Violin's Day Out

 

This morning I dressed in the same outfit as last night (red velvet shirt over a black shirt that says "Merry Christmas" in Irish) and grabbed my violin, then we went to Mass. We went straight from there to the Shamrock Club Christmas party at Vintage, which was decorated beautifully.

We had a wonderful time: the food was good, the drinks were good (we both had an eggnog martini), and the company was delightful. The other guy named Travalon seems to have a new lady love, and the three of us were talking about doing the Mammoth Challenge on the Ice Age Trail. People joked that I could play some Irish tunes for them, since the violin accompanied us to the party, but first we were too busy eating, and then we were too busy with the raffle. Travalon and I had bought some tickets, but the huge Aran sweater someone had specifically brought for him was chosen by the guy whose 80th birthday party we went to this summer and his German lady love, who kept having their numbers drawn. Then they chose the shamrock socks I was going to take! When they had their number chosen a third time, they gave me the winning ticket, but there wasn't much left at that point, so I chose a pillow.

They also gave me the socks. They had their numbers chosen at least four times.

Travalon did have one of his tickets chosen, so he took the book on Celts he'd been eyeing. There was a book by the lead singer of U2, Bono, that he predicted nobody would choose, and sure enough, it was the last thing left... and then they chose another one of Travalon's numbers, so he got that book too. By then I was going to be quite late to my Brazilian drum class, but there would still be a good forty-five minutes left if we hustled, so we left right after the drawing. However, when I rushed into the building where the classes are, some guys from the really good group were hanging around, and they said, "It's finishing at 3:30 today." Which means I would have fifteen minutes of pounding on drums. I did go into the drumming room, along with my violin, and they were all using repiques (which is pronounced "heh-PEE-key" in Brazilian Portuguese), so I grabbed a repique and a couple of sticks and got enough drumming in that I got my active minutes for the day. 

I had notified Travalon of the change in plans, so we went to the East Side Club and watched the first half of the Packers game. They looked really good, beating up on the Bears. You do love to see that. They held the Bears to a field goal and had two mind-blowing touchdowns, and then it was halftime and they were going to get the ball back in the second half. The violin came with us to watch the game, and there was a glorious sunset.

Look at all that snow on the lawn where we watched so many bands this past summer! Travalon ran me over to the music club for my Irish session, then he got to go back and watch the Packers win. My violin was not happy about going in and out of the extreme cold today (it was frigid out, compared to yesterday when we were running all over outside), because she was VERY out of tune and didn't want to stay in tune until she had warmed up a bit. But she stayed in tune during the session, which was not led by the usual two people because the one guy was taking a day off after being at the club all day yesterday (there was a protest singalong I couldn't go to last night), and the woman who is the other owner was rear-ended and not direly injured, but sore enough that she didn't want to play. The red-headed flute player led the session, and she did a fabulous job. One fiddler and the guitarist from my band came, and the bass player (playing fiddle) who recently quit our band, and a fiddler with a five-string violin who always goes to Moldy Jam, and of course plenty of other people. (Not Famie my Irish teacher - her daughter had a swim meet this weekend.) Look how beautifully the ceiling of the music club was decorated.

It was even better in real life. This photo only partly does it justice. I cheated and wore my FitBit on my right wrist, so then I got my steps for the day without having to take a walk outside. Then Travalon picked me up, and after we got home and I put the violin back with her other instrument friends, I took Niko out of my purse and set him down, and he looked like he was wearing a monocle.

Just like Count von Count! This is the keychain - it fits exactly over his eye, like a total solar eclipse. He was with us all day too, but that's not unusual. I hope the ukulele wasn't as upset about going out last night, but it wasn't as cold, and it was only to one destination. Still, maybe I should check and see if she is just as out of tune as the violin from running around in the cold.

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Small Business Saturday, One Week Late

 

One of Travalon's favorite days of the year is Small Business Saturday, but we were snowed in on official Small Business Saturday (the one right after Thanksgiving), so he decided we could just postpone it a week. First we headed to Olbrich Gardens to see their annual Christmas train display, and we ran into a coworker of mine there who was just leaving. Here are videos of the trains.

And here is Travalon's video of one of the trains:

Here are photos of the displays around the trains.

This is a train that wasn't running, along with the one that was.

Then we went into the conservatory. Here are some photos of that.

Our next stop was the treasure shop on Willy Street. Travalon bought a bunch of stickers (sorry, I forgot to take photos of them), and I bought a necklace. I forgot to take a photo of the necklace by itself, but here you can see me wearing it. It matches my third eye toque.

