State Park Adventure Journal

 

Today I worked on campus, and it was a crazy day as far as meetings, people needing stuff, etc., but not too much exciting happened. A couple of times I held the elevator for a student who was only going up one floor, and one of them laid a SBD (Silent But Deadly) fart on the rest of us in the elevator before escaping one floor later, while we had to go up many floors. Thanks, dude. 

It's been cooler the last few days, and I hope my houseplants are still okay outside. I have the black calla lily, Lazarus the Dracaena, the ponytail palm, and the purple tradescantia still out there. I went into the bedroom to see if we can close the window with that mourning dove nest in the way, but the sturdy, perfect nest that supported two babies to adulthood is gone; just a few sticks remained, and they didn't get in the way of closing the window. The problem seems to have solved itself.

We had another quiet evening at home, so Travalon and I finished writing in the State Park Adventure Journal we got at Rib Mountain this past weekend. We have not been to many of the state trails, but we have been to most of the state parks. Travalon says he has been to all of them, but some (like Lizard Mound) he was at as a kid and barely remembers. There were some he had been to without me, and there were others that I knew better than he did, so the memories are a hodgepodge of our time together and our single days. We still have lots of empty pages in the Adventure Journal, and for every state park or trail there are four suggestions of things to do, most of which we haven't done, so we will keep the Adventure Journal in the car and try to see some of these places and do some of these things. Of course, some of them are not anything we'd do willingly. Winter camping? No thanks! Watching the sun rise from an overlook? If the weather is warm enough to be out at sunrise, then the sun is rising too early for me to be there watching it. That's just science. But I was intrigued by the accessible tandem kayak you can rent at Lake Kegonsa State Park - maybe we'll have to try that. I do remember years ago a bunch of us were piled into a huge canoe, so many of us (five?) that it almost sank, and we could barely paddle around Lake Kegonsa while another friend sailboarded around and around us. That was the Big Banana, a giant yellow canoe with brown spots on it, just like a banana, where it had been repaired. It died in a windstorm when it was blown into a tree, many years ago. Once Rich and Kathbert tried to paddle in it using little toy paddles, bright orange plastic ones, which didn't work so well. Or so I hear - I wasn't in the Big Banana to see how badly it went, I only heard about it after the fact, but it would have been a sight to see: a big yellow canoe and tiny orange paddles! Kind of like when Oregon played against Syracuse in a Final Four game, because Oregon has chartreuse uniforms and Syracuse has bright orange ones, so that was the most aesthetically pleasing college basketball game I ever saw. But I digress.

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Chicago, Brazilian Drums, and Irish Tunes

 

Yesterday I wasted too much time in the morning and then had to rush to Cecil Markovitch's house to meet him, the Single B-Boy, and the Dairyman's Daughter for our whirlwind trip to Chicago. We drove down and got to the Italian restaurant where we had dinner in almost exactly three hours. Dinner was wonderful (I had my favorite black squid-ink pasta with seafood), but the Single B-Boy and I had to run back across the busy street to Cecil's car, me so I could put my leftovers in Cecil's cooler, and the B-Boy to take his contacts out. We must be living right, because the traffic seemed to pause for us both ways. The B-Boy did point out that it would be a lot more efficient for Cecil to cross the scary road once, to get his car and drive it to the other side of the street, than for two people to cross the road twice, but Cecil wasn't buying it. Then we all walked to the concert venue to see the Tallis Scholars sing works by Palestrina and Lassus. They were amazing! On the drive to Chicago, Cecil had asked the name of the plantation where some of my ancestors had lived, and all I could remember was that it was a very English-sounding name starting with H. Halfway back to Madison, I remembered: Hollingsworth! So the B-Boy looked up the Hollingsworth Plantation in Virginia, and it was in Cecil County, so they were all joking that Cecil and I could be cousins. 

Meanwhile, Travalon went to a powwow in town, and he got a stuffed eagle. 

Then he went to a bar in Lyndon Station.

