Sorry for the silence yesterday. Travalon and I overslept, waking up just before Mass began, so we had a quiet morning and then hit the road. Our rainy day contingency plan was to go to an antiques store in Waterloo, where I found several rosaries, including a large, hand-carved wooden one from France, and then we went to Watertown. The main antiques store in town was closed, even though the internet said it would be open on a Sunday, so we went to a couple of other ones. Travalon noted there were perfect stocking stuffers at the first one.
Then we went to a small family-owned one, and he found this literal Teddy bear. Doesn't he look just like Teddy Roosevelt?
We went to a bookstore in Watertown that has a second-story inside balcony overlooking the street, and we had grilled cheese sandwiches, lattes, and pastries. Then we took a rainy walk on Tivoli Island.
This is the foundation of a building that used to be on Tivoli Island. I believe it was a dance hall. That was way back around the turn of the last century.
We stopped at the antiques store in Lake Mills too - no rosaries, but I did find this chiwara statue. It's a West African antelope god who taught the people how to cultivate crops. I have always thought the chiwara was so beautiful, and then I read somewhere that it is associated with Capricorn somehow, so there you go - it's my sign.
We got back to town just in time for Mass, and our parish priest had said a couple of weeks ago that the 5 pm was lightly attended, but there were just as many people there as at 9 am. (At least almost all of them wore masks!) And the priest did note it was the most people he had seen there since COVID started. Thwarted! I was hoping to attend a lightly populated Mass. When we got home, the weather had finally cleared up, so we went for another walk, and there was a gorgeous sunset.
Then we watched the Packers beat the Saints in real time. The first two games (which they also won) we mostly heard on the radio, and we did tape them, but we haven't watched them yet.
Last week Travalon went for a walk around Tiedeman Pond while I was working. Remember those beautiful lotus blossoms? Now everything is dying back.
Tonight I had a video meeting with my new financial advisor (the old one got promoted), and he looked about twenty. Usually I look okay on Zoom meetings, but he uses WebEx, and boy did I look haggard! So the question is: which one is more accurate? Then Travalon and I took a boat ride out to the marsh and collected five lotus seed pods, but all the seeds were rotten. We did see a blue heron that let us get surprisingly close to it.
We went back to the river and got one perfect seed pod in a patch of lotuses closer to our house. We saw a beautiful sunset.
Then we went out into the lake and got another view of the sunset.
We also saw the moon coming up.
We saw lots of ducks and three mysterious birds like cormorants, swimming with just their heads above the water, except that they were tiny. They were smaller than coots! When we got closer, they dove beneath the water. Then we came home, and I took the lotus seeds out of the seed pod. Sorry that this photo is so blurry. They were a little browner than the ones I got last week, and they didn't taste quite as good. I guess lotus seeds are best gotten right around the autumnal equinox.
Gotta go - we're doing some sort of Zoom birthday party for Pete the Sailor Man.
Famous Hat
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