Hanging Out with the Irish Club

 

Last night the Bucks lost the playoff game against the Bulls, which isn't that big a deal since they won the first one and it's a seven-game series, but one of their best players did get an ankle injury and may be out for the rest of the series, so that is worse news. Anyway, Travalon thought it would be funny to take his little Bango the stuffed deer and make him look sad and then post it on social media, but when I saw the photo, I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.

It is a wildly appropriate photo, in that yesterday was 4/20 and Bango looks stoned, but "sad" isn't the first word that comes to mind when I see this photo. Would you Fear the Deer? No, because his eyes are going in two (at least!) different directions, so he couldn't get a bead on me to attack me. Maybe this is what it would look like if Picasso had been into making stuffed animals instead of painting.

Today was another meeting fail for me because I swear I checked my calendar first thing this morning and didn't see any, but I got back a little late from lunch and had a reminder that my meeting had started a few minutes earlier. Then Boethius was taking forever to open Zoom, and then I should have turned off my camera because I didn't prepare with a better outfit or seating area, so everyone could see me in my hoodie, sitting in my easy chair. So professional. I have had it with meetings this week. Luckily tomorrow I'm taking a vacation day, so meetings shouldn't be an issue.

Then this evening Travalon and I met up with the local Irish Club. They had asked us some months earlier to provide our Irish bona fides, so imagine my surprise when we met up with them in person and I was about the Irishest person there. A couple of women told me they were part Scottish, which is not exactly the same thing, but like genetically it is. Also, I appeared to be the only one torturing myself by trying to learn the language; nobody else seemed to have any interest in that. That is a very Irish thing to do, I guess, since actual people from Ireland tell me they were tortured in school by having to learn the language. Kind of like how people used to be tortured by having to learn Latin. (The "How many Romans?" scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian will never not be funny to anyone who studied Latin.) I wrote my Irish teacher an email in Irish today, and she seemed to understand what I was trying to say because her response made sense. Bless her, she didn't correct me. I do have a terrible habit of not using the accent marks, and yes I know they are important, or how else would you know if I meant "man" or "grass"? I remember when Irish seemed like a cool, mysterious thing, and now it's just that thing I have to do on DuoLingo every day. But someone posted a TV show (?) of Buntus Cainte, which I thought were just these crazy books full of cartoons, and I could understand a lot of the story about a rabbit, so I have learned something, in case I ever need to discuss rabbits with someone who only speaks Irish. As random as my life is, it could happen.

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Final Four (Bach Chorales)

 

Today I went to a Just Bach concert over my lunch hour, and the theme was the "Final Four." Apparently there was a bracket for voting for various Bach chorales, and I am glad to tell you that the Lenten chorales really prevailed. One was the tune "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," and another was "Ah, Holy Jesus." We got to sing along on them, and then the professionals performed a Bach cantata and we sang the final chorale on that one too, which was the tune to "Christ Lag in Todesbande." I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one grooving on the minor key jams! Then afterwards Pete the Sailor Man and the guy Travalon and I went hiking with right at the beginning of the pandemic invited me to join them at the Slow Food lunch, but of course by then they were out of most of the food, so I got a tiny piece of goat cheese pesto pizza and a tiny piece of blackberry cobbler. What I had was delicious. Pete got a tiny bit of salad with his, but another couple who were with us got nothing. There were refunds all around.

Here are some recent pictures from Travalon's phone. First is the pond with the island in it at Lapham Peak.

These are the coots in Brittingham Bay that we saw on Easter Sunday.

And these are photos from the light show at the Brit Floyd concert Travalon went to.

I didn't go to the concert, since as you can guess from the name, Brit Floyd is a Pink Floyd tribute band, and I am not a fan. Travalon loves classic rock, and I like some of it, like Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan. We do agree on other genres of music, like 1940's jazz and reggae, so we can usually find something to agree on in the car. He will never like early music, and I will never like Pink Floyd, and we're fine with that.