He went to Mirror Lake and to the dam in Sauk, where he saw lots of pelicans. I will post photos tomorrow. Then he went to a movie about the band Talking Heads, and one of the members was there for a Q&A afterwards. So he had a great day too.

Today after Mass we went for a walk on Governor's Island, then Travalon dropped me off at the place where my first Brazilian drumming class was held. Because I have no experience, they put me on one of the big drums where you just hit the downbeat, and it was so much fun! The woman to the left of me was a dancer, so she had good rhythm, but the guy to the right of me... not so much. It was quite a workout, but after that I went to the Slow Irish Session, and my bandmates all showed up except for Hardingfele. It went really well, and the leaders declared it "the best session ever!" We had all sorts of crazy instruments besides the usual fiddles, mandolins, guitars, whistles, and accordions, like someone brought a large harp, and someone else had an autoharp, and one guy was playing the melodica, which is a keyboard that you blow into. 

When we got home, we went out onto the dock, and Travalon took some photos. Here is the goose that got its egg stolen by the mink.

What is Tux Duck laughing about?

A beautiful sunset.

And Travalon's King Arthur bear arrived!

Also, his little creatures are happy because Wolverhampton won!

I believe this means they are now safe from relegation. However, the Bucks are losing, so this is probably it for their playoff run.

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Strumming the Ukulele Again

 

Today was kind of cold, so Hardingfele and I walked in her building. This afternoon I had two meetings, one right after the other, and it was so hard to stay awake. I got to leave work early today, because I was going to do something retired people do all the time: join a ukulele strum!

The strum was at the Lone Girl Brewery, and I was at one there about a year and a half ago but never heard about another one until last month... and then I forgot about it and went to the bachata lesson at the Monona Terrace instead. Apparently these have been happening on the third Thursday all this time, but somehow I am not plugged into the ukulele community anymore since the pandemic, so I only hear about these things now and then. Now I am on the mailing list for the Wauna Strummers and the Prairie Strummers, both of whom regularly meet during work hours, but at least now I know about the Lone Girl strums. This one was not nearly as crowded as the one I'd gone to before, and to my surprise the guy right behind me had a mandolin. Whoa, I could have brought my mandolin, and then I could have played all those chords! But the whole purpose of doing this is to get better at the ukulele. There were enough people there that I could just sit out any chord I wasn't sure about, and nobody noticed. The woman next to me was very friendly, and she told me there is an evening strum every week, but it's on the west side, and it's on Tuesday right during my adoration hour. Sigh. At least after an hour and a half, I could competently play the following chords: D, G, G7, A, A minor, A7, C, and C7. That got me pretty far, since those are common chords in the popular music we were playing, most of it from the 50's-70's. The theme was "Night and Day" so we did songs about morning, afternoon, evening... you get the idea.

When the strum was over, I went downstairs and found Travalon, who was watching Arkansas beat Kansas in the NCAA tournament. We had some dinner (shrimp tacos for me, a black and bleu burger for him, both delicious) and finished watching the game before heading home. As I said, "We're not in a hurge huey." I guess all that ukulele strumming wore out my brain cells!

Back home I did some DuoLingo, and it finally gave me a test to see what level of Spanish I should be in. Check this out: yesterday my score was 12, and now it's 20!

I am finally making some mistakes at this level, but mostly using the wrong gender article - I still know all the words it throws at me. Who knows? Maybe it will still bump me up more.

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Badgers Bury Huskies

 

Yesterday I didn't blog because there wasn't much to say. I worked on campus and walked with Hardingfele at lunch, since my colleague is abroad. The weather was very mild, and we discussed how the gig had gone on Saturday. Then in the evening Travalon and I went swimming.

The weather was mild again today. I worked from home and took walks in the neighborhood on my breaks. In the evening I went to Adoration as usual, then Travalon met me there and we walked to the Kohl Center to see the men's Badger Basketball game. We got there a bit early and had some macaroni and cheese for dinner, then as we walked around, we saw a stand selling the Platonic ideal of a soft pretzel - it's called Ben Pretzels, and it has a cartoon of an Amish guy. We got one of those, but for some reason the guy gave us two, so we ended up bringing one home. I hope they are just as good heated up the next day...

