Photos of Travalon's Ramblings

 

Yesterday I worked on campus and met the Professor Formerly Known as Lute Player for lunch. In the afternoon I went to my first Academic Staff Assembly meeting. It was more high-tech than the University Staff Congress; for example, we had to swipe our ID card to sign in, whereas the other one just had a piece of paper with your district number on it, and if that piece of paper was missing, it was assumed that you had taken it. That's how they took attendance. I was there for two reasons: the chairs of the committee I was on to do a report on ageism in the university gave their presentation of our final report, and I volunteered to be the alternate for my district, since we have a representative but no alternate. The Assembly seems more female and clean-cut than the Congress, and the weird thing is that their executive committee sat at the front, facing us like a row of mean girls in the high school cafeteria. There were also a lot more of them than there were on the Central Committee, of which I was Vice Chair. I'm a bit sore with them because I had been on a protest response team for years as a University Staff representative, so I applied to be an Academic Staff representative, since the position was open... and they didn't choose me. In the evening I had yet another meeting, for our condo board.

Today I worked from home and had two meetings this morning, and in fact someone tried to put yet another meeting on my calendar at the same time as those two. Travalon and I walked on Governor's Island at lunch, and after work I went to Adoration as usual. I led Night Prayer, as I often do on Tuesdays, and today every regular showed up, so we had a baker's dozen of us. 

Here are the things Travalon got at Greek Fest on Saturday. The fish is a fridge magnet.

Our neighbors were just chilling out this morning.

Here are some photos from the boardwalk in DeForest that we walked on this past Sunday. It's right next to the Yahara River.

It's a long boardwalk, and it feels like you're in the jungle.

Travalon got a Hot Wheels car he had as a kid - it's from 1974 and is called Large Charge.

Here are some other photos Travalon sent me. A tree up by the monastery on Highway M is already changing colors, and this was last week!

While I was at Irish Fest, he went on road trips. Here's the Lafayette County Courthouse in Darlington.

This is the waterfall at Governor Dodge State Park.

This is Stewart Lake County Park in Mount Horeb, which I have never been to in all the times I've been to that town.

And this is Junk and Disorderly Antique Shop in Blanchardville.

Travalon went there when he visited Yellowstone Lake State Park.

As you can see, he didn't get bored while I was away fiddling and speaking in Irish.

Famous Hat

Hopped Up on Tripita and Galactic Burritos

 

Sorry for the silence the last couple of days. Friday I crawled into bed at exactly 2 am, and yesterday I just wasted too much time and ran out of time to blog, so now you'll get a very long blog post. It starts with Friday, when I worked from home in the morning and then logged out and took a walk at Governor's Island with Travalon. I drove down to Cecil Markovitch's house, and then he, the Dairyman's Daughter, Richard Bonomo, and I drove to Chicago. It was a fine drive until we hit the Chicago traffic, then yikes! We went to Tutto Fresco, the same Italian restaurant we went to last time we'd gone to a show at the Athaeneum, and I ordered a half-order of seafood linguine but still had to put half in the cooler Cecil keeps in his car. (Unlike Travalon and me, who keep buying coolers because we keep forgetting to bring one with us... but this did come in handy when our fridge died, plus I wrote an article about our dead fridge that got published in Guidepost, which was a bucket list item of mine. But I digress.) Cecil was texting the Single B-Boy, saying he got a Caesar salad with three anchovies on it, and the B-Boy said, "That's three anchovies too many." Then Cecil tried to order an espresso after dinner, but they said the machine was broken, and Cecil said that was a running joke between him and the B-Boy, that half the places said their espresso machines were broken, so he texted him about that. Only it autocorrected a word, so he tried to correct it but sent the text and accidentally turned on voice-to-text, so it was writing a text that said, "Oh shoot! It's writing everything I say! Good thing I said shoot. What if it did this while I was at confession and then sent my sins to all my contacts?" And then he decided, what the hey, he'd send that text to the B-Boy too. Which reminds me, earlier in the day I was emailing a faculty member, and for some reason Outlook changed haven't to 'aven't, so apparently my email program thinks I'm Cockney.