Here's a closeup:

We walked down Willy Street and went to lunch at Umami, where we split an order of dumplings, and I had ramen while Travalon had wings with Korean barbecue sauce. Our next stop was Meep Meepleton's. Check out the stuffies we found there!

The Coca-Cola Polar Bear, the Pink Panther, and Daffy Duck! (A very old version of him.) I also bought a Mystery Box that could contain one of several Sesame Street characters. I wanted the Yip Yip Martians, and since that was the only "character" with two entities, I chose the heaviest box. However, Big Bird looked like the thickest character, so I thought maybe I'd get that one instead. But I was wrong on every...

Count! It's Count von Count! The Count counts! We had a Sesame Street record when I was a child, and Keely Smith was singing and the Count was making comments: "Kiss me once (one kiss!), kiss me twice (two kisses!), kiss me once again (three kisses!), it's been a long, long time (two longs, one time!)!" For some reason, that has always stuck with me, so that now if I hear the song, my brain fills in the Count's comments. Don't you love his tiny monocle? 

Then we drove downtown and went to Anthology, where Travalon got these two posters:

He had a gift card from doing a wellness thing through my job, and he'd been saving it to spend on Small Business Saturday. I bought some Christmas cards to send out to people, so watch for those. Then we went next door to Little Luxuries and got Astra, to keep Stella company.

She's a little gingerbread cookie star stuffy! And here they are together.

Then we went up to the Square to check out the Wisconsin Veterans' Museum's gift shop. Travalon got a model airplane kit (sorry, no photo), and I got a Wisconsin hoodie. Here I am modeling it with the matching hat I got at a gas station earlier this year.

Plaid flannel forever! (I am so Gen X.) Then we went into the Capitol to see the State Christmas Tree, which also had a model train running around it.

Here are photos of the Christmas tree.

Speaking of stuffies, yesterday while I worked from home, Travalon had to go to work early to pick up Christmas toys for the kids. This bear fell out of the box, so he put it in the passenger seat to ride along with him.

Hopefully some lucky kid adores that as much as it deserves.

In the evening we went to the East Side Club Christmas Party. I had been told I was welcome to bring my ukulele, so I did, thinking the group would play after dinner. However, by the time we got there, they were already playing, so I didn't want to sneak in. They were obviously expecting me, since there was an empty chair front and center. Travalon and I sat at a table and listened to them play and sing oldies, then they finished and got to go through the buffet line first, and to my utter shock, our table was called up next! We are always last or almost last. If we sit closest to the food, they will start from the back. If we sit furthest from the food, they will start from the front. And once - true story - we sat right in the middle of the room, and they said, "Let's do something different this time - first the closest tables go up, then the furthest tables go up, and the middle ones will go last." Bunky's catered the dinner, which was beef and/or chicken, roasted potatoes, delicious pilaf, a green salad, and a roll. Another couple sat at our table, and they both play the ukulele. We had so much to talk about with them, not just about ukuleles but traveling and basketball and all sorts of things. For dessert there were four choices, in small sizes so you could try all of them: chocolate cake, carrot cake, cannoli, and baklava. (I only had the chocolate cake and the cannoli.) Then they came around with Tom & Jerry drinks, which are warm and plenty potent. They had a drawing that lasted forever because there were so many tchotchkes to give away, mostly free stuff from alcohol companies, but I did score a Wisconsin blanket when my number was called well into the drawings and the pickings were getting a bit slim. (No, sorry, I don't need a Coors Lite flag or a koozie from some seltzer company.) It seemed like it went on forever, but nobody else from our table had their number called. 

I talked to the woman who is kind of in charge of the Wauna Strummers ukulele group, because she was supposed to have a T-shirt for me, and I'd actually brought cash to pay for it. (They are pretty funny - they say: "Will play the ukulele for free. Will stop for pay.") She had forgotten to bring the T-shirt, but she said they are playing for a fish fry on Friday. However, I talked to another woman who seems more in charge, and she said since it's a performance and I don't regularly practice with them at one on Fridays, it would be best if I just stuck to the strums at the Lone Girl instead of playing with them at actual performances. I said that makes sense, and so it seems wisest that I didn't play with them tonight. The ukulele just got a bit of fresh air, that's all.

