Yellow and Blue

 

Sometimes a story is so straightforward that there are not two sides to it, there is only Right and Wrong. If one country invades another country, that is wrong. If the leaders of our country side with the invader rather than the invaded, that is wrong. I watched the meeting today where Tweedledee and Tweedledumb tried to humiliate the leader of the invaded country and get him to make a deal that was entirely advantageous to them and not at all to him, and I have never hated two people more in my life. They were hoping to bully and humiliate him into taking the deal, which is why they had the meeting on TV - you notice when they met with the invader, that was behind closed doors. I have no respect for the traitors who support the invader and are busy doing apologetics for Dear Leader being wholly in thrall to him. Dear Leader is the stupidest, most self-centered man on the planet, and he's taking his orders directly from the evilest man on the planet. I have no respect for a person I know who went on social media and posted a rebuttal to someone who said stand with the invaded country, basically arguing that the invader is right and the invaded country is wrong. You know who you are, and you know you are wrong. The cognitive dissonance in your head is buzzing so loud I can hear it here on the other side of town. How you can claim to be a "Christian" when you support these men, and how you can claim to be a "patriot" when you are a complete traitor is between you and God, but I have my own opinions, and certainly they are that you are NOT A GOOD PERSON. Repent while there's still time.

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Time to Recover

 

As promised, here is the DuoLingo sticker I earned this morning:

Got it first thing this morning, and then later in the morning one of my DuoLingo buddies posted, "Neuf ans! Incroyable!" I thought, "Nine years, incredible what?" and then I realized he meant I've been on DuoLingo for nine years. And yet I'm still only fluent in English...

Today I had so much to do that I made a list, and then I checked everything off except two things that got added during the day, so I'll do those tomorrow. The one thing that was strange today was when I was walking and praying the rosary, suddenly I couldn't walk any further - not literally, but I had two more decades to go and couldn't walk that much. I was in the Allen Centennial Gardens, and the free campus bus picks up right outside, so I hopped on it, still praying the rosary, and took it for three stops. That sounds lame, but how many students would be paying any attention to the plump middle-aged lady to notice she only rode for three stops? Then I looked at my FitBit and realized I had almost all my steps for the day. I thought I would have recovered by my afternoon break, but I got outside and couldn't take another step, so I sat and prayed a Divine Mercy Chaplet on a bench in the sun. What's going on? Am I coming down with yet another virus? My FitBit has been yelling at me lately for overdoing it, so maybe it just caught up to me. Tomorrow I work from home, so it will be a far lazier day. That should give me a chance to recover.

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Shamrock Club Book Study

 

Today I worked on campus, and the whole day felt like meetings: one at 10, one at 11, an unscheduled one at 12, and one at 2. I barely got any real work done. Hardingfele couldn't walk at lunch because they were having a meeting right then about a federal grant. But at least Travalon did send me evidence that the cranes are back:

They like to walk on the ice, but I have no idea why. Probably just because it's there.

After work I went to the home of the Irish Couple of the Year (says who? says the Shamrock Club) for the Shamrock Club book study. We had read How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill, and I was surprised at how many people found the book tedious, since I enjoyed it. We had a lively conversation that touched on the book now and then, and we decided on a book to read for the May meeting which I cannot remember now, so hopefully they send out an email. They have had these book studies for a long time, but this is the first one I went to. Also, I was very happy because the male half of the Irish Couple of the Year said he was stunned to find my article in Guideposts. I'm so excited that someone saw it in the wild! Most of the people I know must not subscribe to the magazine, because this is the first I've heard from someone that they saw my article. It's very short, and the others were stunned to hear I was paid $50 for it. I was pretty surprised myself when they told me - it seems like a generous sum of money for such a short article. I should try to get a full-length article published and see what they would pay for that.

Did you ask what time it is? Time for some DuoLingo bragging, of course!

Tomorrow I should have another landmark sticker to share with you, my loyal readers.

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Badgers Bury Huskies

 

Yesterday I didn't blog because there wasn't much to say. I worked on campus and walked with Hardingfele at lunch, since my colleague is abroad. The weather was very mild, and we discussed how the gig had gone on Saturday. Then in the evening Travalon and I went swimming.

