Brazilian Party and Banjo Player at Band Practice

 

Today was cold again, after that almost summer-like day yesterday. We bundled up and went to Mass, and there was a ton of plastic to recycle afterwards. We took a brief walk outside, but the wind was biting, so we mostly hung out until heading to the Quadra for the party to watch the Brazilian drumming extravaganza. This was not as exciting for Travalon, who of course watched the whole thing in real life, but I hadn't gotten to see some of it while waiting to go on or having just gotten off the stage. The video wasn't actually that much higher quality than the one Travalon took with his phone from way up in the balcony, which surprised me, but I could still see that I was mostly out of step with everyone else. I did enjoy hearing the really good drummers and watching the dancers. Unfortunately we had to leave before the end, so we didn't get to see the acts that we left before in real life. That was today - all my hobbies stepping all over each other, because I had to miss Irish conversation for this watch party, and then I had to leave the watch party in order to get to band practice on time. I did enjoy watching the dancing girls dancing in real life in the Quadra, and a little girl of about three trying to imitate them.

Tonight at band practice we had a new person, a woman who plays the banjo. She said she started as a guitar player from a young age and then lately got really into the ukulele, which is how she knows our band leader. She even knows people from the ukulele group I hang out with, although we are on the north side of town and her group is on the south side. Their group is called FUN (Fitchburg Ukulele Network), while I hang out with the Wauna Strummers and Prairie Strummers who are, of course, from Waunakee and Sun Prairie, but one group meets Mondays at two and another one meets Fridays at one, so I only ever see them at the monthly Lone Girl strum. Anyway (sorry for that ukulele tangent), the banjo player decided to learn the five-string banjo, and she is pretty good! I loved the sound she added to our band. She said she has heard us play for Make Music Madison and always wanted to join us, which amazes me since we are not that great of a band, in my opinion. Hardingfele did say she is trying to get us a gig at a retirement home. For some reason she dyed her hair purple tonight, which was her excuse for coming late this time. (Usually it's something to do with cats.)

I said I really liked the color with her turquoise top. You can see our other fiddler behind her. Our newest fiddler is incommunicado at the moment, but she is extremely pregnant and has a toddler, so she has other things going on besides our band. We could use another fiddler, but it's great to have a banjo again. We haven't had one since the Professor Formerly Known as Lute Player played banjo with us years ago.

Here is a lovely photo of flowers at my aunt and uncle's house in Colorado. They sent some others too, but for reasons I can't explain, my phone is refusing to download those.

It says the other photo has already been saved to my iCloud photo album, but I can't find it. It's not in my phone's photo library, and it's not in Boethius's regular photo library, but when I go to "recently saved," I can see that I have saved it about eight times. OK, if I search "recently saved," I can find it.

I hope that was worth the trouble. There's also one of a tree leaning over in front of a sunset.

So weird! This has never happened before. And no, my blog post title is not a secret ad for BP gas stations.

Famous Hat

A Day in the Life of a Basketball Widow

 

Today Travalon was at State Tournament for boys' basketball all day with his high school buddy and the buddy's oldest daughter, so I had big plans for myself. I was going to get a haircut and then get lunch, but I was running a bit early and was very hungry, so I went to Ian's Pizza first because the Red Cross had given me a coupon for one free slice of pizza the last time I gave blood. It was a gorgeous day, so I walked to the other side of Capitol Square for my haircut and then went back to my old church, where I had parked. There was a bit of time before my next activity, so I went into the Adoration Chapel and prayed a rosary. Usually I'm afraid to do that on Saturday afternoons because I used to get stuck in there when everyone else would leave, but now they have little curtains you can draw around the Host if you are alone and have to leave, and wouldn't you know that this time there were a number of other people in there, and they didn't leave the moment I arrived. There had been a cheap little plastic rosary on the windowsill when I was there on Tuesday for my Adoration hour, and someone had put it on the rosary hook in the chapel, so I prayed with it. I also tested it to see if it would glow in the dark, since it looked like it would. Answer: yes, it does.

My next stop was the Chazen Museum for a demonstration of rosemaling hosted by our department and some other departments. The artist painted an enormous canvas while a band of three fiddles, a mandolin, and a guitar played Norwegian music. Here is the canvas just after she had started.

Here she has added more detail.

At intermission it looked like this.

I was dying of thirst and had a yuzu iced tea because there is a little cafe in the museum now, but it only helped somewhat, so at intermission I headed home. Sorry, I cannot show you the finished painting. Usually rosemaling is done on much smaller objects, like plates or hardanger fiddles. It was very soothing to watch this woman paint, but I can only stand Norwegian music for so long, and besides, I needed some time to get ready for the fast Irish session tonight.