I was only at one other Badger game this year, and during that one, John Tonje scored forty points. He wasn't nearly that dynamic tonight, although he was the second-highest scorer, but a guy named John Blackwell got twenty-four points and ten rebounds. When he got his tenth rebound, Travalon and I cheered, and some other people cheered, but not the whole crowd. The school-aged boys sitting behind us, who were giving a color commentary the whole game, were puzzled that we cheered, because I believe they fancied themselves experts in the game but didn't realize Blackwell had just gotten a double-double. All the players were doing their part tonight - if they weren't scoring, they were getting rebounds - and one shorter player named Kamari McGee had an incredible save. In the end, the Washington Huskies couldn't compete, and the Badgers buried them 88-62. 

The halftime show was kind of cool. All the black fraternities and sororities on campus (called the Divine Nine) came out on the floor, and each one did a dance. Makes me wish I'd joined a black sorority when I was in college here.

When we got home, Travalon's package had arrived.

He's been on a real Beetle Bailey kick lately. At night when we are in bed but before we go to sleep, he reads a book of Beetle Bailey comics and just laughs and laughs. He even says there is a cartoon. I'm trying to imagine what Beetle Bailey sounds like. Does he have a California accent? Does he sound like Mush Mouth from the Fat Albert Show since they both have hats that cover their eyes? I imagine him sounding stoned, and if you don't know what that sounds like, watch a recent interview of our current president, Elon Musk. He's totally high on ketamine and makes no sense. Remember, Elon is just Felon without the F. He's like a cartoon villain: the richest man in the world, stealing money from the poorest people so he can go to Mars! Who knows? He may meet the same end as a cartoon villain. I would love to see a caped superhero stop his insanity, but they seem to be in short supply these days.

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Afro-Cuban Jazz at the North Side Cabaret

 

Yesterday Travalon colored another picture at work.

This morning he watched the Wolverhampton match with Rodrigo, Wolfie, and Wendy.

The Wolves won 1-0, and Crystal Palace won 2-0, so it was a happy Premier League day for Travalon. Unfortunately, the Badger men lost in basketball, which is surprising because they were ahead by 17 points at halftime. They lost by 4 in overtime.

Once the Wolves game was over, we drove to Spring Green for my gig at the General Store. Richard Bonomo and the Dairyman's Daughter came to hear us, and so did a lot of friends of other bandmates. We had a good crowd and got $19 each in tips. I thought I did pretty well, and Travalon actually recorded a lot of our songs, so it sounded like I wasn't imagining it. I could hear myself, and the fiddles (the bass couldn't make it), but I couldn't hear the guitar, which makes sense because she was cutting out a lot. It was like halfway through the gig she just, as Hardingfele would say, "de-plushed." On some songs I usually play melody or harmony, but today I played chords even on songs I'd never done it on before, just to make sure we had chords going on. 

During the gig, Travalon went to a dive bar in Spring Green, and he saw this in the bathroom:

Who can explain people? It's like a video I saw yesterday of three people dressed as chickens playing the saxophone. Right now I cannot remember what song they were playing, but I found it hilarious. So random!

After the gig, Travalon and I went to Sauk to see eagles. We saw one flying around, and a bunch of ducks that I think were goldeneyes. He took photos, but it got too late - I'll get them off his camera tomorrow. Then we took a short walk at Indian Lake County Park, and when we got home the sun was starting to set, so we went to watch it. The temperature was dropping, so Travalon went inside, but I stubbornly waited to see if the sunset would get more glorious. It did, but behind the trees, so we should have watched it from Warner Beach. However, I was rewarded for my patience because I saw a bald eagle fly over our dock and land in a tree across the river from us.

