Priest Meet and Greet

 

First of all, I have some photos from yesterday. The day was so good that God put a bow on it! Travalon noticed these clouds seemed to be wearing a bow.

Here is the mysterious harlequin juggler, playing with children and his light-up clubs.

The end of the sunset and the glowing boat in the lower left.

This morning Travalon went to Oconomowoc to see his family, then he went to Mass in Hartland, attended a baseball game, went hiking, and swam in a lake. Meanwhile, I went to Mass at our usual church downtown, and afterwards Rich said instead of brunch at a restaurant, let's go to a church dinner at St. Dennis way over on the east side. However, when we got there, it was a parish festival that would have food trucks, not an organized meal in the basement, and the food trucks wouldn't be there for another hour. They were having Mass outside, and it was only half over. The guy who had wanted us to come stayed because he was helping with bingo, but Rich, another woman, and I went to a nearby restaurant, and it was one I'd been curious to try. My crab cake Benedict was really good. Check out the beautiful set they brought to Rich when he ordered his usual "hot chocolate, extra large, extra strong, maximum fat."

Rich, Kathbert, and I went for a long walk in the Arboretum, checking out the skunk cabbages that are very stressed by the drought. I told Kathbert about Operation Illumination, and she had some good suggestions. Rich was bitten by a bug, and he asked, "Is this a tick?" I said no, and he asked if I was sure because he had squished it, but I said, "Ticks don't have wings." The other two often rely on me for insect and plant identification, since back in the day Ma Hat enrolled me in summer classes on plant identification and bought me all sorts of guidebooks for plants and insects. I still remember almost all of this training - I remember one course was on edible plants in the forest, and at the end of the class we made a meal of all wild plants. I'm not saying I'm a hardcore survivalist, but I could probably eke out an existence for quite a while in the summer if I got lost in the woods.

Getting into Irish class was tricky. I had to do it from Rich's computer, and I had to log into my gmail account to get my access code for Zoom. Then I had to log into my Yahoo email to get the Zoom link, but it sent a verification to my work email, so then I had to log into that. It was ridiculous. Rich's camera made my eyes look this amazing aquamarine color; in real life they're a mossy greenish-gray. And every time I tried to say something in Irish, my brain wanted to say it in French instead. Which reminds me that Travalon is now doing some online Croatian course, so sometimes he and I are doing our language courses at the same time.

After Irish class, Rich and I went to St. James for a meet and greet with our new parish priests, only they were talking at the whole group, and once they shut up, people started playing loud music. There was way too much food there, ice cream and brownies and cookies and stuff I didn't even try. Anyway, I never got to meet any priests. Then we ran back to Rich's house, and he made me a light dinner before I headed off to band practice. They had asked me to bring my violin because Hardingfele got us a gig at a Ukranian picnic, but then she can't even attend it, so we were down to one fiddle. However, when I got there, Hardingfele was there with her fiddle too, so tonight we had three of us on violin. It took me a while to tune the violin because the strings kept slipping (they had been loosened for a long time), but playing the violin came right back to me. I guess it's like riding a bike. I did enjoy getting to play melody. Hopefully I can learn these Ukranian tunes well enough for this gig...

Famous Hat

Niko's First Music Festival

 

Yesterday was very hot, so my neighbor only wanted to walk in the morning. I ended up walking inside in the air conditioning the rest of the day, and then in the evening I went downtown to meet Tiffy. We had dinner at Himal Chuli, eating inside (which is unusual for us), then she got bubble tea but I didn't want any. We went to the roof of her sister's apartment building, but sitting inside because of the heat, and after a while I did want some bubble tea, so we went back down to get some. I probably should have headed home at that point, knowing the storm was coming, but honestly I wanted to watch it from that vantage point. At first it was very cool, with lots of lightning, but then the wind really picked up, and the construction cranes working on a nearby building started spinning around, so we got a bit freaked out and went down to the ground floor. We sat in the lobby, which has large windows but somehow felt safer, and we watched what looked like a hurricane outside. When the wind died down a bit, we went to her sister's apartment and sat in the dark, watching the storm until it seemed to have died down. I went to my car parked at the church, not even a block away, and by then there was just a light drizzle and some intermittent lightning flashing in the distance. There were flash flood warnings, but I didn't even encounter any standing water on my drive home. Travalon had said the power was out at our place, and it still was when I got there. We couldn't shower, and I had to grab a bottle of water from the fridge to brush my teeth, but we went to bed and slept for almost six hours.