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Photos from Patrick Marsh and Whalen's Marsh

 

For whatever reason, today Boethius my computer was able to upload the photos from Travalon's card, so here are some photos from Saturday. First are photos from Patrick marsh. These are the tiny ruddy ducks. I love their blue bills, bright ruddy color, and tails that stick up at a jaunty angle.

Lady Mallard curtsying to her Lord.

I'm pretty sure these are lesser scaups.

I love the crest on this red-breasted merganser! It's like he has a mid-80's mohawk.

More ruddy ducks - there were a lot of ruddy ducks.

This canvasback seems to be looking at the duck flying above him, which I can't identify. Maybe a scaup?

And of course, we saw lots of pelicans.

One fluffy pelican.

Two fluffy pelicans. They're as fluffy as Michaela!

More ruddy ducks.

Here are a couple of shots of the male canvasback.

Here is a female bufflehead with a male ruddy duck.

More fluffy pelicans. It was windy that day, so maybe the wind was fluffing up their feathers.

Here is a great blue heron standing in the water...

... and then it flew away.

These photos are from Whalen's Marsh, along the causeway to Tipperary Road. We saw northern shovelers and coots.

It looks like Travalon took these photos yesterday around our neighborhood. Here is a crane, hiding in the marsh grass, which is what they do best besides bugling.

Here is Lord Cardinal.

Today I had a meeting at 9:00, one at 10:00, one at 11:30, and one at 1:00. Still, I found time to go out and walk on the Lakeshore Path. This isn't the best photo, since I took it with my cell phone, but the coots were standing on the dock by the boathouse.

If you look closely, you can see their little feet are like a chicken's, not a duck's. I wish Travalon had been there with his good camera to zoom in on them. They are such funny little birds.

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Easter with Michaela

 

Sorry for the silence the last few days. I was busy Triduuming and then partying for Easter. Also, we had our houseguest visiting again from Thursday to yesterday. Friday I took the day off of work, and in the morning Travalon, Michaela, and I went for a walk on Governor's Island. We saw a pair of mallards and a pair of wood ducks, but Travalon didn't have a new card for his good camera yet, so no photos. Then I went to the Good Friday service at the nearby church, since our church wasn't having one in English, and I was a bit perturbed that during the prayers, the reader prayed for "our Pope, Benedict." Hopefully that was a slip of the tongue; I don't think too highly of people who refuse to acknowledge Francis as the Pope. The priest saved face by praying for both Benedict and Francis, but then he seems like a really good priest. He also has a beautiful chanting voice. In the evening I went to a wonderful concert where they performed two of my favorite pieces of all time, Pergolesi's Stabat Mater (perfect for the day) and Bach's cantata "Christ Lag in Todesbande," which was a little premature. Tiffy couldn't go, and Travalon of course would rather stay home with the dog, so I sat alone but got into a conversation with two women sitting by me. They were surprised by how much I know about a random assortment of topics, so I don't know if I look like someone who would not know anything, and hopefully I didn't come across as a know-it-all. They were a sort that is typical in Madison, youngish Baby Boomers who are spiritually thirsty but not interested in drinking at the fountain of Christianity. I think it's a combination of running into sexist Christian leaders when they were younger and just spiritual laziness - they want instant enlightenment, not the kind you get from the hard work of actually living the Christian faith. (Which, admittedly, a lot of professed Christians are not doing any better at either.)

Saturday Travalon got a new card for his camera, and we went to Patrick Marsh, where we saw pelicans, blue herons, and several types of ducks, then we went to Okee, where we saw lots of pelicans. We also went to the causeway to Tipperary Road and saw northern shovelers and coots there, but when we got home, the photos from the new card didn't automatically upload to Boethius like they usually do. I will have to go through and individually pick out photos to put on this blog, maybe tomorrow. We also took a walk on the boardwalk in DeForest. Then we went to the Vigil Mass at St. Patrick's, since the one at our church is in Spanish. The bishop celebrated, and he chanted the "Exsultet," while a deacon chanted the Gospel. One of the guys we always go to brunch with after Mass was received into the Church, along with four other people, plus a woman being baptized and four people being confirmed as adults. That did make for a long Mass, and they used a lot of incense so it was very smoky, which may be why they left the front doors open even though it was far from warm that day. One nice touch with that was we could hear gulls calling until the sun went down. It made it feel maritime, which isn't such a stretch since Lake Monona is like a block away. There was a beautiful moon after the Vigil Mass:

