Yesterday I worked from home, and on my lunchtime walk I saw a dead deer by the side of the road. Otherwise it was an unremarkable day until the evening, when Travalon and I went to Cafe Coda to see a Brazilian band. There was also Brazilian food for sale, and we tried a chicken pie, palm heart pies, kale soup, guava cheesecakes, a coconut cake, and a sort of chocolate pudding - everything was very small and cheap, so it was easy to try the whole menu, and it was all delicious! The music was wonderful too.
Someone was playing a special drum that sounded a little like a yelping dog, but I could never figure out which drum it was. Someone else was playing a small instrument that looked like a ukulele, so when the band took a break, I asked him about it. He said it was actually tuned like a mandolin, so I said I could just pick it up and play it, and did his band need another player? He said what I should do is join this local Brazilian percussion group, so I sent them an email. As my regular readers know, my dream has always been to play in a salsa band, but why not a samba band? I love Brazilian music just about as much as Cuban music. They are very busy now because Carnaval season is upon us, but this spring they will hopefully get in touch with me.
Today Travalon and I had a quiet day of hanging around the house. It felt good at first to be so lazy, but I needed more exercise than our one mellow walk around the neighborhood, so after a while I headed back out and ran into a neighbor with a very energetic little dog. She always lets the leash go so Lucy runs to me, and this time I grabbed the leash and ran with Lucy, who was loving it, although I think her owner was caught off-guard. It felt so good to run! I think Lucy also really enjoyed it, since her owner is over 80 and almost certainly never runs with her.
We were supposed to go to Milwaukee (technically West Allis) with Cecil Markovich for a wild game dinner to support the local tamburitza band, but the weather was iffy. We did ultimately decide to risk it, and it was snowing a bit as we left town, but nothing too wild. We made it there without any issues except that parking at the VFW Post was already full, so we had to park a ways down the street. The hall seemed very crowded, with long, narrow tables too close together, but we did find three seats by a friendly former Navy nurse. She was there alone and seemed glad for the company. The wild game feast was aptly named: there was venison, elk chili, pheasant gumbo, squirrel stew, rabbit, and goulash that didn't list what sort of game was in it, as well as salad, rolls, carrots, and something kind of like polenta that was supposed to be a traditional Croatian food. (It was really good with the chili.) The rabbit was mostly bones, but everything else was so tasty. I was so full after all that... and then they brought out the homemade desserts. I had the banana pudding and the thing that was a brownie on the bottom and cheesecake on the top, but I couldn't eat anything else. They did bring out leftover containers, so Travalon took a bunch of the game dishes, Cecil took a bunch of venison sausage, and I took some desserts I hadn't had room to try.
We had thought the tamburitza group was going to entertain us during dinner, but they came out, played the US and Croatian national anthems, then played maybe three more songs and were done. To be fair, they were all kids. I think I could play a tamburitza, which is like a small mandolin. I'm beginning to wonder if that thing Travalon got me in an antiques shop years ago was a tamburitza rather than a bouzouki. People tell me it's too small to be a bouzouki, but tamburitzas are small.
Travalon had bought tickets for the 50/50 raffle, so we felt like we had to stay until they drew the numbers. However, there was an interminable drawing for prizes on a gift table before that, which was only made longer because apparently people had left or were paying no attention, since they had to call most numbers five times and then give up and draw a new one. I was surprised, since the gift table drawings at the Shamrock Club parties are a huge deal, and everyone is eagerly waiting to see if their number is drawn so they can leap up and select whatever piece of Celtocrap most catches their fancy. A few people at this gathering would cry, "I won! I won!" and leap out of their seats, but there sure were a lot of tickets drawn that got no response from the crowd. Maybe the prizes weren't that appealing? But one kid (I think from the band) won a beautiful black T-shirt with a tawny design on it that matched the hoodie he was wearing perfectly, as I noticed when he pulled the T-shirt on over his hoodie, and some other people got gift baskets that looked appealing. Cecil said we should leave by 8:45 if they still hadn't gotten to the 50/50 drawing, but finally around 8:30 they announced the winner would receive around $650, which shocked me, since most 50/50 jackpots seem to be around $200. Anyway, that's good news for the tamburitza group, since that means they also got $650. Alas, we did not win, so Cecil was unable to claim his 30% cut for telling us about the dinner in the first place, a share he informed us of when we heard the jackpot total. So we left and headed out on our long walk back to the car, and as we got to it, the clock read 8:45, so I pointed out that we were leaving right when we said we would. Anyway, it was a fabulous evening, and I won't need to eat again for a week... and my diet app would agree with that, once I saw how many calories I consumed tonight.
Famous Hat
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