Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Travalon's Birthday Party


Sorry for my long silence. I did end up catching Travalon’s cold and was completely out of it on Monday. This past weekend Travalon and I went downtown for coffee, then he went to the Badger basketball game while I rode the free Holiday Trolley that goes up and down State Street. Tiffy came up and we met for lunch at Himal Chuli, then Travalon joined us after the game, and the three of us went to the Capitol to see the State Christmas Tree. It has lots of adorable ornaments on it made by schoolchildren from all over the state. In the evening we met Rich and some other Slow Food people at a swanky sushi restaurant, and Travalon was brave and tried some sushi! He won’t eat the raw stuff, but he will eat cooked rolls. My roll was called a super volcano and was really good. Another wonderful thing there: lychee martinis! Then Travalon and I watched the Badgers lose to Penn State, a hard loss when they were up by three touchdowns at one point.

Sunday I was feeling worse and didn’t get downtown for Mass. Travalon and I went to a later one closer to our house, then we went home and watched the Packers beat the Texans at a snowy Lambeau Field. (Tiffy had left the night before because she knew the snow was coming.) In the afternoon I went to the annual All-University Choir Concert at the church I used to sing at, and when my OTHER choir director heard me say hello, he said, “You’re sick! You should be home in bed!” Rich and Kathbert were already there, saving me a seat. It is a wonderful concert, and completely free. It is not Travalon’s kind of music, so he went to a pub called the Thirsty Goat that we had both been curious about. He provided the pizzas for his birthday party, and Rich made chocolate mousse. The Rosary Ladies, Prairie Man, the Single B-Boy, and much later Cecil Markovitch joined us at Rich’s house. We played a game in which you put a piece of paper with a famous person’s name on one person’s forehead, and that person can only ask yes or no questions to figure out who they are. I love games like that, where there is no winner – we were all winners because it was so much fun!

Monday I was totally miserable. Yesterday I felt a little better and went to work and Irish class, then Travalon and I went to Liliana’s for their Gingerbread Dinner: gingerbread in every course! The first course was a salad with gingerbread pieces in it, the main course was a gingerbread-stuffed pork cutlet, and for dessert there was gingerbread pudding. Maybe because I hadn’t had much of an appetite for the last few days, I took most of my meal home. That’s okay, I have to eat a lot less calories these days anyway because my diet app suddenly stopped giving me nearly so much credit for exercise. It used to give me back about 100 calories per mile I walked, but now it only gives me back 150 or so for the whole five miles I try to go every day. And believe me, being sick, I haven’t always met that goal! So eating less is a really good idea.

Famous Hat

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