Coming Home to a Glorious Sunset

 

Today was another mellow Tuesday. I did laundry, and the dryer is working again because Travalon bought a $24 lint trap on eBay. So much better than getting a new dryer! It kind of rained on and off today, but I did walk outside. As I was coming home from Adoration, the whole sky was pink. Once I got home, I took a few photos that don't do it justice. What a sunset!

Travalon sent me photos he took with his phone this past weekend. Here is the bonfire at the Brazilian party.

And here are a couple of houses in the Chancellor's neighborhood. The first one is the Chancellor's house.

Here is the crazy name tag he got at the Chancellor's tailgate party. (I erased his last name, since it is his real one.) Ashiantii!

Maybe I should call him that on the blog from now on. Kidding!

Yesterday he worked in Sun Prairie, so he stopped in Windsor on his way home and took photos of train cars he saw there.

More screenshots from a local train. Some of these were also on the train I saw pulling out yesterday.

I heard our neighborhood train go by around 4:30, too early for me to see it because I was still in the middle of working. The guy who always makes videos of it posted one, so I got some screenshots.

Just now the train came back south. I also found this interesting graffiti on social media:

That is enough photos for one blog post. Tomorrow I'll post more from Travalon's videos.

Famous Hat

Greek Fest, North Side Fest, Chancellor's Tailgate, and Brazilian Party

 

I think Travalon thought I was nuts today, because there were four things I wanted to do. The first was to go to Greek Fest. We met Tiffy downtown to get coffee, but the line was long and we'd already had coffee and planned to have more at Greek Fest, so we got bubble tea instead. Then we went to the local Greek Orthodox Church and went down into the basement to get "galactic burritos" and frappes. We also got some other treats but didn't eat them at that time. Then we went outside, where the local folk dance master was leading a group dancing to Greek music while people ate Greek food, and we got tripitas, or whatever they're called, basically feta cheese wrapped in triangles of phyllo dough. 

Our next stop was the North Side Festival. Travalon had gotten two passes from the co-op, so I gave one to Tiffy, and we each got a gift bag full of goodies like energy bars and energy drinks. We also got half off of our food, so we tried lamb jollof, baobab juice, and sugarcane juice. I couldn't finish mine, so after we checked out the community groups, said hi to Travalon's coworker, and picked up some swag, we swung by our house to drop off the food, then we went back downtown and Tiffy dropped off her leftovers at her sister's apartment. Richard Bonomo met us downtown, and we all hung out on the roof of Tiffy's sister's building until it was time for the third activity.

For reasons I still don't understand, I was invited to a tailgate party at the Chancellor's house. I used to be on a committee where I was invited to such things routinely, but it has been a couple of years. I do know this interim Chancellor a bit, and so does Rich, so I told the Chancellor that Rich said hi, and he was all, "Blast from the past!" because they worked together years ago. Somehow whoever was printing the name tags got our first and last names out of sequence, so Travalon was "Ashantii" and I had my middle name as my first name. That was pretty funny - I was ahead of two women in line for food where one had the other's correct first name. Travalon had not previously enjoyed these parties full of stuffy people, but this time we sat at a table by ourselves and then were joined by just about all the people at the party who weren't lily-white (excepting the Chancellor), and they were so much fun. We talked about sports a lot. Oh yeah, we got to park at the University Foundation building, and there was a shuttle from there to the Chancellor's house, but it's just a couple of blocks so we walked there with a very friendly woman who speculated that we were all invited because we have donated money, but it's not like I've ever donated an enormous amount. Years ago I did donate one grand to the Early Music Festival, but that was like two decades ago. After the party, we walked back to the car while everyone else walked to the football game. 

We went back downtown, where Tiffy and Rich had just finished having dinner, and we bid adieu to Rich and went to our fourth activity, the annual party thrown by the Brazilian drumming collective. There was a ton of food there, but we weren't hungry at all. We listened to some Brazilian music and talked to a couple of the women from the pagode group I'm in, then the samba group led us all down the hill to the giant bonfire. The groove is so infectious that I couldn't stop dancing (not very well) to it. They just kept playing and playing, so we headed up the hill. Here's a photo of the bonfire and the tiki torches leading to it.