We relaxed at home for a little bit and ate at home, then we went to the North Side Cabaret to see an Afro-Cuban Jazz concert. It was the bass player's doctoral performance, and he was joined by a trombone, an alto sax, a tenor sax, a trumpet, a guitarist, a drummer, and now and then a cellist. To my surprise, I saw another cello player in the audience, one of the performers in a local early music group. Travalon and I got there just before the band started playing, so we had nowhere to sit and had to stand through the first half, but that's okay because I danced a little, and then it didn't feel like just standing there. Some kind people let us sit on their seats during the intermission, and then we were back to standing for the second half. The band did a couple of weirder, modern jazz pieces in the second half, and I didn't feel the beat so I just stood there and started to get tired of standing... and then they went back to the more salsa-flavored songs, and I was dancing again and thought, "I could do this all night!" It was a fantastic show, and Travalon enjoyed it too.

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Teeny Erin Bear

 

Today I met Tiffy for an early lunch at the Globe, then we drove to First Unitarian for a free concert. We got there quite early, and just as we got out of the car, the Professor Formerly Known as Lute Player called my name, so we sat with her and her husband. The concert was the dedication of a new small portative organ with wooden pipes that had a lovely sound, and our local harpsichordist played a number of Baroque pieces on it before he was joined by a cello, a violin, a soprano, and a baritone for some Handel and Bach. I saw not one but two of the faculty from my department there, which surprised me since I have never seen them at any other early music concerts in town. An odd coincidence: they are both Capricorns, like me. Also both women. I didn't really get a chance to talk to either of them because they were in the middle of conversations with other people. One person I didn't see there is the director of the press where I used to work, who is a man and a Scorpio but is often at these concerts because his wife is a professor of early music. We also ran into one of the people who used to go to the Slow Food dinners, which ended with the pandemic, and the organizer is still terrified of COVID so we talked about resurrecting the group without her.

First Unitarian is very close to Picnic Point, so Tiffy and I took a long, brisk walk to the end of it, and then we warmed up with warm bubble tea and just chatted for a couple of hours. Then we went to Sushi Red for my birthday dinner, only one month late. We split duck dumplings and a lobster Thermidor for appetizers and then a rainbow roll and a dragon roll (both with forbidden rice, the black stuff) for our main course, and we both had a mango daiquiri. They gave me a free lychee sorbet with a candle in it for my birthday, even though I explained that it had been a month ago, since the waitress's first question was if we were celebrating anything today, and I was like, "Yes, well..." Tiffy had a flourless chocolate cake that I helped her finish. The restaurant had a wonderful ambiance, with mood lighting and trance music in the background. 

When I got home, Travalon told me about his day. He met an old high school buddy for lunch and hung out with him for a few hours, then he went antiquing and found a tiny Irish bear for me, and then he went to a high school basketball game. When I got home, he was watching the Wolverhampton game that he had recorded, and he had no idea how it would turn out, but they won 2-0! So it was a really good day for him too.

Here is the tiny Irish bear.

Isn't she cute? Erin Bear - that's the name on the package. Yes, she was still in her package and had been for almost thirty years. How pathetic - someone just bought this at a McDonald's in the late 90's and kept it to be a collector's item instead of snuggling her like she deserves, and in the end they sold it at an antique shop for $2. But now Erin Bear is with people who appreciate her!

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More Photos of Loot from Our Trip

 

Today was a quiet day of working from home. I did have to put air in my tires (really, only one was low) because the "TPMS" light came on, not the low air tire light, but apparently it means the same thing. More annoyingly, it doesn't automatically turn off once the tire pressure is correct, so I will have to manually turn it off. It is a very cold day, so I wasn't looking forward to it, and someone else was already using the machine, but she was friendly and the cold wasn't as bad as I had dreaded. Travalon went to a Badger Men's Basketball game tonight, but I just wanted a quiet night at home to do chores around the house and then reward myself by watching old episodes of Colbert. Anyway, they lost by three points.

Here are some photos of things I bought on Sunday: three rosaries, a Packer tie-dyed bear, earrings, a bracelet, and two crystals.

I'm getting good at knowing what things might glow under blacklight. The orange bracelet and the orange rosary sure did!

And so did the earrings.

And so does the bear!

One of the rosaries is kind of the pastel twin of a colorful rosary I found in a thrift store several years ago.

