Belleek Castle Clare Tower

 

Today I had a very busy day at work. I had to take a phone call that was half an hour late, so I had no idea when I'd be free to walk at lunch and didn't bother to try to hook up with Hardingfele. But an email arrived that said my Castle Clare ornament had been delivered, and when I got home, there were four packages. It was like Christmas! Three were for Travalon, but he tells me two are presents for me. Here is my Castle Clare ornament.

Here it is between Blarney Castle and Nenagh Castle, with Travalon's antique map of Ireland in the background and the nameless castle tower on the right. (Thought I had gotten it in the photo more.) The big tower is a vase, and the smaller ornaments are all bells.

Now I am done getting Belleek castles, at least for now. There isn't really room for any more, although today I got a notice that my $150 gift card for doing health stuff at work is on its way, so potentially I could buy more. Do I need more? There are other castle ornaments, but I don't like them as well.

Also, my Blog Monster at work has faded, especially the hot pink, which has vanished.

As a reminder, this is how it looked when I first created it:

Guess I shouldn't have hung it up where the sun can kind of shine on it.

This evening I went to Moldy Jam, and lately the group has been half the size it used to be. I wonder why? I brought the fiddle this time, and the woman who can really play the mandolin asked which instrument I liked better, but I couldn't really say. We had a new person who was way younger than even I am, a graduate student who plays the banjo, and she had it tuned in D so for the first half of the jam we played in D. Then she retuned it to G, so for the second half we played tunes in G or E minor. I was having a tough time with tunes I didn't know, since the other two fiddlers would play harmonies instead of the melody, so I couldn't follow what was going on. However, when it was a tune I knew, like "Pig Ankle Rag," then I found the harmonies to be a lot of fun. I love songs with a lot going on in them, like some hip hop tunes and Baroque choral music, so when there was a lot going on with chords and harmonies in the tunes I knew, it was an amazing sound. It was kind of fun with only nine people, but still, I hope the others show up again soon.

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Two Concerts in Episcopal Churches, a Ghost Train, and a Terrible Trivia Host

 

Travalon has provided some more photos of Tux Duck on our boat slip.

And also a wild-type mallard drake at Stricker Pond.

Yesterday we met Tiffy at the usual Park and Ride, then we drove to Wauwatosa because Just Bach was performing the same concert there as the one they did Friday night during the tornado. I always think of Wauwatosa in a rosy, golden light after my brief sojourn there last summer for Irish Fest Summer School, since I was able to walk everywhere, and we played so much music. Yesterday we went to the restaurant with the North Woods theme, and Tiffy knew it because she had gone there with her brother and his family over Christmas. The food is really good, and they play loon calls in the bathrooms. Then we walked to the chocolate shop, and this may really be why I think of Wauwatosa so fondly, because the chocolate gave me kind of a buzz. We had affogatos and truffles, but not whatever "tirimasu" is.

I am a fan of tiramisu, but we didn't get that either. Then Travalon dropped us off at Trinity Episcopal Church for the concert, which was supposed to last an hour. There were still several songs to go at four, and we had to be in downtown Milwaukee by five for our next concert, of Chinese music, so we snuck out between numbers. I felt a little awkward doing so, since I know several of the people in the group, but one of the leaders knew we were going to the Early Music Now concert, so he probably understood. It was such a good concert, and when Travalon said it would only take eighteen minutes to get to our next venue, I was so bummed: "We could have heard the whole concert!" I was all for sneaking back in, but Tiffy said, "We're out now, let's just go." 

Of course we got to the next place, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, with lots of time to spare, so we took a walk and admired these fritillaries in bloom.

Nothing like a checkerboard flower! This concert was also very enjoyable, but we were sitting way in the back, in the cheap seats, so we hoped to see the interesting instruments up close afterwards, but the performers rushed off the stage with them. Meanwhile, Travalon saw the Amtrak train and discovered a pedestrian bridge that used to be a railroad bridge.

He picked us up, and we went down by the lake and saw these cool clouds.

He told us about the pedestrian bridge, and how it has a light show called the Ghost Train after dark, so we went there and discovered it happens at 9 pm this time of year. We went to Indulgence Chocolate and got more chocolate (that we didn't eat until today), and then we had dinner at the Three Lions Pub, which was started by three actual British guys. We got done not long before the Ghost Train, so we went to see it, and while we did see the light show, we didn't hear the promised whistle and train sounds.

