Lady Edith Hat

I hope all my readers had a good weekend. Mine started out fortuitously when I got a fortune in a fortune cookie on Friday night that said: “Your dearest wish will come true.” Most of my dearest wishes have come true, in fact, but I’m sure my regular readers can guess what I am hoping this might refer to! We shall see…

Saturday Travalon and I met Rich, Jilly Moose, and OK Cap for coffee, then he and I drove to Milwaukee to take the Miller Brewery tour, since that is one of the sites in our historic taverns book. We only have twelve left to visit! Both he and I had taken the tour before, but we had never taken it together. The movie they show now about the history of the brewery is not as tongue-in-cheek as the previous one, and at the end when they give you free samples of beer, they no longer give you three postcards to send anywhere in the world on their dime. That was fun. I remember getting one from Tiffy, years ago, when I was taking a summer school class: “We are sitting here drinking beer and you are studying! Ha ha ha!” I laughed so hard, because that is not how she is sober at all. Those free samples must have really hit her hard! This is a surprisingly athletic tour that (according to my iPhone) covers over two miles of distance and six flights of stairs. There were options at various points to sit out parts of the tour with stairs, but we did the whole thing, and it was very interesting. After that we met some people from Slow Food circles at a fancy restaurant called Odd Duck, but first we went to a little hat shop down the way and Travalon bought me a hat that looks just like something Lady Edith would wear on Downton Abbey. It is my Christmas/birthday present. Dinner was amazing, and afterwards we went to a park from which you could see the lights of downtown across the lake. Going to the Big City for the day is always so much fun!

Yesterday I did not have nearly as good of a day. I had a gig pretty much all afternoon at a local pick-your-own orchard, so Travalon and I were going to have brunch at a restaurant right near our house… but it had gone out of business! Travalon was very bummed because he loved their fish fry. We had a bite to eat at a coffeehouse up in Waunakee (since, as you may remember, the one right by our house also just went out of business), and then I got a message from a fellow choir member that my usual route to this gig was blocked off for the Ironman Triathlon. She found an alternate route for me, but then Hardingfele told me the place was on a different road, so I followed Hardingfele’s instructions and got very lost. (She told her husband the same thing, and he also got very lost.) Finally I had to call my fellow band members, who guided me to the gig. I should have followed my choir member’s correct instructions… It was a beautiful day, and the Rosary Ladies and Prairie Man came to hear us. I got $25 in produce for playing. The irony was that it turned out the usual way to the gig was NOT blocked, so I went back that way, and everything was fine until I got back into town… and then traffic was so bad that Regent Street was a parking lot. Finally things picked up, but then a guy cut me off, gave me the finger when I honked at him, and dared me to hit him because it would be my fault. What?? Finally I got home, and then Travalon took me out on a lovely, relaxing boat ride out into the marsh. Ahh! We split a pizza, and he said the leftovers would be good for breakfast, and that he has to eat a substantial one because they don’t have any food at work. “Not even a vending machine?” I asked, and he said, “No, we have zitch for food!” We laughed so hard about that so he said I should blog about it. And so I am!

Famous Hat