Forward on Fire

 

I apologize in advance to those of you who like photos, because this post will not have any. I also realize that I forgot a very important point about the Mallards game on Thursday night, that it was Bring Everything But the Dog Night. Not that many people brought pets, but I heard someone had a rabbit, and we saw a cat, a three-legged goat, a black sheep, and a baby calf, and we even got to pet raccoons! Oh, and of course someone brought a dog.

I also failed to mention that during pagode practice we heard a train horn. I knew the train tracks ran right behind the Quadra, so I asked if the back door was open, thinking I'd go out to watch it. The leader said, "It shouldn't be," but she checked it and it was unlocked, so she locked it. People asked me, "How did you know?" but I just wanted to see the train. However, it was so loud inside that I would have gone deaf if I'd been outside. Still, it feels like God talking to me in trains again, like I'm on the right track studying all this Brazilian music (Samba, choro, and now pagode) and doing Portuguese on DuoLingo. Are we going to end up in Brazil someday? Right now it's all just a lot of fun.

This morning Travalon and I met Tiffy for coffee, then he went down to the Union Terrace while we just hung out on the roof of her sister's apartment building, had lunch sitting outside at the Globe (where I saw one of our faculty members), got bubble tea, and went back to the roof. When Travalon returned, we went to Breese Stevens Field to watch the Forward soccer team, who are having a really good year. I was getting a bit alarmed because the Flock, the ardent fans who sing and play drums, were not gathering, so I googled it and they had disbanded. But then people did show up, playing drums, waving flags, and shooting off pink smoke as they sang songs with complex lyrics like, "Oh, Madison, Madison, Madison, Madison," and, "Forward, Forward, Forward." We sat near the Flock, so in the first half we could barely see it when they got a goal. In the second half we did see their goal clearly, but then for some reason Naples FC got to take a penalty shot, and those are so hard for the goalie to stop, so they had a point. There was a ton of stoppage time because of injuries, but then the Forward scored again in stoppage time! So they won 3-1! This is the seventh game in a row they haven't lost, but some were ties so they didn't win seven in a row. Still, their record is really good this year. 

A bunch of people from the Shamrock Club were down at the Union Terrace listening to the New Dubliners, but Tiffy was tired, Travalon was tired, and my FitBit had a low battery because I kept forgetting to charge it. Famie said the New Dubliners are not like the old ones, so I assumed that meant they didn't play trad music, and indeed I found a video online, and they played rock. Travalon was slightly more interested, but not enough to go see them (and he'd spent quite a bit of time at the Terrace already today), and I was not interested at all, so we just came home. I'm not one of those people who is going to love everything automatically just because it came from Ireland. I do really love traditional Celtic art and traditional Irish music, and I'm intrigued by the language, but not everyone in Ireland is into the old stuff, which is fine! I'm just not that into the new stuff.

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Mallards Game and Pagode Practice

 

Yesterday I had a really strange day. I was working from home when suddenly the internet stopped working, so I texted Travalon, and he confirmed that there was an outage. I couldn't just go to my own office to work, so I messaged my boss, who said I could go to the coworking space I had worked in the day before. I thought about it, but the day was so nice and I was feeling so sniffly that I just took half a day of personal time. This was probably due to the road construction I complained about on my last post. At first they said the internet would come back at 1:30, but then it was 5:30, and then it was 10:30. When Travalon came home from work, we went to the Culver Springs Natural Area. Here are some photos.

We hadn't been to a Mallards game yet this year, and the happy hour on the Terrace was canceled due to the police killing here in town, so while everyone else was at the vigil for the victim, we watched baseball. I had an infused drink, forgetting that they slow down time and baseball is already so slow that time seems suspended, so it was a very meditative game for me, although the Mallards did keep hitting three-run homers. In the end they won something like 14-2. Here are photos.

This guy was batting 1000 because he had one at-bat and hit a three-run homer. 

They have this stuff over the bleachers now, I guess to block out sun? And at night they light it up.

Here is a video of that.

Oops, this is out of order, but before that we went to a place in De Forest where train cars are parked, and we saw some graffiti.

And then, still before the game, we went to my future parking lot and saw more graffiti.

And here are a couple of Wisconsin and Southern engines.

And here are some screenshots I got off a couple of videos of local trains posted on social media. I recognize a lot of this graffiti, but now I'm wondering... is 4AL "for a laugh" or "for all locations"? Both are represented on the same train!