Today Travalon and I relaxed a bit after Mass, then I said I'd like to see birds but wondered if there was time before my first drum lesson of the new session, and he said let's check out a place nearby where there are often coots. And were there ever coots!

There were also two Tux Ducks, and one was almost black.

There was also a pied-billed grebe.

The straggling coots were rushing to catch up with the big group.

And we also saw a killdeer.

We had a ton of people at the drum lesson today, many of them new. My buddy from the other sessions was there, just back from Costa Rica. It was new for all of us, because we played a different kind of drum today, a big bass drum as we stepped back and forth. The guy who plays the little instrument like a ukulele never seems that impressed with me, but today he asked if I would be at the next Brazilian jazz session, and he said, "I heard you were killing it over there!" Oh, but I desperately need to practice! It's one thing to be a great sightreader at your first session, but there's no excuse for not having looked at the music since then. I definitely want to learn this music!

After my drum lesson, Travalon and I went to the East Side Club for a member event consisting of a pasta dinner and a trivia game. I should have taken a picture of the setup - it was a colorful stand with four spots for contestants. Travalon and I were a team against another couple, and we were pretty closely matched, but this wasn't the trivia I'm used to, it was identifying clips from movies, TV shows, and songs. Travalon was much better at it than I was. A couple of ladies who sat with us at dinner went before us, and they beat the team they played against, but the one lady was laughing about how terrible the host was - he was always playing the wrong clip, like he'd say, "Identify this TV show by its theme song," and then he'd play a clip of someone saying. "I am your father," or whatever, and then he'd go, "Oops, wrong clip!" The ladies told us we would have won our game if the host had been consistent about deducting points for wrong answers, since he did it to us and not the other team we played, but we lost by one question. It was hard to care, since it was so hilarious how bad the host was. Travalon went over to the prize table after we played, and I had to remind him that we didn't get to choose a prize since we'd lost, but he was coveting a Bucks baseball cap, so toward the end of the game I said since there were tons of prizes left, and nobody was paying attention, he should just take it. All the prizes were booze swag the club gets since they buy so much alcohol for the bar, and his cap said Jagermeister on it. During the game Hardingfele texted me to say they were all at band practice, and was I coming? but you will be shocked to learn I never made it to band practice. Next week.

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Third Tornado Warning This Week

 

I worked on campus today so I could go to two parties: a birthday party for Union South at noon, and a party on the Union Terrace to welcome the sunburst chairs back at three. However, the birthday party was on Wednesday, and the weather was bad by the time of the Terrace party, so it was almost a waste of time. Still, I did get to walk with Seabird in the morning and at lunch, and I was working on scholarships that were easier to process with the two monitors in my office than just on my laptop, if I'd been at home. Also, I got to hang out with Famie and three grad students to talk in Irish (well, mostly English) and sing a song in Irish about seaweed that was clearly about men hitting on women. The weather was beautiful, and Travalon had gone out on our dock and seen Tux Duck on our boat slip.

Travalon says, "He's always welcome there!" Though I have to tell you that Tux Duck chases away all the other mallards who come around, except for his lady love. (Not sure where she was when this photo was taken...) He's a very aggressive drake.

So anyway, Famie and the grad students and I were sitting outside talking Irish when the sun went away, the wind picked up, and then the boat warning steam whistle at the Union went off. It goes off an hour before sunset to let the boats know it's time to come in, but whenever it goes off in the middle of the day, that's bad news. It means bad weather is coming so get off the water NOW. I went back to my office and told my coworkers we should all head home, and they listened. While I was talking to them, Travalon called me, because he had gotten to work and they told him go home, the weather was too bad so the kids weren't coming today. He came and picked me up, and the traffic was horrible as everyone was heading home, but we got home just before the heavy rain started. I logged into work for another couple of hours, and just as I was logging off, my phone shrieked at me because there was a tornado warning. We went downstairs into the hallway, around the corner from the windows in the foyer, and I prayed a rosary while Travalon read a magazine. I was surprised that, while everything else was canceled tonight, the Bach concert I'd been planning to go to claimed it would still be happening. Did the tornado change that? But then I realized the same concert is happening in Wauwatosa tomorrow at three, and it's only an hour long while the concert Tiffy and I want to go to in downtown Milwaukee is at five, so we should be able to do both. Meanwhile, I am having a quiet Friday evening at home, now that the bad weather has passed by.

