Penny Fields Goes to Africa Fest

 

Yesterday I got an email from Mariner's Inn that Abbey Lane would be playing there that night, so Travalon and I decided to get a fish fry there while sitting outside and listening to the music. We got there just as the music was about to start, but they didn't have an open table for another hour, so we decided to get an appetizer at the bar and sit on chairs on the lawn until our table was ready. Travalon went to the bar, while I went outside to find a place to sit. To my surprise, Abbey Lane wasn't a Beatles tribute band but one woman playing the guitar and singing songs by women like Sheryl Crow. I told Travalon forget it, and we took our name off the list for a reservation and went to Bear and Bottle. We sat outside and had their coco limeade to start and walleye for dinner, then we went home and I talked to Tiffy. Travalon agreed that it was weird that the musician spelled her first name Abbey, not Abby. 

This morning when I took a walk with my neighbor, I told her that the owner of Mariner's told me that "Abbey Lane's" real last name was some German-sounding one, and Lane was a stage name. My neighbor was of the opinion that this singer named herself Abbey Lane on purpose, knowing people would think she was a Beatles tribute band, so that more people would come to see her. I said I should just call myself Penny Fields in that case, and my neighbor said, "Right? It sounds like a real name." There is a shop in Galena that Travalon loves called Strawberry Lane, but it really does sell Beatles stuff, among other things. It's kind of a 60's nostalgia shop.

Travalon and I went to the East Side Club for their 100th birthday party. It was inside for some reason, but we sat where we had a spectacular view of the lake and the Monona Terrace. A local disco band had played there the night before for Dane Dances, and I wondered how crazy it had gotten. I had kind of wanted to see them, but we have seen them many times, and "Abbey Lane" sounded intriguing. The party was free pizza, free beer, and free cupcakes. I thought someone was going to talk about the history of the club, but nobody had started talking by the time we had to leave to get to my gig at the Ukrainian picnic.

I was feeling salty (as my neighbor put it) about the Ukrainian picnic gig, since it was forty-five minutes and unpaid, and Hardingfele had gotten it for us and then bailed on us. Nothing like volunteering other people's time! However, once we talked them into letting us set up on the shady balcony instead of out in the sun, my mood improved greatly. I was a bit buzzed from the beer at the birthday party, and I already feel less confident on the violin than the mandolin. (All these weeks I know the mandolin is just a piece of wood, but I imagined her being hurt that I kept leaving her at home when going to practice. "Don't you want me to come too?") It went fairly well, and Travalon made videos that aren't high enough quality to post, but I could hear that I was basically in tune. Afterwards, the bass player said I sound good when I play with confidence - I guess the first couple of songs I'd been sort of tentative. My understanding was that we would get tickets for free food in exchange for playing, but the organizer was busy introducing the mayor, who made a proclamation about Ukraine, so we just headed home. We were still full from the birthday party anyway. And nobody came up to me all excited to see my instrument after we'd played, because everyone has seen a violin before.

As if there weren't enough things going on today, someone I know was having pie made from berries from his garden that afternoon, but I told him I probably couldn't make it because of the gig. Technically we could have made it, but we were still full and didn't want pie. After the weather had cooled down a bit, we headed to Africa Fest, where we had missed the March of the Nations with all the flags, and our favorite food cart was sold out of baobab shakes. They still had jollof rice, thankfully. Travalon got dolmada from a different food cart, and I joined him there and got hibiscus punch, since the first food cart was out of all their drinks. We looked at all the clothing and jewelry for sale but didn't buy anything, then we went to listen to the bands playing on the main stage.