The weather was mild again today. I worked from home and took walks in the neighborhood on my breaks. In the evening I went to Adoration as usual, then Travalon met me there and we walked to the Kohl Center to see the men's Badger Basketball game. We got there a bit early and had some macaroni and cheese for dinner, then as we walked around, we saw a stand selling the Platonic ideal of a soft pretzel - it's called Ben Pretzels, and it has a cartoon of an Amish guy. We got one of those, but for some reason the guy gave us two, so we ended up bringing one home. I hope they are just as good heated up the next day...

I was only at one other Badger game this year, and during that one, John Tonje scored forty points. He wasn't nearly that dynamic tonight, although he was the second-highest scorer, but a guy named John Blackwell got twenty-four points and ten rebounds. When he got his tenth rebound, Travalon and I cheered, and some other people cheered, but not the whole crowd. The school-aged boys sitting behind us, who were giving a color commentary the whole game, were puzzled that we cheered, because I believe they fancied themselves experts in the game but didn't realize Blackwell had just gotten a double-double. All the players were doing their part tonight - if they weren't scoring, they were getting rebounds - and one shorter player named Kamari McGee had an incredible save. In the end, the Washington Huskies couldn't compete, and the Badgers buried them 88-62. 

The halftime show was kind of cool. All the black fraternities and sororities on campus (called the Divine Nine) came out on the floor, and each one did a dance. Makes me wish I'd joined a black sorority when I was in college here.

When we got home, Travalon's package had arrived.

He's been on a real Beetle Bailey kick lately. At night when we are in bed but before we go to sleep, he reads a book of Beetle Bailey comics and just laughs and laughs. He even says there is a cartoon. I'm trying to imagine what Beetle Bailey sounds like. Does he have a California accent? Does he sound like Mush Mouth from the Fat Albert Show since they both have hats that cover their eyes? I imagine him sounding stoned, and if you don't know what that sounds like, watch a recent interview of our current president, Elon Musk. He's totally high on ketamine and makes no sense. Remember, Elon is just Felon without the F. He's like a cartoon villain: the richest man in the world, stealing money from the poorest people so he can go to Mars! Who knows? He may meet the same end as a cartoon villain. I would love to see a caped superhero stop his insanity, but they seem to be in short supply these days.

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Have You Ever Seen a Muskrat Chase an Iceberg?

 

Today after Mass and another joyful baptism of a cute baby, Travalon and I had lunch at Zippy Lube because I was craving the sauce and pickles on their fried chicken sandwich, then we took a walk at Tenney Park along the canal. It was so warm compared to how it's been, and as we walked back, we saw a tiny, pyramid-shaped iceberg zipping along down the canal. For some reason this struck me as really funny; we didn't get a video, but Travalon did get a pretty good photo with his cell phone, since he didn't have his good camera along.

We wondered where the "iceberg" was going in such a hurry... and then we saw a muskrat swimming rapidly after it. We kept walking and didn't see if the muskrat caught the chunk of ice, but I was surprised that it was awake and not still hibernating in one of those muskrat lodges like this one we can see off our dock.

The Irish say spring starts in February, and it seems like the muskrat agrees! The Irish also say the year starts in November, which I find fascinating because there have been several times, like last year and in 2019, when I definitely felt like a door had opened in November and I had walked through it to a new reality. 

We went home, and I read a few more chapters in the book for the Shamrock Club book study, then we wanted to walk at Governor Nelson State Park, but the trails had signs that said don't hike if there's snow because of the skiers. We went to Jackson's Landing, but there was too much snow there to hike, so we went back to our own place and went out on the dock. We didn't see the eagle I saw yesterday evening, but we did see the fake swan at a nearby dock frozen into the ice.

It's supposed to scare geese away, but what goose is going to be fooled by this??

Here are photos from yesterday, of common mergansers by the dam in Sauk.

There was also a young eagle flying around.

And here is the view looking down the river from the dam.

Here are a few shots of last night's sunset.

