Reformation Vespers and Kayhu's Birthday Party

 

Today I skipped my drum lesson so that Travalon and I could hike in Verona. First we stopped at Icki Sticki and got coffee. Here are some photos from the trail.

We are kind of behind on getting all our miles from hiking, but with our bonus miles we have way more than 46. At least now we are up to about 30 from hiking. Here are some photos from our trip to Indian Lake yesterday.

This is new - a tunnel under the road to get to another part of the Ice Age Trail. We were too tired to try it yesterday but will have to check it out sometime.

We had some extra time after getting back from Verona, so we found that from the UW Foundation parking lot Travalon could get good photos of train graffiti on cars parked along Campus Drive.

We could see the lake from up there.

We poked along Old University and found other spots to photograph the train cars.

We saw this house that quotes the Beatles.

Then Travalon dropped me off at the Lutheran Cathedral of the Midwest, where they were having a Reformation Vespers with a Bach cantata and also a choral piece by Hammerschmidt. The music was so wonderful, it made me miss that choir. The local Bach musician and his wife sat right in front of me, and Pete the Sailor Man and lots of choir members (including my band member) talked to me at the reception afterwards. The choir room was open, so I poked my nose in there for a moment to reminisce. Their current choir director said I'm always welcome to join them again, even though he's never heard me sing.

Then Travalon picked me up, and we went to Rich's house for Kayhu's birthday party. There was one other person there, someone we had never met before, but he was fun to talk to. We had chicken parmesan and black magic cake with coconut ice cream, and then we gave this guy a ride home. Travalon had gone to the zoo (photos tomorrow), and he had gotten Kayhu a water bottle with a red panda on it. She did get a chance to talk to the bassist from the Klezmatics, and he doesn't share a birthday with her - his is two days earlier. I couldn't talk her into going to the vespers tonight, but at least we saw each other yesterday at Klez Fest.

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Niko at Klez Fest

 

Today Travalon and I had a relaxed morning while he watched the Wolves win, then we took a hike on the Ice Age Trail at Indian Lake. That took longer than we had planned, and then the traffic was terrible because the Badgers had a home game, so Niko and I were a bit late getting to the Klezmatics concert on campus. Both Kayhu and Hardingfele said they would meet me there, but I forgot to tell them to look for each other, so when I finally got to the concert hall, I went to find Kayhu. She was in the fifth row, but the guy sitting on the edge of the row wouldn't acknowledge me, never mind let me get in, and then I saw Hardingfele waving at me from further down the row. I tried to go around to get to her, but you can't go through the back of the concert hall, so I had to go all the way out and come back in.  However, it was worth it because the concert was excellent. Here's a photo.

Kayhu told me there would be a reception with chocolate after the concert, so the three of us went into the room where everyone else was headed, but it was just a bowl full of Hershey's kisses and some vinyl albums for sale. Kayhu wanted to ask the bass player, whose birthday had been earlier this week, if it was Thursday because that was her birthday, but while other band members joined the reception, we never saw him. Travalon picked me up, and we didn't have much time before meeting Celtic Lass at Sultan.

I had not made a reservation at Sultan, thinking they didn't take them, but they do. They did tell us we could have a table for three if we were gone by 6:20, so we said, "No problem!" Then Travalon went to watch the Brewers game at the Harmony Bar (they canceled their musical act that night to show it), while Celtic Lass and I went to the East Side Club for a klezmer party. It was to support WORT, the local radio station, and the first act was a band playing traditional Hungarian music. The second act was a gypsy jazz band, and the third one was Yid Vicious, playing klezmer music. Daithi the Fiddler plays with them.

People danced up a storm.

Here we are!

After Yid Vicious finished playing, the Hungarian band was going to play again, but we went to the Harmony Bar to find Travalon. We watched the top of the ninth inning, and the Brewers (who came back from a four-run deficit in the first inning) struck a guy out to win the game. Just two more wins, and they will be the champions of the World Series! Tiffy was actually at the game. She sent me this photo.

On our long walk back to the car, Travalon and I saw a doll hanging from a tree that was creepy AF, and this cheerier Halloween decoration.

He took photos on our hike today, but I'm too tired to deal with them tonight. I'll post them tomorrow.

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GLEAM 2026

 

Today was beautiful. Travalon and I got the boat out of the water with the help of our neighbor, and it went very smoothly. In the afternoon I watched a livestream of our university's new Nobel Laureate talking about the Ice Cube project. He is so funny! 

In the evening Travalon agreed to miss a lot of the Brewers' first game of the World Series to go to GLEAM, as we do almost every year. This year the theme was "Creatures." Here are my photos.

Here are Travalon's photos.

The pitcher plants in these next photos played tones when you pressed on them.

Travalon really liked these praying mantises.

I made some short videos too, which I will compile into a movie and put on here. We ran into a colleague of mine from FART 5 there, which wasn't a huge surprise since she'd talked about going.

When we got home, Travalon watched the game from the fifth inning on (since he'd seen everything before that), and the Brewers won! They are favored to win the series.

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