A Birthday Party and a Scary Ride Home

 

Yesterday Travalon went to his hometown to hang out with high school buddies, so I relaxed around the house and then went on walks with Jilly Moose on Governor's Island and by the bluff before she had to leave for work. Eventually I went to Rich's house and swept his floor before the birthday party for the Dairyman's Daughter. The guest of honor brought squeaky cheese curds, Cecil Markovitch brought his "smelly" (not "stinky") spinach salad, R Van the Terrible and my OTHER choir director brought wine, Luxuli brought Italian bread and bang-bang shrimp, Kathbert brought ice cream, the Single B-Boy brought himself, and I brought two kinds of vegetarian ravioli, whole-wheat spinach and feta, and four cheese. Rich made pork roast, grilled vegetables, and of course the Black Magic cake. The coffee ice cream went so well with it; there was also butter brickle, but I didn't try that. The Dairyman's Daughter got cards (but not from me - I forgot to find a good cat one) and a bottle of wine. Prairie Man came a little later, and then Hockey Girl came later still, bearing blackberries and strawberries. After most people had left, Prairie Man gave Kathbert and me some puzzlers to solve, and I was scaring them with how fast I was solving them. For example, Prairie Man said, "Think of a state capital, remove the first two letters, and rearrange the rest of the letters to spell something you find on the coast." Before Kathbert could even process those instructions, I said, "It has to be a long one, so Tallahassee? Oh yeah, if you remove the TA, you can spell seashell." There was another one where you took the first name of an old movie star and switched the second and third letters to make a color, and then you changed one letter of the last name to make another color. I said, "The first name must be Gary because that would be gray, but who was an old movie star named Gary?" Kathbert said, "Gary Cooper," and I said, "Oh yeah, copper!" I wasn't any help at all on one where it was a two-word phrase for something you take camping, the first word seven letters and the second five letters, and all the consonants are in alphabetical order, but between the two of them they figured out Coleman Stove. Then Kathbert and I started talking about music, and I guess we got too nerdy because Prairie Man left. By then Rich was done with Night Prayer, so the three of us cleaned up.

Today Travalon and I were a little late to Mass because the road we usually take was suddenly closed for road construction, so we had to find a way around it. We took a walk at Pheasant Branch and ran into the Married B-Boy and Mo-Girl and their daughter, then we got octopus balls and refreshing drinks at Trio Ramen, and then we walked on Governor's Island before my Irish class. In the evening we met Cecil Markovitch at Fete de Marquette to see Marcia Ball, and Travalon and I got Jamaican food since they didn't really have any French food. It felt like a storm was coming. After eating, I went to check out a zydeco accordion player, but I heard thunder, and they said the show had been canceled due to weather. I checked my phone, and it said we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. I hurried back to Travalon and Cecil; Marcia Ball had stopped playing, and Cecil had already started biking home. Travalon and I had a long walk back to the car, but we made it before the rain started. When we were not too far from home, the rain really started coming down, and then it began hailing. The streets were flooding, so we tried to find a route home on higher ground... and then we came across a downed power line, so we had to turn around. We pulled over for a while and then figured out a good way to go, and then the rain had become a drizzle, so we had a calm ride the rest of the way home. When we got home, we saw a rainbow.

Here are some photos of our recent adventures. Travalon ordered a hat for me after the Panthers won the Stanley Cup.

It's never the wrong time for some DuoLingo bragging!

Here are some cute mushrooms Jilly Moose and I saw near the bluff.

And what is this thing that looks like a carrot on Governor's Island?

My black calla lily has two blooms and two buds.

There was a tiny frog on our front door when we came home tonight.

Jilly Moose sent me this photo of one of her moose tucked into bed.

And finally, here is the rainbow.

You can see that it was a bit of a double rainbow, and that it seemed to be landing in the marsh near our house. After our scary ride home, we went onto the porch to relax, and we could see it really well from there. It took half an hour to fade away.

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Frog on Stage

They say not to share the stage with animals or children, because they will always upstage you, but sometimes you don’t have a choice. Last night my band had a gig at the retirement home where one of our fiddlers lives. We had a goodly crowd come to hear us, including visitors, and I was surprised how many people from my OTHER choir were there. (Of course, now it is sort of my ex-choir, since I didn’t sing with them at all this past year.) Things were going well, and I thought we sounded particularly good, but I had a little stage fright over having to introduce rags and bluegrass. That went fine too – I just gave a summary of what I’d found on Wikipedia about each genre. We were in the middle of a rag when I saw something very small hopping across the stage. I looked more closely and saw it was a tiny frog! How did it get in? We were nowhere near an outside door – the stage is deep inside the building. I could tell my bandmates also saw it, but we just kept playing. Once the song was over, I announced, “We have a special guest on stage,” and a bunch of people in the audience laughed, so they must have seen the frog too. It hid under a guitar case, but when it came back out, an audience member who had fashioned her program into a kind of cone like what you’d get French fries in scooped up the frog and took it outside, and everyone cheered. We actually play a Norwegian song that translates to “Little Frogs,” but it wasn’t on the program, so unfortunately we did not pull it out. It would have been perfect! It’s a kids’ song about how little frogs have no ears or tails.

