Pagode Halloween Party

 

Today I worked from home, but Travalon and I didn't have time to do anything more at lunch than walk in the neighborhood because he met the buddy we hiked with during the pandemic to talk about trains. In the evening he met Cecil Markovitch, the Single B-Boy, and Prairie Man for a guys' night out at Quivey's Grove, while I went to the women's pagode group again. Because tomorrow is Halloween, we were encouraged to wear costumes and/or bring treats, but of course I forgot to do either. It hardly mattered, because other ladies brought tons of treats - I ate so much sugar! The leader wore a spider hat, and one woman came in a unicorn onesie with her two kids, who were also dressed up. The younger one was a boy, but he didn't seem to mind being the only male in the room. We had so much fun jamming - I love hanging out with these ladies! Some are my age, and some are a lot younger, and some are in between. One woman played the cavaquinho while others sang. I tried to sing too but then lost the rhythm, so I just stuck to playing the repique, which is a mid-sized drum. I didn't get to play the bigger drums tonight, but that's okay, I enjoyed the repique. It's so much fun to see how the different rhythms for each instrument fit together.

As promised, here are photos Travalon took of train graffiti in Portage yesterday. Some of these are ones we saw in Madison earlier.

Okay, so some of these are engines, not cars with graffiti. It's all good.

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Shamrock Club Board Meeting

 

I forgot to mention something that happened last night: as we were FaceTiming with Tiffy while watching the post-game gloating, she said Contreras would be chosen as MVP - and he was! Then they asked him what he had to say about the Brewers' victory, and Tiffy said, "I have no words," just before he said, "No tengo palabras." I said, "Wow, how did you know?" but it turns out we were on a bit of a delay, so she heard him say it before she said it. I said she should have worked with what I was giving her and just been like, "Yes, I can foresee the future!"

Today I did work on campus, but as the day wore on I felt achy and tired - from the shot, I suppose.  I walked with Hardingfele at lunchtime, and she said we were going excruciatingly slowly, but my FitBit said I was getting a good workout. The big announcement at the meeting after lunch was that they are laying off the woman who is the head of all the FARTs, which seems crazy because she's the only bigwig who obviously does work. When we demanded to know who would do her work, they said they would hire some people to do it at less pay, but if they hire more of them, won't they end up spending more money? This whole thing seems nuts to me. This woman knows everything, so you can go to her with any question. How are they going to replace her with a bunch of flunkies?

After work I went to the Shamrock Club board meeting at the Hop Haus, and Travalon met us there, even though he wasn't very interested in the meeting. I thought it was interesting. We discussed the ceili, and if we'll do it next year, and some other upcoming events. The Packers game was on, then when we came home, we watched the rest of it. They beat the Panthers, but it was a weird game. They ran out the clock at the end instead of trying to score again.

Travalon has some photos from his hike yesterday in Lodi and his hike today in Portage. Here are some photos from Lodi.

And here are some photos from Portage.

He also took some photos of train graffiti, including some we've seen before in Madison, but this post is already too long so look for those on an upcoming post.

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Brew Crew Win the World Series!!

 

Today Seabird and I walked along the Lakeshore Path to get our shots. I got both my flu shot and my COVID shot, and then I went over to where there were some students with a wheel you could spin. They gave us these great squeezy toys.

I think maybe it's a corona virus? And check it out - you can push the little bumps in!

And then when you squeeze it, the little bumps pop out! It's kind of like bubble wrap, only the bubbles never get ruined. When we got back to our building, a woman in the elevator asked about them and said, "I got my shots last week and didn't get a toy!" Then I showed it to one of our faculty members, and she said the same thing. Then I went up to the FART 5 office, and another colleague said the same thing. Guess our timing was just good!

I hung out in the FART 5 office quite a while, and it turns out three of us are Cubs fans, so we were reminiscing about our team winning it all ten years ago. I did get some work done up there, but we also had a good time. However, we were all a bit concerned about an email our boss sent us about an important announcement to be made at tomorrow's all-FART meeting. As one colleague said, "There are no good announcements." Of course we speculated about what it was, like are we all losing our jobs? So I said maybe they're going to make us all work for a Russian bot farm, and another colleague said, "They need one," since the Ukrainians blew up their main one. Slava Ukraini! It's really cut down on the political garbage on the internet.

I did bring my work computer home in case tomorrow I'm feeling these shots and have to work from home. Then Travalon and I watched the Brewers. He was so excited about my team winning ten years ago, and I was very excited for his team to win, but he really needed to talk to Tiffy. She's on a work trip in another state where nobody cares, so she was happy to talk to people who did care. At least for those of us in Wisconsin, everyone else will be groggy tomorrow too, but she will be with people who can't understand why she's sleep-deprived. 

Travalon went hiking in Lodi today. It's too late to put the photos on tonight, but watch for them tomorrow.

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Maple Bluff and Choro

 

Today I worked from home, and Travalon and I took a walk on Governor's Island and then drove through Maple Bluff on my lunch hour. Here are some photos. These are from Governor's Island.

These are from Maple Bluff. I hadn't brought my sunglasses, and the sun came out, so I put on the ones in the glove compartment that used to belong to my mother-in-law. They make things kind of golden, so they really bring out the yellows and reds. My view of the foliage was amazing!

After work I went to choro practice, and we are really starting to learn these tunes. However, when the young guy I recruited from Irish fiddling left because he had two hours left to turn in an assignment, my confidence waned a bit. We had two new people today, a guy on mandolin and another on guitar, and the new mandolin player packed it in early. Maybe he just had to leave, or maybe he gave up. Sometimes people show up once and never come again, but sometimes it's because they're from somewhere far away, like the time those two guys who played on cruise ships were roadtripping across the country and stopped in. That was a really fun session.

Now the World Series game is going into the bottom of the 11th inning. If the Brewers can pull this one off, they will win the World Series for the first time ever. Travalon was so happy when my team won ten years ago, and I will be very happy if his team wins.

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