The first band was yet another iteration of a Mideastern band I used to play in. The last time I saw them, they had lost the singers and guitar player I played with but had acquired a cellist, who is now gone. Now they have a violinist and a French horn player, and they are doing a lot of salsa, but they did do a song I remembered playing with them. The lead singer is well past seventy and still dresses like she's twenty-two. The second band was an excellent reggae band called Sista Sensi and the Buds, and among other things they did a Peter Tosh song. The third group we saw was an African drumming group that includes the son of one of my bandmates, and we have seen them before. The last group was a band doing music from Mali, and one guy played a really interesting-looking stringed instrument that was like a cross between a harp and a banjo. I made a short video, but it's not really good enough to post. Travalon and I both liked the reggae band the best, but we appreciated that there was so much variety. This is a very family-friendly festival with lots of cute little kids running around, including some who were playing soccer with a very cute poodle. I kid you not, this dog was using his paws to move the ball around just like a soccer player dribbling. Everyone behaved well, and it was a happy vibe there. I love Africa Fest!

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Tibetan Restaurant

 

Today I worked on campus, and every time Travalon and I carpool, we pass a restaurant called Little Tibet on the way home. I have been curious about it for ages, and while I had never eaten there, it seems like I saw yak on their menu at one point. Tonight the whole area was parked up, because there was a big concert at Breese Stevens Field (which we hadn't known), but we went around the block once and then saw a guy leaving, so we got a space right around the corner. One of us is living right! (I'm putting my money on Travalon.) 

Now Travalon is not a big fan of the Nepali restaurant on State Street, Himal Chuli, and he thought the Tibetan restaurant might be similar, so he wasn't too excited to go. I kept assuring him that Tibetan is not the same as Nepali, and as my regular readers know, I've been on kind of a Tibet kick recently. They have a fairly limited menu (and no yak), but I pointed out that they had lamb curry, and Travalon thought that sounded good. But then I said I was getting momos, which are stuffed dumplings, and he thought that sounded good too. He got chicken and cheese momos pan-fried, and his came out as a plate of dumplings. I ordered mushroom and cheese dumplings steamed with what I thought was a side of spicy cheese soup, but they came out with the dumplings in a big bowl of soup. I was slightly weirded out, until I tasted it - delicious! We also had chai (so good!), and I got tingmo steamed bread while Travalon got roti that looked and tasted like a tortilla. And yes, we were naughty and split a dessert of ice cream with mango and coconut. As far as I know, neither mangos nor coconuts grow in Tibet, so this is probably not a traditional dessert, but it was the only one they had, and it was good. 

There was some sort of saying in Tibetan on the wall, so I asked our waitress what it said, and she got another waiter, who told us it was about the four pillars of Buddhism. I am still geeking out over the fact that the Buddha had a feast day (November 27) on the Roman calendar, August 26 on the Eastern Orthodox calendar. I found this on Wikipedia but wasn't sure it was trustworthy because, you know, Wikipedia - anyone can write anything there. However, it is also in the Catholic Encyclopedia online. If I ever became a Buddhist, I would definitely be a Tibetan Buddhist because it's set up just like the Catholic church with clergy (the lamas), a head (the Dalai Lama like our Pope), and prayer beads (like rosaries). Pluses: they wouldn't have an issue with my belief in reincarnation. Minuses: they don't have the Eucharist. I am literally so drawn to the Eucharist that one day I was walking down the street when I felt a compulsion to walk into a door and found myself in a chapel. I kept walking toward one particular spot in the chapel and then realized I was right in front of the tabernacle. Actually, that has happened more than once, in churches where the tabernacle is in an unexpected place but I'm drawn to it like a moth to the light before realizing that's what it is I'm heading for. And it's not like these were beautiful tabernacles - it took me a moment to realize what it was I was standing in front of. I will say at our usual church, the tabernacle is front and center, and it is very beautiful. It looks like something you'd expect to be holding the Eucharist.

I really liked the music at the Tibetan restaurant too. It is what spa music aspires to be but never achieves: very meditative and relaxing. Oddly, the time to go to this restaurant is seven, which is when we usually eat dinner. We got there not long after six and it was packed, but by seven we were practically the only ones in the place. Or was that just today? Travalon said, "I'd go again!" So we undoubtedly will.