And these are far from new acquisitions, but Travalon found my old rock collection in the garage, so he brought it upstairs. These are from my childhood many decades ago. Here are two of my favorites: Keyhole Rock and Hard-Boiled Egg Rock. 

Are these geodes? I don't exactly know what the geological term is for either of these rocks. Maybe I'll ask my aunt who is actually a geologist. Will let you know what I find out.

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Gig in Spring Green and More Pasque Flowers

 

This morning Travalon watched the Wolverhampton game, and they lost because one of their goals was called offsides on a very controversial call. Even the announcers were puzzled by it. Also they have a player whose name sounds like Tomato, so it sounded like the announcers were talking about passes to Tomato (pronounced the British way), among the many incomprehensible (to me) things that they say. 

After the game, we headed to Spring Green with my beloved mandolin, because my band was playing its more-or-less annual gig at the General Store there, and I got a free beverage for playing. We had lunch there (the chipotle chicken sandwich is so good!), and they even gave Travalon a free beverage, since he's like our roadie. The Dairyman's Daughter came out to hear us, and she took this photo of the band that makes me laugh because I am mostly hidden.

She also requested to take a photo of just me with my mandolin.

The gig seemed to go really well, and we each got a whopping $6.50 in tips, which probably doesn't even cover the gas to get there from Madison. Travalon made videos of our last three songs, so I might try to post those at some point. We played from one to three, and for the first hour there were tons of people because the cafe was open. Then we took a very brief break, and one of the people who worked there told me to remind the others to order their free drinks before things got shut down, so I told them, but they didn't seem interested. Then everyone left when the cafe closed, except for people who knew us like the Dairyman's Daughter and our leader's sister and her neighbor, so for the second half we had a very intimate audience. I am always surprised by how good I sound in people's videos, but after all I have been a semiprofessional mandolin player for virtually my entire adulthood, so that's a few years now. I do need to replace my strings... they sound very dead.

It was a gorgeous day in the 50's, so safe to leave the mandolin in the car for a short hike. Prairie Man had mentioned there was a place near Mazomanie called Walking Iron where you can see pasque flowers, and we pass right through Mazomanie on our way back from Spring Green, so it seemed like an ideal time to go there. It's kind of a big place, as we discovered when we looked at the map, so I wondered how we would find where the pasque flowers were. We followed the trail past an unpromising patch that had recently been burned, but then we turned a corner and found a vague hint we were in the right spot.

And there were plenty of pasque flowers in bloom!

We got home in time for Travalon to watch a Final Four game, but I went back outside because it was so beautiful out. I didn't see any ducks down by the dock (last weekend I saw a pair of northern shovelers, besides lots of mallards), but a flock of about twenty pelicans flew gracefully overhead. If you've never seen pelicans flying, it's a beautiful sight. They are totally silent and look like white angels in the sky, and their movements are so elegant. You would never guess what goofy-looking birds they are up close.

In the evening we went to Mariner's for dinner because we had a free gift card that was going to expire soon, so that was a lovely way to end the day. We could see the sunset from our table. Soon it will be outdoor dining weather - I can't wait!

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Indian Music Concert

 

It is never the wrong time for some DuoLingo bragging, especially if it involves frogs:

But wait - there's more!

Yesterday I worked from home, then I talked to Tiffy. We were talking about our childhood piggy banks, and she tried to send me a photo of her Porky Pig piggy bank, but I didn't get it. Finally I did get it:

Later in the conversation, she started laughing till she was practically crying. The reason I hadn't gotten the photo right away is because she didn't send it to me - she sent it to a random hair salon she had gone to once years ago here in town that had just sent her a text to remind her to come in to get her hair done... and she accidentally responded with this photo. I'm not sure any explanation is even needed, but I suppose she could add, "Can you do this haircut?"

Today Travalon was hanging out with a high school buddy, watching the high school basketball tournaments. In the morning I went for a brisk rosary walk, and at that time the weather was sunny and just a bit windy. Rich wanted to go on a hike at Cherokee Marsh with an out-of-town guest, but by the time we got there, it was overcast with a biting, cold wind, so they didn't enjoy it that much. I did show them the observation deck from which you can see the little island, and we also walked out onto the peninsula. Then we warmed up at Zippy Lube with coffee and fried chicken.

