Boat Ride with Lotus Harvest and Choro Session with Humiliation

 

I forgot to mention two things yesterday. One was that I didn't bring something with me to eat before the condo association meeting, so at my afternoon break I went and bought a sandwich. They didn't have the kind I love, so it took a bit for me to decide, but then I was in the right place to see a train go by on campus, with lots of beautiful graffiti. I didn't take any photos or videos, sorry. I was kind of far away from it.

The second thing was right at the end of the day when I asked my coworker who isn't even thirty if she was done in the mailroom, since I was going to lock up early to go to the meeting. Her student hourly asked me how the Halfway to St. Patrick's Day party was, and I said, "Lots of fun! Thanks!" so she said, "It was lit, huh?" I said we're all too old for that, and she nodded knowingly and said, "It was lit!" My coworker asked if that was the party I'd told her about that morning, so I said, "No, that was the Willy Street Fair yesterday. It's not Irish, just crazy." Then I told them about going to see Herb Alpert, and they were both like, "Who??" so the student looked him up and she said he was kind of a thirst trap... and then she saw his age. "He's 91?" she yelped. "That's pre-World War II!" I said yes, he was even before my time, but it was amazing how energetic he still is at his age, so we speculated that the music kept him young. The part that really killed me was when the student said she was glad my weekend was "fire" or "lit" or "ballin'" or some slang like that, and I was amazed that a college student (and not a poor one like I was who couldn't afford to do anything, but one with a boyfriend and enough money to travel abroad) thought that my life was so exciting. I mean, it is to me, but it's always interesting to learn that it is to people who are less than half my age.

This morning Travalon and I walked earlier than usual because I had a bunch of meetings mid-morning, and it was sunny outside, but when we actually got outside, it was raining! And yet no rainbow! My second meeting lasted about three minutes because none of us had any issues to discuss, so Travalon and I took a long lunch to go out on the boat. We saw a cormorant, terns, gulls, and a family of pied-billed grebes, and we also saw this buoy that seemed to imply we should be speeding:

"Slow? No!" But you can see from these others that the word "wake" was below the water line on that buoy.

We also harvested a lotus seed head and ate the seeds, which taste a little like macadamia nuts when you get them at the right time. (The "right time" seems to be the autumnal equinox.) I did throw one back, just to give the plant a chance to reproduce. It only seems fair. When I told Seabird about it, since she was the one who had told me about how you can harvest the lotus seeds, she asked me to grab some seed heads for her, but we didn't get a chance to go back out in the boat. However, I forgot one seed in my pocket, so at least I can bring her one tomorrow. Here you can see a line of lotuses in front of a hill.

Tonight there were only four of us at choro: the guy who runs it, the cavaquinho player, the student who always goes to the Slow Irish sessions, and me. The student and I were embarrassed because while we are pretty good sight readers, we are not really improving because we don't practice between sessions, which are only once a month. The cavaquinho player was surprised that we don't - he said he does. My problem is that I do so many things that I never focus on any one thing enough to get good at it. 

I could see on the way to choro that the train was going to be heading north through our neighborhood, and sure enough, the guy who always makes a video of it had posted one when I got home. Here are some screenshots of graffiti.

This is some random graffiti. It's not like the train I saw on campus yesterday, that had lots of "Puck" and "Amor" on it. I do not recognize a single one of these tags. Also, the first engine was the yellow one the railroad has just acquired, but the second one was the standard red one like most of theirs are.

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Condo Association Meeting 2026

 

So I completely forgot to mention that I marched in the parade briefly yesterday, when my Union peeps saw me and signaled for me to join them. They had sent an email saying, "Meet at this place at 10:30 to march in the parade!" but I wasn't motivated enough to do that. You can see me joining them in this video:

The closed captions on this thing kill me. It absolutely never transcribes anything Travalon says, while it randomly transcribes some of what I say, as well as throwing a few Hallelujas in there that I heard nobody say, and the word "xal," which I don't know about you, but I use that word every day. I'll bet Scrabble wouldn't even let you use that word. But my most favorite part of all is when the Brazilian drums are marching, and my drum teacher is blowing his whistle, it transcribes that as "Heat! Heat!" Brazilian drums do bring the heat, that's for sure, even on a cold day like yesterday.