I got to my car right at the start of La Junta, the salsa program on the community radio every Saturday afternoon. I'd given up listening to music in the car for Lent, having to drive in contemplative silence, but since Saturday afternoon kind of counts as Sunday (at least for Mass), I figured I could listen. Usually when I'm in Travalon's car, they play all sorts of weird Latin music, but today they played straight-up salsa, and it was fantastic. Back home I went out on our porch and streamed the station on my laptop as I did Wordle and crossword puzzles. Travalon had brought some Indian food home for me, grilled lamb and spicy rice and plantains, and it was so good! I also drank a Bai and lots of water.

Famie my Irish teacher and I said we would try to get to the Irish session at Lakeside early to get chairs, but of course we were both running late and had to drag chairs in from the back room. It was so crowded! Not just with musicians but also with people listening. It was very hot in there, so I was glad to be wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt because it had been so warm out. We sat beside a very friendly woman, and the three of us tried to remember the names of the tunes we were playing. Sometimes you hear a tune and find you can play it, but you can't remember what it's called for anything. That's what's handy about the Ballydesmond Polkas - they say their own name. I didn't claim my free drink tonight, since I was still feeling a bit dehydrated, but they have free water there so I drank plenty of that. People also gave us pistachio fudge that was amazing and chocolate chip cookies that were just meh - I think they were store-bought, not homemade. Since Saturday night is basically Sunday, I indulged in both even though I have given up sweets for Lent. We played Irish tunes well into the night, but I still beat Travalon home. This is one of his favorite weekends of the year, and he had a fabulous time... and so did I!

Famous Hat

Tax Day with Tux Duck

 

Guess what? I found the small Belleek Castle! It's a replica of Blarney Castle.

It's also a Christmas tree ornament and a bell. As far as I know, the vase that is a castle tower is not based on any real castle. Here they are together; don't ask why they are leaning away from each other like they can't stand one another, because I don't know.

I got another sticker from DuoLingo:

"O meu nome e Chapeu Famoso." Back in college, I had a Portuguese TA who had us do a unit on travel where for some reason we learned the word for "hijack," and another unit on signs of the zodiac. It has always been a great comfort to me that I can still vaguely remember how to say in Portuguese, "Hello, my name is Famous Hat, I am a Capricorn, and I am hijacking this airplane." You just never know when that might come in handy.

Travalon suggested today's blog post title. We had our taxes done this morning, and our accountant is so cool that I wish I could hang out with her more often than just 45 minutes once a year. Then we stopped to get some bubble tea at Dreamy Teazy. They have a cool setup that seems to be for taking photos.

It's probably supposed to be for the couple, but Travalon took the photo because at the moment there was nobody else there to do it. Then I went back to work at home until lunchtime, when we took a walk down to the dock. It was so beautiful outside. For some reason I found it very moving to see large flocks of waterfowl flying north, maybe to Horicon Marsh. Spring is finally here! Travalon took some photos of our old friend Tux Duck (he has been hanging around our dock for years) and some other birds.

These are sandhill cranes, just like the first bird picture above.

There were northern shovelers in the distance.

Here is Tux Duck coming toward us.

And this is a mourning dove on the roof.

The couple we were sitting with at the Elks Club on Tuesday were telling us about a talk they went to on the strange ways animals die, and the one that shocked them most was a bald eagle that attacked a loon, and the loon pierced its chest with its sharp bill. I was not surprised; I said, "There's a lot of bird-on-bird violence. Keep in mind that they're just modern dinosaurs." Sometimes it does feel like birds live in their own world where they fight with other birds and eat other birds and really only interact with other birds, but then I remember the mink stealing an egg from the goose's nest last year, and I realize they do have to put up with us mammals quite a bit. When I went for a walk in the afternoon, the pair of cranes who always hang around our neighborhood were walking down the street, and we cautiously gave each other a wide berth. I have never had any issues with them, but I'm respectful. People have told me the cranes chased them back into their house, but what did they do to get that kind of response? It makes you wonder.

