Merganser Monday

 

First of all, congratulations to the Hoosiers on their perfect season and college football championship.

Today was so, so cold out. We had a relaxed morning; I meant to do some more plant care and cleaning, but instead I wrote to Mariah and screwed around on social media. Eventually Travalon and I did venture out to Sauk to see eagles; we saw a few eagles flying around, but mostly what we saw were mergansers. These are mostly common mergansers, and the white ones with black heads and red bills are males, while the gray ones with reddish-brown heads and perky crests are females.

In the following picture, it looks like a male goldeneye is pursuing a female merganser.

I don't know what these little birds on the phone line are, but they are cute.

Wait, what? There are still mallards around too? 

This looks like it could be a male red-breasted merganser, but it's hard to tell. It could be a female common merganser.

This guy is like, "I am outta here!"

And he's gone!

We stopped by Pheasant Branch to see if we could find the eagles' nest, but you must have to get out of the car to see it, and we were too cold. We did see three very cute deer up close, in someone's yard, and Travalon said if the deer were in his yard, he'd invite them in for some corn when it's so cold out.

Then we came home and I had an edible we had gotten in Galena, so a while ago but it didn't expire until this coming April. I remember taking a whole one and being way too stoned, and then I saw that it said to cut it in half. Why is this my problem? Why not just make two small ones instead of one big one? But I did their work for them for no pay, and... it seemed just as potent. Time slowed down, but music was amazing. I could hear each part of the music distinctly, and the lyrics seemed to stand out more. While in this state, I wrote another story in my story prompt journal, using the prompt, "The best thing that ever happened":

"The best thing that ever happened was that God became man and then died for our sins. That story has already been written by four other guys, maybe you've heard of them? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That's a lot of perspectives, but do you know whose is missing? A woman's! And I was right there to see it all - no, not Mary Magdalene - me, Johanna. At least one of them mentioned me being right there under the cross. Yeah, I saw it all, and could I tell you stories! Hmm, no advance and 20% of net sales? Let me think about it. I'm not in any hurry, people have already waited two thousand years to hear my side of things, they can wait a few more months. Just think, I can answer all your questions about Jesus, like how tall he was, what color his eyes were, whether he had a favorite song - you know, the things men never seem to remember. Is his best friend of thirty years married? He thinks so, and he's pretty sure her name is Pam, or is that the girlfriend he got after the divorce, or was that his friend John he was thinking of...? They have no idea."

OK, so pretty sexist at the end there, and really just a stream of conscience blather, not a story, although you get the idea she's pitching it to a literary agent. Then I got sucked into watching the football game. Travalon really wanted Indiana to win, but he also wanted Miami to make it a game, and they did - they were just about to win by one point when the ball was intercepted. Which reminds me, Wolverhampton got their first and (so far) only win on my birthday. If I were the huge fan instead of Travalon, I'd say that was a birthday present for me. But I'm still a bit stoned even all these hours later, so maybe I'll wrap up this post before it becomes as stream-of-concience as my "story."

Famous Hat

Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl

 

I don't have much to say about my life the last couple of days; yesterday I worked on campus, and today I worked from home, and I had quiet evenings both days. But today social media is abuzz with something that makes me very happy: Bad Bunny will be the Super Bowl halftime performer this coming year. Now I am not a particular fan of Bad Bunny - I think he performs reggaeton, which is not my jam; anyway, it's not classic salsa. But ever since people got all weird and racist about Jennifer Lopez and Shakira performing in, I think, 2019, I have just despised all these racist bigots who carp about the Super Bowl halftime show when it's not one of their ancient white male rock idols. Last year they were complaining nonstop about Kendrick Lamar, and how they hated his show. You know what? You don't have to watch it. You can just turn off the TV. There's this contingent of old white guys who only want old white guys performing in the Super Bowl halftime show because apparently they aren't aware that most people watching the Super Bowl aren't as old or as white as they are. It reminds me of when Travalon and I were in Door County and took a boat ride out to Pilot Island, and the captain said he was going to play classic rock because "everyone" likes it. Since the people who like classic rock are overwhelmingly white and male (and older), I don't know what he means by "everyone" unless he means "everyone who matters." When I used to read the magazine Rolling Stone back in college, I couldn't help noticing the critics thought music that appeals to white men is the best music, and anything that appeals to women or people of color just isn't as serious. Any woman can tell you how anything that appeals to women more than men is always denigrated in our culture. Romance novels? Not serious. Dance music? Not serious. Bright colors? Not serious. But if it's about war or anything that interests white men, then it's serious art. One of the funniest things I ever read was a man being interviewed about Kamala Harris and saying he didn't want her for president because he wanted someone who could represent "everyone," and people were piling on him: "Oh, so only white men can represent the rest of us?" This is the sound of all of us who are not white males laughing at your pathetic horror about Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl: HAHA HAHA HAHA HAHA!!! And yes, he is a US citizen - he's from Puerto Rico. If you only want US citizens performing, then why weren't you bitching about the Rolling Stones performing? Hmm? I somehow think that's not actually what you're complaining about, you racist freaks. Sit down and SHUT UP!!

