Drumming Dress Rehearsal and Rich's Birthday Party

 

Today Travalon and I wouldn't have much time after Mass to do the plastic recycling, so we got to church in time to weigh and photograph it before Mass. He had to drop me off at the Brazilian drumming place for our dress rehearsal, which was a "gray" dress rehearsal, and apparently everyone in the world but my one drumming buddy and me knew this meant you could wear whatever the heck you wanted. The two of us were there in our jerseys and white jeans, as requested for the performance. My jersey is way too big - apparently I don't know what size I actually am - and the white jeans are still a bit tight, and my drumming buddy said she had the same issue. I thought we had to be there at noon sharp, ready to go, so I picked up my drum... and one of the teachers said, "You won't be on for half an hour." Then why the big rush? It was kind of cool to watch the really good drummers go through their numbers, and after we did ours, I watched a few more numbers before Travalon returned.

Our next stop was Richard Bonomo's house for his 70th birthday open house, organized by Kathbert, Luxuli, and another woman. I thought I wouldn't get a chance to see Tiffy today, but she came too, so the two of us took a walk in Rich's neighborhood to enjoy the balmy weather. I talked to my OTHER choir director quite a bit, and the son of the man who makes fabulous desserts. (For today, he made a pistachio cake, a carrot cake, and a pumpkin cookie cake.) There were a lot of leftovers from Thursday night, and Travalon and I brought plantain chips from the Mexican grocery store down the street, while other people brought stuff like quiche bites, pigs in a blanket, fudge, fruit, and chocolate hummus. Someone was playing Chopin on the player piano at a very unsteady rate, which was driving Tiffy crazy, so she headed home. Jilly Moose was there, and she sent me two photos. First, a snowman she made from a kit. The carrot nose is so large that I said it looked like Toucan Sam the Snowman.

Follow your nose - it always knows! And she also sent me a photo of an air plant terrarium she made at the Garden Expo, which she went to with OK Cap. 

The Garden Expo is something I definitely didn't have time to attend this weekend, and next weekend I won't have time for much of anything with our Brazilian drumming performance, and then the weekend of Bach Around the Clock I'll miss the festivities because of our gig in Spring Green from 1-3, which means I'll be busy from 12-4 since it's an hour drive there and back. Speaking of gigs, because we have one coming up, I forewent (I guess that's a word since spellcheck doesn't hate it) the Slow Irish Session today to go to band practice. First Travalon and I took a walk at Yahara Park, wondering if we'd see the swans I'd seen flying around on Friday, but they weren't there, and they weren't at Tenney Park either.

I really enjoyed band practice today because we practiced the Ukrainian stuff, our one cumbia, an Irish air, and the Finnish waltz where I get to pretend to be a balalaika, and we ended with "Ashoken Farewell," appropriately enough. As far as I know, the only other player Mandy ever had was my grandma's great-uncle or whatever he was, and I have no idea what kind of music he played on her, but she sure gets a variety these days! Ukrainian klezmer, a Colombian dance, an Irish tune, and a Finnish tune all in one night! And I got to bounce around from chords to melody to harmony, sometimes in one tune. Nobody would ever call me a great mandolin player, but people have noted that I'm versatile. Then on the way home I was listening to my Jewbacca CD and started whistling along to a klezmer tune, and it made me remember that I used to whistle tunes a lot. This isn't my proudest moment, but in college I had a lousy part-time job calling people and asking them to do surveys, and this was in the days before Caller ID, so if they didn't answer but I got an answering machine, I'd leave them a short message of me whistling Vivaldi. I'm sure that was a real treat for them. I wonder what I'd think to come home and find a message of someone whistling the opening notes of "Spring" on my answering machine? Back then I would have thought it was a secret message from an unknown admirer, but now I'd just think, "Huh. Not a bad whistler. And with good taste in music."

Famous Hat

Valentine's Day Bendy Bus Debacle

 

Today was unseasonably warm. I wore my Scottish outfit.

Travalon and I went downtown to meet Tiffy, and we saw something shocking: the Big Bendy A Bus got stuck in a sharp left turn despite the bendy part, and it was blocking all the traffic, including a Big Bendy B Bus right behind it.

