Recorder Concert and Cactus Fruit

 

I forgot to take pictures of these until just now, but Saturday on State Street I bought a couple of crystals.

They are black tourmaline and sodalite. Here is another thing I finally took a photo of - my rick rack cactus blooms now and then, but it's been looking crispy lately, and my plant app said it was getting sunburned. Makes sense, I guess, since I moved it to a spot in a south-facing window where it gets direct sun all day long. I moved it into my plant room with the east-facing window, and I discovered this:

It's making a fruit! I guess some bug in our house must have pollinated it. These fruits are supposed to be edible and very delicious, closely related to dragon fruit, so I'll see if it ripens. Honestly, I just got this plant because the leaves are so cool, but with its showy and fragrant blossoms and now maybe tasty fruit, it has far outlived my expectations.

Today I worked from home, since the cooling system is out at work (now they say for at least a month), and many buildings - including mine - are closed. Hopefully my plants at work are okay - I'm going to check on them tomorrow, since that's the usual day I water them. Of course the AC had to go out right during the heatwave, so we were all told to work from home. It's like a mini-pandemic. 

Travalon didn't have to work today, so he went to Portage and swam in Silver Lake. From there he saw a couple of trains go by. Then he went to the Dells and saw this train.

Isn't it cute? Here are some photos.

And this is a former Sinclair station in the Dells that still is called Dino-Stop.

Then he kindly drove me to Adoration and walked down to the Union while I was making a Holy Hour. Outside the Union he saw this tiny bunny.

Then he even more kindly drove me to the church where I often go to Baroque concerts to see my former choir mate play with her recorder ensemble. They played some Baroque and Renaissance stuff, some shape note tunes, some Polish folk tunes, and a Welsh tune. I had forgotten my sunglasses (the ones I just won at the Alumni Party) at my bandmate's house, and I said if we met there, she could give them back to me, so we sat together. Afterwards there were make your own sundaes, and I sat with my bandmate, my former choir mate and her husband, another choir mate who had come to hear her, Pete the Sailor Man, and a woman they all know and I met a few times years ago. It turns out she and her late husband were both rail fans, so when Travalon joined us, we talked about trains, among other things. She's also on DuoLingo, so if I can find her, we can be friends. I have tons of friends on there I've never met in real life, so I might as well have a few (besides Seabird and my former choir mate's husband) whom I've actually met in person.

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Swimming and Sunsets

 

Last night I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I wondered if the iced decaf pandan latte Travalon had brought me after band practice was in fact not decaf, but he was sure it was because the barista was a regular who knew his order. Anyway, for whatever reason I couldn't sleep, so I listened to my favorites by Bach and Vivaldi until finally getting sleepy not long before 3 am... and then my alarm went off an hour earlier than I'd expected because I'd forgotten I worked on campus on Friday. I could have gone in to campus today, but I worked from home and did take a leisurely walk in the shade at lunchtime. When Travalon came home, we went swimming in the outdoor pool at the health club, which was not packed with kids, but the ones who were there sure were taking up a lot of room. Still, we managed to find enough space to swim for almost half an hour solid, and when we came home, the sun was just setting so we went out on the dock to watch it. I was so relaxed, I felt like that time Tiffy and I went to the water spa for her birthday. Here are a couple three photos, as they say.

Speaking of sunset photos, here are a couple three four Travalon took at the Union Terrace on Saturday.

He also forgot to send me the photos he took of a video game called Pengo that he played yesterday while I was at my drumming lesson.

He said it's a game where a cute little red penguin goes around a maze and breaks up ice bergs, but these evil yellow bugs come and kill it. I don't remember this game from back in the day, but it certainly looks retro enough to be from our Gen X youth. To anyone of a younger generation reading this, yes it's true that back then I got hit over the head by an aluminum bat another kid carelessly flung in gym class, and they just gave me some ice for my head and sent me off to my next class, which was French. This is why we don't scare easy - we figured either something would kill us, or it wouldn't, and we'd just get an ice pack and have to go conjugate the verb "etre."

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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?

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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!

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