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Happy Vernal Equinox!

Remember when Rich and I went to Jerkns in my neighborhood? I'm not saying it's a chain, but across town there is a Jerkins, as you can see from this photo I took from my car. Coincidence??

Here is a picture I took of my Celtic cross blanket as I lay beneath it on St. Patrick's Day, suffering from a terrible cold.

Friday night Anna Banana II made a delicious St. Joseph's Day dinner for Rich, Kathbert, and me of cassoulet and a chocolate mint marscapone pie. Yum! Then Anna Banana II's roommate Jilly Moose came home from her job moonlighting at a card store. We had already had a bizarre conversation about Kathbert's job taking care of a robot, and how she had to take his head off to do some repairs to his insides, but things got truly surreal when Jilly Moose told us the card store now sells frogs. Yes, frogs. She said you get two frogs in an "ecoquarium" with spring water, colored rocks, and a stick of bamboo for $25. The frogs are guaranteed to both be males, so you won't have to worry about tadpoles, and they only eat on Tuesday and Saturday. I asked what they ate and she said little pellets, which Kathbert posited were compressed flies. We were all mind-boggled that the card store sells frogs, since it is more known for selling cards and things that smell good, so we wondered if they were potpourri frogs. And, I mean, if you were going to buy yourself a frog, would you really think to go to a card store to buy one?

Yesterday Richard Bonomo, Cecil Markovitch, Anna Banana II, the still-single B-Boy, Jilly Moose, and three Capricorns (one from Trinidad, one from Oklahoma, and I) went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at a museum in the nearest big city, then we went to a Mideastern restaurant where I drank four glasses of rose water lemonade - free refills. Cecil asked the waitress if there were free refills on vodka martinis, and I asked if they had decaf Arabic coffee, but surprisingly the answer to both questions was a "What?? NO!" We ladies were all in favor of smoking a hookah, but the men weren't, and they were the ones driving so they got to decide. I drove back home with Cecil and the Trinidadian Capricorn; we prayed a rosary and then listened to Robert Johnson wailing about walking beside the devil. When we got back home, Cecil gave me the purple-tinted Christmas cactus he didn't want anymore. Here is a picture of it with my other Christmas cacti, which are blooming.

Here is a more close-up shot of the three blooming cacti.

Today we sang a gorgeous piece by Schein in the OTHER church choir, then Kathbert, Rich, and I went for a walk in the woods to celebrate the vernal equinox/JS Bach's birthday. Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Famous Hat in the Sun

Skunk Cabbages

We hiked for quite awhile, until Kathbert said she was hungry and I had to, you know, powder my nose. Why is it always when you have to go that everything looks like a toilet?

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A Memorable Memorial Day Weekend

Did you have a good Memorial Day weekend? Mine was wonderful! On Friday Anna Banana II and I went down to the lake to hear a Cajun band play, and a group of folk dancers were doing the two-step and the waltz to their music. It was a gorgeous evening. Then Rich and I went to the new Star Trek movie at midnight, and I knew it would throw my schedule off a little, but I didn't expect to sleep until dinnertime on Saturday! All I got accomplished that day was making the fondant for a frog cake for Cecil Markovitch using the recipe my coworker gave me for marshmallow fondant. My results were not nearly as professional-looking as hers, but Cecil seemed pleased anyhow. If you look closely, you should see not only two frogs (and a third being eaten by a snake) and two lily pads with flowers, but also a pineapple, a crab, and a penny sitting on a lily pad. The penny is in honor of Richard Bonomo and the penny birthday cake I made him earlier this year. The pineapple is a joke, because Cecil Markovitch HATES pineapples! (One of the B-Boys actually gave him a REAL pineapple!) Then I had some leftover brown fondant, so I made the little crab in honor of my OTHER choir director, who was hosting the birthday party, and also one of the B-Boys, the newlywed one, because their birthdays are at the end of next month, a day apart. (So they're Cancer the Crab, see.) Anyway, it seemed like something relevant to add to Frogs' Night Out, and what else was I going to do with some leftover brown fondant? These photos were all taken on Kathbert's cell phone.

Figure 1: Frog's Night Out (top view)



Figure 2: Frogs' Night Out (view of snake eating frog)
This theme was suggested by my OTHER choir director,
who saw a snake swallowing a frog on a TV show.


Figure 3: Frogs' Night Out (another view of snake eating frog)

Sunday after Mass a bunch of us went to brunch to celebrate the birthday of my Archirritant's ex-husband, then I went home and baked a Black Magic cake to put my fondant creations on. Cecil Markovitch's birthday party was on my OTHER choir director's pier; in attendance were Rich, Kathbert, Antoshka, both B-Boys (but not Mo-Girl, who was having a Girls' Night In), A-Fooze and El Fiance, Anna Banana II, and of course the host, the guest of honor, and me. We ordered pizza, and Cecil brought spinach salad, Anna Banana II brought hummus and veggies, the B-Boy who just returned from his Hawaiian honeymoon brought some kind of Hawaiian treats made of macadamia nuts and sesame seeds, and A-Fooze made Hungarian crepes that she calls "polichenta." (I have no idea how to spell that.) She made some filled with apricots and others filled with lingonberry jam in honor of the host. (Like me, she is from temperate climes but feels tropical at heart, loving bright colors and warm weather and Latin music.) Frogs' Night Out was a big hit, but most people didn't care for the fondant, which tastes like Peeps. Cecil did eat the little fondant pineapple and declared it was the best pineapple he had ever eaten. The rest of us demolished the real pineapple the B-Boy had given him for a joke.