I felt so bad for the driver - how humiliating! Really, I felt bad for everyone: the people on the bus, the people stuck behind it in the traffic, yikes, except the pedestrians who were enjoying the debacle. When the bus finally was able to make the turn (after hitting a sign), everyone cheered, and then we all watched in apprehension as the Big Bendy B Bus barely made the same turn. I think this isn't their regular route but maybe something was going on at the Square and they had to go this way. It's a weird, angled turn, and I can't imagine the bendy buses have to do it regularly, or the drivers would all quit.

Tiffy and I got lunch at the Globe (and bubble tea while waiting for our food) and Travalon went next door to Baked Wings, then we ate in Tiffy's sister's apartment because both places were packed. Due to the beautiful weather, everyone in the world was out on State Street today. After lunch Tiffy and I walked around the Square to avoid the crowds and ended up at the Edgewater, while Travalon went to the Union Terrace and saw thousands of people out on the ice.

Tiffy and I sat on the roof of her sister's apartment building, where we could see the lake and the beautiful, shiny new steeple on my old church.

Here's a close-up of the steeple.

Travalon returned and drove us to Monroe Street, where Tiffy treated the two of us to dinner at the Indian restaurant for a late birthday present. We figured an ethnic restaurant wouldn't be as packed for Valentine's Day, and we were right. We decided to get kulfi, which is pistachio ice cream, but it was a huge serving and rock-hard, so we all took ours to go, along with half our dinners. They certainly don't skimp on the portions there! Then Travalon dropped us off at the Baroque concert, and he went to an arcade. He made a short video of a game set in a tavern.

The concert was good, but not fantastic. I liked the pieces with flute the best. They ended with a weird aria-recicitative-aria by Vivaldi which made me think of something I read years ago, that a contemporary of his said he should stick to instrumental music and not write for singers. There is hardly a bigger fan of Vivaldi than me, and I didn't hate the piece, but man, stick to L'Estro Armonico or The Four Seasons. I have actually heard choral stuff of his I liked, but I can see why this piece is not well-known. But that is kind of this group's schtick, to play pieces either by composers you never heard of or ones you know well but you've never heard this piece by them, and I'm telling you there's a reason these things aren't heard more often. Also, this particular Vivaldi piece was about a scorned lover, so absolutely fantastic programming for Valentine's Day. I hope all my readers had a better one than the protagonist in the Vivaldi arias.

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Lovely Walk and Irish Tunes

 

Today I worked from home, and right after work I took a very satisfying rosary walk. I saw a slow train, a flock of tundra swans, and a beautiful sunset. This time I took some photos.

When Travalon came home, I said I wanted to see Mama Digdown's Brass Band play at a Mardi Gras party, but he checked the venue's website and it was sold out, so we went to Alt Brew to see the Irish band that plays there every second Friday. Neither Famie nor the red-headed flute player were there, and I felt a little down, wondering if they were off together doing something else. I think Famie was going to be out of town, so probably not, but sometimes those middle school fears pop out at you even in middle age. (Maybe it's just me - Ma Hat tells me I was born with FOMO and would cry in my crib because I wanted to hang out with the adults and hated missing out on whatever they were doing.) I was more surprised about the flute player, since she often sits in with the band. Of course, she sent us a text about some other gigs this Irish band was playing this week, so maybe she was going to those and had other plans tonight. I couldn't make either extra gig myself. To my surprise, Travalon seemed more up for the Irish band tonight than the Mardi Gras party, but it was a much earlier night, not to mention free. Our only cost was a gluten-free beer.

I once again have some exciting DuoLingo news for you:

And also:

That second one was actually from yesterday. I saw Seabird got the February Challenge badge at the same time I did, and we're both doing Portuguese. She actually plans to visit Portugal, while I'm just hanging out with a bunch of Brazilian drummers. Between the three semesters of Portuguese I had three decades ago and all the Spanish I learned on DuoLingo, Portuguese on DuoLingo is not much of a challenge. DuoLingo keeps noting that I am "acing Portuguese with 97% accuracy." That must be because 3% of words in Portuguese are too different from Spanish that I can't guess them.

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Happy Big Birthday, Rich and the Adoration Chapel!

 

Today I worked on campus, but it's always quieter on Thursdays because less people are around. It was beautiful out, and I thought about praying a rosary on my lunchtime walk, but I emailed Hardingfele to see if she wanted to walk, figuring she would blow me off. To my surprise, she did want to walk. Then my aunt in Colorado sent this gorgeous picture of a friend's garden.

This must be from the summer. I figured we could all use some flowers right about now. Travalon was excited to see open water around here.