We thought we were going to see a concert put on by the Sistine Chapel Choir, but it was actually part lecture given by a woman who writes art commentary for Magnificat magazine about the art in the Sistine Chapel, and part concert of music sung in the Sistine Chapel by a small subset of the choir, about five guys. (I know, this just happened, but for the life of me I can't remember if there were five or six.) The last piece was the Allegri "Miserere," the setting of Psalm 51 that was only sung in the Sistine Chapel until a teenage Mozart transcribed it. The lecturer said the punishment for transcribing it was excommunication, but the Pope was so fascinated that a 14-year-old had done it that instead he wanted to meet Mozart, "and that," she quipped, "is one way to get a papal audience." (She was very funny.) After that, the piece was out in the world, and I've sung it myself, but I've only ever heard women or boys hit the high C. To my surprise, one of the grown men in this group was able to do it. It's a breathtaking moment. They could have left things there, but they said they didn't want to leave us on a somber note, so they were going to sing "O Sacrum Convivium." They didn't say by whom, so of course my mind immediately went to the Tallis version that I love so much... and in this I was to be deeply disappointed. Whatever they sang, it was... fine, but it wasn't Tallis. Then we drove home from Chicago, and I got into bed at exactly 2 am.

Yesterday Travalon (who had gone to a high school football game Friday night) and I met Cecil at Greek Fest, at the local Greek Orthodox church. I will say that I am Orthodox-curious and just love the St. John Chrysostom liturgy, which I know you can get at an actual Catholic church, but not around here. My goals were simple: eat tripita and galactoboureko and drink Greek coffee. We weren't going to eat lunch because we were meeting Tiffy in New Glarus for her (early) birthday lunch, but Cecil was planning to have a whole meal at the Fest. However, when we went to get the tripita (which is basically feta cheese in phyllo dough in little triangles), the guy said only one tripita comes per order, so we ordered two. Then they gave us one order of tripita and one of spanakopita, so we had to return that and get another tripita... and then they had four little triangles in each order, which was way more than we needed. When Cecil arrived, we offered him tripita, and then we all went downstairs to get "galactic burritos" and Greek coffee, and he also got the thing that looks like baklava but shredded, and then he was too full for lunch. They also had a little market downstairs, and I couldn't decide between the big prayer beads for $20 or the little ones for $10, but then I saw a Niko bag for $10, so the little prayer beads it was.

After all that tripita, I ate two bites of "galactic burrito" and was done, but then I couldn't close the container. A woman was going by with a whole cart full of galactic burritos, so I figured she could help me, but she couldn't either. She put it in a bag and tied it tightly so it wouldn't open. I will say that they had SO MANY galactic burritos there because that must be what people want. I mean, you can get baklava all over, but Greek Fest (and the church's bake sale in November) is the only place I've seen galactic burritos. My Greek coworker says they're easy to make: "Just make a simple custard and then use frozen phyllo dough." I understand the second part, but that first part... what?? She might as well have told me, "It's so simple, you just build a nuclear reactor." And what is that opposed to, a complex custard? The mind boggles.

Then Travalon and I drove down to New Glarus, and I was so full of sugar and caffeine and fat that I was making up random songs and babbling about any random thing that popped into my head. We met Tiffy at Glarner Stube, a Swiss restaurant that Cecil said has the largest urinal in the Midwest. Whether that's true, I can't say, but the place does have two bathrooms that are marked unisex, and the one I went into did have a very large urinal in it. Here is a photo, courtesy of Travalon.