This evening I went to the Slow Irish Session while Travalon went to the arcade, where he finally managed to knock out Bald Bull - twice! Then we went to Sultan, a Pakistani restaurant, where we split curry shrimp, chicken marsala over French toast, and garlic naan. Wow, was the food there good! It was like the food at the Globe, very flavorful and fresh. Then on the way home we went to the North Side Lounge to see if they still had the raspberry sour beer. They did, so I tried it straight, and then Travalon and I chewed on magic berries and tried it, and it was so much sweeter. So that was dessert. 

Someday I will bring my violin to the Slow Irish Session, but today I brought the mandolin again. Playing her is like wearing a pair of sweatpants, so comfortable that it's not work. She desperately needs new strings, so maybe next weekend we can bring her and the violin to the instrument repair place to get new strings for her and a new chin rest and shoulder pad for the violin. I'm sure I still have the old ones somewhere around the house (I removed them back when I was doing a lot of early music), but at this point it would just be easier to buy new ones. Same with the mandolin strings - Travalon bought me a new set a couple of years ago, and I have no idea where they are now. Might as well get a new set.

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Afro-Cuban Jazz at the North Side Cabaret

 

Yesterday Travalon colored another picture at work.

This morning he watched the Wolverhampton match with Rodrigo, Wolfie, and Wendy.

The Wolves won 1-0, and Crystal Palace won 2-0, so it was a happy Premier League day for Travalon. Unfortunately, the Badger men lost in basketball, which is surprising because they were ahead by 17 points at halftime. They lost by 4 in overtime.

Once the Wolves game was over, we drove to Spring Green for my gig at the General Store. Richard Bonomo and the Dairyman's Daughter came to hear us, and so did a lot of friends of other bandmates. We had a good crowd and got $19 each in tips. I thought I did pretty well, and Travalon actually recorded a lot of our songs, so it sounded like I wasn't imagining it. I could hear myself, and the fiddles (the bass couldn't make it), but I couldn't hear the guitar, which makes sense because she was cutting out a lot. It was like halfway through the gig she just, as Hardingfele would say, "de-plushed." On some songs I usually play melody or harmony, but today I played chords even on songs I'd never done it on before, just to make sure we had chords going on. 

During the gig, Travalon went to a dive bar in Spring Green, and he saw this in the bathroom:

Who can explain people? It's like a video I saw yesterday of three people dressed as chickens playing the saxophone. Right now I cannot remember what song they were playing, but I found it hilarious. So random!

After the gig, Travalon and I went to Sauk to see eagles. We saw one flying around, and a bunch of ducks that I think were goldeneyes. He took photos, but it got too late - I'll get them off his camera tomorrow. Then we took a short walk at Indian Lake County Park, and when we got home the sun was starting to set, so we went to watch it. The temperature was dropping, so Travalon went inside, but I stubbornly waited to see if the sunset would get more glorious. It did, but behind the trees, so we should have watched it from Warner Beach. However, I was rewarded for my patience because I saw a bald eagle fly over our dock and land in a tree across the river from us.

We relaxed at home for a little bit and ate at home, then we went to the North Side Cabaret to see an Afro-Cuban Jazz concert. It was the bass player's doctoral performance, and he was joined by a trombone, an alto sax, a tenor sax, a trumpet, a guitarist, a drummer, and now and then a cellist. To my surprise, I saw another cello player in the audience, one of the performers in a local early music group. Travalon and I got there just before the band started playing, so we had nowhere to sit and had to stand through the first half, but that's okay because I danced a little, and then it didn't feel like just standing there. Some kind people let us sit on their seats during the intermission, and then we were back to standing for the second half. The band did a couple of weirder, modern jazz pieces in the second half, and I didn't feel the beat so I just stood there and started to get tired of standing... and then they went back to the more salsa-flavored songs, and I was dancing again and thought, "I could do this all night!" It was a fantastic show, and Travalon enjoyed it too.

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Bachata Lesson at the Monona Terrace

 

This morning when I got on the shuttle to work, my shuttle buddy that I usually talk to wasn't there. I wondered if she took an earlier one to avoid me because she is sick of talking to me, but then I thought maybe she was sick or something. Everyone else is lately. We pass this artsy van every time I ride the shuttle, and this time we stopped where I had a perfect view of it... but by the time I pulled my phone out, the shuttle had started moving again so the photo isn't that great.