Famous Hat

Over the Stone

 

I forgot to mention that on Sunday at Pax Christi Church, the singers were unbelievably good. You would think you were listening to a professional group, not a random church choir. Apparently they expected all the congregation to be musically literate as well, because the music for everything we sang was projected onto screens at the front of the church. I didn't care for most of the music, except the psalm setting, which was minor key and had an ethereal descant.

Yesterday was extremely hot. I worked on campus, and since everyone I walk with at lunch was working remotely that day. I just walked in the shade on the third floor and prayed a rosary, until I got too hot and walked around inside. Neither view was very interesting. After work Travalon and I went swimming, and a boy of around seventeen swam under the water toward me. He had the whole width of the pool, but as I moved over, he kept coming toward me, until I was backed up against the edge of the pool. Then he started to come up between my legs, so I did what any normal woman would do - I kicked him, and when he emerged to the side of me, I said, "Jerk!" Now I hold no illusions of being sexy, but this was more of a power thing - despite my being his elder, he wanted to show that he was more important than I am because of his gender. It's an ugly trend I've noticed among young guys, especially in religious circles. This kid obviously didn't expect me to fight back; he meekly said, "Sorry," and left the pool, chastened. I will never back down and allow a man to feel superior to me just because he happened to be born male. That's ridiculous.

Today I worked from home. It was also a very warm day, so during my lunch break I went over to the nearby woods across from the bluff and took a vigorous walk, according to my FitBit. This may have been because I was attempting to avoid the mosquitos. The shade was wonderful, but it always seems to come with bugs, so pick your poison. After work Travalon drove me to Adoration, and as we were heading there, we saw a train on the bridge over Troy Drive. We kept trying to find places to pull over and watch it, but the roads are narrow there, and every place we found, someone came up behind us and we had to move. It was a very short train anyway, and we didn't get a video of it. But Travalon was very happy because he had never seen a train on that bridge.

While I was at Adoration, Travalon walked down to the Union Terrace and saw this coot very close up.

You can see that it's a cousin of the gallinule. He came back and drove me to St. Andrew's, the little Episcopal church on Regent Street that often hosts early music concerts. Tonight a local recorder ensemble played mostly folk music; I was invited by one of the recorder players, a former choir buddy who now sings in the choir at that church. Pete the Sailor Man came too, and afterwards we all went downstairs for ice cream sundaes: Pete, the choir buddy, her husband, and eventually my husband too. This was all free. The concert was enjoyable, and while they are definitely an amateur group, the pleasant sound of the recorder forgives a lot of sins. My favorite was a Welsh tune called "Tros Y Garreg," which Google Translate says means "Over the Stone," but I also enjoyed a tango called "La Paloma," which I don't need Google Translate to tell me means "the dove" in Spanish. One of the recorder players put down her recorder and played the maracas for that one. A lot of people think of the recorder as a simple instrument used to teach children music, but I am in awe of really good recorder players, who will say things to each other like, "Play this piece on a soprano but use alto fingering," and they seem to be able to read every clef. At one point I could kind of play the alto recorder, but that was years ago. I also used to be able to drive stick shift, but if I were called on to do either thing today, you probably wouldn't enjoy the results. 