Today was a much less interesting day, but Hardingfele and I did walk at lunch, and we saw some flowers. She said this looked like one that should be blooming in the spring, and it was called something like a Spring Star, which would seem to imply that it should have bloomed earlier than the cusp of autumn.

And this one is blue sage.

Hardingfele said it smelled like tar and cat pee. I thought it smelled like sage.

After work I went to the Waunakee Village Center for our annual condo association meeting. Our Vice President was retiring from the board, and two people threw their names in the hat, so four of us were running for three positions. The President and I (the Treasurer) were both reelected, and the new guy apparently got the most votes, so he's our new Vice President. He's only lived here a few months, but he ran a business for years, so he has lots of relevant experience, plus he grew up the third of nine kids out in the country, so he's probably handy. Thank goodness someone on the board is, because that is not my strong suit. I just pay the bills.

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Willy Street Fair 2026

 

Since we went to Mass last night, Travalon was able to watch the Wolverhampton game this morning, and they won! Sadly, there was a brand-new mural someone had pained with some of their star players on it, and a guy from the other team defaced it - it wasn't even 24 hours old!

Then we went to Willy Street in time to catch the parade. It was surprisingly cool today, and I was trying to think how to be extra in warm clothes, when it occurred to me that I have that silly thing that looks like a fuzzy, three-eyed blue monster that sits on my head, and I can make the ears move. Is it a hat? Is it a stuffed animal? Yes. 

We watched the parade, and I made the monster's ears move in time to the music. I could see that some of the Brazilian drummers saw me and laughed. Travalon made some videos, and I compiled them into a movie but am having some technical difficulties so watch for that hopefully tomorrow. Here are a couple of photos. Sorry, my monster hat is not in any of them.

After the parade we went to check out the fair and immediately ran into the Kiwi from the Shamrock Club and his delightful girlfriend. Then another person they knew saw us and told us it was his birthday, so I sang him Happy Birthday in Basque, which he loved - he said, "That's a great birthday gift!" Travalon and I found the booth with the amazing kebabs, then we continued on and came across a band playing Latin music, so we sat and listened. They also did reggae and other styles - very versatile. Travalon got more kebabs and baobab shakes, then the Kiwi and his girlfriend joined us, and we split into two conversations based on gender. Then they went to check out other bands, since there were at least three other stages at the Fair, while we heard the whole set by that band, called Los Bad Hombres. Then we explored the Fair to the end, getting pork dumplings and coconut shrimp and hibiscus juice, and Travalon bought a pair of sunglasses from the local radio station just like the pair I bought last year. Somehow I lost a $5 bill. We passed a place selling gummies, so I bought a package and took one, since that was 5 mg, but it didn't seem to do much at first. 

We went back to the main stage, where a funky jazz combo called Rare Element were playing, and we listened to them. At some point the Kiwi and his girlfriend came back, and some guy gave them free little books, but he was gone so I couldn't get one. There was one of a poem of Gerard Manley Hopkins, my favorite poet, so I would have liked that one. They chose Dante's Inferno. They wandered off to hear a band called Yolk, and then the third band on the main stage played, I think they were called Automatic Lover. They also played funky jazz and Latin music, and at one point the lead singer asked, "Are there any Capricorns in the house?" I hollered, but nobody else did, and I felt a bit like that time at World Youth Day in Paris when the Pope was giving a shout-out to each country in French, and when he said, "Etats-Unis," Ethel and I hollered, but nobody else did for miles around, and the people around us asked, "Only you two from the US?" 