Today I was supposed to work on campus and give blood, but I felt sniffly again and canceled the blood donation, since they won't let you give when you're under the weather, and that was the only reason I was going to go to campus. Oh, and also to make sure my plants were okay, and to check for a book someone was waiting for. In the evening I went to the pagode jam again, and this time there were nine of us, which seemed like a better number than the large group last time. I am the weak link, but I still had fun, especially playing the drums with the deep bass notes. I brought the mandolin but never cracked her out. A lot of the group are in the real Handphibians, and they were supposed to play tomorrow at the Atwood Fest, but the whole festival has been canceled because of the shooting. Bummer, I was hoping to check it out tomorrow. I don't understand the facts around the shooting enough yet to have an opinion; it's always bad when cops execute people of color when you feel like they could totally de-escalate if it were a white person, but I've also heard the person was armed and had wounded one of the cops. But then I've also heard the guy was on the ground and they shot him point-blank in the back of the head, so that doesn't sound like self-defense on the part of the cops but rather vengeance. All I know is the system has got to change because entirely too many people of color end up dead at the hands of cops. I read something recently that said liberals believe the law should treat everyone equally, so they try to appeal to fairness with conservatives, but it's a lost cause because conservatives believe the law should protect high-status groups and bind low-status ones, never bind high-status groups or protect low-status ones. Which I guess if you want to be that horrible, that's your right, but then quit saying how Christian you are. Jesus totally taught that everyone is equal in the eyes of God, so they should be equal in the eyes of the law too.

While I was at pagode, Travalon went out on the dock and took sunset photos. Here's my favorite.

When I came home, the moon was big and bright, so I brought my telescope out to look at it. I would get it in view, but then when I tried to focus, I'd lose it again. Travalon came out and took a photo.

Honestly, this is probably as good as it would have been looking through the telescope. 

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FART 3 Co-Working Space and Union Picnic

 

Today I wanted to be on campus for the Union picnic, but the water in my building was still turned off. My boss said I could go to the co-working space used by FART 3, in the building where the information school used to be until they built the new building with talking robots. It wasn't a bad space - it had lots of windows, spots with two monitors that I could plug my laptop into, a fridge and a microwave, and lockers for our valuables. The people there, mostly from FART 3 but some from HART 4 (that's the HR team), seemed nice enough, but I didn't talk to them much. At lunchtime I went to Library Mall to join my Union peeps for the picnic, which was BYOF so I brought a sandwich, but they all got fun stuff from the food carts. They were hoping to catch people walking by, but not too many people were on campus with the cooling issues. The Union provided popsicles. Is this a rainbow popsicle or a chakra popsicle?

Someone brought a cheese plate and crackers, so I snacked on those too, and some almonds and cashews with dark chocolate chunks mixed in. At first there were just a few of us standing around, but more people joined, so we sat in the shade and talked. It was kind of fun, but was it worth going to campus for? I have to go again Friday for a blood donation appointment, but there won't be very many people in the co-working space that day. If nobody shows up, I won't be able to get in, so I'll work at the library.

In the building I worked in today, there are a whole bunch of lockers, and some had your basic locks on them, key locks or combination locks, but this big a$$ lock kind of blew my mind.

When I got home, I saw my black calla lily (which has six blooms) has one perfect bloom.

Then I went for a "limp" around the neighborhood, since my foot still hurts. Everyone assures me it is plantar fasciitis, and I know that's not serious, but how long does it last?? Anna Banana II did tell me a good stretch for it when we prayed the rosary on Zoom tonight, so I tried it and that seemed to help. Anyway, right after work I sat on our dock for a bit, then I checked out the oddly narrow sidewalks they seem to have created on our street. It's still torn up; at first when they tore it up, we said, "Oh, we can just go north," but now the bridge is blocked off, so we have to take the gravel road, but we said, "No worse than a road in the Upper Peninsula," and then today it was clogged with machines, so if someone was coming the other direction, you just had to wait. What will they do next to make it even worse?? As I limped along the new sidewalk, I found a crane feather, so when Travalon drove by as I was almost home, I hopped in his car and handed him the feather. If cranes can flirt with them, why can't I?

Meanwhile, Travalon went to Columbus and saw two Amtrak trains. Then he went to Portage and walked on the Ice Age Trail, where he made a new friend.

If this looks familiar to you, like you think you've seen it on the blog before but in autumn colors, you aren't mistaken - we have hiked it for the Mammoth Challenge in the past. 

Then Travalon went to the rail yard and saw some graffiti and some train engines. Check out this guy opening a door on the front of the engine!

The weather was so pleasant today - it felt like paradise, because it was a bit cooler, with no air quality issues. Everyone is so much happier. Look how happy Frothy is!

This is Jilly Moose's blond moose. I don't know if Niko and Nenagh were very happy today, because I brought Niko to work with me but somehow forgot Nenagh. He used to come to work with me all the time to see her, but now that I've brought her home, they go everywhere together. Weird that they have the same taste in music... which is just the same as mine. Isn't it funny how that all worked out?

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