At lunch I walked with my colleague, and we must have walked really vigorously because I got a lot of active time and already had my steps for the day even before we charged up Bascom Hill. I am a little concerned for her, because she is going to China to visit family, and will they even let her back in the country? She's been a citizen for years, and her kids were born here, but I'm imagining the customs people stopping everyone but her white daughter-in-law. Everyone says no chance that would happen, and I hope they're right. 

I took the 4:40 shuttle back to my car (I usually catch the 5:00 or 5:20 shuttle), and my shuttle buddy got on at a later stop, so then I wondered if she did in fact take an earlier shuttle to avoid me. She waved warmly but didn't sit by me. I took the early shuttle in order to get to the Monona Terrace in time for a bachata lesson. This is a type of Latin dance that is very beautiful to watch, at least if it is being done by girls in their twenties wearing cute, flirty skirts and high heels while dancing with slender guys in white shirts and black pants. However, I have always found the music for bachata kind of boring compared to other Latin music. It comes from the Dominican Republic, and that is about as much as I know about it. The invitation said you didn't need a partner, and that was true - this was like a big Zumba class, and only a few people had come with someone they knew. Most of us were alone, and the younger people ignored me, but the postmenopausal ladies were very friendly and welcoming to me. A Peruvian guy taught the class, and I didn't need any exercise after my vigorous lunchtime walk, but I got it anyway. The class was so much fun; apparently they have these once a month, and next month is Irish dancing. They're totally free. I believe I know what I'll be doing the Thursday before St. Patrick's Day! Travalon didn't go tonight because he was at a girl's basketball game, and I don't imagine he'll go in March either. Dancing isn't really his thing.

My FitBit is going to have a cow - it has been telling me for over a week that I am not training hard enough, because I should be getting a cardio load of 60-75 (again, no idea what the units are), but I've been getting 30 lately. However, today I had three and a half hours of active time and a cardio load of like 112, so now it's going to yell at me that I am over-training. There is no pleasing that thing.

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Is This Even a Textversation?

 

I forgot to mention that yesterday I spaced out and prayed a rosary while walking around the house during my lunch break, so then there was no need to pray one at Adoration. Instead, I prayed the Chaplet of the Precious Blood, the Padre Pio Chaplet, and the Infant of Prague Chaplet. That still left me a lot of extra time, so I just read old entries in my prayer journal. Also, I ran into Cali just before going into the chapel, so we sat together, but of course we didn't talk because it's silent in there.

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I went to an early music concert of Bach cantatas. It was so cold out that at my afternoon break I wanted to walk inside, so I checked the schedule for the big conference room overlooking the lake. I don't know if I got the day wrong, but the schedule looked clear, and yet there were people in it when I peeked inside. I did find an empty classroom on the first floor and walked around the periphery while praying a Divine Mercy Chaplet. Then on the way home I could see an amazing sunset, but by the time I parked in the garage and ran down to the dock, it had faded a bit.

I zoomed in so you can see the stripes of pink and white. It looked delicious.

Travalon gets to color tropical animals at work.

There's not nearly enough coloring at my job. 

This evening Anna Banana II sent a text to the group Night Prayer chat that just said, "Yes." I assumed that she meant to reply to someone else - goodness knows I have done that enough times myself - but then Jilly Moose texted back "?". Still not strange - she was wondering what the random "yes" meant. But the part that just killed me was that then Richard Bonomo immediately liked the question mark. I was like, this doesn't even qualify as a textversation, yet there's a lot of information being transmitted. It does remind me of years ago when Travalon put a sticker of a thumb's up under a post, I think my post, and then he gave his own thumb's up a thumb's up. I think I laughed ten minutes straight about that one.

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Repeat Customer (Me)

 

Today I worked from home, and I mostly got caught up from being sick last week. A package came for me, because when I opened Ivan there was a QR code on a piece of paper in the package, so I scanned it and got taken right to the dude's website. He had more weird mushroom sculptures as part of his "Fugly Fungi" collection, and then he had something I had to have. I thought to myself, "Nope, it's stupid to spend money on this," but then I remembered the gift card I'd gotten from the health incentive thing at work, and that is exactly what it's for - buying stupid stuff you don't want to spend real money on. It's play money. So this is what I got:

And this is what it looks like under the blacklight:

The dude also sent this free... poster? 