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More Killer Building Weirdness

 

Today I worked on campus, and the Killer Building was no joy to be in. Around nine some workman came to my office and said, "I'm shutting your door because it's going to be really loud." I said, "But I'm expecting someone!" and he said, "It's up to you, but it's going to be REALLY loud," so I said, "Okay, shut the door." A few minutes later, the person I was expecting knocked on my door, and I'm surprised I could hear it over all the noise these guys were making. I quickly ushered her and her two small sons into my office and shut the door. Talk about terrible timing! By the time we were done with our short meeting, it was quiet in the hall, but there were weird noises intermittently the rest of the day. My coworkers and I went to check out the damage, and we found they had cut a circle out of the landing in the stairwell. Not only that, but if you looked down, there were circles cut out of the landings below, and even the landings above. We speculated that they were going to install a column because they're afraid our building will collapse otherwise.

When I returned from my noontime walk with my colleague, the two workmen were also waiting for the elevator, and one said to the other, "My wife just told me a stairwell collapsed in Milwaukee, and so far they've found two employees in the rubble." That didn't make me feel any better about what's going on with the Killer Building, but I haven't been able to find any news articles about this incident. Do the workmen know something, like that our stairwell is about to collapse? And whatever they're doing, are they going to be done by the time classes start again in a couple of weeks? They don't care what we peons see happening, but I'm sure they don't want the faculty and students to see it.

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Josaphat the Bodhisattva

 

Today was a quiet day of working from home, but a funny thing happened on my way back from adoration: I was stopped by a train on Sherman Avenue, and it was very long and slow. Finally it passed, and I headed toward home. On Troy Avenue the road goes under a railroad bridge, and the train was passing overhead as I drove beneath it. Then when I got to Westport Road, the train was going alongside me. I pulled into the Nau-Ti-Gal parking lot to watch it go by, then I crossed the road to go home... and I saw my neighbor making a video. She began to laugh, and she showed me the video, so then I laughed too. In the video she made of the train, she was saying, "See, Famous? I finally saw a train! The first one this whole summer! That car pulled over to watch the train too - must be another train fan. Wait, is that you, Famous?? Too funny!!" And you see me driving towards her... and then the video ends.

I was today years old when I learned that Catholics have venerated the Buddha as a saint for centuries. There was an article about an exhibit of Buddhist art at a museum in New York City, and someone had written a comment that Christians venerate the Buddha as Saint Josaphat. I thought, "What???" and looked it up, and darned if that person wasn't right. There was a pious legend about a prince in India who, upon meeting a Christian hermit, renounced his title to become a Christian. Some scholar in the nineteenth century thought that sounded an awful lot like the story of Siddhartha Gautama, and then he realized that "Josaphat" is a corruption of Bodhisattva, a title for the Buddha. Now of course the Buddha lived many centuries before Jesus, so I can promise you that he was not a Christian, but Christians arriving in India might have found the Buddha's teachings somewhat compatible with Christ's, so they just made him an honorary Christian. Since this is a pious legend, that Josaphat was never formally canonized, but he was recognized as a saint for many centuries. There is a canonized St. Josaphat, the Polish martyr, and the gorgeous basilica in Milwaukee is named after him. Too bad - what a hoot if such a beautiful church were named after the Buddha! So now I can wear my Buddhist prayer beads to church, and if people say, "What's that?" I can just say, "I'm venerating St. Josaphat." This is not really surprising to me, since "Catholic" means "universal," so we can claim anyone as a saint. Some people say Boethius (not my computer) was more of a pagan philosopher than a theologian, but he is known as St. Severinus. And there has been some talk of canonizing Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a martyr for the faith, even though he was Lutheran. As someone in a Catholic Bible study I used to attend once said, "Everyone is a Catholic after they die." I certainly don't think everyone in Heaven was a Catholic in this life. I also don't think every Catholic in this life ends up in Heaven, but that's a topic for another blog post.