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Badger Basketball with Blackwell

 

Yesterday I worked on campus, and Seabird and I took a short walk on our morning break, but she had no interest in walking at lunch, so I walked by myself. I kept hearing a train coming, and then the crossing arms would come down, but then they would go back up again, and the train never passed - just like on Monday night! What's going on with that?? Our boss always has a riddle to start our department meetings, and yesterday's was: "What language does a bridge speak?" I couldn't think of anything except "Pont-ificate," which makes no sense, but two of my coworkers figured it out: "Span-ish!" 

Right after work I caught the 202 shuttle down to the Labor Temple, and the Former Professor Formerly Known as Lute Player was on it too, so we sat together and talked about a genetic service just for Holocaust survivors, among other things. She said something very sad, that people are looking for a lost uncle who may have survived, but they never find anyone like that, just a lot of distant cousins because all Jewish people are related. Often their entire immediate family was completely wiped out. Then I was supposed to be doing paperwork with the president and vice president of our former local to aid with the merger with the other local, but a guy from the South Central Federation of Labor ("Scuffle") came in and started talking to us, and I could not stay awake. When Travalon arrived, we gave a ride to the vice president, who lives right off Monroe Street, and then we checked out all the inflatable Santas on that street. In one block, practically every house has one in the front yard, or on the roof.

Travalon and I went to the Badger basketball game and watched them handily defeat Northwestern. A guy named Blackwell is the new Tonje, the great player from last year - he got 1000 lifetime points during this game (it was fun to watch his points add up until he got there), and he got a double-double. Travalon says he came to visit the kids where he works, and they were very excited, but when they found out he is 6'7", they just kept saying, "Six Seven!" The game seemed very loud, and I had forgotten to grab earplugs (we keep a stash in Travalon's glove compartment), but Travalon got a free pair at the Welcome Desk, so I wore them throughout the game. Why is everything so loud these days? Am I a cranky old person for complaining about this?

DuoLingo gave me my annual summary:

It feels good to be a legend at something, even if it's just yelling at a language app: "No! That's exactly what I said! Why is it wrong?!?"

Today was very, very cold. My jeans had been falling down during my walk yesterday, so today I wore slightly tighter jeans... and then they were falling down too. This makes sense, if I really have lost almost twenty pounds, but what a pain. I didn't want to walk outside anyway, so Hardingfele and I walked around in her building. When I got back to my office, my phone was missing - had it fallen out of my pocket one of the times I had to hitch my pants back up? But wouldn't I have heard it?? I checked my (short) path outside and then went back to Hardingfele's office to say we'd have to retrace our path around her building... but she had found my phone just sitting on her desk. Had I taken it out of my pocket and set it down? I don't remember doing that at all. The bad news is that I did this before our walk in our building, so I didn't get credit for those steps on my phone. Hardingfele was mystified: "Why do you care? Don't you have a FitBit?" Yes, but I like to compare them to see how many intentional steps I got versus steps around the house getting ready for work, "steps" when I wave my arms during a boring online meeting where nobody can see or hear me, etc. But the good news is that my phone is not lost. Phew!

Hardingele has a plant that looked vaguely familiar, so I asked what it was, and she said, "A peace lily, of course." I said, "That's no peace lily," so we asked both my plant app and my phone what it was, and they both said a type of ginger. (Not the same type.) I thought, oh yeah, that's where I've seen that kind of plant before - at Olbrich Garden! Hardingfele was shocked that it wasn't a peace lily. It's a rescue plant, so it's not like she could ask anyone what it was, since she found it abandoned in her building. Here's a not very good picture of it.

I mostly walked around on my floor at work, and back where hardly anyone sees it there's a chalkboard, so I drew this picture on it:

The Martian is saying, "It's colder than my home planet!" I remember years ago, it was around this time of year, and on a talk about Ice Cube down at the South Pole we actually got to talk to the people down there, and it was colder here than down there. (It was their "summer" at the time, but still.) Then that summer, a fellow where I worked came back from visiting family in India, and he said, "Wow, it's hotter here than in India!" I thought, "That's a hell of a tourist slogan!"

Come to Wisconsin - hotter than India, colder than the South Pole!

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Niko at the Django Djam

 

Today I worked on campus, and a colleague came and talked to me so long that by the time I was able to message the colleague I'd walked with last week, she was already gone for a walk, so I just took a short walk by myself. Then I took the crowded 28 bus down to Adoration, and once again I was one of the last people the driver let board the bus, and at the next stop he just blew by everyone because we were so packed. What are those other people supposed to do?? They really need a big bendy bus, or a second 28 bus, or something. I've seen that in the past, a 28X bus, and if I knew one was coming, I'd wait because then there would be tons of room, but the bus driver had no idea if there would be another one coming.