Famous Hat

Golden Eagle at Sauk

 

This morning before Mass, Travalon watched Crystal Palace, and they lost. Jerry the Kraken and Roy jr. commiserated.

At Mass at the far east side church, there was another baptism. That's three in the last month. It was also the pastor's birthday, so we sang "Happy Birthday" to him right before the closing hymn. As usual at that church, the offertory and communion praise songs were contemporary, but the opening and closing hymns were classic ones, in this case "Hyfrydol" and "Thaxted," or for those of you who don't think in Hymn Tune, "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" (the processional hymn at our wedding) and "O God Beyond All Praising," or "Jupiter" from The Planets by Holst. I love being able to sing them with great gusto, because nobody can hear me over the amped-up praise band.

It was a beautiful day for late January, so Travalon and I took a long walk along the canal at Tenney Park. We saw a tux duck.

We also went under or over a lot of bridges.

There was a bird party at the small pond in Waunakee, but it was very exclusive - only Canada geese.

When we got home, I went for a rosary walk and saw a little clump of snow looking up at me.

Meanwhile, Travalon was watching the Commanders play the Eagles, but there was no good news there. He took me to the Slow Irish Session, where I joined my bandmates (except Hardingfele) and my Irish teacher - we actually spoke a little Irish to each other. I chickened out once again and brought the mandolin instead of the fiddle, since it makes less noise so mistakes are less obvious, but that worked out well because we sang a bit, and it's much easier to sing while playing the mandolin than the violin. I ended up sitting between two other mandolin players; the guy on my left was quite a bit older than I am, and he only played tunes he knew because he couldn't read the music projected up on the screen quickly enough to keep up, while the guy on my right was half my age and very good-looking, and he kept saying, "You better check your A string." "You better check your E string." Travalon was laughing on the ride home as I told him about it, how if I were young I would have been devastated that someone so hot was being so critical, but at my age I'm just like, "Yeah, whatever. I could have birthed him." I did note that while there was no sexual tension whatsoever (I wasn't asking myself if he were flirting with me by noting my out-of-tune strings), had our genders been reversed, would I have thought I had a chance? The other day I saw a video where a guy was crying because women kept telling him that at 45 he was too old, and this other guy stitched in his part of the video asking, "How old are these women?" Right? A woman in her 50's will rarely harass a guy in his twenties for daring to talk to her, but a man in his fifties might mistake a woman in her twenties talking to him for interest in him. Isn't that fascinating? Or maybe just sickening?

We passed this decorated bank on our way home.

It used to be called Monona State Bank. I have the vague impression that it changed its name rather than being bought out by another, bigger bank.

We had dinner at Zippy Lube, and the background music was all French pop music, except for one song that was Brazilian pop music. They gave us free donuts because they were closing soon, and the donuts must be getting old. They are the last thing I need after too much sushi and saki yesterday - I had no idea that saki had that many calories! Yikes!! Then we went home, and Travalon watched the Bills-Chiefs game, but that was disappointing too. Yes, it will be the Eagles and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. To quote Grumpy Cat, "I hope both teams lose."

As promised, here are the photos Travalon took yesterday at Sauk.

These next photos are the alleged golden eagle, and I think it's true because you can see that his legs are bare. Bald eagles have feathers on their legs right down to their feet. We thought we saw a golden eagle at the dam some years back, and there is a male golden eagle who is known to be in the area, so this has to be him.

There were also a lot of common mergansers.

Here are goldeneyes in the foreground and mallards in the background.

More mallards. We saw plenty of them in town today too.

So I did miss something exciting at Sauk yesterday, because while golden eagles are common in some other parts of the country, they are rare around here. Still, I think we did see him a few years back. I wonder how he gets along with the bald eagles? I assume they can tell he's different. Do they think that's cool, or do they shun him? I really don't know much about eagle society.

Famous Hat

Women Are Fleeing Christianity

 

Today I worked from home so that I could get to our annual condo association meeting without having to rush too much. I did join some neighbors for dinner beforehand at Mariner's Inn, and then the meeting went so well that everyone applauded our president at the end. Believe me, people weren't always so happy after our meetings.

