Sorry for my silence the last couple of days. I was either out late or fighting with a recalcitrant hotel booking website. Saturday morning Travalon and I met Jilly Moose for coffee at Fair Trade, and we sat in the back garden. Rich joined us too, and he had a big slice of what looked like birthday cake.
We tried to figure out what occasion it could be for, and Jilly Moose said it was her coworker's birthday, and also her parents' wedding anniversary. So there you go. But do you even need a reason for chocolate cake? Then Travalon left to go fishing, Rich headed home to bake brownies, and we ladies prayed the rosary and then met up with Tiffy. We went to lunch at Dubai, and I got something with eggplant and lamb that was unbelievably good. We shopped a bit on State Street, got bubble tea, and went up to the roof of Tiffy's sister's apartment building. The view is incredible from there. This is looking out at Picnic Point.
This is looking toward campus. You can see Bascom Hall, and behind it the Killer Building where I work.
It was so lovely there, we spent quite a bit of time there. Then Tiffy and I caught a ride with Rich to the outdoor theater, where we met the Dairyman's Daughter for the annual opening day cookout. We saw
The Merry Wives of Windsor, which it seems like we saw there not too many years ago, but it's still just as funny. This time they had a really interesting set.
I love the hot pink boombox. Of course we had a very late night, as one does there, so yesterday morning I didn't get up until it was too late to go to the Mass near us, and Travalon got up even later. We went to St. Patrick's downtown, which is linked with our church, but the priest gave a weird, baldly political homily about how San Francisco is a hellscape because it's so liberal. Worse, everyone around us was getting really into this homily. I was so disgusted that I didn't want to go to the parish picnic I'd been looking forward to for weeks, and it didn't help that it was a strangely cold day for mid-June. Instead, Travalon, Tiffy, and I had brunch on State Street, shopped a bit, got bubble tea, and went to the roof of her sister's building... only this time we sat inside. We skipped the steel drums at the East Side Club too, which I had also been looking forward to. I guess that homily put me in a real funk. I had a slight reprieve at band practice, which went really well, but then I had to reserve some hotel rooms, and the website Travalon recommended gave me nonstop issues. I never got a confirmation email... but then I checked another email address I never use, and they went there! Yet my usual email is the one listed on my account. Weirder still, the reservations weren't showing up on my account, but I called both hotels, and they had gotten the reservations. Still, I had trouble getting to sleep and then had weird dreams all night.
Today I got to work from home, which is good because I was so groggy. As I worked on our porch, hummingbirds visited the feeder, and then a big male oriole landed on it and was mightily annoyed that he couldn't get at the nectar. He flew to a tree and glared at me for a bit. We do have an oriole feeder somewhere, but just after we got it, someone told me she had a hummingbird get stuck in the jelly in her oriole feeder and it died, so I have been too afraid to put it up. Coincidentally, just after my visit from Mr. Annoyed Oriole, I got an article in email about how you should really not use jelly in oriole feeders because hummingbirds can get stuck in it and die, and it's kind of junk food for the orioles anyway so please just use orange slices. So maybe I will try to find that oriole feeder and put it up, but only use orange slices. To me, it's less important to feed Mr. Oriole than to keep Squeaky and her friends (rivals?) safe. But it would be fun to see the bright orange and black birds hanging out at a feeder.
When Travalon got home, we went to Olbrich to see the blooming titan arum. By then it had closed up, but it's still impressive - much taller than I am! (But then again, who isn't?)
Here are some other cool flowers in the conservatory.
And a bonus photo: Jilly Moose took a photo of the same pretty garden with reddish mulch in Port Washington as I did, but I think her photo is much better than the one I posted some days ago.
I believe Travalon also has some photos from Olbrich that he didn't send to me, so maybe tomorrow I can post those.
Famous Hat
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