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Vigil Mass for the Assumption

 

Twenty-six years ago today, I was in Chartres, in a chapel below the main sanctuary of the famous cathedral. We could hear glorious singing during the Mass for the Vigil of the Assumption, and I thought the Mass the next day, on the actual feast day, would be just as grand, but alas, it was a much simpler affair. I thought of that tonight when we went to Waunakee for the Vigil Mass, which was fairly well attended but not packed. There was music, mostly popular Marian hymns, and I particularly liked something to the tune of the old Irish air "Wild Mountain Thyme." It didn't feel as mystical as that long-ago Mass we could hear above us, or even "Love You To" or "Tomorrow Never Knows," but part of the spiritual life is showing up even when you're not particularly feeling it. Sometimes you get the most graces then. I have been to some very uninspiring Masses that suddenly felt extremely holy, but this one just sort of puzzled me because the priest did the readings, which I've never seen before. They always have a lector. He was a young priest, like the new one at our church, and they even kind of look alike. It's like there's some priest factory somewhere pumping out these bros who get ordained. I think they are all a lot more conservative than I am, but then again, who isn't?

Earlier in the day it was raining. It was so dark out that I didn't wake up until my alarm went off, and during our morning walk we got completely soaked. There were flood warnings, and I was a little scared to go downtown to the Vigil Mass at 5:15, but Travalon agreed to go with me to the one at 8:00. He's not a fan of days of obligation, but it's not like there are that many of them. I told him he wouldn't have to go again until Immaculate Conception in December, but oops, I forgot about All Saints' Day in November. When we got out of Mass, it was misting a bit, and then we came home and found the Mallards on TV, since they were playing in Green Bay. They were up 4-3 at the end of the top of the ninth but ended up losing 5-4, so their season is over. A fitting ending to a dreary Monday. Maybe someday I will go to a Mass for the Assumption as glorious as the one in Chartres sounded, but today was not that day.

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Search for The Tibetan Book of the Dead

 

Today the Mass took even longer than usual because the priest made all these announcements afterwards in both English and Spanish, basically saying that in December there will only be Masses at one church in our smooshed-together parish, and it won't be ours. Then brunch at Borough took a really long time too, for some reason, maybe because there were so many of us. Finally Travalon and I headed off to have some sort of adventure, but it was raining so we decided hiking in the woods might not be the best plan. 

I had been shocked to read (on Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt) that the description of the bardo in the Tibetan Book of the Dead was extremely similar to what I remember, so I decided I must have this book. Going for a treasure hunt seemed like a good thing to do on a rainy day, anyway. We started at Leopold's because I wanted a pandan latte... and I needed one too, because I was half-asleep as we drove there through the drizzle, listening to the Beatles' Rubber Soul. Leopold's has its books sorted by geographical area, but they didn't have a "Tibet" section, and when I asked, they said they didn't have the book. Travalon thought Paul's on State Street might be a good bet, and I have gotten other books about religion there, so we parked at the church and walked down State Street, which got us a lot of steps, but Paul's had a small section of Eastern religion books. There was one called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and reading the description, I gathered it was a modern book by some guy about how to live your life. I asked a woman who worked there, and she confirmed that it wasn't the right book. 