I was too full to eat a lot, so I had a cup of mushroom soup and then a couple bites of Travalon's savory puff pastry dish and a couple bites of Tiffy's schnitzel and a couple bites of the roesti, which is basically hash browns with Swiss cheese, and a couple bites of red cabbage. So really a great Swiss sampler platter. After lunch we went to Tiffy's sister's house in Monroe, which was shockingly nostalgic for me, because I remembered playing with her nieces there when they were little girls, and now they're pushing thirty. They were not there, but Karl the Chocolate Lab was (Tiffy was dog sitting), so we played with him. He's old and graying now, but he still loves playing fetch. Then Travalon and I went to Baumgartner's for cheese sandwiches, and I tried Limburger cheese for the first time. It was not nearly as stinky as I'd been led to believe. We couldn't talk Tiffy into joining us. 

Today at Mass we sang a hymn to the tune of "Slane" for our opening hymn, then Travalon and I stopped by the coffee shop on North Street, as is becoming our habit after Mass. Because of the Iron Man Triathlon, we didn't want to go anywhere near downtown, so we headed north of town, to the boardwalk in DeForest. To our surprise, the path into the woods is closed off now, so that's a disappointment. Then we went to the East Side Club to hear the Prairie Flowers at three... only the email had the time wrong, and they had started at one, so they were just packing up when we got there. Inside there was a Packer watch party, but it was too nice out, so we just sat by the lake. I do still love the Packers, but I always take a while to adjust to football season. Anyway, they beat the Lions. 

You will be shocked to hear that there was more band drama. I wanted to go to the Irish slow session, but our leader wasn't happy about this. She said I was only allowed to go to the second Irish slow session in the month, not the first one. That annoyed me, and anyway I didn't want to fight with Iron Man road closures on the way to the other end of town, so I said forget it, I'm going to the Irish session. Our bass player came too, but at first neither my Irish teacher Famie nor the red-headed flute player were there, and then I thought hmm, maybe I skipped band practice for nothing. They mentioned the flute player was sick with possibly COVID, so while she didn't feel that bad, she decided to stay home and not infect us, and then Famie arrived a little late. During the break, she, the bass player, and I were chatting when Hardingfele sent me a text that she was skipping band practice, so that means there were only the guitarist and two fiddles, which is enough for practice but we'll probably get a pissed-off email about how we need to take practice more seriously. The flute player had prepared a playlist for us of tunes commonly played at sessions, and I noticed "Slane" was on it, but we didn't play it. However, I did sing it for the hymn during Night Prayer, because it was the evening hymn in Magnificat for Thursday, and I was going to sing it then, but someone else had a hymn they wanted to sing. Tonight they asked me to pick a hymn, so I said sure and sang "Slane." I sure do love that tune.

This has nothing to do with anything else, but my aunt who lives in Colorado sent this photo.

I can see why they live in Colorado!

Man, that was a lot of words. You'd think I was still hopped up on Greek coffee, tripita, and galactic burritos.

Famous Hat

State Park Adventure Journal

 

Today I worked on campus, and it was a crazy day as far as meetings, people needing stuff, etc., but not too much exciting happened. A couple of times I held the elevator for a student who was only going up one floor, and one of them laid a SBD (Silent But Deadly) fart on the rest of us in the elevator before escaping one floor later, while we had to go up many floors. Thanks, dude. 

It's been cooler the last few days, and I hope my houseplants are still okay outside. I have the black calla lily, Lazarus the Dracaena, the ponytail palm, and the purple tradescantia still out there. I went into the bedroom to see if we can close the window with that mourning dove nest in the way, but the sturdy, perfect nest that supported two babies to adulthood is gone; just a few sticks remained, and they didn't get in the way of closing the window. The problem seems to have solved itself.