I'm not totally sure when the power came back on, but I woke up about a quarter to six this morning, and Travalon had gotten up to turn off the lamp in the living room and apparently the TV, which came back on but was muted. I showered and tried to get back to sleep but couldn't, so eventually I just got up and started my day. We met Tiffy, Rich, and Jilly Moose for coffee downtown, sitting in the back garden because the day was a much pleasanter temperature. Rich headed for home while the rest of us went to the Union Terrace, where we found a perfect table in the shade. Jill had to leave for work just before one, while Travalon, Tiffy, and I had some lunch and then headed to the Edgewater Hotel for their free music festival.

At first when I saw the setup at the Edgewater, I thought, "Man, we gave up our perfect table at the Terrace for this?" Only the stage was under a tent, while all the chairs were set up in the sun. It was too loud in front of the band anyway, so we found a lovely place to sit along the side, among the shrubs, where we could see the band from the side so they weren't so loud. There was a refreshing lake breeze, and we were safely in the shade in a spot that would only get shadier. We got there midway through the set of the first band, the Jimmies, who are very popular locally. I'd never heard them before, but they have a horn section called the "Brassholes," and they played all sorts of stuff, like Latin tunes and New Orleans style tunes. 

The second band was Panchromatic Steel, a local steel drum band. They are always good, and I got up and danced a lot in front of my chair. Lots of women were wearing tropical prints, and I wished I'd dressed more tropical instead of New Orleans with Mardi Gras beads. Though the weather was perfect, we did need to stay hydrated, and waters were $3. Fair enough, there was no cover charge so they had to make their money somehow.

The third band was Natty Nation, a local reggae band. We got some expensive but very fresh and delicious grilled shrimp, and Travalon got the Mideastern platter, but I ate all of his olives because he didn't want them. I felt mesmerized by the backbeat of the reggae, but Travalon needed a break, so he got fish and chips at the Boathouse, the restaurant on the water. I had a bite of his fish, and the breading was so good, almost like an apple pie crust. Tiffy said she was "dotty" because she has a lot of spots on her arms from the sun, so I said I should call her Dotty on the blog, but she said, "Then nobody will know who you're talking about." Anyway, she got her blog name from Evil Cherry Minnie, and who am I to argue with an evil, fruit-scented Disney character?

The last band was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, all the way from New Orleans, and they were as awesome as you are imagining they were. It's all about the dialogue between the trumpet and the trombone while the rhythm section lays down that syncopation. We saw a dog that looked like a friend's dog, so Tiffy took a photo of it. We also saw a guy coming toward us who looked like one of those Venetian Carnival clowns or something, with a white face and red spades painted on his cheeks, and red harlequin pants. He set his bag of juggling pins down right in front of us, then he took three, turned them on because they lit up, and went over to an open area and began juggling. I took a photo, but it hasn't downloaded from the Cloud yet. That was maybe not even the weirdest thing we saw there today, because earlier there was a big group of people who all seemed to be best friends but didn't go together at all, including what looked like a man in a dress and a guy "Pseudo-Bro" who looked kind of like Tiffy's brother. Pseudo-Bro convinced them all to go to the Union Terrace just before the headliners came on, which seemed crazy. I guess they weren't there for New Orleans jazz.

It was such a beautiful night. Just before we left, we went to gaze out over the lake at the remnants of the sunset, and the breeze had picked up. A boat docked below us glowed in the sequence of the colors of the rainbow. I could have stayed there for hours, but we are tired due to our shorter sleep last night, so I will wrap this up and go to bed.

Famous Hat

The Demisemiseptcentennial

 

Yesterday was such a good day. The grad student who plays in the protest band came in to defend her thesis, and look how she did!

These speech bubbles were painted by grad students last summer, and we were supposed to write things in them, like where we would visit that summer. I put Peoria and Goofy Ridge. When we had our cleaning day some weeks ago, my coworker tried to clean these speech bubbles, but the only one she got clean was the one with terrible puns my easygoing coworker and I had written. Bummer! My visit to Goofy Ridge is eternally enshrined on the wall.