Yesterday we didn't go to Mass, since we had gone last night. We went to Oconomowoc to see Travalon's mother and brothers, and we brought Michaela, who was a big hit. Here's a photo of her so you can see why:

We took her to Lapham Peak, but just like with the Ice Age Trail, she steadfastly refused to follow the path that went uphill. Instead, we went around a really cute little pond with an island in it. I think Travalon took a photo, but he hasn't sent it to me yet, so maybe later I'll post that. Later that afternoon, after Michaela had gone home, Travalon and I walked by Brittingham Bay and saw a huge flock of coots and a loon. Then in the evening we went to Rich's house for his usual large Easter dinner. As usual, there were three desserts, so I had too much sugar and am in some sort of sugar crash funk now, and have been all day. When my boss saw me first thing this morning, she asked what was wrong, and I was surprised because nothing was wrong, but I must have looked really tired. Then we had a meeting that couldn't happen because not enough people showed up for a quorum. Mondays! At least on my lunchtime walk, I saw another army of coots and a loon, this time on Lake Mendota. It was a terrible weather day - can you believe it snowed this late in April? Yuck! Maybe that was what caused my funk, not excessive sugar intake. Though I'm sure neither helped...

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Holy Thursday Mass

 

Today was sort of frustrating because I got back from lunch and couldn't get back into my work computer. I got on my phone and asked coworkers if there was a power outage on campus, but finally it dawned on me, when I saw my computer wasn't charging, that the power outage was here at home. In the daylight it's not so obvious that the power is out. Fortunately the power did come back on within a couple of hours. Of course I had to reset my clock, which is no big deal, but the real pain was resetting the timer on Plant World. I didn't realize it was out of whack until it was well after nine and the light was still on, so I set it back an hour. We'll see how it does tomorrow...

It was really, really windy today, so much so that they shut down the Merrimac Ferry. I'm sure that's why our power went out, and then I was too afraid to do the laundry because the wind was still bad, and what a pain if the power went out in the middle of doing the laundry! I had been thinking of going to Holy Thursday Mass with the Bishop at 7:30 this evening, but with the wind I didn't want to drive so far in my little car - who wants to get blown off the road? I went to St. Peter's by our house at 6:30, and then it was a bit of a letdown because the music was just okay, and they didn't even do the foot washing. I'll bet the Bishop's Mass was really majestic. Still, as I get older, I regret my previous snotty attitude that only beautiful Masses are worthwhile, because some of the least charitable people I've encountered are very into the proper liturgy. Beauty in liturgy is a wonderful thing, but not at the expense of charity. Not every church musician can be my OTHER choir director, and no need to run people down when they're just doing the best they can. Chasing people off because they aren't deemed sufficiently reverent isn't really what Jesus would do. At my age I'd rather be with people singing lame music off-key but full of love than people who go through all the motions properly but look down on everyone else. What mystifies me is why this happens. Why can't we have reverence AND charity? Is that too much to ask?

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Knock Knock! Who's There? Ding Dong!

 

Now that we are back home, my blog posts are going to be so quotidian. Like today, the most noteworthy thing that happened was my bus ride to work: first a woman got on and paid in nickels, which took forever, so even the bus driver was like, "Lady, people are trying to get to work," and then we got up to the Capitol Square and the bus driver made us all get off the bus and get onto another one. He never did explain why. Luckily nobody said anything when I slunk into work eight minutes late, but they would probably all understand anyway, since most people on campus take the bus. Parking is expensive and in short supply on campus, so only the faculty and the really lazy people pay for it. I have always been a big believer in mass transit anyhow, even back when I worked in the private sector and we had a huge parking lot at work, but I insisted on taking the bus on those days when it was too awful to bike. Everyone thought I was nuts, but I was saving the world! I was being kind to the environment! You get older and those arguments are less persuasive, because you think, "I'm one person, and it's corporate pollution that's really ruining the environment," but I'd still rather take the bus than have to drive onto campus and dodge undergraduates sauntering across the street and looking at their phones instead of their surroundings.   