After work I took the bus to our old church, where Richard Bonomo and Hockey Girl had organized a Latin Mass to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Adoration Chapel. About half the people were Anglos and half were Latinos. I ran into two regulars from Night Prayer on the way in, so the three of us sat together. Before Mass someone started a rosary, so I did get one in today. There was a quartet that sang, but it wasn't my OTHER choir director's quartet, which Kathbert is part of, and I don't know why. Were they unavailable? Had a better-paying gig? 

Today was also an auspicious day because Rich turned seventy. Wow, that sounds old, but I swear he looks almost exactly like he did in the documentary he appeared in during his late twenties. Of course, Mamastep told me I have looked the same to her in all the years I've known her, and I KNOW I've gained a crap-ton of weight during that time. 

Speaking of gaining weight, there was a reception after the Mass tonight, and at first I hung around outside the church hall, figuring there wasn't enough food for all the people gathered inside. Travalon came to pick me up, and then we checked it out. In fact, there was plenty of food, so I tried a little of everything: a skewer with cherry tomatoes (ew!) and mozzarella, a skewer with two meatballs on it, a skewer with a bacon-wrapped chestnut (okay, so I had two of those), a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a chocolate-covered strawberry, a lemon bar, and a homemade chocolate truffle that was so good that I had to go back and make sure by having another one. After all that, I had no appetite for dinner. So that was quite a party for the birthdays of both Rich and the Adoration Chapel. I got a special invitation, being a regular adorer, and I saw some of my fellow adorers there, but it was really open to anyone.

The funniest moment of the night might have been when Rich made an announcement after Mass in Bonoman, as he often does, so I turned to the Latino couple behind me and asked, "¿Que dijó?" and they shrugged... and then it occurred to me that if they didn't know English, how would they have known what he said? Someone else said, "He said to keep your program," so I did, and it came in handy during Night Prayer when the host asked me to sing the closing hymn from the Mass. I said I didn't have the words in front of me, and he said, "You took the program home, didn't you?" Indeed I did!

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Ursula and Coventry

 

Today I have absolutely nothing to blog about, because I felt a bit unwell in a way that might have been contagious, so I worked from home. Also, I was so light-headed that just the drive to the shuttle stop sounded scary. It made for a very productive day, but I missed Seabird bringing in red bean mochis and also an early music concert at lunch, as well as our department meeting. At least the concert was recorded, so I can catch it when they post it early next week. I did take a walk right after work, hoping to see a train as confirmation that I was right to stay home, but all I saw was a lovely sunset which I did not take a picture of. Sorry.

Speaking of pictures, here are Ursula and Coventry together.

Travalon always has his stuffies getting into romantic relationships, so why shouldn't I? And here is Ursula with the stuffed bubble tea that matches her.

Here is Coventry the Christmas Dragon with a stuffed Christmas tree.

And here is the Hawaiian Capricorn keychain I thought was a necklace.

Guess my reading comprehension sucks. It's from the same place as my grandma's Cancer necklace. Maybe I can make it into a necklace. More likely I'll just take it to work and hang it up with all my evil eye protection things. Once a very Catholic former grad student stopped in to say hi, and she was taken aback by the evil eye protectors. The astrology thing wouldn't have helped. The thing is that I don't really believe the protectors do anything - I just really like the way they look. I especially love my cuddly evil eye protector, Niko. He's sitting her next to me, protecting away.

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Heart Hoya Surprise

 

Today I have even less to say than yesterday. I worked from home and walked outside every chance I got. FART 5 had a meeting this morning, and our boss said there is a nasty cold going around, but I remember thinking, "I feel fine." However, by midafternoon I was stuffy and sneezing - power of suggestion? I took an allergy pill but didn't feel better, just sleepy, so I called in sick to Adoration. (I did lead Night Prayer as regularly scheduled.) Thought I was feeling better and would get the rest of my steps today, but once I got up and started walking around to music, I didn't have the energy. Will go to bed soon and see if tomorrow I am back to myself or have a full-blown cold. Weirdly, while I feel feverish, the thermometer says my temperature is just fine. That's a hopeful sign, anyway.

Here's the exciting news in my life, which I have already mentioned: the heart-shaped hoya leaf I have had for years is sprouting a new shoot!

