interest in going to the greenhouses today. We walked outside, and when we got back to her office, she showed me a Starbucks gift card she had found on the ground. She wondered how much was left on it, but I said probably nothing if someone had just dropped it like that. She looked up how to check the balance on it, then she checked it... and it was $0. Hey, you get what you pay for. Then in the afternoon I had a long meeting, and I ran into my former boss, but Handy Woman wasn't there this time. I have found the issues confronting academic staff less compelling than those facing university staff, who are often way underpaid and treated like crap, but today I got interested in a group that meets to decide if they will support or oppose various bills working their way through the state legislature. That sounds like my kind of group!

As promised weeks and weeks ago, here is a short movie I compiled of all the videos Travalon made of animals we encountered on our travels:

Some of these are native to Florida and some, obviously, are not. I'll give you a hint: if they are from Busch Gardens, they are not anything you would see in the wilds of Florida.

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Bad Bunny: Best Super Bowl Show Ever

 

I forgot to mention that Friday right after I got done with work, I went outside to take a rosary walk. It was very cold and I was tempted to go inside, but I stuck it out and was rewarded with seeing a train during the fifth decade. God's talking to me in Train again. Also, yesterday I went outside to take a walk and saw that all three of my packages had arrived: my Muppets hoodie, my Hawaiian Capricorn keychain (thought I was ordering a necklace just like Grandma's - oops!), and my "Minnesota Nice" basket of soap, lotion, scented oil, and lip balm. It was a fundraiser for people in Minnesota, and you could send one to a person in need in Minnesota, so I bought one for myself and one for someone being terrorized by ICE. Sorry, no photos of my loot yet - soon.

This morning there was twice as much plastic as usual, but there was a Care for Creation meeting after Mass, so I couldn't help too much with the recycling and poor Travalon had to take all the bags to the drop-off point himself. They were also selling pizzas after Mass to help people in Belize, so we bought one and had it for lunch. My Brazilian drum lesson was really short today, but like last week, my FitBit thought I got a workout from bicycling outside. Last week I was very sore after walking all around the Milwaukee Public Museum the day before, so I was happy to get "steps" by drumming and fiddling. Today I was short because it was so cold outside; Travalon and I walked around the house, but we didn't get that many steps so I cheated and put the FitBit on my right wrist when I went to band practice. Unlike the Slow Irish Session last week, where we played continuously so I got credit for a walk, this time my FitBit didn't register any workout, but it did register enough steps that I only had to walk around the house to one song when I got home to get my ten thousand steps. Not bad!

When I got home, Travalon was watching the end of the Super Bowl. The Seahawks won, which pleases me as far as I care, since neither team was the Packers. Travalon had recorded the whole game, so once it was over I rewound and watched the halftime show. And was that ever amazing! Having just been to Puerto Rico, I could recognize some of the tropes in the show, and I was happy to see Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. Bad Bunny had so much energy, and he did have a lot of salsa flavor in his music. I haven't listened to him much in the past, but maybe now I will. He did work with a professor at our university to write his album about Puerto Rico, that I believe won a grammy. He certainly did win a Grammy at one point, because he gave it to a kid during the show. Also, a couple invited him to their wedding so he said they should have it during his show, and so they did. A real wedding! This has to be the best Super Bowl halftime show ever. It ended with Bad Bunny name-checking every country in Latin America, and ending with the USA and Canada, as people behind him carried all the flags. My regular readers know I'm a real sucker for parades of flags. But this show sucked me in from the beginning, when it depicted the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, and the old men playing cards at a table. Of course, that could also be Cuba. All my love to both islands.

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Balkan Singing and Croatian Wild Game Feast

 

Today Travalon and I had a very relaxed morning. I started the Portuguese course on DuoLingo and took a vigorous rosary walk in the neighborhood, and I did repot a plant. That was about as much as I accomplished this morning. Then we drove to Oakwood Village, a retirement community, to sing Balkan music in their chapel. We were very confused because we parked close to the chapel, but the doors to it were locked, so we had to go in the main entrance. Fortunately we ran into one of the people leading the singing, who led us to the chapel. We sang for an hour with about a dozen other people; it was scheduled to go for two hours, but we had to go pick up Mamastep to head to the Croatian wild game feast in Milwaukee.

Tiffy and my other college friend met us at the Foreign Legion, which was already very crowded. We couldn't find five seats together, despite having made a reservation for five - there were lots of spaces that were reserved, so we have no idea why we didn't get a reserved space. Tiffy and my other college friend found two seats together, and Travalon, Mamastep, and I found three together, so I only talked to the other two briefly now and then tonight. There were all sorts of wild game dishes, pheasant gumbo and elk goulash and venison medallions and rabbit in cream sauce and fried frog legs, which were my favorite. The gumbo was really good too. I had to eat somewhat lightly because of my diet medication, which will make my life miserable if I eat too much. There were also rolls, green salad, sauerkraut that was very different than German sauerkraut (more like boiled cabbage), and a wonderful thing like polenta. And then of course there were a ton of desserts. 

The tamburitza group of high schoolers that the fundraiser was for played a few songs, including the US and Croatian national anthems, then there were the raffle drawings. Tiffy and my other college friend had not bought raffle tickets because they are smart, so they said goodbye and took off. Mamastep and Travalon had bought raffle tickets, because I had forgotten how interminable the raffle for items on the table was last year, and it was no better this year. Why do people buy raffle tickets and then ignore them? Or were they so drunk that they couldn't figure out if the number called was one of their tickets? (Likely.) The guy calling the numbers would call the same one over and over while the rest of us were like, "They're not here! Just draw another number!" We didn't win anything, and other people at our table had a ton more tickets and didn't win anything. They were joking that the people had forgotten to put their tickets in the basket for drawing until finally one woman did get to go up to the table, and she got a gift certificate for a hardware store. I saw people with way cooler things, like orchids and paintings, but I hadn't really looked at the table before the drawing so I had no strong opinions about what I would have chosen in the unlikely event that our number would have been drawn. Then there was a "high table" with prizes of greater value, but there were only five of those so it went a lot faster. Also, I think the people who had bought those higher-priced tickets cared more. We only had three for the "low table," one for the "high table," and one for the 50/50 raffle. The amount this year was around $500. Mamastep bought a number of 50/50 raffle tickets, but she didn't win either. So we headed home, through a light snow, talking about random things like embryonic development and jazz standards, and so we had a very Balkan day to make up for all the Celtic days that Travalon has to put up with, like Thursday night. I'm all for fair representation of our ethnic heritages - I love tamburitza music. Travalon made some videos, but it was so loud with people yakking that you can barely hear the music. They really got loud during the raffle - if someone won, a bunch of people at their table would make turkey calls. Why? Because alcohol.

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