It was raining, so I walked on the third floor under the overhang, just like a few Wednesdays ago when I had that mystical experience, but I just saw this... French dog?

I heard some emergency vehicles, and they pulled up in front of the Killer Building, and the cops, firemen, and EMTs went inside. I never heard anything more about it.

There was a big party on the Union Terrace for the Demisemiseptcentennial, or 175th birthday of the University. My colleague asked if I wanted to go, then Hardingfele asked if I wanted to go, and my colleague said sure, she could come. We went to the ice cream truck, and the Chancellor handed us free ice cream, then we sat on the Union Terrace, and Hardingfele and my colleague were instant friends. They knew people in common and have kids the same age. They headed back to their offices together while I went to meet the Chair of the Central Committee (I'm the Vice-Chair). As I waited for him, I saw our department's newest Ph.D. partying with some faculty, and the Vice President of the Union (I'm the Secretary), and a guy from two jobs ago who went to our wedding but I haven't seen much since. I saw him last year at the free ice cream day, and he said he was moving back to France. When I saw him yesterday, he confirmed that he had, in fact, moved back to France, but they were in town to visit his mother-in-law, so he was meeting former coworkers at the Union. I kind of felt like, if I stood there long enough, I'd see everyone I'd ever known!

The Chair and I went to the exclusive, swanky soiree in the Great Hall of the Union. People kept bringing around delicious hors d'oeuvres like smoked salmon tarts and warm peach tarts, and the free signature cocktail was basically a fancy cranberry juice with vodka. We mingled a bit, then there was a presentation with the President of the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Chancellor. Another woman joined us, and the three of us were having a lively discussion about ageism on campus when Travalon arrived. He and I went down to the Terrace and caught a bit of the Fifth Quarter with the band playing, then we found a table and had pizza and refreshments; Travalon accidentally got a one-person pizza instead of the big one we'd gotten last week, but I was pretty full of hors d'oeuvres and didn't eat that much. There was also free popcorn. Wednesday is always Open Mic Night down at the Terrace in the summers, and some of the singers were really good! Some... not so much. The US women's soccer team was playing the Netherlands, and the game was on in the Rathskeller, so every time I had to powder my nose, I checked out the game. Tons of people were watching, which I like to see. The fireworks for the party were supposed to start at 9:30, so at 9:15 I went in to use the bathroom, and as I was heading back out, I saw the soccer team score a goal to tie the game up! But the fireworks had already started! So was my timing good or bad?? I did see most of the fireworks show, and it was very cool. Here are a couple of pictures of the parties. First, the balloon 175 at the swanky soiree.

They projected 175 onto the Union at the Terrace.

By the time we got home, it was too late to blog. Then I thought about how, even though God is infinitely greater than I am, we are co-conspirators in Operation Illumination, and I pictured us like two little children giggling as we put a May Day basket on a neighbor's front porch. Is this a weird way to picture God? It just seemed so delightful. He may be incomprehensibly great, but He stoops down to love us.

Today I was looking forward to a quiet day, but I had to take a check across campus in this hot weather. I tried to walk at a relaxed pace, and I caught the free campus bus on part of the trip both ways, but maybe the heat did get to me. I started to feel worse and worse as the day wore on. By the time we got home, I was freezing despite the excessively hot weather, and sure enough, I had a temperature over 100. After Night Prayer I suddenly threw off my blanket and felt better, and sure enough, my fever had gone down. Did my fellow Night Prayer attendees' prayers work that quickly?? I'm relieved, because I really didn't want to go to the emergency room tonight, but earlier it seemed pretty grim. Maybe I did just get overheated or dehydrated on that walk. I also visited Hardingfele to see how she uses a new program I am learning, which is different than how we plan to use it, but might also be valuable for us. Learning this program is honestly a lot more interesting than my regular work. I love to make pretty graphs to show what faculty funds look like.

Famous Hat

More Blog Monsters

 

We have more blog monsters! A couple of tween girls drew these. I really like this colorful one, which is actually a "bloog" monster.

