Sorry for the long silence - I had relatives visiting from out of state, the same ones we visited in Colorado back in December. Friday I worked from home, then when Travalon got home, we went over to my aunt and uncle's hotel room with the mandolin, and we all went to the nearby Japanese restaurant we remembered liking so much (and it's still really good!) before jamming. My uncle plays the flute back in Colorado with a neighbor who plays guitar, and he has a playlist the two of them use. He had a small playlist for him and me, called "Denise" because I'm Da Niece (my idea, so direct all rotten tomatoes at me), but he accidentally started playing the neighbor one, and I loved all the songs because they have three chords and are in G or E minor or A minor. Guitarists must like the same things as mandolinists. My aunt joined us on the tongue drum, and she really added to the sound. Travalon sang the songs he knew, so it was really a family affair.
Saturday my aunt and uncle wanted to go to brunch at the place where another aunt had gotten a rhubarb pie, so we picked them up and went there, and it was really good. (Unfortunately, nine days until rhubarb, though.) Then we went to Horicon Marsh and saw lots of egrets and pelicans - photos soon! It just got too late once again to deal with them. On the way there, we introduced them to the wonders of Schultz's Cheese Haus - lots of free samples, and we got chocolate and cheese and liqueurs. Sadly, the naturalists told me neither the white-headed goose nor Grasshopper the Whooping Crane has returned this spring. The white-headed goose was getting on in years, but Grasshopper is relatively young, so what a bummer. The male of the pair of whoopers who lived over by the boardwalk died of a disease, so his mate has left for the Necedah marsh. With so few whooping cranes in the world, it's a tragedy to lose even one. Of course, Grasshopper had paired with a sandhill crane, so the Crane Foundation kept taking their "whoop hill" offspring to raise in captivity, to keep them from polluting the bloodline further. I'm not sure how I feel about that, since this hybridization happened in nature and wasn't like some guy going, "I want a lion with stripes!" (Ligers are sterile anyway, so they can't pollute any bloodlines.) When we got back from Horicon, we had dinner at the Tibetan restaurant, and then we jammed some more.
Sunday Travalon and I went to the earlier Mass at the church closer to us, and we saw the couple we have hung out with on occasion. Then we picked up my aunt and uncle and went to the Venezuelan restaurant near their hotel. Breakfast arepas - yum! We went to the Arboretum, where the lilacs are just starting to open and the magnolias are mostly past their peak, and it's a mixed bag with the crabapples. My aunt and uncle wanted to rest and do some stuff back at the hotel while I had my Brazilian drumming lesson, but of course Travalon had just dropped me off and driven away when I discovered a sign that said the instructor was sick so the class was canceled. Fortunately he answered the phone right away and came back to get me, and we hung out at the Tiki Bar at the East Side Club until going back to pick up my relatives. We all had dinner at Bierock, then my aunt and uncle came to band practice with me while Travalon hung out at Leopold's. My uncle doesn't read music too quickly, so he prefers to play by ear. I advocated for slow waltzes and possibly familiar polkas (Beer Barrel, Pennsylvania), but we did play some Ukrainian music which had him really lost. At least we didn't play the stuff that changes meter in the middle of the song! He said he enjoyed it but that it was very hard, and maybe he would have had an easier time if our bass player had been able to make it. Our accordion player was back for the first time in months after recovering from a broken leg, so I think that made everyone feel like we were starting from scratch again.
I took the day off of work yesterday, and I took my aunt and uncle to brunch at Crema Cafe, since they remembered it fondly. It's very close to Olbrich Gardens, so we went there afterwards, and then we grabbed the mandolin and headed back to their hotel room. There was a Mexican restaurant right across the street, so that was convenient for Cinco de Mayo. My uncle and I ran over and got us shrimp enchiladas with green sauce (shrimp fajitas for him), and then we actually got to enjoy the patio, since it had been cooler most of their visit and not conducive to sitting outside. When Travalon got off of work, he joined us with some Leinie's Lime, which went perfectly with the zingy green sauce on the enchiladas. We never did get around to jamming, because the guys were having one conversation and we ladies were having our own, and we just talked until it had gotten kind of late to jam. Besides, I had to work today.
Famous Hat
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