This is maybe not the best photo of it. It was easier to see when it was in the tiny pot it came in and had been in for years. I just transplanted Big Keith the Dracaena and my money tree, so while I was at it, I transplanted this too, since if it's actually going to grow into a whole plant, it will need more room. However, this pot seems too large for it, so hopefully it doesn't die. Not sure why pots that are too big are bad news, since in nature a plant is in an infinitely large pot, but I remember years ago I took a leaf like this from a hoya plant when I worked at the greenhouse on campus, and it was happy for a long time until I transplanted it... and then it died. I hope that isn't the fate of this plant. As you can see, the bottom of the leaf is getting a little brown, and I thought it was finally dying after all these years; I'd read these "zombie leaves" can live for years but never have any new growth so eventually they die. So I was expecting it to die any day, but instead it sent up this shoot! Also, a piece of my rick-rack cactus broke off, so I stuck that in a pot, and the bottom turned black but the upper part has all sorts of shoots coming off of it, so I removed the black part. I hope that wasn't a mistake too, and that it was perfectly happy as it was. Plants are so mysterious. Sometimes I get plants that die right away, but often they seem very happy for a long time and then they suddenly start dwindling away, and I can't save them no matter what. I have a gasteria right now that looks awful, so I took a photo of it with the plant app that can supposedly tell you what the problem is, and it just said, "This plant is okay, but it could be better." Um... thanks? Am I overwatering it? Underwatering it? Please, just give me a hint! Useless app.

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Animals We Saw in Florida

 

Today I worked on campus, and at lunch I walked with Hardingfele. She must have found the weather tolerable, because she didn't have any interest in going to the greenhouses today. We walked outside, and when we got back to her office, she showed me a Starbucks gift card she had found on the ground. She wondered how much was left on it, but I said probably nothing if someone had just dropped it like that. She looked up how to check the balance on it, then she checked it... and it was $0. Hey, you get what you pay for. Then in the afternoon I had a long meeting, and I ran into my former boss, but Handy Woman wasn't there this time. I have found the issues confronting academic staff less compelling than those facing university staff, who are often way underpaid and treated like crap, but today I got interested in a group that meets to decide if they will support or oppose various bills working their way through the state legislature. That sounds like my kind of group!

As promised weeks and weeks ago, here is a short movie I compiled of all the videos Travalon made of animals we encountered on our travels:

Some of these are native to Florida and some, obviously, are not. I'll give you a hint: if they are from Busch Gardens, they are not anything you would see in the wilds of Florida.

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Bad Bunny: Best Super Bowl Show Ever

 

I forgot to mention that Friday right after I got done with work, I went outside to take a rosary walk. It was very cold and I was tempted to go inside, but I stuck it out and was rewarded with seeing a train during the fifth decade. God's talking to me in Train again. Also, yesterday I went outside to take a walk and saw that all three of my packages had arrived: my Muppets hoodie, my Hawaiian Capricorn keychain (thought I was ordering a necklace just like Grandma's - oops!), and my "Minnesota Nice" basket of soap, lotion, scented oil, and lip balm. It was a fundraiser for people in Minnesota, and you could send one to a person in need in Minnesota, so I bought one for myself and one for someone being terrorized by ICE. Sorry, no photos of my loot yet - soon.

This morning there was twice as much plastic as usual, but there was a Care for Creation meeting after Mass, so I couldn't help too much with the recycling and poor Travalon had to take all the bags to the drop-off point himself. They were also selling pizzas after Mass to help people in Belize, so we bought one and had it for lunch. My Brazilian drum lesson was really short today, but like last week, my FitBit thought I got a workout from bicycling outside. Last week I was very sore after walking all around the Milwaukee Public Museum the day before, so I was happy to get "steps" by drumming and fiddling. Today I was short because it was so cold outside; Travalon and I walked around the house, but we didn't get that many steps so I cheated and put the FitBit on my right wrist when I went to band practice. Unlike the Slow Irish Session last week, where we played continuously so I got credit for a walk, this time my FitBit didn't register any workout, but it did register enough steps that I only had to walk around the house to one song when I got home to get my ten thousand steps. Not bad!

