"What Do You Call Your Little Guitar?"

 

Today after Mass we went to Fitz's in Okee, because they were advertising a "tiki buffet" for Father's Day. We sat outside, overlooking Lake Wisconsin and listening to live music, and Travalon ordered the buffet while I ordered a seafood boil, so that we could both try both things. I got a free salad bar with mine, and Fitz's has the best salad bar, so I was set for a while. Travalon went up and got his barbecued meat and mashed potatoes and coconut macadamia shrimp, and I took a few of the shrimp. At first I wasn't too concerned that the seafood boil wasn't showing up, but when people who had arrived after us got theirs, I became a bit annoyed. The waitress told us there was some snafu with the kitchen taking it off of the order, and she kept assuring us my order would appear soon, but we waited and waited with no sign of it. Finally they took it off our bill, which was fine with me because I was fairly full... and then someone came out with it. It was so delicious that I said they should put it back on our bill, because it was definitely worth paying for, but they said they couldn't. Travalon also got a coconut mule, which tasted very tropical, and he got a sundae bar as part of the buffet. It had everything - he even had Cap'n Crunch on his sundae! He was also supposed to get either soup or a salad bar, but he never bothered to get either. I feel bad that we got the expensive seafood for free, but they were definitely doing brisk business, and after all Travalon saved them money with not getting the salad bar.

After that we went for a walk nearby and saw these crane sculptures.

There were beautiful hills across the lake.

We took the ferry across the river, and as we waited for it, we watched old Cap'n Crunch ads. (He was created by the same person who did Rocky & Bullwinkle.) The ads were rather silly, especially the ones with the Crunch Berry Creature, but there was one for a smaller, snack-sized box of cereal that caught my attention because it was called a "munch box." As a kid I probably would have just thought that was a funny pun on "lunchbox," but adult me found it really dirty. I pictured myself saying to him, "Cap'n, eat my munch box!" Maybe things were simpler back in the 80's, but I can't imagine them calling something for kids a "munch box" now. Would Cap'n do the dishes afterwards? Okay, I'll stop talking about cunning linguists now.

Our next stop was the dam at Sauk, where there were plenty of pelicans.

We could see black birds hanging out with the pelicans, which usually wouldn't be so strange since cormorants are always hanging out around pelicans, but these didn't look like cormorants. Travalon took a photo of them, and they were turkey vultures!

I have never seen turkey vultures hang out on the ground around water before. They are usually either circling around in the sky or sitting in trees. Here's a pelican and a turkey vulture together.

Are they hunting cooperatively now? This is very new to me.

We hurried home so I could grab my mandolin and go to the Marquette Lakeside Festival at Yahara Park, to play with my Slow Irish Session peeps. I got there just in time, and there were only about six of us until a really good local fiddler joined us. People seemed to enjoy our traditional Irish tunes, and afterwards I asked about swag from the music club, if it was for sale, but the owner said, "No, take it," so I was sort of paid with a tote bag. Travalon and I explored the festival, which was similar to other festivals in town, but smaller, but much closer to water - Lake Monona was right there. Each end of the park had a stage with a very loud rock band on it (the music club had acts playing between sets, as one band tore down and the next one set up), and neither of us liked the music, so we left and went to a sub shop near where band practice would be. (Our new fiddler hosted it.) You couldn't sit in the sub shop, and they didn't have a bathroom, so Travalon bought my sub while I went across the street to the Regent Street Co-op. They had a decent bathroom, but oddly they didn't have regular water (the sub shop had been out of it too), so I settled for some strange infused water that Travalon liked better than I did, so I gave it to him. We also picked up some necessities for the week there, like coffee and pita bread and bananas.

We practiced in the new fiddler's living room, sandwiched between a baby grand piano and an upright piano. The fiddler has a little boy who had just turned three yesterday and received a toy trumpet, so he tooted along with us a little. He told his mom to ask me this question: "What do you call your little guitar?" I told him it was called a mandolin, and that I could play chords like a guitar but also melody like the violins. Best of both worlds! Tomorrow I plan to go to a Moldy Jam jam, and we'll see if I play melody or chords... or both. Moldy Jam did play at the music club tent at the festival, but when they put out the call, they said only people who had played with them for a long time. Whereas I was personally asked to come to the Slow Irish Session performance, which makes sense, because I'm one of the regulars. Maybe if the music club has a tent at the festival next year, I'll be asked to play with Moldy Jam too.

Famous Hat