Happy Pentecost 2026

 

Today Travalon and I stayed in town because we had too many things to do, like recycle the plastic after Mass. It was the Feast of Pentecost today, and they did sing the sequence at church, but to the tune of "Ode to Joy." My regular readers know I am not a Beethoven fan, so it was insult added to injury that they didn't sing the original, beautiful chant melody, but I gritted my teeth and told myself the words were still just as beautiful, which is true. Still, I'd like to know why it seems you have to choose between terrible aesthetics or supporting a corrupt regime in the American Catholic Church.

After we had recycled the plastic, Travalon and I had some leftovers from last night and then took a walk on Governor's Island. The crazies are back in Three Foot Bay, blasting music from their pontoon boats. Sigh... it would be so nice to have a natural area be quiet, but I also hate to rain on their parade. They're having a great time.

Today only about half of us were at the Brazilian drumming lesson, and beforehand there was a party with an actual Brazilian guy grilling meat. I had a chicken leg, and the spice was unbelievably good. Then during the lesson we were in groups of three, moving between four instruments: the alfea drum, a gourd shaker, a cowbell, and a snare drum (caixa). That was fun and also got me a lot of steps. I loved having so much variety in our lesson today. 

We ate leftovers for dinner, and I drank my leftover infused drink from last night, since Travalon said he was driving me to band practice. I totally forgot to mention that the last time I was stoned at band practice, when my aunt and uncle were there, I accidentally froze up one fiddler's iPad by asking my phone to text Travalon. Since both the iPad and the iPhone use the same virtual assistant, Siri, the iPad was confused because it didn't have a contact named Travalon to text, so it just froze up or something. I don't know exactly what happened, I was pretty high, but the fiddler was flustered and I laughed till I couldn't breathe, which really amused my aunt (who was also high). Today I was just a bit stoned, so when our leader called me over to her car to ask why the lights were all flashing, I didn't start laughing hysterically. I simply explained that she must have turned on her hazards, and that the button looks like a triangle. She was looking through the car's manual, and she said, "Hazard! I was looking under Lights! There it is!" I did say something that made Hardingfele laugh, and then I laughed, so Hardingfele may suspect something. I also seemed to be playing the wrong chords now and then, and I struggled with third position. But in general, since we were playing songs I have played for decades, it went okay, and then Travalon picked me up before the others were ready to be done, with an iced decaf pandan latte from Leopold's. That seemed to unstone me, and I don't think anyone noticed anything on Night Prayer. Whew!

Famous Hat

Train Art at the Rochelle Railroad Park

 

Today Travalon and I were having a pokey morning when we thought we heard the train horn from the south, so we rushed out to the crossing and saw... nothing. So we headed down toward the Rochelle Railroad Park, stopping in Rockford at the Beef-a-roo for lunch and delicious pistachio shakes. We drove along Highway 20 with a good view of the nuclear power plant to the west, then we got to the Railroad Park and found it crowded with people celebrating a birthday, who may not have cared that much about trains. I quickly ascertained that the guys who were alone and seemed slightly on the autism spectrum were the ones who knew a lot about trains. We talked to one guy, and he was surprisingly friendly. Travalon took videos of the trains that passed by, so I will make those into a movie, throw it onto YouTube, and post the link here. Meanwhile, here are some photos of the amazing graffiti on these trains.

Let's take a break to admire my new opal ring in the sunlight:

This is an engine halfway along a very long train:

The rest of these photos were taken by Travalon on his phone. This is me (wearing the official T-shirt) with an approaching train:

Then we checked out a couple of nearby towns, Creston and Malta, to see where we could watch Big Boy come next month, since Rochelle will be nuts. Travalon heard over thirty thousand people showed up last time it was in town. We saw another train in Malta, then we went back to Rochelle and saw a couple more trains. By then it had cooled down, and it rained a bit so we were in the shelter for the first one and then took a walk around and saw the second one coming from a long way off. 

Then we drove back to Rockford and had dinner at the Hope and Anchor British Pub in Loves Park. Travalon ordered the chips and curry, and it was so good that I ate half, and then for our dinner we both got the shrimp-stuffed cod, but I could only eat half of mine. It came with potatoes that I barely touched and mushy peas, and I also had a delicious cherry limeade infused drink. That made me very happy on the way back home, when we took Highway 51 north. There was some road construction in Stoughton, and we got lost trying to find the detour, but then we found this beautifully lit house.

It is very late now, so it must be time for some DuoLingo bragging.

That's a lot of time spent learning languages, but one of the music club owners has been doing it even longer and learning even more languages, so I'm not the only crazy one out there.

Famous Hat