Dane Dance in Tie-Dye

 

Today I worked from home and, as usual for a Friday, I did a load of laundry and threw it in the dryer. The dryer abruptly stopped working, so I loaded the wet stuff into a garbage bag and figured I'd have to spend my lunch break at the laundromat... and then the garbage bag broke. I texted my neighbors in desperation, and one let me bring my stuff to her place. I even sat working at her table while she checked on the laundry and then folded it for me. So thoughtful! 

In the evening I met my former neighbor, and we went to the Monona Terrace for the Dane Dance. We both wore tie-dye.

We sat in the cafe eating dinner during the first band, a really good funk band I'd never heard of before, and I can't remember their name now. Then we went to the main part to hear the second band, a salsa band, and there was a beautiful moonrise.

When I got home, I went for a long rosary walk, since I hadn't been able to at lunch, and I did some adulting, putting the clean sheets on the bed and refilling the hummingbird feeder. They sure sucked it dry fast! In July they barely touched it.

Here is some more train graffiti from Travalon's videos.

Travalon is with his buddy from Japan right now. They took the ferry over to Michigan, and he said it was great. I expect he'll have lots of photos for me to post when he gets back.

Famous Hat

Travalon's Train Day

 

I forgot to mention that Monday night after Moldy Jam, Travalon and I took a walk and I saw a meteor. The big shower was last week and I forgot to look, although I heard it was too cloudy to see much. Then yesterday on the way home I saw a faint rainbow.

Today I worked on campus and walked with Seabird over lunch. She was also very enamored of my teal Aer Lingus hat with the lime green shamrocks. It's such a beautiful hat - I'm so happy that those ladies were willing to give them to us. Maybe they saw I was wearing a hat already and figured I'd actually wear it. It did seem like a lot of people were just carrying the hats around, or had them stuffed into bags.

In the evening Travalon picked me up from work, and we drove to Cross Plains to hear the Daughter of Denni and her band play at a farmer's market. We chatted amicably with the Widow of Denni while listening to them and being puzzled that they had set up umbrellas so everyone on stage got shade except the Daughter of Denni, who hates temperatures above 60 F. Seems like they could have moved one over a bit... There was a food cart, so we got dinner, and someone was selling "buckeye" cookies that were chocolate with peanut butter on top. So delicious!

On Saturday while I was at Irish Fest, Travalon had a train adventure. He started at the Portage rail yard and saw one CSX train. Then he stopped in Columbus but did not see a train there. He went to Slinger and saw a Canadian National train, then he went to Duplainville and saw two AmTrak trains and two Canadian National trains. He stopped in Pewaukee but didn't see a train there, and no trains in Oconomowoc, but in Watertown he saw a train after dark. He topped his day off with a Key lime martini at the North Side Lounge back in Madison. Here are some photos of the graffiti he saw. Actually, this first batch is from Thursday night at the Portage rail yard and the one in town.

Sorry, Blogspot has abruptly decided that is enough photos for one post, so I'll have to do more tomorrow. There are also lots of great screenshots I can get from his videos, so stay tuned!

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Irish Fest Opening Night 2026

 

It's hard to say if I'll be able to blog for the next few days. I have a few minutes to blog this morning about yesterday. I worked from home in the morning, then my Shamrock Club buddy came and picked me up, and we drove to County Clare, an Irish-themed hotel and restaurant in Milwaukee. From there you can take their shuttle or The Hop to Irish Fest, so we chose the free shuttle. (Both are free, but the shuttle gets you right there.) That all worked smoothly, but then once we got off the shuttle, we went the wrong direction and were wondering why everyone else was wearing a black heavy metal concert T-shirt instead of green. At least someone appreciated my Irish Grateful Dead shirt. We got to a sign that said VIP to the left and regular admission to the right, so we went to the VIP one but were told it was a different kind of VIP, so we went to regular admission... and it was for a rock concert! We had to go all the way back to where we'd started and then a bit further to find the entrance to Irish Fest. My buddy had forgotten to get school supplies, but I had gotten a whole bunch of stuff at the Dollar Store, so I gave her the pencils and pencil sharpener, and I donated the erasers and pencil box, so we both got in free. Then we found the VIP lounge we had paid for, which has an excellent view of the main stage and also the sunset.

They gave us two guitar picks we could use to get free drinks, so my buddy got a drink, but when I asked for water they said they were all out of bottled water, so they gave me a glass of it from the tap, and I didn't have to give them a pick. We also got free snacks, then we looked into food options. When we did a search for "healthy" as a choice, check out what came up:

We laughed so hard! There were options for gluten free, so my buddy found some Irish stew, while I had a very glutinous chicken pie. We went shopping, and here is the swag I got:

The puffin seems to be their theme this year. I don't recall seeing puffins in Ireland; I did see tons of them in Alaska. I named this one Seamus, which is pronounced SHAY-mus, which is Irish for James. The hat - I don't need another hat, and I've been saving my points from giving blood to get a knit cap from the Red Cross in January, but I just loved the color of this one so much. Plus I have that money from the research study on aging to play with.

We saw two bands, and the second one, a trad all-women band from Ireland called BIIRD, were so good.

Here we are.

My buddy had to work at seven this morning, so we had to leave before BIIRD were done playing. We got to the shuttle pick-up spot just as it was about to leave, so our timing was perfect, and the ride home was very smooth. (There was a lot of traffic on the way there.) I drove, and my buddy had come to my place. Today I will go to her place, and she will drive, then we're staying in a hotel the next couple of nights - the very hotel where Travalon used to work when he and I first met! Crazy, hey? I will bring Boethius my computer in case I get a chance to blog at the hotel, but we may have late nights, and it might be Monday before you hear from me again.

Famous Hat