When I got home, Travalon was watching the end of the Super Bowl. The Seahawks won, which pleases me as far as I care, since neither team was the Packers. Travalon had recorded the whole game, so once it was over I rewound and watched the halftime show. And was that ever amazing! Having just been to Puerto Rico, I could recognize some of the tropes in the show, and I was happy to see Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. Bad Bunny had so much energy, and he did have a lot of salsa flavor in his music. I haven't listened to him much in the past, but maybe now I will. He did work with a professor at our university to write his album about Puerto Rico, that I believe won a grammy. He certainly did win a Grammy at one point, because he gave it to a kid during the show. Also, a couple invited him to their wedding so he said they should have it during his show, and so they did. A real wedding! This has to be the best Super Bowl halftime show ever. It ended with Bad Bunny name-checking every country in Latin America, and ending with the USA and Canada, as people behind him carried all the flags. My regular readers know I'm a real sucker for parades of flags. But this show sucked me in from the beginning, when it depicted the sugar cane fields of Puerto Rico, and the old men playing cards at a table. Of course, that could also be Cuba. All my love to both islands.

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Balkan Singing and Croatian Wild Game Feast

 

Today Travalon and I had a very relaxed morning. I started the Portuguese course on DuoLingo and took a vigorous rosary walk in the neighborhood, and I did repot a plant. That was about as much as I accomplished this morning. Then we drove to Oakwood Village, a retirement community, to sing Balkan music in their chapel. We were very confused because we parked close to the chapel, but the doors to it were locked, so we had to go in the main entrance. Fortunately we ran into one of the people leading the singing, who led us to the chapel. We sang for an hour with about a dozen other people; it was scheduled to go for two hours, but we had to go pick up Mamastep to head to the Croatian wild game feast in Milwaukee.

Tiffy and my other college friend met us at the Foreign Legion, which was already very crowded. We couldn't find five seats together, despite having made a reservation for five - there were lots of spaces that were reserved, so we have no idea why we didn't get a reserved space. Tiffy and my other college friend found two seats together, and Travalon, Mamastep, and I found three together, so I only talked to the other two briefly now and then tonight. There were all sorts of wild game dishes, pheasant gumbo and elk goulash and venison medallions and rabbit in cream sauce and fried frog legs, which were my favorite. The gumbo was really good too. I had to eat somewhat lightly because of my diet medication, which will make my life miserable if I eat too much. There were also rolls, green salad, sauerkraut that was very different than German sauerkraut (more like boiled cabbage), and a wonderful thing like polenta. And then of course there were a ton of desserts. 

The tamburitza group of high schoolers that the fundraiser was for played a few songs, including the US and Croatian national anthems, then there were the raffle drawings. Tiffy and my other college friend had not bought raffle tickets because they are smart, so they said goodbye and took off. Mamastep and Travalon had bought raffle tickets, because I had forgotten how interminable the raffle for items on the table was last year, and it was no better this year. Why do people buy raffle tickets and then ignore them? Or were they so drunk that they couldn't figure out if the number called was one of their tickets? (Likely.) The guy calling the numbers would call the same one over and over while the rest of us were like, "They're not here! Just draw another number!" We didn't win anything, and other people at our table had a ton more tickets and didn't win anything. They were joking that the people had forgotten to put their tickets in the basket for drawing until finally one woman did get to go up to the table, and she got a gift certificate for a hardware store. I saw people with way cooler things, like orchids and paintings, but I hadn't really looked at the table before the drawing so I had no strong opinions about what I would have chosen in the unlikely event that our number would have been drawn. Then there was a "high table" with prizes of greater value, but there were only five of those so it went a lot faster. Also, I think the people who had bought those higher-priced tickets cared more. We only had three for the "low table," one for the "high table," and one for the 50/50 raffle. The amount this year was around $500. Mamastep bought a number of 50/50 raffle tickets, but she didn't win either. So we headed home, through a light snow, talking about random things like embryonic development and jazz standards, and so we had a very Balkan day to make up for all the Celtic days that Travalon has to put up with, like Thursday night. I'm all for fair representation of our ethnic heritages - I love tamburitza music. Travalon made some videos, but it was so loud with people yakking that you can barely hear the music. They really got loud during the raffle - if someone won, a bunch of people at their table would make turkey calls. Why? Because alcohol.

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Bob Marley Birthday Party

 

Today I worked from home and went to the dentist. I saw a different hygienist this time, one who was all old-skool and used the scraper instead of the sonic thing. I actually preferred that, because there was a little pain, but it was the kind I could wrap my head around, instead of the five kinds of pain the sonic thing gives me, each unique and excruciating. The only thing that makes me not sure about this hygienist, who is older than I am, is that she had FAUX News on in the background. Come on, either watch fiction or news, not fiction pretending to be news. They were talking about some schools with bad scores were letting their kids walk out early to protest ICE. Yeah, and so what? I'm sure a lot of schools with high test scores did too, and it's not like you could blame the test scores on the walkouts since they predated them.