We had another quiet evening at home, so Travalon and I finished writing in the State Park Adventure Journal we got at Rib Mountain this past weekend. We have not been to many of the state trails, but we have been to most of the state parks. Travalon says he has been to all of them, but some (like Lizard Mound) he was at as a kid and barely remembers. There were some he had been to without me, and there were others that I knew better than he did, so the memories are a hodgepodge of our time together and our single days. We still have lots of empty pages in the Adventure Journal, and for every state park or trail there are four suggestions of things to do, most of which we haven't done, so we will keep the Adventure Journal in the car and try to see some of these places and do some of these things. Of course, some of them are not anything we'd do willingly. Winter camping? No thanks! Watching the sun rise from an overlook? If the weather is warm enough to be out at sunrise, then the sun is rising too early for me to be there watching it. That's just science. But I was intrigued by the accessible tandem kayak you can rent at Lake Kegonsa State Park - maybe we'll have to try that. I do remember years ago a bunch of us were piled into a huge canoe, so many of us (five?) that it almost sank, and we could barely paddle around Lake Kegonsa while another friend sailboarded around and around us. That was the Big Banana, a giant yellow canoe with brown spots on it, just like a banana, where it had been repaired. It died in a windstorm when it was blown into a tree, many years ago. Once Rich and Kathbert tried to paddle in it using little toy paddles, bright orange plastic ones, which didn't work so well. Or so I hear - I wasn't in the Big Banana to see how badly it went, I only heard about it after the fact, but it would have been a sight to see: a big yellow canoe and tiny orange paddles! Kind of like when Oregon played against Syracuse in a Final Four game, because Oregon has chartreuse uniforms and Syracuse has bright orange ones, so that was the most aesthetically pleasing college basketball game I ever saw. But I digress.

Famous Hat

More Photos of Up North

 

Today I worked on campus, and you know school is back in session when there's just so much more sugar around. All of us in the ARTs were assigned name tags, and I had to go pick mine up in another building, and on the way someone gave me a free granola bar. Then in the office where I picked it up, there were mini chocolate bars, so I took one. A coworker gave me a mini candy bar, and two colleagues came to my office to tell me that five floors above me were a bunch of treats. I took two kinds of cookies and an apple for later, and I also still have the granola bar, plus someone brought in pears, so I ate one. Oh, and our new chair gave me a biscotti (biscotto?). Just one.

Here are some more photos from our trip up North. First, a rock formation on top of Rib Mountain.

And the view from Rib Mountain.

A view from the Bearskin Trail.

The bridge on the Heart of Vilas County Bike Trail before the traffic jam started.

And the views from the bridge in either direction.

Moss and mushrooms on the Trout Lake Trail.

One sign we saw at the Trout Lake Station. Established 1925!

Another sign we saw: no Quinn on the beach! This means you, Quinn!

Another view of Firefly Lake.

Travalon's mocha at the Breakfast Bear.

Here's the logo for the Breakfast Bear - his nose is fried egg!

And Mr. Fat's cousin seems to live there.

A view of the Wisconsin River from Rib Mountain.

This is out of order, but here's a photo of Rest Lake (the one we stayed on) that Travalon took with his cell phone.

At Pauquette Park in Portage, we saw a couple of turtles.

More views of the park.

It has several bridges that lead to small islands. It's a very pretty park, and much closer by than most of the things in these photos. We could easily go visit on a Saturday.

Famous Hat

Photos from Our Road Trip Up North

 

Today I worked from home, and at lunch Travalon and I took a walk on Governor's Island, where we saw the big party boat Midnight Splash full of people. First we heard it - the music was LOUD! We wondered who got Tuesday off to go on a boat, and I wondered if a restaurant was taking their workers for a boat ride, since some of them are closed on Tuesdays. That's kind of a wonderful thought. When I worked in the private sector, literally everyone but me who had worked on a project was invited to go on a Betty Lou Cruise, and working for the university, we don't go on corporate boat rides. I didn't mind just going with Travalon and/or a friend or two, so hopefully they start back up again.

Here are some photos from our trip up North. First, here we are on Rib Mountain.

Here's the beach at our resort.

In this photo you can see the peddle boat we used.

