Spring Sunset

 

It was kind of cold and windy earlier today, but it got nicer later, and right after work I went out for a walk. I ran into our neighbor who used to be the condo board president, walking her little dog and talking to another woman walking a little dog. This woman lives in the condo complex on the other side of the road, and my neighbor said, "Let's sit in my driveway and have drinks." We drank Prairie Fume wine and ate popcorn and Chex Mix while we chatted and petted the dogs. It was so pleasant. After the other two left, I went down to the dock and saw two other neighbors getting into their canoe. I asked if they were going toward the marsh or the lake, and they said, "The marsh." Then after dinner, Travalon and I went to the dock, and we saw those same neighbors coming back. They described some ducks they had seen in the marsh, and I said, "Sounds like scaups." Later I got an email from the wife: "You were right." She looked them up online, and they were indeed scaups.

Here are some photos from the dock at sunset this evening. First, the cranes hiding in the marsh grass, as they always do.

These are the six coots always hanging around our dock lately. I hope they have babies - baby coots have bright red feathers, and that would truly be something to see.

Right in front of us, the sky was on fire...

...while off to the left it was a pastel dream with cotton candy clouds.

This mallard drake is swimming off into the sunset. I love the pink water!

Tonight during Night Prayer, the Dairyman's Daughter said some pro-abortion people are planning to protest at Catholic Masses this weekend. I hope this isn't true, but if it is, we brought this on ourselves. So many prominent American Catholics are very opposed to abortion, but totally in favor of greedy policies that enrich the already wealthy and leave the poor to starve. Murder by omission is just as serious as murder by commission - just ask the rich guy who ignored the beggar Lazarus at his door. And so many of these so-called Catholics are opposed to Pope Francis because he reminds them of the Church's teachings that they don't like. If you are pondering who is truer to Church teachings, the Vicar of Christ chosen by the Holy Spirit, or you yourself, and the answer is not the former, then you are by definition a Protestant. The problem is, non-Catholics think EWTN and the National Catholic Register and even worse things on the internet are what actual Catholics believe, so no wonder they are confused and hate us all. I mean, I kind of hate those people too, although I am trying not to. That's the lesson I need to learn in this life: everyone is made in the image and likeness of God, even those who are perverting His teachings. If a person thought those were real Catholics, I can see why she would think the Church's teachings on abortion are just to suppress women and not to defend the weak from the strong, since those people absolutely are defending the strong from the weak in every other case. Their track record is atrocious. If any nonreligious person is reading this, I'm here to tell you that those people are no more Catholic than you are. I don't care what they call themselves, especially if it's loud and on TV. You are not a Catholic if you do not follow ALL the Church's teachings. And to think these people used to sneer about "cafeteria Catholics"! They are the worst pickers and choosers of all.

Famous Hat

Feliz Cinco de Mayo 2022

 

So it finally happened: I was exposed to COVID. Today Hardingfele sent the whole band an email letting us know that her husband tested positive, and he came to pick her up from band practice on Sunday and listened to us play one song while standing in the hall. My other bandmates figured we weren't exposed enough to him, but it seems likely he could have given it to Hardingfele, and she was sitting next to me for well over an hour. So far she has tested negative, and she said the home tests are useless because they said her husband was negative, but a "real" test said he was positive. Unless it was a false positive... I did order the four home tests you could get free from the government some time ago, so maybe tomorrow I will take one. It's hard to know if I would even notice symptoms right now anyway, with all the allergies I'm suffering from. I love the flowers this time of year, but not their pollen!

This morning Travalon and I went down to the dock before I started work, since that was the time of day when we saw all the teals and wood ducks last year. We still didn't see any ducks, just coots.

And the cranes on the neighbors' pier.

And lots of these little swallows flying over the water. This one stopped and posed for us.

Then we ran into Prairie Man, walking Michaela. She has a cute new haircut for summer.

She was so happy to see us!

As Josh Billings said, "Money can buy you a pretty good dog, but it can't buy the wag of his tail." 

This evening we went to the nearby fast food-style Mexican place for a quick dinner, because on Cinco de Mayo all the fancy Mexican restaurants are busy. The secret is to go in September, on real Mexican Independence Day, when they have parties with live music but not so many gringos. Then we came home and went out on the dock. Here are those same two cranes in the light of sunset.

Here is the sunset.

I am sitting out on the porch for the first time in forever, although there was one day earlier this spring I was able to do it. Travalon watched the original Star Wars movie because yesterday was May the Fourth (be with you). I think the first one is about as close to the perfect movie as you can get, but why they bothered to make so many more is beyond me. Milking that cow, I guess. Yesterday at work we were discussing Star Wars movies vs. Star Trek movies, and my coworker named after a Norse god said the Han Solo movie was truly atrocious, but I haven't seen it, and I think I'll keep it that way.

