Spamalot and Parental Visit

I hope my readers had a good weekend, despite the cold weather. Friday I was planning to go to a ukulele jam, but then I found out about a choral concert featuring the music of Bach, Handel, and Schuetz. One thing about Madtown – we have plenty of opportunities to enjoy early music! People are actually moving here to pursue a career in early music because our scene is one of the best in the nation. Isn’t that exciting? Travalon dropped me off at the church where I used to sing, since parking around there is kind of difficult, then he did a couple of Uber runs and made a little money while waiting for me to get out of the concert. So we were both had a wonderful evening.

Saturday Travalon and I met the Rosary Ladies for coffee on the west side so that we could easily head to the funeral for the father of the Dairyman’s Daughter out in Plain, a small town to the west. As you can guess from her blog name, he was a lifelong dairy farmer. After the funeral Travalon and I explored Plain; we found a German restaurant downtown, but the only part open for lunch was the pizza delivery part, so we had calzones at a German restaurant. Then we drove to Spring Green and discovered one of the authors from where I work was giving a talk about Nature Conservancy land in the local bookstore. Travalon bought a book for me about flappers. We met Rich at the Blue Spoon diner in Sauk for some coffee, then Travalon and I went to the Parched Eagle and got a Craft Beer Week passport, and then we drove to Menomonee Falls to see the theater group our sister-in-law is part of. She was not acting in this play but doing the lighting. The show was Spamalot, based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and it was very funny. The weirdest part was they had asked to borrow my ukulele for the show, but I demurred and said surely they could find one in the Milwaukee area. Instead, they used a balalaika – you would not think those would be easier to find than ukuleles! I am a little jealous because I have always wanted one.

Yesterday Ma and Pa Hat came to town, so Travalon, Rich, and I met them for a late lunch. Pa Hat was a bit under the weather, but Ma Hat was up for seeing the blooming crabapples at the Arboretum despite the cool weather, so the rest of us headed there. I love standing under the weeping crabapples – it smells so wonderful! Travalon and I wanted to go to a Craft Beer Week event that was also a pet rescue fundraiser at One Barrel, but the place was packed and the band had just wrapped up, so we walked to a place just a few doors down called BarleyPop that is like a candy store for adults. They have 40 beers on tap, and at least five of them were sours! We ended up talking a lot to the people sitting next to us, who were true beer connoisseurs. Like me, they love sours and don’t understand why IPAs are so darn popular. You can get five-ounce glasses at BarleyPop, so I tried three different beers. So much fun! I recommend this place whole-heartedly.

Famous Hat