I cleaned a bit at home, then Travalon had a small window of time when he could meet us for dinner, so he met up with my colleague, her husband, and me at Himal Chuli. He left to go watch another basketball game, while we went to the Union. I went to the box office to get my free tickets to the concert of East Indian music (my colleague and her husband also got free tickets, but not near mine), but the box office wasn't open yet. So we went to the Sunset Lounge to get the special ginger, turmeric, and mango drink they were selling just for this concert, but they weren't selling it yet. So we ended up getting ice cream. Once the box office opened, the line for will call tickets was really long, so my colleague waited in it for me while I went to find Kathbert. We were looking for each other in different spots, so by the time we found each other, my colleague was at the front of the line, but because she could spell my last name, they gave her my tickets, so that was helpful. Kathbert wondered why there was no program, but the concert was one long jam on the raga jog, using a rhythm with ten beats. There was an apparently renowned tabla player with a flutist to his right and a guy playing a really interesting stringed instrument to his left. It seemed to be a cross between a viol and a hardy-gurdy, because it had a constant drone. Some of the audience members were rude (why bring a toddler? why look at your phone through the whole thing?), but it was a cool concert, even if we would have liked more of an explanation of the instruments. I love how the tabla drums sound like "Doink!" For an encore, the string player sang a song as they all played along. I love the scale, whatever "raga jog" is. Kind of Dorian? State Street was kind of crazy afterwards because of St. Patrick's Day, so Kathbert walked me to my car and then I drove her home so that neither of us would have to walk alone through that nonsense.

Here are a couple of the plants I got from Travalon's mom's funeral.

It's a really pretty purple ti plant (the color didn't come through that well) and a gerbera daisy. I will try to take photos of some of the other plants soon.

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Niko at Bach Around the Clock

 

I forgot to post this photo of a wreath at Travalon's mom's funeral yesterday:

I believe his oldest brother and his wife bought it. Afterwards nobody wanted it, since it's so large, so we just left it in the chapel.

Today Travalon wanted to watch his old high school basketball team play out of town, which was perfect for me because then I could spend the day at Bach Around the Clock. First I grabbed my keys, my wallet, my phone, and my Niko, and I met Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, and Pete the Sailor Man at the cemetery to put flowers on Mr. Why's grave as we do every year sometime within the month of the anniversary of his death. Kathbert had to play at Bach Around the Clock, so she left, but Rich, Pete, and I had lunch and then went to the Episcopal church that hosted the festivities. We got there in time for a tribute to Peter Schickele, AKA PDQ Bach, the oddest of Bach's twenty-odd children, also the last and the least of them. We had PDQ Bach records around the house when I was a kid, and I remember finding them hilarious, but you really have to see the gags in person to get the full effect. We laughed until we cried. I did have the good fortune to see Peter Schickele perform years ago, and it was everything I could have hoped.

Groups continued to play throughout the day. There was a huge group of cellos, some of them very small because they were being played by surprisingly young kids, and that was about as good as you'd expect. It also took a very long time and really pushed the schedule back. Kathbert and a woman from my choir played in a recorder ensemble that was really good, and the Professor Formerly Known as Banjo Player sang in a group that did "Jesu Meine Freude," and I really enjoyed that too. Rich took off, but the woman from my choir joined Pete and me; she knows him because her husband sails with him. 

The final concert was scheduled to take an hour and was originally supposed to end by 5:15, so no problem getting my final move hour. (I took breaks and walked outside to get my other ones.) Because the cello conglomerate had pushed things so far back, I knew I'd have to take my FitBit off and shake it to get my final move hour. Proof my FitBit hates me: it never said "9/9" but I opened the app and it said I had gotten all nine move hours, which made sense with the number of steps it said I had gotten by shaking it. However, just now I checked my final stats for the day... and it said I'd missed my final hour. It did this to me once with Tiffy when we were sitting in a restaurant - it's like it knows I cheated and revokes the hour of movement it previously said I got. What the heck?

