Sorry for not blogging on Friday. I went for a walk along the Lakeshore Path with my buddy from Congress, and we saw interesting things like one of the delivery robots coming down the path toward us, a coot playing with some ducks, and a loon with winter coloring. There was also a man taking pictures of the loon with a really good camera. Later I went to a meeting by going down the Lakeshore Path, and I ran into another robot. Who knew they could go on the earthen path as well as pavement? Some of the ladies I ordered with did order from the robot for lunch that day, but they didn't tell me so I only knew about it when I exited the building and found them gathered around the robot. In the evening Travalon and I went to Mariner's and sat at the bar since they were busy. The bartenders there are so friendly, and the owner always says hi to us. They had the hockey channel on, and during the games the closed captioning was in English, but during the ads it was either nonsense or some language I am not familiar with. It looked vaguely Slavic but mostly like nonsense.
Saturday morning Travalon and I had a lot of fun following a course I had plotted out in Waunakee that took us to a little pond full of all sorts of waterfowl, even sand hill cranes, then we passed a place that looked fun to hike, but we didn't have time. We got coffee at MNM and then took a walk around the Waunakee Village Center Pond. We had to get my tire repaired, so while we were waiting, we walked over to Klein's and I bought three tiny plants, then we went to the battery place, and they replaced the battery in my Snark tuner. Now I can finally get the sitar in tune! After that Travalon and I hit the road and drove to Eau Claire, where he was overjoyed to find a Books a Million (BAM!) right across from our hotel. It's a chain we don't have here in Madison, and it is a lot like Borders was. We went downtown and ate at the Acoustic Cafe, where a bluegrass band was playing. Travalon says that place was around when he was in college. Then we took a walk along the riverfront; it was dark out, but a fairly mild evening, and there are all sorts of beautiful lights. I will post pictures and videos soon. We saw the movie Judy, which Travalon had really wanted to see, but it left Madison before we got a chance. It was so sad! Then we swam in our wonderful hotel pool.
Yesterday we had a quick breakfast at our hotel, then we ran over to BAM! for Cuppa Joe coffee and the purchase of a number of books. Not gonna lie, I was bummed that we couldn't go to Mass at Sacred Heart in the winter - they only have weekend Masses at their other church. We went to 11 am Mass at an unpromising modern church, but the priest had an impressive beard like a saint on an icon, and the hymnal was the St. Michael one, so we chanted the ordinary and sang Ralph Vaughan Williams hymns. It was a little weird that they didn't do the Sign of the Peace, and then afterwards there was a guest speaker who dragged on and on, and THEN parish elections, so we finally snuck out before Mass was "officially" over. The people in the narthex didn't seem offended - they gave us cake. Then we took a walk at a beautiful nature area that I forgot to take a picture of, but it was under a bluff. The concert (the reason we went up in the first place) was at a different Catholic church, St. Olaf, and to my delight Luxuli and Jilly Moose drove up to see it too. The theme of the concert was depictions of Mary as a rose, and there were a lot of Medieval cantigas and plenty of Renaissance polyphony. The piece based on my poem was the only modern one. It was well-received by the audience, and the leader of the schola announced my presence there, so people cheered for me too. Travalon said I was giddy the rest of the evening. Lest you think I am some amazing mystic and deeply spiritual poet, we then went to Truckers, a hippie shop that Travalon remembered from when he was in college, and I bought a hippie hat that makes me look like a mushroom and cactus socks that say: "Don't be a prick." Then we headed back, past the beautiful purple glow in the sky that we had thought on the way up was some amazing natural phenomenon... and then we passed a hill, and it was just a giant warehouse with lit-up magenta windows. We passed but forgot to note the church that had been lit up like a gingerbread house just outside of Eau Claire. We passed all the wondrous rock formations by Camp Douglas in the dark this time, so we couldn't see them. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Mauston with some letters burned out, so that instead of being called "Cinco de Mayo," it seemed to be called "Cinco Demyo." And today I returned to the workaday world, but if I think people should somehow treat me specially for being a poet, I just think of Mary, who was the Mother of God but nobody cut her any slack when she had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem while nine months pregnant and then give birth in a barn.
Famous Hat
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