A Very Baroque Weekend

I apologize for my silence yesterday – I had a bad cold and didn’t even have the energy to blog. Today, however, I am feeling much better and will recount my music-filled weekend to my 5.6 readers.

Friday evening the Dairyman’s Daughter, Tiffy, and I met at Swagat Indian Restaurant for dinner, then we went to Blackhawk Church to see the Messiah performance which I have performed in previously. This was my first time experiencing it as an audience member, and I just loved it!

Saturday Travalon and I met Tiffy, Rich, and another woman for coffee, then Tiffy and I walked up State Street, which was a very festive place in anticipation of the holidays. We encountered a brass band playing Christmas carols, a choir of Epic employees singing Christmas carols, and inside the Capitol Building we saw an all-flute band playing – you guessed it – Christmas carols. The biggest flute was shaped like the number four. I took photos and will try to post them tomorrow. Then Tiffy and I met Rich for lunch at a Peruvian restaurant by the name of Crandall’s (which doesn’t seem like a Peruvian name, but who am I to judge?), and then she and I rode the free Holiday Trolley up and down State Street and around the Capital Square. We tried the Basque cake at Estrellon and then headed home to join Travalon for dinner at the Nau-Ti-Gal before we ladies headed to the Madison Bach Musicians’ Christmas Concert. Was I ever in Baroque music heaven this weekend! Afterwards Tiffy and I drove around and checked out the most impressive Christmas lights in town.

Yesterday I was not feeling so well. Tiffy took off after Mass and brunch, then I napped until Travalon agreed to go to the Christmas handbell concert with me, even if it meant missing the first half of the Packer game. We recorded it, anyway. We met Rich there and checked the score during intermission, but it was 0-0 so I said we weren’t missing anything. The first half of the concert featured some of my favorite carols, and the second half was even more fun – Christmas music from all over! My favorite was a Caribbean number, but there were also cool ones from Taiwan and Africa. (Sorry, country not specified – I’m aware Africa is a whole continent, but that is all they told us about it.) We checked the Packer score as soon as the concert was over, and they were leading the Cowboys by two touchdowns, so clearly we had missed something. We headed to the East Side Club to watch the rest of the game, and the Packers beat the Cowboys 28-7, then we went to the Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant, for dinner. When we got home, we watched the second quarter of the game to see those two touchdowns we had missed. Then I went to bed but couldn’t sleep, so yesterday I stayed home from work. Of course, it is our busiest time of the year, so not the time I want to be missing work… But I did get caught up today.

Famous Hat