The kids Travalon works with made Olympic medals, like this one:

In the evening we went to a Bob Marley birthday party fundraiser for a food pantry at the Crystal Corner. They even had a cake for Bob Marley.

It was Black Forest flavored. Travalon said I could post this photo of him.

Here is a better photo of him.

He is enjoying a Commuter Kolsch. I had an infused drink. We were right by a very cute window.

At first, a DJ was playing reggae, and it was loud, so I wore earplugs. Then a live band played a short set. They were really good!

I thought, "Are they already taking a break?" and then I realized they were packing up their instruments. There was a raffle, then we had cake, and the DJ started up again and kept getting louder and louder. We headed home, and I finished the Spanish course.

Pretty optimistic of DuoLingo to think I could get a job in Spanish. Garbage collector, maybe. "¿Es su basura? Damela, por favor. Gracias!" Maybe if we move to Puerto Rico, I can get paid to collect the trash.

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Irish Session at the Elks Lodge

 

Today I worked on campus, and it was not a good day. I made mistakes, other people made mistakes, and it was generally just a crappy day. At least I made my new boss laugh, because she was having a whole crappy week. Weird... I don't usually have two bad days in a given week, but Monday was a weird day too. At lunch I walked with Hardingfele, who was not prepared for the weather - no hat, wimpy gloves, and wimpy jacket, so she wanted to go to the greenhouses again. Not that I ever have a problem with going to the greenhouses, but yesterday Seabird and I walked outside and were fine. You have to dress for the weather.

When I got home, Travalon's Valentine's Day present had arrived in the mail, and when he got home I asked if he wanted it now or on Valentine's Day. We were both curious, so he opened it. It's a Hawaiian shirt of the Mike Tyson Punch-Out game, the one with Bald Bull that Travalon often plays while I'm at my Brazilian drum lesson. Sorry, he didn't try it on, so no photo, but he was very pleased with it.

Then we went to the Elks Lodge in town, a place I have always been curious about. It's on the water just like the East Side Club, and tonight there was the Irish session there, but it was invitation only. The red-headed flute player was there, along with the mandolin player who had his fingers injured in that gruesome saw accident - he's able to play again! Yay! We saw some Shamrock Club members there, our buddy who is always flitting around talking to everyone, and the adventurous couple we see everywhere except the Burns dinner, because it turns out they were in Florida at that time. Apparently part of the reason the Elks Club hosted this session was to get people interested in joining them, so I was afraid they would be giving us the hard sell, but it was the opposite - after seeing that beautiful space, we were curious but didn't see anyone to ask about how to join. We had a light dinner and listened to the music, and we really enjoyed our time there. 

When we got home, Travalon gave me my Valentine's Day presents: a book about the Camino that has a lot of very useful information, and a teddy bear with plaid that matches mine.

She doesn't have a name yet. Come to think of it, I'm not sure my Irish bear ever got a name either, and now she's missing a shoe. When I find it, I can take a photo of them together.

Famous Hat

Coventry the Dragon and the Republic of Leip

 

If you needed further proof that Travalon is a prince among men, today he went to Milwaukee to get a little Christmas dragon that we had seen on Saturday but hadn't gotten at the time. Then we thought maybe this coming Saturday we could go early to Milwaukee and get it at that time, but now Mamastep is able to go with us to the wild game dinner, so that wouldn't work. Travalon said he'd get to the Museum between 10-11, which was right when I was in a meeting, so I had my phone with me. Partway through the meeting I had to powder my nose, and his timing was so good that he texted right then, when they didn't see me on my phone. He sent me a photo of the Christmas dragon.