As we were leaving, we could see the trees being lit up different colors. There was a whole schedule of bands playing, and an open pagode jam that I missed, and I knew from last year that eventually the samba group would lead everyone back up the hill again, but many people at this party were far younger than we are, and some were camping there, so of course they can keep partying late into the night. Even as we were leaving, people were arriving. I'm sure they are still partying now, and will be for hours. Two hours of it was enough for us. Tiffy really enjoyed our crazy day, and I think Travalon did too, although at times he felt quite under the weather. (It seemed to come and go.) I told him we can have a very lazy day tomorrow. In fact, I'm not even sure if I can get to band practice, since tons of roads will be closed for the Iron Man Triathlon. Tiffy will be at her sister's lake house on Lake Kegonsa, so she will avoid all this insanity. She was amused by the planning I did for today: two different T-shirts (a Greece one for Greek Fest and a Badger one for the tailgate), the parking pass for the Foundation parking lot, and the two passes for North Side Fest. It all went smoothly, so my planning paid off. Who knew partying could be so much work?

Famous Hat

Jilly Moose's Landmark Birthday Party

 

Sorry for the long silence. Thursday I worked on campus and then had a Union meeting. Travalon picked me up, and then we went to St. Charles Station for their corn meal. The first course was elote, or street corn, then the next was corn chowder, then the biggest pork chop I'd ever seen with corn and mashed potatoes and greens, and then a corn cake for dessert with horchata whipped cream. Travalon just got the street corn and his favorite shrimp and grits, but he helped me eat all the other courses, and we brought most of the pork chop and some of the dessert home.

Friday I worked from home, then Travalon and I went to Breese Stevens Field to see Weird Al Yankovic. It was just as entertaining as you'd imagine, with lots of costume changes and a polka medley of recent hits and even some songs I'd forgotten about, like "Word Crimes." I loved the start with a power point song using business buzzwords, and the encore was a song about Star Wars set to "American Pie," followed by another song about Star Wars (Yoda, specifically) set to "Lola." So much fun!

Yesterday Travalon and I walked on Governor's Island, then we ran to the co-op, and that reminded us that the North Side Festival was going on, so we checked it out. We got gift bags with coffee and hot chocolate (yay!) and big jars of sauerkraut (huh?), and other random stuff like lip balm and, very helpfully, a can of sparkling water. We couldn't find the stand with the amazing lamb kebabs, but we found another one with beef and shrimp kebabs, and we already had a beverage. We bought a little stuffed guinea pig for us and a tie-dyed T-shirt for me. Then we drove to a farm outside of Verona for the Brazilian party, because I'd gotten an email saying the bluegrass band some of them play in would be playing at three. That turned out to be not completely true (or true at all), but they did start playing before 4:30. Not too many people were there at first, and Travalon wondered how they all knew that the email wasn't totally accurate.

We had to head back to Madison for my work picnic, where we sat by ourselves and only my former boss and one faculty member and her husband and very fluffy dog really interacted with us. None of the other support staff ever come, and I feel very awkward there, but my (former) boss begged me to come. For some reason our chair thinks we should name the new fridge arriving for the break room on our floor on Wednesday, since they named the fridge on the Slavic floor after him, so I suggested Nat King Cool, and Travalon suggested Rita Coolfridge. It's really supposed to be a contest for the grad students, but this has inspired us to name our own relatively new fridge Calvin Coolfridge. 

After we felt like we'd put in a sufficient amount of time (around an hour) at the work picnic, Travalon and I headed back to the Brazilian party, where we hung out with the woman from my class mentioned previously on this blog who looks like she could survive three years in the wilderness, and her equally rugged husband. I wasn't far off, because they are wild animal rehabilitators, and she has had a fascinating life sailing on a research yacht north of the Arctic Circle, among other things. I was still full from the work picnic, and Travalon had to wait several hours to eat again because of an antibiotic, so we just watched the Brazilian dancers in a barn and listened to the steel drum band. The other student and I tried to swing on a tire swing when the children at the party tired of it, but we couldn't get it to spin like they did, so my buddy tried something that caused us both to fall off, but in a funny way, not like a dangerous way. We gave up, and besides it was close to the time that the Brazilian drums were going to lead us down to the beautiful, enormous bonfire.

We enjoyed it for a little bit, but it was VERY hot near the bonfire, so Travalon and I went back up the hill to the barn and finally tried some of the food everyone had brought. Then the Brazilian drums came back up the hill and performed right in front of us. My buddy and her husband had to leave because today they were collecting wild rice in Rhinelander, but Travalon and I stayed to hear a few songs by the bar samba band we often listen to... and really, the entire reason we were there, because it was when I asked the guy playing the little instrument that looks like a ukulele about it, he told me about taking the drumming lessons, which seem to come with lots of parties. It was late, so we didn't stay for their whole set, and the party was scheduled to go on to at least midnight, but we're old and decided 10:30 was a reasonable time to leave.