And here it is under blacklight.

Maybe I shouldn't say "dude," since for all I know, this person is a woman. Whoever they are, they are an artist making things that glow under blacklight. I got my blacklight using the gift card five years ago, so now I might as well get more stuff to use it with.

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Led Zeppelin Documentary

 

Today I worked on campus, and it was so cold that my colleague didn't want to walk at lunch. Instead, I went over to Hardingfele's building, which is a total maze, and we walked through it for half an hour. I had put some stuff in the mail and was frustrated that it never got picked up until a grad student pointed out that today is President's Day, a fact that has no meaning to us state workers who don't get the day off. I also thought I had a fraudulent charge on my purchasing card, which seemed to be for medical supplies and not line up with any of my recent orders from Amazon, but when I looked more closely, I did see that the order number matched some books we had ordered, and the amount was different because only two of them have come in. So that was a relief!

Travalon picked me up after work, and we went to Oliva, the Mideastern restaurant on the corner of High Point and Old Sauk Roads, but it was closed on Mondays so we went to Swagat, the Indian restaurant in the same complex. Just to mix things up, instead of getting my usual chicken tikki masala, I got tandoori shrimp masala, and we had some very garlicky naan, so between the garlic and the tomato sauce it almost felt like I'd had Italian food for dinner. Then we drove south on High Point Road to the cinema to see Becoming Led Zeppelin, a documentary with a lot of old footage of the band members as kids and teens. I did learn quite a bit, like that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones played on other people's hits like Lulu and Donovan and Shirley Bassey - you can hear them both on the theme song to Goldfinger. Jimmy Page was even on TV when he was a young teen, playing guitar and singing with some school chums, and John Paul Jones was a choir master and organist at a church when he was fourteen. It was also fascinating watching the concert footage of early Zeppelin, because you could really see how Robert and Jimmy were having a conversation: Robert would sing something, and Jimmy would respond on the guitar. Meanwhile, John and John Paul were having their own conversation on drums and bass. It was a shame that so few people were at this movie, because it was really good. Hardingfele and her husband saw it this past weekend.

Here is a photo I forgot to post of yesterday's sunset.

 

I should get going - it's time for bed. Know what else it's time for? Some DuoLingo bragging!

I had half an hour of double play this evening, plus my fifteen minutes of double play from doing a lesson this morning, so that's why I earned so much. Tonight was a lot of fun because I was creating geometric shapes on a graph. That is a lot more entertaining than adding fractions together.

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Romantic Valentine's Day Dinner (Two Days Late)

 

This morning after Mass, Travalon said we could go to Half-Priced Books to look for a book that the Shamrock Club will discuss at their book study. I have never gone to their book study, but everyone says how fun it is, and this particular book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, intrigued me. We went to the east side store, but they didn't have it; however, the west side store did, so we drove there, and as we listened to R&B music while driving the Beltline, I drifted off a bit. Travalon also found some books, and a Dudley Do-Right Funko Pop. There was a book about astrology there that I didn't get, but I did turn to the section on "The Sagittarius Spouse," and it said they wouldn't be home much because they are so ambitious in their careers. That doesn't sound anything like Travalon, who (like me) works to live. He doesn't live to work.

It was a cold day, but sunny, so we went for a walk along the canal at Tenney Park. Tons of people were ice skating at the park, and when I used the bathroom, it smelled like the hot chocolate they sell at the concession stand. We went home and made our own hot chocolate, and I checked my email as I drank it... and saw we had missed a Members Social at the East Side Club, with free pizza and some sort of trivia contest. So bummed! It's our fault for not putting it on the calendar, but why send a reminder email two hours before the event? Why not a day or two ahead of time? If they hadn't sent the reminder email at all, then I wouldn't have felt bad because I would have completely forgotten that we missed it.

We did see some mallards and red-headed ducks at Tenney Park.

They kept diving under the water - maybe it was warmer than the air!