Famous Hat

Ode to Sleep

 

Today I read an article that says scientists have finally nailed down the exact amount of sleep people need: seven hours. I could have told them that, because that is how long I sleep by nature. My FitBit was set to yell at me if I didn't get eight hours, but I only sleep for eight hours when sleep-deprived, so I set it for seven hours and now it's usually happy with me. It's been a while since I waxed poetic, so here's an ode to sleep:

My needs aren't too deep,

Just seven hours of sleep,

Because eight is too much for me,

And six leaves me like a zombie.

I could do it every night,

If I didn't have to fight

With Boethius and his slog

Posting photos on my blog.

Why must he be so slow?

Where does all the time go?

How is it after eleven?

Now how will I sleep for seven?

Suddenly I hear "beep beep,"

And I got only six hours of sleep,

But if I can patiently wait,

Then on Saturday I can sleep late.

So now I'll wrap up this rhyme

And get into bed on time

So that tomorrow doesn't come too soon

And leave me sleepy by noon.

Famous Hat

Marshes: Patrick and Cherokee

 

Today around noon I was walking on the Lakeshore Path and praying the Rosary, as usual, and the coots were swimming around, calling, standing on the boathouse piers, and splashing around in the shallow water. They are so cute! I thought about how they are individuals but they have no moral understanding, and if we made life easy for them, they would accept that. Like Hank the Tank, who steals food from people's houses because that's easier than foraging and hunting. Then it occurred to me that the people who claim to be Christian but don't want to stop being greedy are the same way. I kind of hate those people - like, if you want to be greedy, fine, but don't claim to be a member of my religion. But then I thought the truly enlightened person would realize they are just like those animals - they want something (in this case, to go to Heaven) without having to do anything, so I should pity them, not hate them. They aren't very evolved; they are just as amoral as Hank the Tank or the innocent coots. The real question is how do we save the world from these amoral people who have power but no interest in enlightenment?

Here are some photos Travalon took. First are photos he took in our neighborhood last week. Here is the pair of cranes by the tennis court.

I like this photo of one crane going down the path alongside the tennis court.

From the dock, Travalon saw coots and scaups. From the Lakeshore Path, I usually see a few scaups mixed in with the coots as well.

I love how the coot in the middle is triumphantly arising from the water with some food.

In this photo, you can see a female scaup in the foreground, with a bunch of coots behind her.

Here is a close-up of a coot.

And here is a male scaup with a coot.

Here are photos from Patrick Marsh. We saw a number of killdeer. They are very loud.

Here are the male and female red-breasted mergansers.

Here is a close-up of the male.

And a close-up of the female.

More male red-breasted mergansers:

There were still some ruddy ducks around.

On the far side of the marsh, we could see a lone pelican and some cormorants.

We also saw a great blue heron fly by.

By the shore, we saw three eared grebes. They were very playful, but Travalon did manage to get a few photos of them.

We also saw two male canvasbacks, but no females.

Then, in a pond on the way back from the marsh, we saw this male bufflehead doing his mating dance.

As we drove home, we saw large white birds in Cherokee Marsh. We went to the canoe launch by the dog park and saw they were pelicans. So close to home!

There were also buffleheads, scaups, and swallows.

And two male northern shovelers.

More pelican photos.

This little tree was the only green thing in the marsh. Everything is so slow to bud because it's been so cold.

Back on our dock, we saw a flock of coots.

Then we saw a much closer one by itself. After Travalon took this photo, another one appeared, following this one.

We hope to get up to Horicon soon, to see what's going on there. We are taking next Tuesday off for our wedding anniversary, so maybe then we can get up there. So look for more bird photos soon!

Famous Hat

Peanut Butter Eyes

 

I apologize for several days of silence. Thursday I didn't have a chance to blog because I was at the Gold Mass that Richard Bonomo arranged. Masses are different colors for different professions, and the Gold Mass is specifically for scientists, but I asked to attend if I helped with the dinner afterwards. The Mass was a simple daily Mass with lovely hymns (as far as I'm concerned, "Let All Mortal Flesh" can always be the Communion hymn), then I went downstairs and helped Rich set the tables and serve dinner. There was a guy I didn't recognize also helping, so I said, "Hi, I'm Famous," and he said hi, he was the guest speaker. Really? At the University, guest speakers get treated like royalty, and here this guy was helping serve dinner?? After a simple dinner of pork, potatoes, and vegetables, Rich forced us all to get up and tell our name and science bona fides, which was embarrassing for those of us who weren't hardcore STEM people. Then the speaker gave an excellent talk on why theology needs science, then we had Rich's famous chocolate mousse, and then I was there until after ten helping to clean up. I wasn't the only one, either, so imagine if Rich had had to do it himself! He didn't ask any of us to help; we just knew he needed it done.

