Tibetan Monks and a Children's Show

I am feeling very sad right now because Notre Dame in Paris is burning. Not only is this bringing back bad memories of our own diocesan cathedral burning in late Lent some years ago now, but it is personal for me because I have been to Notre Dame. Our parish priest scared the bejeebers out of me there many years ago. I am praying that something can be saved – the spire just collapsed.

I hope my readers had a good weekend. Mine was very good. Friday Travalon and I just went out for fish, since I had to get up early the next day. Saturday I went to a conference on Wisconsin labor history, then I immediately drove to Milwaukee to meet Tiffy. We went to a concert of Tibetan monks doing sacred music and dance at the iconic Tripoli Shriner center, and we never dreamed it would be sold out, but they just had standing room only tickets left, even though we got there half an hour early. I thought standing for two hours sounded awful, but it really wasn’t, and then we had a better view of the monks’ big hats, drums that looked like lollipops, and things like alphorns. Our favorite part was the Dance of the Snow Lion, which is much like the dragon dances they do for Chinese New Year. It was very cute. The throat singing, where they sing in harmony with themselves, is a very eerie sound, but I felt wrong to make a video of it. Afterwards Tiffy and I went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

Yesterday after the long Palm Sunday Mass, Travalon and I went to brunch with Rich and another bass from our choir. Then we went out to Sauk to see if any eagles were around, since it was a cold, miserable day. We saw one young eagle in a tree, and we saw lots of beautiful white pelicans, flying and diving into the water and bobbing on top of it. They were almost more impressive than the eagles! In the evening I was supposed to go to a show at Overture Center with Light Bright and her little boy, but he had a bad cold. I had won the tickets at the International Festival; it was for a show called “Mr. B’s Underwater Bubble Adventure,” marketed as an “all age” show, but with such short notice I couldn’t find anyone with kids who could use the tickets. Rich, Kathbert, and I ended up going. The show was a lot of fun, sort of Cirque de Soleil for kids meets the Muppets, only instead of puppets it was people in costume, and they did all sorts of tricks with soap bubbles, like many-layered bubbles. In one part, a woman drew sand pictures that were very cool, and one guy was so flexible that he put himself inside of a little box! There was no talking – it was all to music. We kids at heart enjoyed it thoroughly!

Please pray that they can save Notre Dame. It would be so heartbreaking to lose this beautiful icon.

Famous Hat