Then yesterday I met T at her sister's lake house. T's niece's alter ego, the Evil Cherry Mouse, calls her Tiffy, so I said I was going to call her that on my blog from now on, and she said that was fine. We played games in the yard with her nieces and their friends, then her brother-in-law took us for a ride in the speedboat; Tiffy's nieces and their friend Little Mighty went tubing while the youngest girls sat watching them and Tiffy and I sat up front. Then we all colored cardboard fashion dolls and gave them names like Topaz Tanzanite, Paris France, Delaney Downhillski, Chloe Madskillz, and Kilarney Kilbride. (Tiffy's older niece was almost named Kilarney because her parents went to Ireland when they were expecting her.) After dinner Evil Cherry Mouse's alter ego, Tiffy's mild-mannered niece, and her friend Little Mighty wanted to go canoeing but they had to have an "adult" in the canoe with them so I agreed to go. I felt like Cleopatra in her barge as they paddled me along! We saw lots of carp, baby ducklings, a heron, and a tree with roots that looked like a skull. Then it started to rain so Tiffy's older niece hollered for us to come back in for do-it-yourself sundaes. Mmm!

This morning when my alarm went off, I could barely get up. In fact, I fell asleep briefly and dreamed I lived at Our Lady of Perpetual Sobriety and that they were having Mass at 6:30 am to accommodate some girls who wanted to attend a movie at 5:15 pm, when they usually have daily Mass. The celebrant was a priest we used to have who returned to Nigeria years ago. Then I woke up and wondered what that was about!

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You Seder Mater, I Seder Matter

Today's Lenten reflection is on the Eucharist and its connection to Passover. Last night I went to a Christian seder at a neighborhood Catholic church, and the connection between the Passover Seder and the Christian Mass couldn't have been clearer. In the seder, we commemorate the blood of a lamb saving the nation of Israel; in the Mass, we commemorate the blood of the Lamb saving the whole world. At the seder, the father of the family holds up the matzo and breaks it; at the Mass, the priest holds up the host (which is made of unleavened bread) and breaks it.

This is the second Christian seder I've been to, and both times I had an unfortunate fit of "the giggles," which has (thankfully!) never plagued me during the Mass. The first time we were reading from a book typed up by a woman whose fiance was in medical school. He dictated the word "period" wherever he wanted her to put one, but in one case she accidentally typed the word "period," which would not have been SO bad, except it was at the end of the line of a psalm that said: "And death is not the end." Period. Last night I had trouble keeping a straight face as we were dropping wine onto our plates for each plague, and as the "father" recited each one, we intoned it like a bunch of zombies after him. When we got to "frogs," I had to fight not to burst into laughter. Partly it's just the sound of the word (imagine a bunch of zombies droning "frogs") and partly it's the concept. I mean, no wonder Pharoah wouldn't let Moses's people go free! What the heck would a "plague of frogs" entail? "Gosh, Joseph, there sure are a lot of frogs around lately." AND....? Most of the other plagues sound awful, but FROGS? They don't bite, they don't eat crops, and they're frankly kind of cute.

The other moment when I almost burst into helpless laughter last night was when they told us about the dessert; they said, "This cake is thousands of years old. It symbolizes the bricks the Israeli slaves used to build in Egypt." Anna Banana II and I just exchanged a glance. If the cake was that old, it wasn't just a SYMBOL of a brick anymore! Of course what they meant was that the TYPE of cake was thousands of years old, but that's not what they said... I said to Anna Banana II, "I wonder if we could get a more recent piece of cake... like one baked within the last couple of days!" But I will say that the cake was delicious, a dense honey cake.

Friday night Cecil Markovitch declared it was "Lutherans' Night Out," but Kathbert wouldn't come with us to the fish fry, so it was "Lutheran's Night Out" since my OTHER choir director was the only Lutheran there. Cecil said his favorite Lutheran joke was: "What do you call Lutherans from Duluth? Dulutherans!" and I wondered what the jokes were like that didn't make the cut! Then we got in this crazy conversation about the Lutheran's nice nursing nurse niece. Rich Bonomo, Anna Banana II, A-Fooze, and the B-Boys were among the others at Lutheran's Night Out. (We have to miss Frog's Night Out - no joke - because it is inconveniently scheduled for Maundy Thursday.)

Saturday morning my acoustic band had a gig at a nature center to celebrate maple sugar. Afterwards we went to the little zoo they have there, of native animals, and on the way back some brain trust was walking backwards up the path, and as I swerved to avoid him, I tripped and twisted my right ankle (the one I've sprained twice) and then landed on my left knee (the one that was still bruised from skiing last weekend). And that is why I did not do any training for the triathlon this weekend!

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