This one looks like a scary pizzacorn.

Speaking of pizza... Behold my entry into the Blog Monster gallery, the Pizzasaurus that I bought at Meep Meepleton's during Street Fest and just painted tonight.

It is a squishy Pizzasaurus so perfect for squeezing whenever blogging gets too stressful.

Today I read an article about the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of psychiatric problems, and the woman writing the article had a bad trip and was frustrated at how little is known about what causes them. Not long after that she went on a hardcore meditation retreat, and that just messed her up more. She said Buddhist monks have long known that some people have bad experiences with meditation, and that it's considered a high-reward, high-risk activity. She did concede that psychiatrists using ayahuasca and peyote and other things that were traditionally used in religious rituals have divorced them from their ancient spiritual origins, but she said there's nothing to predict who will have a bad trip, such as preexisting psychiatric conditions, family background, etc. I wondered if people having bad trips were upset to experience the Divine and realize there is something more powerful than themselves. I thought of a guy I met years ago who said he hated going into Gothic cathedrals because "it makes me feel so much smaller than God, and I hate that! I like to think of him being my size." Uh, what?? So if he is weirded out by going into a building, imagine how shattered a person might be who goes on this spiritual quest and finds out that they are not the ultimate answer to everything.

At Adoration I pondered this idea, and I thought of myself. I'm not the humblest person (and it would hardly be humble of me to say I am!), but I've always had a healthy respect for the Divine as Other than myself and obviously far more powerful, intelligent, and kind. When God spoke directly to me the other day, I was in a very safe mindset to encounter Divine Greatness, because I was extremely contrite about hurting someone and crying about people feeling unloved. So I was a) thinking I sucked, and b) focused on the needs of others. Maybe it is downright dangerous to try to pursue contact with the Divine when you are not in a good state to do so. A good state might be, for example, right after Confession, when you've just gotten done thinking about how much you suck and you're also extremely grateful for the mercy God has shown you. I hadn't thought about it, partly because most of the people I know also understand God is incomprehensibly greater than they are, but some rando who wants to "see the face of God" and does some drug or meditation to facilitate that might be so deeply shaken by how much greater God is than he is that he just can't get over it. This is probably why in all religious traditions you have to work and pray and get spiritually fit for years before you start messing around with this stuff. Also, I wasn't looking for a direct encounter with God when it happened; yes, I was praying very hard for people who feel unloved to know they are loved, but I wasn't expecting a direct answer. And - this might be the most important part - I didn't just moon around over God talking to me; I went out and did something about what He said to me. That's the part so many of these people who want instant enlightenment are missing - the holy is most present in quotidian existence. To work is to pray.

Famous Hat

Operation Illumination

 

I forgot to mention that, as Jilly Moose, Travalon, and I were returning from the fair, we were driving toward the west and could see rain like a waterfall in the sky some distance away. I said if it's to the west, it will be coming this way, and it must really have been raining hard to look like a waterfall in the sky. We dropped Jilly Moose off at her car, and not long after that the rain hit. It rained really, really hard, but just for a few minutes. It was scary to drive through it - at one point Travalon couldn't even see through the windshield. (Neither could I, for that matter.) But it was a very brief rain; the one later in the evening, while we were at the health club, was a lot more help toward ending this drought.

I also forgot to mention the hilarious things Rich said during brunch yesterday. At one point he wondered when one of the regulars would show up, which surprised all of us, especially the guy in question who was sitting immediately to Rich's right as he said it. Then someone asked Rich about the Oppenheimer movie, and he said he would "try to describe it fairly fairly." I said, "Did you just say 'fairly fairly'?" and two people around me confirmed that they heard it too. It's funny - I've never thought about the fact that "fairly" can mean "somewhat" and also "justly," so Rich was going to describe the movie somewhat justly, and there's no reason the one fairly can't modify the other, but it sure sounds weird.

Today was a quiet day, but the smoke is back so I walked outside with a mask on, and my neighbor didn't want to play pickleball after work. Fortunately, when Travalon came home, he was up for swimming at the health club in the sport pool, where you can almost feel like you're outside because of all the windows. Speaking of which, all these little sparrows were looking in the window at us with great interest for a few minutes, then they lost interest and all flew away. Maybe it's us, because the other day some other people were playing tennis on the court in our complex, and the cranes weren't watching at all but just grazing in the grass like nothing was happening, yet when Travalon and I play, they can't get enough of it. Maybe we are just really fascinating to birds.