Around six we went downstairs and had cake. It was a white cake with raspberry filling and roses on top, and I happily ate my rose. Pete the Sailor Man and my choir mate's husband got into an animated discussion about whether a recently deceased friend's "wife" who suddenly appeared on the scene is a scammer, but I had told Travalon I'd be home by 6:30, so I left and still didn't get home until almost seven. He was watching his high school's girls' basketball team play for the state title, and they won!

This is the first time the girls have won state. The last two years they were beaten by the same team they beat tonight. Travalon says when he was in school, the girls were winless for three years in a row. This is their first state title. The boys had a three-peat last year, and they won the sectional final so they will go to state again. That was the game he watched this afternoon because it was in Watertown, which is a lot closer than Green Bay, where the girls played. His old buddy's daughter is on the girls' team. Congratulations to both teams!

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Slightly Disappointing Evening

 

Today I worked from home, and it rained all day so I got very wet on my lunchtime walk. Then Travalon and I thought we would check out the fish fry at the East Side Club. They used to have caterers run their Friday night fish fries, but they really haven't had one since the pandemic, so they decided to do it themselves. We didn't get there until pretty late because of Travalon's work schedule, and then we were the only ones there besides the people working the fish fry. I think they are competing against too many actual restaurants. What they need to do is have something nobody else has, like before the pandemic they had Latin music dances every Saturday night. Why don't they bring that back? They were very popular.

As we drove by Olbrich Gardens, we saw a ton of cars in the parking lot. "What could be going on at this hour?" we asked each other, so we pulled in and parked. We could see people inside, but when we got to the front door, there was a big sign: "Private event. No public access." That explains why I hadn't heard about it in their email newsletter.

We decided to check out the Crucible, a nightclub we have never been to, so we pulled into the parking lot, and I noticed the guy in the next car was wearing a sparkly silver top and putting on lipstick. I said it must be a drag show, and Travalon said that sounded entertaining, so we got out of our car... and then we noticed everyone else was still sitting in their cars. Just then a woman came up to us and asked if we were there for Kink Night. I guess we look pretty vanilla, because she said, "This is a once-a-month BDSM event. (I assume she meant bondage, sadism, and masochism.) You might want to come another night. On Wednesdays we have karaoke. Also, the doors don't open tonight until nine." So we left.

We decided to walk over to Mariner's for an ice cream drink, since the rest of the evening had been kind of a letdown, and that was fine. They still had their beautiful Christmas decorations up, and for some reason the place smelled like nutmeg. We watched the very end of the game in which the Badger men's basketball team beat Michigan State, then we headed home. And then I remembered that there was a big folk dance festival at the Union, but at that point we didn't feel like going out again. Oh well, it wasn't a terrible evening, just a slightly disappointing one.

Anyway, it's time for some DuoLingo bragging:

So how long have I been wasting time with the Green Owl? The app told me I just had my ninth "Duoversary," so that means it's been nearly a decade, and yet I'm still only fluent in English.

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Glow in the Dark Rock Art

 

Yesterday there was a snowstorm again, and the schools were closed again. I can't remember them ever being closed twice in one week! Travalon was home from work, and we tried to take a walk but couldn't even get a block because it was so windy and snowy. When we got up this morning, we were buried under the snow. It was also very cold with the windchill. Travalon said today was the birthday of the Wolverhampton team, and I said, "So they're a Capricorn?" and he said, "Just like my favorite wife and my favorite mother!" We thought about going to the Badger basketball game, but Travalon's friend said the roads were treacherous, so we watched it at home. I also ran around the house because I'm trying to get eleven minutes of vigorous activity every day. This is because I took a test that is supposed to tell you your biological age, as opposed to your chronological age, and mine was a couple of decades older, which was a shock. After just half a week of running around the house, I have lost three pounds and my resting pulse has gotten a lot lower, and when I took the test again, I'd shaved over a decade off my biological age. It's amazing to see how quickly exercise works!