Since it was such a sunny day, we hoped there might be a spectacular sunset, but it was kind of meh.

Since we had missed the free pizza for lunch, we went to It's Good for You Pizza for dinner, which is Neapolitan style and way better than the frozen pizzas they have at the East Side Club. They make your pizza right there in front of you in a big pizza oven labeled "microwave." They also had these cute cakes for the Valentine's Day holiday, and since we hadn't been able to go out on the actual day, we each had one.

It was a chocolate cake with cherry filling in a white chocolate shell, with cocoa powder sprinkled beneath it and a bit of cayenne powder sprinkled on the top. We hadn't realized it was cayenne powder, so the kick came as a bit of a surprise. They even gave us a tiny wooden hammer to crack the white chocolate shell, although it was totally ineffective. We just ended up biting into them - not elegant, but effective. 

Travalon drove me to band practice, since the roads are still pretty bad, and then he went to a video arcade. He played "Mike Tyson's Punch Out" and still can't get past Bald Bull, just like when he was a kid.

He said there are instructions online for beating him in the modern game, but this is the original game from 1984. Travalon knocked him down a few times, but Bald Bull still knocks him out every time.

Our practice was much better than some of the recent ones have been, which is good, since it's the last one before our gig. Now it turns out our bass player can't make the gig, and Hardingfele (who arranged the gig for us) is going to be late because of a work function. And then we just found out about an emerita member's 90th birthday party the same day as the Shamrock Club St. Patrick's Day Party, so I will have to come late, and Hardingfele will have to leave early, but the band will play there too. I guess we are all very busy ladies! I thought Hardingfele was going to invite Crochet Girl, who plays violin, to join our band, but either Crochet Girl said no or (more likely) Hardingfele hasn't gotten around to it yet. I was happy that Travalon arrived while we were playing "Elizabeta," a cumbia in E minor that is one of my favorite songs that we do. He agreed that it is a fun song. It's the closest to playing in a salsa band that I may get in this life.

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Stepping Out over the Snow

 

This morning it was very snowy, so Travalon and I walked around the house with our stuffies. Here is the Irish bear family.

And here is Travalon's Elvis Beanie Baby with his miniature Beatles guitar.

I watered my neighbor's plants, and her Christmas cactus is covered in blooms.

My Christmas cacti aren't in bloom, and in fact they look really bad. I'd ask what her secret is, but the same person is taking care of both sets of plants. Her plants are in a very cold apartment with the shades drawn, so why are they so happy??

Travalon watched Crystal Palace, but they lost. Jerry the Kraken doesn't look that upset about it, unless he hides it really well.

It's that time on the Famous Hat Blog: time for some DuoLingo bragging!

This makes me nostalgic for the music course, where this Oscar character would throw roses if you performed the piece well.

We did go for a walk outside, and it wasn't too cold, but now the temperature is supposed to drop. In the evening Travalon dropped me off at an early music concert, but I had nobody to talk to during the intermission because Tiffy couldn't come to town with the bad weather, and my bandmate who usually goes to these concerts just forgot about it. The music alternated between madrigals and Marin Marais pieces for viols. Meanwhile, Travalon went to Leopold's, then on the way home we decided to stop at the North Side Lounge. I like the lights decorating the place.

I should have taken another shot from the inside to compare and contrast. I had a beautiful lavender drink.

That is my hat admiring it. It tasted like lavender for sure but was so potent that I am still buzzed way over an hour later. I can see why people like to hang out in bars, because we had great conversations with the people sitting beside us, and another group that came in after dinner at the Madison Club. I have never been to the Madison Club, since you have to be invited by a member to go, and you have to be rich to be a member. Tiffy's brother-in-law is a member, so she has been. These people said it wasn't all that, and also that their friend who was hopped up on cocaine and a few drinks was at a Level Twelve, which didn't go over too well at such a stuffy place. (He wasn't with them at the North Side Lounge - that might have been entertaining.) The place was pretty quiet when we got there, but it was full by the time we left. It was so much fun to get out after our morning stuck at home. When we left, it was snowing a little again. It must be making up for all the lack of snow we've had so far this winter.

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