I have been working on this project now for about a week, and I felt it needed a name. I asked Travalon what I should call it but then came up with Operation Illumination before he could think of anything. After all, Niko and his ancestor helped inspire the practical response to my mystical experience, and his ancestor is labeled "Illuminor." If I succeed, maybe I will be enlightened! Travalon wondered how I would know that Operation Illumination was a success, and I have no idea currently, but maybe it will be revealed, I will keep my readers posted...

Famous Hat

Niko's (and My) First Slow Irish Jam

 

Today we went to Mass downtown again, and if the powers that be were trying to kill that particular Mass off by making it bilingual, it backfired. Today there were more people than ever, way more than when it was an all-English Mass. Afterwards a bunch of us went to Inn on the Park for brunch, then it was very hot, so Travalon suggested we go to Pheasant Branch to hike in the shade. We went out to look at the beautiful vista of the hill apparently created by First Nations people. (This photo is from last year; this year, because of the drought, the water is really scummy.)

After we had walked for an hour in that section of Pheasant Branch, we drove to another section and walked for another half hour. We headed home, and I took this photo of my black calla lily blooming. It looks more purple this year; in the past, it has been truly black.

Travalon headed off to hang out with his high school buddy while I went to the Slow Irish Jam. I had mentioned it to the whole band, since it's at the same time as our band practice (and my Irish class, but my teacher thought that was a worthy reason to play hooky), and Hardingfele said, "We're pretty experienced. We should go to the Medium Irish Jam." I said, "Remember when we went to that Body Pump class at the health club, and I took small weights because I'd never done it before, but you took really heavy weights and then the next day you said, 'If I ever suggest going to that class again, shoot me!'?" But she didn't remember. I wasn't sure if any of my bandmates would show up, but they all did, and even Hockey Girl was there! I asked if she had come to hear us, but she had brought her flute to jam. My bandmates all scrambled to find the music, but I tried to play by ear and really enjoyed it. This is because Ma and Pa Hat had the foresight to give me Suzuki violin lessons, where you learn to play by ear, while all my bandmates learned from playing written music. I'm not sure if they will want to come back, but I sure do! I brought Niko with me, and it was the first Slow Irish Jam for both of us. I am definitely not ready for the Regular Irish Jam, which happens in Cambridge and is at a breakneck pace, and I guess they're annoyed if you don't really know the tunes. Yup, not ready. Maybe after a year of these Slow Irish Jams, I'll be ready.

Famous Hat

Street Fest VI: Niko Goes to the Fair

 

This morning Travalon and I met Jilly Moose for coffee at Jiffy Lube, and we sat for quite a while in the shady outdoor seating. It was so lovely. I said I would like to go to the fair to see the animals, and Jilly Moose said she would like to go too, so we all headed to the fair. To our pleasant surprise, parking was free, since it's never free at the Expo Center. However, they only took cash for the entry fee, so we had to go to their cash machine with a $3 fee. They'll get you somehow...

The first barn we went to was the horse barn. There sure were some beautiful horses.

This is a miniature horse named Mariah, which is also my diary's name.

Next we went to the barn with the cows, sheep, goats, and small animals.

This is Shaun the Sheep! Just like the TV show!

These goats were very friendly.

This rabbit looks a bit like my good old Charlie.

These two were so cute!

This guinea pig looks like one I had in college named Phoebe.

I love the chickens, especially the fluffy ones.

The fancy chickens all had names (like Tax Evasion, I'm Stupid, and I'm With Stupid), and they seemed friendly and curious. The plain white chickens called "broilers" seemed less engaged, and Travalon said it was like they were sad because they knew their fate. I wonder if the kids raising them interact with them less, so they are less used to people. It does make you pause before eating chicken, but as you'll find out, not for long.

There were also geese and ducks.

