The Return of Tux Duck

 

Early this morning I had to get up to powder my nose, and when I got back into bed, Travalon's stuffed rhino Rodrigo had moved over to my side of the bed, so I snuggled him. Then I dreamed that I took him to work and lost him. Here is a photo of Rodrigo for reference.

I went back to sleep and woke up seven minutes after my alarm should have gone off. I could see that it was set, but later I realized that it was set an hour later because Friday I worked from home. At least I won't have to reset it for tomorrow... 

Somehow I got to work on time, and at a quarter to noon two coworkers and I went down to get the pizza that was delivered for the grad student lunch. They were welcoming the candidates who are considering coming here for grad school. Then Hardingfele and I walked outside, since it was so beautiful out, and when we got back, we had leftover pizza. Then I had a very long meeting in the afternoon for the Academic Staff Assembly, not nearly as interesting as the University Staff Congress meetings. Maybe I just need to get to know people, because at first the Congress meetings were just a way to get out of work, but by the end I was really into it and knew a lot of people and sat on a lot of committees. It's a bummer to have to start all over again. Then when I got home, I realized Niko was still at work, snuggling against his girlfriend. She doesn't have a name that I can remember.

I was sure there is a picture of the two of them together, but I can't find it now. I've actually had her longer; she came into our house in February of 2022, while Niko arrived in June 2023. I brought her to work right away, and so Niko comes with me to work to see her. Now they get to spend the night together - ooh! Scandalous! It will actually be two nights, since I work from home tomorrow.

This morning I got another DuoLingo sticker:

Roddy is unimpressed.

Travalon took some photos off our dock this morning. Tux Duck is back!

And so are the blue-winged teals.

You can see their blue wings as they fly away.

Here is a male cardinal hanging out by the tennis court.

Then Travalon went to Cherokee Marsh again. He saw common mergansers.

Two couples! A double date?

Here are some mergansers taking flight.

The swans who were hiding yesterday were back today.

The flicker is still around.

This isn't the clearest shot, but I think the duck in front of all these common mergansers is a pintail.

Travalon found a spot with lots of scaups and ringed-neck ducks. They look almost identical, except that the ringed-neck ducks have designs on their bills.

This isn't the clearest photo, but their mating dances are so ridiculous that they're delightful.

Everything is migrating through right now. Soon we'll have to go to Patrick Marsh and Shoveler's Sink to see if we can find red-breasted mergansers, since there don't seem to be any (yet) at Cherokee Marsh. Once the ice has melted off the lake, the loons will migrate through. I don't know how long we have the swans with us, but we'll enjoy them while we've got them!

Famous Hat

Shamrock Club St. Patrick's Day Party 2026

 

Today after Mass and recycling the plastic, Travalon and I had to hurry up to Waunakee for the Shamrock Club St. Patrick's Day party. We bought fifteen raffle tickets and then watched the Trinity Irish Dancers put on a show before dinner sitting across from the Irish Person of the Year. When Travalon asked him what the secret is to being named Irish Person of the Year, he replied, "Be born Jewish." He is Jewish, but his mother died when he was very young, and his stepmother was Irish so he learned a lot from her. He is very entertaining - he said in his capacity as Irish Person of the Year, he was declaring a Club song, which was that "I'm a man you don't meet every day" song you always hear at Irish singalongs. Despite all our raffle tickets, not one of our numbers was drawn, but someone gave Travalon a ticket because their number had been drawn multiple times, so he got some Irish tea and a tea towel that is green but not particularly Irish - it has owls on it. I wore the shamrock socks someone gave me at the last Shamrock Club party because his numbers kept getting chosen and ours never were. We are always unlucky that way. We didn't have any of our tickets drawn at the wild game feast either.

Then we had to rush to the cemetery because Richard Bonomo decided we would put flowers on Mr. Why's grave today without consulting me about whether it was a good day. It was a beautiful day weatherwise, so after Rich took the requisite photo of Kathbert, Pete the Sailor Man, me, and himself in front of the grave to send to Mr. Why's family back in Singapore, Travalon and I took a walk at Jackson's landing to try to see swans. It was too swampy to get to the place where we might have been able to see them, but he did take a photo of Mariner's from across the river. You can see the lighthouse that I hope they spare when they build the new restaurant.

We went back to Cherokee Marsh and saw a young eagle on a muskrat lodge.

There were lots of common mergansers.

I like this photo of a male mallard and female common merganser gazing at each other.

I heard a woodpecker and thought it was the pileated one, so I followed the sound and discovered a trail we had never seen before - we will have to come back and explore it. We went to the spot where we had seen swans last week, but all we saw were a ton of scaups.

This is another kind of duck, but I'm not sure what. It looks a bit like a ruddy duck, but not reddish enough.

Travalon also got some shots of goldeneyes, but they aren't clear enough to post. We went to Tenney Park too, but we didn't see anything there. Then we came home, and I prayed a rosary while fighting to stay awake. At one point I lost the fight and woke up thinking, "Who is that oil baron? Hey, don't get stuck on that magnate!" which is a pun, since "magnate" sounds like "magnet" and things get stuck on magnets. So that's what my brain does when it's supposed to be reflecting on the Third Glorious Mystery - it writes dad jokes. And not even good ones, if in fact it can be said that there are ANY good dad jokes...

Famous Hat