As you can see, it's holding what I assume is supposed to be a present, but there's no bow. A quick internet search showed there was supposed to be a bow, but some kid probably ripped it off. So it looks like he's playing the accordion instead of handing you a present, and that got me to thinking that it would make a good "Get Kraken with Jerry" episode to have him play the accordion. I sent Famie a text asking if she could send me a short audio clip of her playing the accordion - I'll see what she says. If she says no, maybe I can get the accordion player from our band to do it. Anyway, since one of my favorite Christmas carols is the Coventry carol, I'm calling this little guy Coventry. Here's another view of him:

Today I worked on campus, and Seabird sent me a message: "Come upstairs. We have treats." Usually on Wednesdays most of the FART 5 people are in the big office they all share, and when I come in, they all say, "Famous!" and we all chat. This time they all ignored me - even Seabird, who was busy talking work with another colleague. So I went to talk to another colleague, but then she said, "I have a meeting at 11:30." She didn't say, "Aren't you supposed to be in it too?" and the reminder on my calendar never went off, and I'd thought my meeting was at one, so imagine my surprise when I got back to my desk and saw the meeting was in progress. Why didn't my colleague say anything?? What happened to my reminder?? Last time it was at one, so that's where I got that idea. Later yet another colleague came down to my office because I have the power of FAX, and he needed to fax something, so we chatted awhile. Then a grad student chatted with me, and then I was showing a coworker the woodrow when my sorta-boss came by. I was wearing the outfit I'd worn to the Burns dinner, and with a little string instrument, I must have been quite a sight. Here's the woodrow:

Travalon sent me yet another flag that one of the kids drew. This is apparently for the Republic of Leip:

Is that Coventry on the flag? It's a winged dragon. But it doesn't have a star on its head.

Famous Hat

Talking in Train and Heart Hoya

 

Today when Travalon was at work, the kids drew more flags. I like the weak attempt at a Mexican flag.

And here is the Bahamian flag that Travalon drew yesterday:

I worked from home and thought about going to a protest. I got an email from someone I don't know inviting me to join a pickup choir, rehearsing 3-4 at the Lutheran church right by our old church for a 4:30 protest at the Capitol. I could then have gone right from there to Adoration. It was tempting to slip out of work early, but I had a lot to do and couldn't bring myself to leave for the protest, as much as I'd love to sing in a choir again. I felt a little glum about it, but then on the way to Adoration I drove down Troy Drive, and a train was going over the bridge. I wouldn't have seen that if I'd gone to the protest. Is God speaking to me with trains? This is the second time I didn't go to a protest because I felt like something was telling me not to, and then a train assured me that I was right where I was meant to be.

I forgot to mention that my rick-rack cactus bloomed when we got back from vacation, as if it was very happy to see me again. I thought they bloomed in the autumn, but I'm not complaining. This is the one plant that ever "talked" to me, when it said it wanted to go home with me. And I can't find the blog post about when I got the little heart-shaped leaf that is actually from a hoya, but it was a number of years ago. It has survived longer than a lot of my plants, and today when I watered it, I noticed it has a shoot coming out of it, so maybe it will grow into a whole plant. A few years ago I had several hoya plants (not with the heart-shaped leaves) that were thriving, and one even bloomed, so I thought maybe I should give up on everything else and only grow hoyas... and right after that thought, they all got sick and died. I hope I can keep this little hoya alive, and maybe someday it will be a big hoya and bloom. Their flowers are amazing, so fragrant and dripping with nectar. This also gives me hope that my black ZZ plant will grow again, if I'm just patient. Of course, my purple oxalis died back, then it sent up one leaf, so I was hopeful it would come back, but the leaf died and I've seen no sign of life from it in a year. Maybe it's time to give up on that one.

Famous Hat

Feeling a Bit Yelled at

 

Today I worked on campus, and Hardingfele and I went to the nearby greenhouses over lunch. To my surprise, the leaves I had wanted to pick up last time when the students suddenly invaded were still lying there, alive, so I took some back to my office and stuck them in dirt. We'll see if they survive. I was working on a big project for my sorta-boss, and I had some questions for him, but from his response he seemed annoyed by my questions. That was the first time I felt kind of yelled at today. I did get the project mostly done.

Meanwhile, Travalon was drawing flags with the kids at work for the Winter Olympics. He drew the Croatian flag.

He said he also drew the Bahamian flag, but they said the Bahamas wouldn't have a team in the Winter Olympics, so gave the drawing to his coworker who is originally from the Bahamas. His coworker loved it and hung it on the fridge at work. He didn't take a photo of that, but maybe he can tomorrow. Here are the flags the kids drew.