As we walked back up State Street, Travalon mentioned that the crystal shop has a small book section, so I said, "Yeah, they seem like the kind of place that would have it." They do have a very small book section, and they didn't have that book. I remembered that A Room of One's Own had a fairly large Spirituality section, so we headed there... and it took about forty seconds for me to find it there. We headed home, and Travalon went to the Mallards playoff game (they lost 8-4), but I couldn't join him because of band practice. Normally I'd blow it off for a Mallards playoff game, but we have a gig next Saturday, and I REALLY need to practice on the violin! I took a rosary walk and read The Prophet by Khalil Gibran, then I looked at the Tibetan Book of the Dead. To my disappointment - and relief - it seems to be a manual for how to guide dying people, so something like the rubrics for Last Rites. It's a very thick book, and I have only glanced at it, but it seems far more practical than mystical. Something like it would have been very handy to have when we were visiting our nephew while he was trapped between life and death, because it seems like it would be easy to make the wording Christ-centered rather than Buddha-centered. I am still amazed that (according to Wikipedia) this book describes the bardo so closely to my own experience (I haven't found that part yet), but honestly, I can't have been the only soul stubborn enough to demand to remember a previous life. It probably happens way more often than we think. 

I didn't have a lot of time to peruse this very thick book because I had to get to band practice. We practiced HARD for two solid hours, and now I am exhausted. Once Hardingfele said she thought I was the best fiddler in the band, when I had to step in for another fiddler at a gig. Of course, that was back when I played in a little mariachi band that accompanied the Diocesan Hispanic Choir, so I was in fiddling shape. It's coming back to me...

Travalon got to pet the bat dog, Maverick. He grabs the bat and brings it back to the dugout after a Mallards player has batted.

And here is the collection of random plants they gave us from our nephew's visitation.

As if I don't have enough plants... there must be eight different plants in this basket. When I have a bit of free time (hah!), I'll take it apart and make them all individual plants.

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Nephew's Visitation

 

Yesterday I worked from home and walked with my neighbor, then Travalon and I left work early to drive to Pewaukee for his nephew's visitation. There was no funeral, just a ton of flowers around the urn, and people stopping in to give their condolences. Afterwards we helped clean up, and we ended up with a huge basket full of all sorts of plants. There was even a hydrangea tree someone had given to the parents, which they will plant in their yard.

When we got back to Madison, we went to Mariner's Inn with our neighbor for a late fish fry. After dinner we had brandy Alexanders in honor of our nephew, and wow were they potent! A lot more brandy than Alexander! When Travalon and I came home, we watched the episode of Dr. Who about the Oods in our nephew's honor, since he dressed as an Ood for a comic con he had gone to with Travalon. I thought I had seen parts of this episode before, because some of the plot seemed familiar. It was a really moving metaphor about the evils of race-based slavery.

Today Travalon and I adulted in the morning, running some errands and cleaning a bit, then Tiffy came to visit, and the three of us got lunch at the nearby Mexican restaurant, sitting outside. Travalon left to join a friend at a blues festival, while we ladies joined the biking pub crawl for the birthday of the Daughter of Denni already in progress. We met up with them in the backyard of another person's house, which was wonderfully shady. On the walk there, we passed this tree with interesting fruit.

My phone says it is a type of dogwood, but it doesn't say if the fruits are edible. We hung out in the yard quite a while, until the rest of the group decided to bike to the McPike Park Sessions, while Tiffy and I headed to Monroe Street to have sushi at a new restaurant there called Sequoia and then walk to St. Andrew's Episcopal Church for a Baroque concert. It was interesting how the first half was composers we had never heard of, while the second half was not just Handel, Vivaldi, and Bach, but some of their best-known works (an aria from Messiah, the La Folia variations, and an aria from St. Matthews Passion). Tiffy was excited to see that the singer was a countertenor, and I said, "Maybe he's a bargain counter tenor," which I believe is a PDQ Bach joke, but she had never heard it before. When I was a kid, Ma and Pa Hat loved to listen to PDQ Bach records, and I thought they were hilarious, but when I would try to tell my third grade classmates about these jokes, they never got them. Was I ever a dork of a kid! But am I ever glad that Ma and Pa Hat introduced me to PDQ Bach. I still think he's hilarious!

Bonus photo: Travalon drew a Florida panther at work.

In another sign of our impending mortality, today we found out a college buddy has been diagnosed with cancer. I guess we're getting old, and these things will keep happening. Prayers for this person are appreciated.

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