I get done with work at 5:00, and at 4:59 I heard the train coming so I logged out less than a minute early and hurried to the spot where I could see it, and it was just coming into view. If God is still speaking to me in Train, maybe He was saying that it was good we chose to stay home tonight. We were invited to a fish fry down in Verona, but Travalon wanted to watch March Madness games, and I wanted to talk to Tiffy, so we turned down the invitation. I felt slightly antisocial for doing so, but because we did, I saw the train. It does seem like lately whenever I make a decision and then wonder if it's the right one, I see a train because I'm in the right place at the right time. Of course, last night there were so many other things going on besides the ukulele strum - the Brazilian band was playing, an antiwar group was having a meeting, there was a Quebecois jam, and there was a free concert on campus of Israeli pop music - and while there are train tracks running by the Lone Girl, I never saw a train. So did I make the wrong choice? Or am I just putting too much importance on seeing a train?

Famous Hat

Belleek Castle Tower

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I walked with Hardingfele. We didn't have any adventures today like the conversation with the robots, but after our walk she came to my office and we tried to figure out something about the new system without success. It was my coworker's birthday, so I sang him "Happy Birthday" in Basque, which is "Zorionak." Then I got an email that my Belleek castle was delivered, but I wasn't going straight home.

I drove to the Lone Girl for the monthly ukulele strum, and people were especially friendly this time. Maybe they are finally beginning to recognize me. One woman seemed particularly familiar, and then I realized she goes to Moldy Jam, but I never got a chance to ask her if she went Monday night. A family came who had lost their patriarch, father to some and grandpa to some, and they said afterwards that hearing us sing and play such cheerful songs really lifted their mood. So we played an extra song for them that hadn't been on the playlist, "Brand New Star," and they really appreciated that. Travalon didn't join me afterwards since he was watching the high school basketball tournament, so I didn't eat dinner there. I headed home to admire my new castle tower vase.

I'd been a bit sad not to win this in the raffle on Sunday, but then I realized it was a good use of the gift certificates that were going to expire soon. I'd been saving them to maybe buy another hat, but do I need another hat? Today I wore my red tasseled hat, and nobody has said they like it, but it's a snuggly hat that feels like a hug, and it was made just for me. I also still love the plaid tam, which feels like it found its way to me, the way it was listed completely wrong ("argyle beret") so I happened to see it on eBay, and the secret that some of it glows under blacklight. And then another thing is that we have a Christmas ornament of a smaller castle tower we got when visiting the Belleek factory twelve years ago, but I'm not sure what happened to it. If I find it, I'll take a photo.

Famous Hat

Zoom Oops

 

Today was sort of a meh day. I worked on campus and talked to Seabird a bit, but we didn't walk together at lunch because there was the monthly early music concert at the Lutheran church where I used to sing. This church just acquired a new organ, so there are pipes and things piled all over, meaning we all had to sit on one side. The concert was kind of meh, with a piece by Dietrich Becker, a piece by Dietrich Buxtehude that was far from his best, and a piece by Samuel Capricornus. I was kind of dozing off during the Buxtehude and kept thinking there was a secret code in the notes. I wondered if Capricornus was named Bock, because back then they liked to take their German last names and replace them with the Latin word (like Handl/Gallus, which are both "rooster"), so this guy was "Goat." I looked him up afterwards, and yeah, his last name was really Bockshorn. Also, was he actually a Capricorn to make this extra punny? Answer: kind of? He has the same birthday as Hardingfelde, the winter solstice, which is right on the cusp. However, maybe four hundred years ago it was solidly in Capricorn. I don't know enough about how things have shifted over time to say; I've heard that I am not a Capricorn myself because of the shift, but I don't feel like a Sagittarius. Travalon is the Sagittarius in this relationship.

As I was leaving the concert, I heard a train horn. The train was crossing University Avenue down by First Congo, so some ways off from me but totally visible. I didn't mention that yesterday as I headed to Adoration, I was slightly delayed by the tail end of a train. If God is still speaking to me in Train, then I was exactly where I was supposed to be while going to Adoration and while attending the concert. 

Another thing I didn't mention was that on Saturday, when the dancing schools were performing at the St. Patrick's Day party at the St. Brigid Center, one little girl stepped out to do her solo and kicked so high that her feet went flying upward and she landed right on her rump. Unfazed, she got back up and continued her dance, and the audience roared with approval. May we all have this little girl's confidence to get back up on our feet after a public failure!