After work I went to Moldy Jam for the first time in over a month, and it sounds like a lot of other people were also gone recently, because everyone was saying how large the group was but to me it was normal sized. For some reason we played a lot of minor-key and Irish stuff tonight, and some people were complaining about it, but I was loving it. A new couple came and said they wanted to do a song called "Groundhog" since it's Groundhog Day; the group didn't know it, but we had fun learning it. I noticed that early in the evening I was doing really well with learning tunes by ear, but as the evening wore on, I got worse at it. After we took a break (and I ate way too much cheese), some of the leaders called us back by launching into one of my favorite tunes, "Butterfly," a slip jig in E Dorian. Since I know the tune well, I played it with great enthusiasm until noticing people were signaling at me, so the tune had changed, but it was another slip jig in E Dorian so I hadn't noticed. Oops! That was the second time I felt a bit yelled at. It's probably a bigger deal in my mind than in theirs. Once when I sang with the OTHER choir, we were doing a Sweelinck piece I knew well, and I was singing very confidently but was apparently off the beat, because the choir director was signaling at me frantically, so I stopped, listened, and got back in. He probably doesn't even remember that, but it will be forever seared into my memory.

There was a post today about a new Irish session on the first Thursday, so I put a comment asking if it was an open jam. When I got home, I saw the local fiddler had answered "NO" in all caps, and he had sent me a private message that read like an email that I hadn't gotten with more details about how it was only for advanced players, etc. That was the third time I felt a bit yelled at today. There must be an email list I'm not on, because I only know when the Lakeside sessions are by checking the Lakeside website, or when the red-headed flute player mentions them. This session will be this week, in a location I've been dying of curiosity to see, but there's also a Scottish fiddling class at the same time. Maybe I should do that instead and go to the new Irish session next month. Decisions!

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Kaaona Necklace and Thrill Factory

 

Today after Mass Travalon and I recycled the plastic, again with some help from the guy who always used to do it, then when we got home my aunt texted me a photo of an envelope from a card I must have sent to my cousin back when I was in college. I drew this on the back:

She said, "A Famous Hat original. May be valuable." So I asked her if she wanted the crab necklace that used to belong to my grandma. I liked it because it came from Hawaii, but I realized it was for someone born under the sign of Cancer, which I was not but both my grandma and my aunt were. She said she might be interested, so I sent her a photo.

She said thanks, the photo was good enough, I didn't have to send it to her. Maybe I can wear it, because it only says it's for the zodiac sign on the back, and there probably aren't a lot of people around here that know what "Kaaona" means. Maybe I talked this up too much because I remembered the crab being cuter than it is, and I thought it was carved from a coconut, but it's just plastic. Wish my grandma had gotten one for me, but maybe I wasn't even born yet when she got this. It isn't the only jewelry she brought back from Hawaii; I had a seed lei of hers that I wore a ton until it broke, being cheaply made and like eighty years old, and I'm guessing the pin with the palm tree on it is from there too.

Then I had my Brazilian drumming lesson, and today we played with both the other instruments and the dancers. There are less dancers than I expected, but today I was in the very back row, so nobody in the audience would see me. Then people realized I had no idea what was going on, being a short person behind a lot of tall people, so they made me move up. I did improve a lot over the course of the lesson, and one of the teachers noted that we all improved a lot, but he also said we wouldn't have an hour to get better on stage. Will we be ready by the 21st for showtime?

Travalon and I went to Garver Mill after that for some tea, and outside of it was this... sculpture of a giant banana?

Then he took me to the Slow Irish Session. It really went well today, but we're a bunch of regulars so we know most of the tunes, and we all go slowly on the newer ones. I try to sit where I can't see the music projected, but today those spots were all taken so I was smack in front of the music and found it too tempting to look when it was a new tune - to be fair to myself, it's very hard to learn a tune by ear if nobody in the room knows it. We are getting pretty good, especially at playing together really well on the slow, soulful tunes. Travalon snuck in toward the end and I didn't even see him. He had gone to East Towne Mall to check out Thrill Factory, and he took some photos. Some of these are frankly rather terrifying. There's a miniature golf course, a bowling alley, and a tiki bar.

He spent time there playing Space Invaders, which my Gen X readers will remember. After all that, we went home and I skipped band practice. We have a gig in early March, but I know all the tunes. I'm happy with the schedule of Slow Irish session for my fiddle every other week, and band practice for my mandolin every other week. Tomorrow I have Moldy Jam, and a couple of people who were there tonight will be there tomorrow, and they both said bring both. Will let you know tomorrow what I decide to do.

Famous Hat