Travalon picked me up from Adoration, and we went to Leopold's to check out the Django Jam (which I think should be spelled Django Djam). I am a big fan of Django Reinhardt, so when that woman from Moldy Jam said she went to this jam, I googled it and found out it was Tuesday evenings at Leopold's. However, Travalon and I saw no sign of musicians, plus there was nowhere to sit. I asked a barista, who said the jam was next door at Fabiola's, the Italian restaurant they also own. We went over there and did indeed hear gypsy jazz swing, and I saw the woman from Moldy Jam playing the mandolin. There was a guy with a violin, a person with an accordion, a guy with a trumpet, a guy playing upright bass, and lots of guitars, and later a young guy played the piano. They were so good! One of the guitarists had set his guitar case on the table behind us, so when he went back there to get something, I asked if it was an open jam, and he said it was. Still, I am not good enough for this jam.

Fabiola's is not open on Tuesday nights, so we couldn't get any food, but fortunately it was Taco Tuesday at Leopold's, so Travalon went over there and got us some tacos. It was a little cold where we were sitting, so he got me a warm (decaf) pandan latte. (If they forgot to make it decaf, I am in for a very long night!) 

Isn't it beautiful? While Travalon was in line, he ran into Cecil Markovitch and the Single B-Boy, so they came to sit with us - good thing I took the table for four and not one of the two-seaters! I thought it was a coincidence that they were there, but Cecil reminded me that I had mentioned this jam on Sunday. He and I were singing along to "Bye Bye Blackbird" as the group played it, and the B-Boy wondered how we all knew the song, which seemed to horrify Cecil. "It's a standard!" he said. "What did your parents listen to when you were growing up?" and the B-Boy said, "Not much." He is not a music-driven individual. I'm the opposite, I totally want to master gypsy jazz swing, but I also want to master Irish fiddling, and also Brazilian drumming... I will never get good at any one thing because I want to do EVERYTHING. I'm just a professional dilettante, well maybe not professional since I'm not getting paid to be a Jackie of all trades and a master of none. Still, I may bring the violin to this jam at some point. Not next week - no jam.

Cecil asked what I gave Travalon for his birthday, so that got us started on a conversation about how wombats poop cubes and honey badgers are fierce. Here is Travalon's wombat from a couple of angles.

Travalon looked up Australian names for pets and found Migaloo, which is the word in some Aborigine language for "white fella," so say hello to Migaloo the Wombat. He can be buddies with Kizi the Honey Badger.

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Lola's Lottery and Monday Mystery Train

 

Today is Travalon's 60th birthday, and he wanted to call this blog post what I have titled it, so why not? You're only 60 once. I worked from home today so that he could have a relaxing morning, and then I took a long lunch so we could go to the Journey, his favorite Chinese buffet. Then in the evening we went to Lola's for dinner. It was decorated so beautifully.

Here's Travalon!

And here are our drinks.

(We had already started drinking them but I loved the colors.) I'm having a nonalcoholic infused black currant spritzer, and he's having a non-ice cream grasshopper. Here's what they looked like when they were full.

Here's a better view of all the Christmas records on the wall.

Travalon got to spin the wheel at Lola's for free for his birthday, but he didn't win anything. As we were walking through the parking lot, I heard the train, and the tracks run right near there, so we walked over to them but saw nothing. When we got in the car and drove over the tracks, we could see a train coming, so we found a really good vantage point to watch it. The train came closer and closer, and the crossing arms sounded and came down... but then the train backed up out of sight. We gave up and went to look at Christmas lights.

These next few are all of the same house, but it's so impressive that one photo can't do it justice.

Here's the guy near us with a million snowmen:

These next three shots are all of the same house, with the Christmas Pelican:

Even our neighbors across the way are getting into the spirit of Christmas.

And the moon has a rainbow around it. Sorry - this isn't the best photo.

And here is a photo I meant to post several days ago. I stole it from the social media page of my old boss when I worked in the private sector. He was/is in Thailand, and this is a hill called Din Dang Doi:

The name is almost even better than the cool photo of the hill at sunrise. Unless Din Dang Doi is the name of the hill my old boss climbed to get to this view, and not the fascinating hill in the photo. Could one even climb that hill? It looks very, very steep.

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