Friday I didn't blog because I was talking to Tiffy in what felt like the first time in forever.

Yesterday Travalon, Jilly Moose, and I drove to Literatus, the coffee shop in Watertown, and OK Cap met us there, then we all went to Tiffy's brother's house on Lake Nagawicka in Delafield. Tiffy was there dog sitting (and cat sitting), and we played with the friendly cat Tiki and the very friendly chocolate lab Reggie (or Register, as her brother calls him), but we never saw Ginger the unfriendly cat. Jilly Moose had purchased a Mad Libs book at Literatus, so we did a few. This is a story with certain verbs, nouns, and adjectives blank, so one person asks for us to fill them in without knowing what the story is, and hilarity ensues. We used to love Mad Libs as kids, and it was fun as adults because our vocabularies are larger. We sat out on the porch overlooking the lake creating these stories while Travalon went to visit his mom, then we walked to a nearby Mexican restaurant for lunch, and on the way we saw a white squirrel and a yellow warbler, and also those blue squills some people have in their lawns, so that this time of year their lawns look like fairy grass with all the little blue flowers in them. Tiffy had to give Reggie his peanut butter-filled toy to distract him so that we could leave, and I noted that he has peanut butter-colored eyes, so I said that would be a good blog post title. When we came back to the house, Travalon returned, and we wrote a naughty Mad Libs story with all adult words. To our delight, the basic skeleton of that story was about "Rockets," and it really worked!! If there is any demand, I might put the story on this blog at some point. I noticed a sign that said "Benice," and I thought it was a joke on Tiffy's sister-in-law's name, since her real name is Denise. When I mentioned this to Tiffy, she said, "It says Be Nice." It was just squished together. This is right up with the time that I pointed out to Tiffy that they had just painted M075 on the driveway to my condo's parking lot, and what could it mean? Was it a secret message to the moth-spraying planes? and she said, "You mean where it says SLOW?" Only if you read it upside-down...

Tiffy's nephew (who is now graduated from college) had done a drawing when he was a kid in school of two crabs in a death match tearing off each other's limbs, and it was labeled "Regeneration." I thought it was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen, and I said it would be a great birthday party theme, but Tiffy said we should do it for Rich's birthday, not mine. Then I said for my birthday I could take my smiley face pillow Emily out for a drink, because Tiffy's niece had just turned 24, and she took the stuffed Cherry Minnie Mouse Tiffy had given her for her third birthday out for her first drink, since Cherry Minnie was now 21. Tiffy pointed out that this ship had sailed for Emily, since she's well past 21, so then I thought next year I could have Emily's big 50th birthday bash. I wasn't sure if Emily had been a baby shower gift or a first birthday present, but I texted Ma Hat who verified that she had been the latter, so now I have eight months to plan Emily's 50th birthday bash. 

It was raining most of the day, so we didn't walk to the nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. Instead, we all packed into Travalon's car and we drove the half a mile to the restaurant. We had passed their sign earlier, and the soup of the day was shrimp bisque, while the cocktail of the day was a Peeps martini. Jilly Moose really wanted the Peeps martini, and it is as glorious as you imagined:

Jilly Moose took this photo, and I like how the brim glows on her photo.

Dinner was a lot of fun too, especially when we were talking about watching classic cartoons, and Travalon said how he had been having issues with them turning green, but he inserted his fire stick into a different hole, and then it worked. After our dirty Mad Libs story, we couldn't help but laugh about that! Then we went back to the house, and the sweetest thing was that Reggie stood right in front of the door when we tried to leave. He didn't want to say goodbye! Well, we are a lot of fun.

Here is a cross I bought at a shop right by Literatus.

And this is a boat full of "slow no wake" buoys we saw on our walk to the Mexican restaurant.

Today was cold and windy, and we didn't have a lot of time after brunch, so Travalon and I went to Patrick Marsh. He took lots of photos of the mergansers and grebes that we saw, so I'll post those tomorrow. At Irish class we had to talk about what we will do tomorrow, so I said write in my diary (I try to do that every Monday evening), and the others were fascinated that I've kept a diary since I was 18. Nothing too exciting at band practice; I picked up Hardingfele after the bus dropped her off, and Bongo the chocolate lab was just leaving as we arrived. Stay tuned tomorrow for photos from Patrick Marsh.

Famous Hat