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Driving Research and Ukulele Strum

 

Today I felt very unfocused at work, although I did manage to get quite a bit done. We had another meeting, and by the end I felt irritable and just wished everyone could shut the heck up. But I did have a fun experience this morning doing a research study on driving systems. It was like a video game where you drove, only at a certain point the car could take over and then you were supposed to do a second task while the car drove for you. At the end I got an Amazon gift card, then I was walking back to my office and saw all the preschoolers in the campus daycare playing in the sunshine. I noticed one little boy looking at me intently, so I glanced at him and he did look familiar, and then I realized he was the son of one of my bandmates. I said his name and he kind of ran off, but he seemed to be giggling so I don't think he was that scared or anything.

Meanwhile, Travalon took some photos of birds. Here are Tux Duck and his lovely wife.

He saw another Tux Duck at Mendota County Park, but he only had his cell phone.

He saw pelicans around the little island in Cherokee Marsh. You can see how they move in sync while doing their cooperative fishing.

Eek! I wouldn't get this close to them! Those things are HUGE!!

Travalon made a cool video of them swimming in a line along the shore of the island, which I will try to put on YouTube and post here soon.

At work he supervised the small children doing art projects. This first one is a cartoon by a kid who never wants to be at the club. "After all these years" - he's seven!

He made it double-sided.

This one is labeled "My brother" in Spanish.

This one is labeled "Me and Too." No idea what that means.

After work I went to the Lone Girl for the monthly ukulele strum, wearing my ukulele T-shirt and ukulele earrings. As we were playing, a train went by right outside and blew its horn in an entirely different key. Even though I only get to strum once a month, I am improving and can now play a number of chords without too much difficulty. It's funny that E7 is a pain on the ukulele, because it is on the mandolin too. It's the main reason I don't like playing in the key of A major. (A minor is fine on both instruments.) Wait, maybe A minor also uses an E7 - I'm probably thinking of modal tunes, where the other main chord is a G. We never play anything modal on the ukuleles, mostly old rock and country tunes with a 1-4-5 chord structure, and a few weirder chords thrown in today, but I'm having to sit out less and less chords. Progress! Then Travalon came up to hear us, and afterwards we had dinner. Always a pleasant evening out.

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Wood Ducks in the Trees

 

This morning Travalon was sitting out on our porch, and he called me: "There's a big bird in the tree!" So I came out onto the porch and saw our local wood duck pair sitting in one of the trees outside our condo. Travalon's good camera was sitting right there, so he grabbed it, but the battery was dead so he had to take photos with his cell phone.

We can never seem to photograph these two, and then when they were posing right in front of us, the camera didn't work. What bad luck.

I actually got this yesterday, so it's some delayed DuoLingo bragging:

I worked on campus and went to the monthly Bach concert over lunch. Today they did one of my very favorite (and seasonally appropriate) cantatas, "Christ Lag in Todesbanden." To my surprise, as I was leaving, I ran into one of the leaders of Moldy Jam. I said, "I had no idea that you liked this kind of music!" and he said he used to play a lot of Baroque music. Then I ran into two bus buddies on my way back to work, and we complained about Dear Leader. It's hard to believe he is badmouthing the Pope, but there is no depth he won't stoop to. Someone said it's because he resents God, since he doesn't want anything higher than him, or anyone worshiping anything besides him, and that's why he throws tantrums on all major Christian holidays, besides posting AI images of himself as the Messiah. That tracks. Also, the Pope is the most-respected public figure by Americans according to a recent poll, and Colbert is second. That tracks too. Then in the afternoon I walked with Seabird, since we hadn't walked at lunch. She keeps telling me how thin I'm looking these days.

Travalon went to Stricker Pond, and he saw a great blue heron:

The weather was much better today, but our chair was leaving a bit before I was and said it was looking bad out there. His window faces west; my office faces east, and I didn't see anything other than harmless-looking clouds, but I did sneak out a few minutes early and just beat the rain. Now there's a flood watch - will it ever end? I thought April showers were supposed to bring May flowers, not disasters.

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