Today Travalon was at State Tournament for boys' basketball all day with his high school buddy and the buddy's oldest daughter, so I had big plans for myself. I was going to get a haircut and then get lunch, but I was running a bit early and was very hungry, so I went to Ian's Pizza first because the Red Cross had given me a coupon for one free slice of pizza the last time I gave blood. It was a gorgeous day, so I walked to the other side of Capitol Square for my haircut and then went back to my old church, where I had parked. There was a bit of time before my next activity, so I went into the Adoration Chapel and prayed a rosary. Usually I'm afraid to do that on Saturday afternoons because I used to get stuck in there when everyone else would leave, but now they have little curtains you can draw around the Host if you are alone and have to leave, and wouldn't you know that this time there were a number of other people in there, and they didn't leave the moment I arrived. There had been a cheap little plastic rosary on the windowsill when I was there on Tuesday for my Adoration hour, and someone had put it on the rosary hook in the chapel, so I prayed with it. I also tested it to see if it would glow in the dark, since it looked like it would. Answer: yes, it does.
My next stop was the Chazen Museum for a demonstration of rosemaling hosted by our department and some other departments. The artist painted an enormous canvas while a band of three fiddles, a mandolin, and a guitar played Norwegian music. Here is the canvas just after she had started.
Here she has added more detail.
At intermission it looked like this.
I was dying of thirst and had a
yuzu iced tea because there is a little cafe in the museum now, but it only helped somewhat, so at intermission I headed home. Sorry, I cannot show you the finished painting. Usually rosemaling is done on much smaller objects, like plates or
hardanger fiddles. It was very soothing to watch this woman paint, but I can only stand Norwegian music for so long, and besides, I needed some time to get ready for the fast
Irish session tonight.
I got to my car right at the start of
La Junta, the salsa program on the community radio every Saturday afternoon. I'd given up listening to music in the car for
Lent, having to drive in contemplative silence, but since Saturday afternoon kind of counts as Sunday (at least for Mass), I figured I could listen. Usually when I'm in Travalon's car, they play all sorts of weird Latin music, but today they played straight-up salsa, and it was fantastic. Back home I went out on our porch and streamed the station on my laptop as I did
Wordle and crossword puzzles. Travalon had brought some Indian food home for me, grilled lamb and spicy rice and plantains, and it was so good! I also drank a Bai and lots of water.
Famie my Irish teacher and I said we would try to get to the Irish session at Lakeside early to get chairs, but of course we were both running late and had to drag chairs in from the back room. It was so crowded! Not just with musicians but also with people listening. It was very hot in there, so I was glad to be wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt because it had been so warm out. We sat beside a very friendly woman, and the three of us tried to remember the names of the tunes we were playing. Sometimes you hear a tune and find you can play it, but you can't remember what it's called for anything. That's what's handy about the
Ballydesmond Polkas - they say their own name. I didn't claim my free drink tonight, since I was still feeling a bit dehydrated, but they have free water there so I drank plenty of that. People also gave us pistachio fudge that was amazing and chocolate chip cookies that were just meh - I think they were store-bought, not homemade. Since Saturday night is basically Sunday, I indulged in both even though I have given up sweets for Lent. We played Irish tunes well into the night, but I still beat Travalon home. This is one of his favorite weekends of the year, and he had a fabulous time... and so did I!
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