This morning we had to rush from Mass on the far east side of town to the house where Jilly Moose's landmark birthday party was being held in the shady yard. Lots of people were there, including her parents, some Night Prayer regulars, Rich, Kathbert, Cecil Markovitch, R-Van the Terrible, and the Dairyman's Daughter came late because she'd been out of town most of the weekend. The only scheduled event was telling a memory about Jilly Moose, so I said we'd invented a dance called the Extraterrestrial: "Toe! Knee! Togo! Togo! Togo!" Then everyone asked for a demonstration. Rich, Kathbert, and I played a rousing game of horse shoes, and I think I won, but not one of us got the horse shoe around the post. That was after lunch, and our game was interrupted when we sang "Happy Birthday" to the birthday girl and then all had cake. There was leftover ice cream, so I made "affogatos" for Travalon and me by putting ice cream in cups and pouring the canned cold brew coffee over it. Jilly Moose got some fun cards and presents, but we had already given her the present of a Betty Lou Cruise. Alas, they are no more... at least for now. I keep hoping Captain Rob will buy the boats and start them up again.

In the evening, on the way to band practice, we saw this sunset:

Our fearless leader couldn't be there, but the rest of us were there. The bass player hadn't brought her bass, only her fiddle, and she had even sent me an email saying bring my fiddle, but she sent it to my work email so of course I didn't see it. (I don't check that on weekends!) I brought the mandolin, so I played chords, and our bass player played piano some of the time. It was so much fun! The fiddler who hosted us has a three-year-old boy who is adorable, and he happily tooted his "piano horn" alongside us. His mom says he looks forward to our visits all week. Nothing like having a fan club!

I have some exciting DuoLingo news:

And also:

Tomorrow I will hit a really big landmark, so stay tuned for that.

Famous Hat

Ecumenical Sunday

I hope my readers had a good weekend. Travalon had caught my cold, and I was still under the weather myself, so we just went to a nearby place called Murphy’s for fish fry on Friday evening and then stayed home the rest of the evening. Saturday we also had a quiet day; I was supposed to play with my band at the orchard where we played a few weeks back, but I stayed home and napped. In the evening Handy Woman had a few people over for a bonfire, so that was fun.

Sunday was the adventurous day this past weekend, because we were both feeling peppier. After Mass we went to a little Lutheran church in our neighborhood for their Fall Fest, which was free lunch (we weren’t expecting the food to be free!) and then games. We were going to play Bingo outside, but it was getting colder, and the game wasn’t starting, and I really wanted to play Bible Trivia. When a woman came to announce there was plenty of room in Bible Trivia, Travalon and I gave up on Bingo and went to play that instead. And guess what? I won first place and we both got cash prizes! I feel bad for the Lutheran church because they were probably hoping to recruit people, and everyone in the trivia game seemed to be something other than Lutheran, but they did spread some good will. We went home and got Rodney, then we walked around Tiedemann Pond, and then we went to yet another church for the St. Francis Blessing of the Animals – St. Dunstan’s Episcopal. There were about eight real dogs there, and three cats, and lots of stuffed animals. In the backyard they have a labyrinth, so after the service I did that. Then we drove to Holy Wisdom Monastery and walked on their trails to a pond that appears to be called Lost Lake, judging from the worn map we found after our walk. In the evening Rich came over to put up my old plant lights in the plant room, since there isn’t much sun in there after the equinox, but he needs to come back with a stud finder to succeed in this venture. The three of us had pizza, and we read him the Bible Trivia questions – he did very well, of course. It’s debatable whether he got one more question wrong than I did, because it really depends on which Bible you are using, a Protestant or a Catholic one. The question was about the last book of the Old Testament. (I figured it was some minor prophet and guessed Malachi, and I was right, but he was right about 2 Maccabees too.) The questions we both missed had some sports or local element to them that we didn’t know, like what is the number of books in the New Testament times the number of times some team won the tournament. (It was a trick question, because they had never won.) Rich told us a local Catholic church actually did the Blessing of the Animals, but we hadn’t found that in an online search. Oh well, we had a fun ecumenical day. 

Famous Hat

Fairy Tale Cupcake Weekend

Friday night I went to a Cajun jam session with Hardingfele, Mr. Hardingfele, and Rockstar Tailor. The jam was in a small town nearby, and their town festival was prominently advertised, but we could not find it anywhere. How, I ask you, are they able to hide an entire festival in a tiny little town?