Here we are on the Trout Lake Trail.

Some mushrooms on the trail.

Here is one of the swans at Presque Isle.

And their Veterans' Memorial with an eternal flame.

Their big excitement in town seems to be this floating stage.

We also saw this cute turtle there.

Here are a couple of shots of Firefly Lake.

Here I am re-enacting the photo on the main page of this blog. I thought I took one of Travalon also imitating this pose, but apparently his camera didn't actually take the photo.

Here is Mosinee Hill, aka. Baby Back Rib Mountain.

This is only a sampling. I will post more photos tomorrow.

Famous Hat

Baby Back Rib Mountain

 

Today we got going much earlier and were out of our cabin well before the checkout time of ten. We went to Dixie's Coffee again, and today there were only a few people there, unlike yesterday, when the line almost went out the door. Then Travalon suggested that we check out the Trout Lake Limnology Station. As longtime readers may remember, years ago our boat motor died way back in the marsh, and the Limnology boat gave us a tow back to our dock, so I gave them a donation to thank them. Now I get their newsletter, and they are always talking about the Trout Lake Station, and I imagined it as being way "up north" somewhere, but only when Travalon said he read about a grad student at the station did I realize it was the same Trout Lake we had hiked by two years in a row. We found the station, and of course it was closed for the holiday, but a guy did appear and stare at me for a moment. Apparently with my outdoorsy hat I looked like I belonged there, because he didn't say anything to me and disappeared again. We went down to their dock, where it looks like they have some epic parties.

You can't really see the fire pit and beach chairs in this photo, but believe me, they're there. You can see their yellow swimming dock. I had my university ID with me and was all ready to show it to this guy, but it seems my appearance caused him no concern. 

Our next stop was a trail around Firefly Lake further down the same road, but first we went to the Firefly Lake campground, and then we found the nameless gravel road the trail is on, but there was a yellow arrow indicating we should go to the right, so we ended up hiking for a bit on what appeared to be a snowmobile trail that went by Emerald Lake. We did hear a pileated woodpecker but unfortunately never saw it. We took the road back and went left instead, and indeed there was a trail around Firefly Lake, so we took it. The hiking website said it took seventeen minutes to complete, but it took us three times that long. I guess we are really slow. Photos soon!

We never saw the loon on Rest Lake, the one we sang a duet with on Saturday night, and on Sunday not long before sunset it was swimming around doing its laughing call. Last year we saw one in Minocqua, but this year we weren't hungry yet by the time we got to Minocqua, so we didn't stop for lunch. Not only did we see the people waving goodbye to all the tourists, we also saw a small anti-Trump protest. (There was a big one in Madison, but we didn't know about it until after we'd made plans to go up North.) The Cedar Creek Grill in Wausau wasn't open today, but the Breakfast Bear was, so we went there and got enormous portions. Of course we'd forgotten to bring any of our five coolers with us, so we bought a cheap styrofoam cooler at a nearby gas station to bring our leftovers home. Then we took a quick swing up Rib Mountain, where I re-enacted the photo on this blog, and so did Travalon. Will post them soon! We also tried to find a road to the top of Rib Mountain Jr. nearby, which is actually called Mosinee Hill, but Travalon called it Baby Back Rib Mountain and said that should be this blog post's title. Photos soon! We also saw a small protest on a bridge over the highway as we approached Wausau, but we couldn't find any information about an actual protest in Wausau itself. They might have been done by then anyway.

Then we drove until Pauquette Park in Portage.

The sun created quite a rainbow on the fountain there.

We saw a bald eagle there, and as we were driving we saw a huge nest on a utility pole with two owls sitting beside it. Travalon also saw a black squirrel run across the road. As always, it has gotten too late to post a lot of photos, but tomorrow I anticipate a quiet day of working from home and going to Adoration, so I expect to post a lot of photos then. Stay tuned!

Famous Hat