I have been concerned for some time that the American Catholic church is getting too masculine in outlook. The leadership seems very concerned with engaging men, and it's become a bro-fest. I mean, there is a lot that is inherently sexist in Catholicism, like that women can't be priests, but that never bothered me because as a child I adored the nuns so much. However, now we have a high-profile convert running for vice president who says childless women shouldn't take part in society. While I still feel like the Church was founded by Christ, so I go to Mass, I have avoided getting more involved than that. It's hard to unsee things like how selfish a lot of people (especially men) were during the pandemic, refusing to wear a mask which is such a little ask. Think of all the things women are routinely asked to sacrifice for others! and you can't wear a piece of cloth over your face?? I thought maybe I was alone in being repulsed by this toxic masculinity in religion, but apparently not, because yesterday I read an article that said the biggest group leaving the church is women. The article noted that women are usually the ones who volunteer in religious organizations, and they have a lot of influence in how children are brought up. (Ignore those ridiculous videos that say, "If you get the father, you get the family." The ancient Jewish people knew kids are whatever their mother is.) It seems churches (not just the Catholic one) took women for granted, running after men as the more important constituents, and then women decided, "You know what? I'm done with this unpaid labor and this inherently sexist religion that insists that God and even all the angels are male." I salute my sisters who are giving Christianity the Sicilian salute. This is not the religion of Jesus, who valued women and made a huge point of engaging those who were considered morally compromised. Let the men try to run the Church without the help of women. This ought to be interesting. Religion without half the population - the more giving half, at that - is untenable.

Famous Hat

Latin Music in the Conservatory

 

Sorry that I didn't blog yesterday. It was a very unremarkable day except for being Leap Day. Last Leap Day, we were at the International Festival, but this one was a work day, so I worked. Today I worked from home, and that was all travel arrangements, one of my least favorite tasks. At least the weather was a little warmer when I took my walks.

In the evening Tiffy went to dinner with a friend, so we didn't talk. I was going to go to a free concert at the Lutheran church where I used to sing, but then I heard there would be a Latin music concert at Olbrich. I thought it would be in the meeting room where they often have live music, but it was actually in the conservatory itself. Look how pretty it is on the outside!

And this is what it's like being inside.

This almost looks like a grinning face.

At first I sat on a bench, and I was reluctant to get up, since I had brought my big purse. Eventually the bench got too uncomfortable, so I got up and found a spot overlooking the band where I could stash my purse next to a wall. I danced and danced, and my FitBit called it a workout, but it said it was a "brisk walk." Guess my moves aren't that smooth... It was very warm in there, so I was glad I'd dressed in layers. When I got too tired and thirsty, I took a walk around the conservatory and found a bartender in a back corner. I got a grapefruit soda and sat on another bench, watching in surprise as the leaves on a lot of the plants seemed to be dancing along with the music. Was there a breeze in there?

It's always the right time for some DuoLingo bragging!

When Travalon and I went to the bakery in Sauk on Wednesday, they had one of those codes you scan and it takes you to a website, labeled, "This will brighten your day." I scanned it with some trepidation, since they are very, very, very far Right (but still make amazing shortbread), and just as I'd suspected, it took me to the video for some country song about how everyone is offended. The singer felt they should have a beer and have it out, and while I'm in favor of people with different views having a discussion over a beer, I don't think they should have a fight. The video was very un-PC, and it made me wonder if this guy would then not be sensitive if someone made fun of him as a straight, white, Christian male who clearly falls into the MAGA category. It continuously amuses me how people who say everyone else is a sensitive snowflake suddenly turn into one themselves when they are insulted. It's like they want the right to insult everyone else, but how dare anyone insult them? And the comments on this video! One actually said, "I'm a racist, and there's nothing wrong with that," and a bunch of people had upvoted it. There was a lot of racist and sexist imagery in this video. I am wondering why we can't just NOT insult each other? Why are people longing for the days of being able to depict minorities as cartoon characters? Why do they find the need to mock women? But I guess if we're mocking everyone, can we mock this country music singer? Or is that somehow not okay?

Famous Hat