There were a number of turkeys, mostly white ones that were as uninterested in people as the plain white chickens, but there was a big brown tom named Jimmie who looked up at me with his beady dinosaur eyes and talked to me. I sure hope they keep Jimmie for breeding, because he had a first-place ribbon and I felt a real connection to him, but who knows what his fate will be come Thanksgiving?

There was a petting zoo with miniature donkeys, baby chicks, and a week-old calf named Valentine.

After that we went to the pig barn. The pigs weren't too exciting, since they were all asleep. Travalon hoped we would see baby pigs, but those were at the petting zoo and he didn't take pictures of them there. This pig is named Snoop Dog.

This pig is named Blackhead.

Then we went to the Arts and Crafts exhibit. On the way in we got free cooler bags and portable fans from a TV station. Some of the crafts were pretty amazing. They made me think of Ma Hat, who can sew or knit anything, like cuddly rosaries - she came up with that design herself. I'll bet she could crochet something as adorable as this sweet triceratops with strawberries for horns.

I love the amazing decorated cakes.

Check out these cupcakes that look like little pies!

And cookies with fishing scenes on them!

I don't know why this mug only got a second-place ribbon. I think it's amazing!

And this cat is really well executed. I think it's made out of papier mache.

I really like the fair, because it is a way to acclaim the accomplishments of the (mainly, but not only, female) teenagers who do these things. Whether they are raising animals or decorating cakes, they are getting noticed for their talents. I approve!

After that we went to get some late lunch. There was no sign of the cart selling the platonic ideal of a pretzel, but Travalon and I were overjoyed to see the West African food cart, so he got peanut chicken and I got chicken yassa, and we split a baobab shake. I also had a cream puff, because the only time I eat them is at the fair. Jilly Moose tried a baobab shake too, and she liked it. It sprinkled a bit, so we decided it was a good time to pack it in, but I mentioned that the fair is just off John Nolan Drive, so we could potentially do Street Fest. (And how fitting, it was Street Fest VI when I had Niko with me, and the old woodcutting of the heart with the eye was Number VI, "Illuminor.") Travalon said he couldn't eat another bite, but I said there was plenty to do for Street Fest that didn't involve eating. After all, at festivals people eat, drink, and buy random stuff, so why not go to places selling random stuff?

Our first stop was Meep Meepleton's shop full of old toys on Willy Street. I got a stuffed bowl of ramen and a cat that looked like it would glow under blacklight, and Travalon got a Snuffy Smith mug. I also got a squishy dinosaur paint kit, so I will paint that and post it as my version of the Blog Monster.

So the cat does glow under blacklight!

Our next stop was A Room of One's Own Bookstore on Atwood Avenue. Travalon got an atlas of "dark destinations," like battle sites and tragedies, and I got The Prophet by Khalil Gibran and a book on the search for Paradise by Pico Iyer. We had to go way out of the way to get to Monona Drive because of road construction, and then the antiques shop there had moved, but we found a fun shop selling all sorts of random stuff. I got Rubik's Cube earrings, and Travalon got this journal, pictured with The Prophet:

If you can't read it, it says: "I'm back from the weekend with a fresh, renewed hatred for my job." They had other sassy journals there too. Jilly Moose bought some delicious-smelling soap at that shop.

Travalon and I went home and rested for a bit, then we headed to the health club to swim. We were in the outdoor pool for about half an hour when the father and son who were the only others in there suddenly bolted out of the pool, and we realized the wind had picked up and the sky had darkened. We hurried out of there ourselves, and after we had showered and gotten ready to go, we came out of the locker rooms to find a violent storm in progress. We sat on the cushy chairs in front of a big-screen TV, which was not working because the weather had knocked out the satellite service, and we waited until the storm had calmed down to a steady rain before heading home. If we get one more good rain, Travalon is hopeful we can finally get our boat off the lift. We just need the level of the river to rise a bit.

I had three calla lily plants: one that bloomed black, one that bloomed white, and one that bloomed orange. This year they were slow to come up, but finally the black one did, so I set it outside, and now it's got a blossom! The white one came up soon after, so I set it outside, and it is getting quite a few leaves but hasn't bloomed yet. There is no sign of life from the orange one, so sadly I think that one is dead. Still, I'm excited that at least one bloomed this year. I'll try to take a photo soon.

Famous Hat