Saturday Rich got two things off his Bucket List: going to Alaska and eating at the Peruvian restaurant near his house. In the evening a bunch of us went to a bonfire at a county park, and Rich was so tired from his Alaska trip that he fell asleep in front of the fire. Meanwhile, the fire tender had run off to the latrine, and the rest of us had gone up the hill to the chapel and scenic overlook, and a couple of us were playing the violin. Just then Luxuli and her husband arrived at the bonfire, and he was not impressed by the party: one guy asleep in front of the fire? What a happening Saturday night! But they could hear us playing the violin, so they came up the hill too and found the real party.

Sunday my ladies in the Hubby Hunters and I went for a walk as we prayed the rosary, since it was such a beautiful day. (OK Cap did not join us because she had broken her hand. Get better soon, OK Cap!) Then we went to a nearby cupcake shop and sat outside at a bright pink table while eating our huge cupcakes that were practically more frosting than cake. Luxuli said, “I feel like I’m living in a fairy tale!”

Rich’s rose has finally bloomed, and it is white or maybe very pale shell pink. Anyway, it is beautiful. The corn Hardingfele gave me has sprouted, but not the carrots, squash, or pumpkins. All the lilies have buds on them so hopefully very soon I will have some spectacular photos to post here. Meanwhile you will have to make do with the second best photo ever taken of me:

Actually, this is the third best, but I am afraid to post the second best one since it involves a weapon.
 
Famous Hat

Flashback Weekend

I had a very busy weekend. Friday night I practiced for a gig tomorrow with the hardcore Mideastern band, then Saturday I went to the Farmer's Market and saw a friend I hadn't seen in several weeks, with her toddler son I hadn't seen since he was a little baby. As we were talking, a friend I hadn't seen in over a year came up and said hi, so we started talking, and THEN a person I hadn't seen since high school said, "Are you... Famous Hat?" Was that ever random! Especially since I don't live all that close to where I attended high school.

In the afternoon I went to a party hosted by a woman with purple hair and tattoos who raises bees, and there I ran into several people I hadn't seen since my days in the Medieval recreation society! It was just a "Blast from the Past" kind of day. In the evening I went to a bonfire at a county park, where we played "Telephone Pictionary" while the light was still good, and then when it got dark one guy threw copper pipes with pieces of rubber hose in them into the fire, which then burned all sorts of colors, teal and violet and green and red and blue as well as basic orange. It was so beautiful! One guy made a film of it, and I asked him to email it to me, but so far he hasn't so I can't post it here for your viewing pleasure.

Yesterday I spent the whole day in Milwaukee. First Ethel was getting her fifth rugrat dunked, and a baptism is always a big deal with her clan, so they had a big party with tons of food and piñatas for the kids. After the kids bashed the piñatas open, they put the pieces over their heads and ran around pretending to be space aliens. Ethel is the youngest of nine herself, so there were plenty of nieces and nephews of various ages around, and I played sheepshead with some of the older ones and various other relatives of hers. Then I headed to a breathtaking chapel in a Catholic convent, where oddly enough the Lutheran Association of something (church musicians? ministers?) had the opening liturgy for their conference. They had invited my OTHER choir to sing there. The only odd parts of the liturgy were the ribbons on a stick that one woman waved as she processed up the aisle, and the sermon. The woman minister was talking about how she saw a man holding a sign that said: "Homeless and hungry," and when he looked into her eyes as she waited in her car at a stoplight, she said, "I realized he was free and I was trapped." Liberal guilt that does not result in action does not appeal to me at all; when she then just drove away, I decided I'd had enough of her sermon and wandered off until it was over. After all, if she really thought he had it better than she did, why didn't she offer him her car and then she could have taken the sign? Because she knew he did NOT have it better than she did, that's why. I could only imagine that if they had changed places, maybe his sermon would have been much more entertaining!

Speaking of my OTHER choir director, a couple of years ago he had us sing "Which Was the Son of..." by Arvo Pärt for the All Saints' Day vigil service. I can't help wondering if someone said to Pärt, "Yo, Arvo! Bet you can't take the most boring passage of Scripture and set it to music that will move the listener!" If such a bet did take place, that buddy of his lost. The words are just the geneology of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, but the music is incredibly beautiful, and by the time we got to the end, "... which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God," we were practially in tears. And what has that got to do with the price of tea in China? you are surely wondering. Two of the names in the aforementioned geneology are Arphaxad (the grandson of Noah, the famous ark builder) and Amminadab, and that is where my fish got their names.

By the way, Minnie and Max are no longer looking for a permanent home. My officemate's mother decided to keep them herself.

Famous Hat