I saw a little kid looking at me, so I made my hat's ears move, and he was transfixed. Then someone brought over a baby to watch my hat. I had to keep doing it for so long that my FitBit said I got my steps for the hour just squeezing the paws of my monster hat to make the ears keep moving. Then we saw the Daughter of Denni, so I showed her how my monster hat's ears move, and she was as delighted as the children and bought us a beer. Part of a beer on top of the gummy did finally make me feel stoned, and suddenly the bassline in the music sounded AMAZING. Wow! Oh, I forgot to mention that at the place where I bought the gummies, Travalon bought an adorable stuffed bong.

So cute! Then on the way home we saw some train graffiti - thought I'd forgotten about that, didn't you?

We were enjoying the Willy Street Fair so much that I never got to the Slow Irish Session, and I would have had to miss the second half anyway to get to band practice. It was at our newest fiddler's house, and I stupidly didn't wear the blue monster hat, since she has a four-year-old, and also a four-month-old named after the Pope who was asleep the whole time we were there. We practiced some hard Cajun music that we had never played before, so I think the preschooler was annoyed. Cajun music does have a whiny quality even when played well, so you can imagine how weird it sounds when people are sight reading it. Travalon picked me up with a decaf iced pandan latte, what he always gets me when he goes to Leopold's. A wonderful ending to a wonderful day! 

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Herb Alpert, Again

 

Travalon and I had a very lazy morning, then I had to go do an audit for the local because I'm a trustee. The other trustee has done them before, so she knew what to do, and so it only took an hour. Then Travalon and I went to evening Mass before going to the Orpheum to see Herb Alpert.

Longtime readers may remember that we saw Herb Alpert almost exactly three years ago. We had to go down to Chicago for that, but this time he came to town with the Tijuana Brass, and Travalon got "free" tickets with the credit from the time he tried to get Weird Al Yankovic tickets and the seller never sent them to him. Then just last week the Dairyman's Daughter asked if we like him, because two friends of hers had tickets and couldn't go. I said yes, we are such big fans that we already had tickets, but it turns out Rich and another regular from the Night Prayer group really wanted to go. We didn't go with them, but we did run into them there. 

So now he's 91, but he's still going strong. He's very funny, and he still plays the trumpet beautifully. He started with one of Travalon's favorites, "The Lonely Bull," and then he asked people to shout out what song from Whipped Cream and Other Delights they wanted to hear, and both Travalon and the guy on the other side of me shouted, "Taste of Honey!" They did play that, and they did a long jam on "Rise," which was my gateway drug to Herb Albert because I was too young to encounter him in his heyday, but that song was big in the early 80's when I was a tween, and I just loved it. Still love it, especially the version they did tonight. We all clapped on the appropriate beat. They did most of his hits, and some other songs (like "Love Potion #9") that I had not heard him cover before, and then during the encore they played another favorite of mine, "Tijuana Taxi." I just love the horn at the end! Afterwards we went to our old church to use the restroom, and when I was talking to Rich about how cool it is that a nerdy Jewish kid could grow up to be a sex symbol, own a recording label, and still be going strong in his nineties, some guy came out of the bathroom and said, "Wasn't that a great show?" I have no idea who he is, but to get into our church at night he must have had a key, so he must have been some sort of parishioner.

Here are the screenshots from the final video Travalon made on our ten-train day. He made this one with his cell phone, but he held it horizontally, so it doesn't have those weird black patches on either side.

I am finally caught up on train video screenshots, that I know of. I'm sure there will be more in the future.

And once again, I have to do a little DuoLingo bragging:

I only spent about an hour and a half doing it this morning. Now it's time for my night session.

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Happy Birthday to Jilly Moose!

 

First of all, Happy Birthday to Jilly Moose! I don't actually have anything else to say, having been at home sick all day, so here are some more screenshots of train graffiti from Travalon's videos.

That's enough screenshots for one post, and this is all from the same train as the last post! Now I only have one minute of video left to check, but a minute can contain a lot of graffiti at the speeds these trains are going at. 

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