We went to dig out Travalon's car from at least a foot of snow, and then we drove to Ancora to warm it up, where we got a bag of coffee and a couple of lattes. The roads really were quite bad. When we got home, Travalon watched the Texans playing the Browns in the playoffs while I used the rock painting kit he had given me. The rocks were lovely, smooth rocks in a soothing light gray, like what they have decorating spas, and I thought it would be a shame to paint them, but then I had a lot of fun. Here are the results:

These are Niko, a cat, a mandolin, palm trees, a lotus with a jewel in it (that one probably needs explaining), a rosary, a rainbow, and just some spots. Here they are under the blacklight.

And here they are glowing in the dark. 

And a bonus photo: Jilly Moose sent me (at my request) a photo of her blond moose Frothy:

I did leave two rocks for Travalon to decorate, so when he decorates them, I'll post a photo of them if he lets me. He plans to do one with the Wolverhampton wolf. 

We went to a place I'd noticed a few months ago from the bus, a tiny pizza place called It's Good for You. It's only open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, and it was closed for a few weeks around the holidays, but this evening it was open, so we went and had some delicious pizza. They have a great big pizza oven where they make the pizza fresh right in front of you. It reminds me a bit of Cafe Porta Alba, which unfortunately closed because the owner's wife got a job on the East Coast. It's Good for You isn't too far from our house, so it was the perfect thing to do tonight. I highly recommend it.

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Swans and East Side Club Christmas Party

 

Today I had a quiet morning while Travalon was at the Badger basketball game. (They beat Marquette, who were third in the country!) I went for a walk at Jackson's Landing, thinking I'd see some swans from there, but there weren't any around. When Travalon got home, we went to Tenney Park because he thought he'd seen some there while coming home from the game, but there weren't any there either. I said I'd seen them at Picnic Point, so we drove there and immediately saw some, hanging out with Canada geese, mallards, and buffleheads.

We walked along the lakeshore path and explored the sculpture of the twelve clans of the Ho-Chunk.

Suddenly all the swans flew off to the east! We have no idea where they went.

We saw some buffleheads along the Lakeshore Path. Here is a female with some mallards.

Here are a male mallard, a male bufflehead, and a female bufflehead. It's not the most in-focus photo, but you get the idea.

As we were driving home, night was falling, so we drove into Governor Nelson State Park and went to the boat launch to see if we could see the lit-up tree that we can see from way over on our side of the lake. And guess what? You can get a perfect view of it from there!

Travalon's Wolverhampton jersey came in the mail today. Here he is modeling it with his Wolverhampton hat and the two little mascots, Wendy and Wolfie.

Then we went to the East Side Club Christmas party. Here is their tree.

I thought we'd sit by ourselves and be the last table to get food, since that often happens. But tonight neither happened, because an old coworker, her mother, and her aunt sat with us, and we happily conversed. And then suddenly someone told our table we could go up to eat when it seemed like there were so many ahead of us! I guess they went out of order. They had drawings for random prizes, so I got a copper cup for making, say, a Moscow mule, and later they let everyone go up, so Travalon got a bourbon barrel keychain. The Wauna Strummers were there again this year to sing and play their ukuleles, but this year they didn't invite me to play with them. We sang along, but I realize that I don't know all the words to a lot of secular Christmas songs. When they did "Silent Night," I had a much easier time. 

My former coworker told us about yet another one of those fancy Christmas houses with coordinated lights and its own radio station, so we checked it out since it wasn't that far from the East Side Club. I made a couple of videos, but they aren't that good. On the way home, we saw this house near us.

Then we saw this one even closer to us. They put giant ornaments on the tree in their yard!

Travalon and I really liked this tree. It's not actually lit up, but it's so simple and pretty. I just love all the Christmas lights up everywhere, and I feel so moved to think they are in honor of the Infinite God coming down and becoming one of us, but unfortunately that may not be how a lot of people view them. Like, there was a Christmas tree on top of an apartment complex, and do you think the owner of the complex was honoring the Incarnation, or do you suppose they just thought that's the socially acceptable thing to do this time of year? I have no idea, so I like to imagine the decorations mean people believe.

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