This evening I did do something stupid. It started because Anna Banana II couldn't lead either the Rosary or Night Prayer tonight, so I volunteered to do both. Jilly Moose said she couldn't make it to the Rosary either, so I wasn't sure anyone could, but at eight I dutifully started the meeting and then did an online crossword puzzle while waiting to see if anyone joined, and my patience was rewarded when two people eventually joined the Rosary meeting. I meant to do the same thing with Night Prayer, but I kept doing Wordles and nobody was joining, so I looked more carefully... and I hadn't actually joined the meeting. I went into it, and three people were already waiting for me. Oops! Anyway, it all worked out, and both the Rosary and Night Prayer went off without any real hitches. Glad I looked more carefully, or I could have been playing Wordle all night while everyone else wondered when I was going to start Night Prayer.

Famous Hat

St. Patrick's Day at the Elks Club

 

Yesterday was very snowy most of the day, and then it got really cold, like late January cold, not what you'd expect in mid-March. The "feels like" temperature was in the negative numbers. I never left the house, not even to go to the Moldy Jam jam, and both Travalon and I were home all day because his work was closed and I worked from home. I had nothing to blog about, so I just did online crossword puzzles.

Check this out: Travalon's Red Tasseled Hat glows under blacklight!

Alas, mine does not, since it is made of different yarn. I should say that I assume it does not, since I neglected to actually test it, but after all this time I've got a pretty good handle on what will glow.

Today I worked from home again, and Travalon went into work. I was doing a very boring project, so when a coworker sent me an Irish tune for the day, it helped to listen to it as I worked. Then YouTube kept playing music, but not Irish music - Tallis, Buxtehude, Hammerschmidt, stuff like that. I guess that must be what I listen to most on YouTube. Anyway, it helped the project go more quickly. It was hard to focus on it because people kept messaging me, and our condo association president asked me to pay our handyman because he was out of town. But with a few minutes to spare, I did finish it today.

After Adoration I went to the Elks Club for the third time because they were having a St. Patrick's Day party. It was very crowded in there, and a bunch of Shamrock Club people and the red-headed flute player were all there. This picture was on social media, so I'm hoping it's okay to put it on this blog.

The band that always plays at Alt Brew performed, and the red-headed flute player joined them. The Jewish guy who is Irish Person of the Year danced enthusiastically, and the university Irish dance team also performed. It took us a while to get food, but other people gave us cheese curds and bought us a drink (I had Bailey's on ice), so that helped pass the time. As people left, we were able to consolidate into one table, and we shut the place down. So much fun! The fiddler in the band said he hoped this would be an annual tradition, and I agree! Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone!

Famous Hat

Winter Is Back

 

I don't have much to say today. The weather has been bad all day, and we only went out to go to Mass and recycle the plastic, and we took a walk around five but it was very windy. It has been raining or snowing almost all day, and everything tonight and tomorrow morning has been canceled. I am assuming I will be allowed to work from home tomorrow; Travalon already knows he has the day off because his workplace is closed. I meant to clean and do useful stuff around the house, the stuff I always say I have no time for, but instead I did Wordle and New York Times crossword puzzles. I suck.

I remember years ago, living in my single gal condo, when there was a snowstorm on a Sunday morning and I sat on the couch, listening to the early music show our community radio station plays every Sunday morning. The bishop actually said on the radio that we were all excused from Mass, so I sat back to relax and enjoy the music... and then there was a knock at my door. A friend decided to "help" me by showing up in a four-wheel drive vehicle to get me to Mass, even though the bishop said I didn't have to go. This is even more annoying because this friend routinely refuses to help me when I genuinely need help. So I had to go, but I have never gotten over the fact that I was allowed to skip Mass that day and had to go anyway. It's just like when I worked at the hospital, and the university was closed so nobody had to work... except me, because I was considered an essential worker. Now that I am not considered an essential worker, we never get days off at the university. I always miss out on the chance to slack off. Sigh...

One kind of cool thing is that I found the Belleek castle tower on eBay, just like the one in the gift basket I didn't win at the raffle yesterday. Due to giving blood, I had two gift cards I could choose from a variety of places, one for $20 and one for $10, so I got them from eBay and then got the castle tower for about half price. It's kind of shocking that someone gave one away when they're going for so much online... It should come within the next week, so I'm very excited about that. I needed to use the gift certificates anyway, or they were going to expire. I've sort of given up acquiring things for Lent, but on Sundays I can buy stuff because for whatever reason they don't count as part of Lent.

Here is something to cheer us all up as winter refuses to release its icy grip on us: my aunt in Colorado had these hyacinths blooming in her yard, and it got bad there too, so she dug them up and brought them in. Aren't they beautiful?

Her house must smell amazing right now. I also got a sticker from DuoLingo.

Wow, 97% accuracy in Portuguese! Know why? Because it's 3% different from Spanish.

Famous Hat