This evening I was thinking of going to a concert, or possibly the Tenebrae service, but working two days after my vacation has taken it all out of me, so I stayed home and prayed the rosary with the Ladies and then did Night Prayer. I was using the new shell rosary I'd gotten at the Holy Family Shrine, and I was leading the third decade when I realized it had only nine shells. Oops! Of course all the other decades were fine. I think it's a handmade rosary, probably made by some kind lady supporting the Shrine by making rosaries for them to sell in their gift shop. I was surprised about how low-key they are about donations; there wasn't a box for putting money into, and the gift shop was just a few rosaries. They must get enough big donations that they don't have to worry about little ones from random travelers stopping in to pray.

Here is a funny story about how I have no short-term memory anymore at my advanced age: when Travalon and I were getting ready to swim at the hotel outside of Des Moines, in the Goldilocks pool, I put my rings and purse into the drawer in the nightstand. Then I thought, "I might as well charge my phone while I'm swimming," but the phone was in my purse, and I couldn't find my purse!! We had just eaten at the Machine Shed restaurant next door, so Travalon called them, and they looked where we had been sitting, but there was no sign of my purse. (Of course not; it was in the drawer.) I was just about in full-fledged panic mode when I suddenly remembered putting it in the drawer. What a ding-dong!

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What Cheer, Amana, Vespers, and Dubuque

 

Yesterday Travalon and I left Des Moines and drove east on I-80, stopping at a rest stop outside of Grinnell with stunning views of the landscape.

Then we drove south on Highway 21 until coming to What Cheer, since we were curious about it.

This is the What Cheer Museum.

Sadly, What Cheer must have been much larger once. This monument lists all the men who fought in World War I, and there are more names on it (all sides were covered with names) than there can possibly be people in the town today.

This is a shot of downtown What Cheer.

This is the What Cheer Opera House.

It says the Everly Brothers are playing, but on another billboard we saw it was the "Everly Brothers Experience."

Then we drove to the Amana Colonies. We only went to one, Amana; there are also North Amana, South Amana, East Amana, West Amana, and Homestead. The buildings are old and full of shops.

We got chocolate at one shop (to eat next week), and at the bakery I asked if they sold almond letters. The woman looked at me like I was nuts, and then she said, "Dutch letters?" They do sell them, and they look more like a Z or N than what I remembered from two decades ago, which looked like an S. They were also very large, so Travalon and I split one. They were, however, just as delicious as I remembered. The little sparrows knew the flaky pastry would create a lot of crumbs, so they gathered around us.

I also went into a rock and mineral store and bought a crystal. Then we drove to New Melleray, and Travalon clearly thought it was beautiful, since he took lots of photos.

We got there in time for Vespers. Afterwards we went to the Dubuque Riverwalk.

This is the shot tower at the end of it.

The Riverwalk ends at the old Star Brewery, which is now a winery. We had a pizza and Jazzberry wine, which is like port made with raspberries. So good!

Now we are back to the workaday world, and I was charging my FitBit and forgot to put it back on before my lunchtime walk, so no credit for those steps! Here are some things I bought on our trip. First are a goldstone and an obsidian pyramid from Junques in Cuba City and the mystic merlinite crystal I bought in Amana.

Blogspot put these on in the wrong order. I got these blacklight paintings in Nebraska.

Here is what they look like under ordinary artificial light.

The two rosaries on the left are from the Holy Family Shrine, and the two on the right are from Junques. The one on the far right had no crucifix, so I got a dirt-cheap four-way cross also at Junques to put on it.

These rosaries are from the antiques shop in Nebraska, just like the blacklight paintings.

When I got to work today, my boss said, "I thought you weren't back until tomorrow!" so then I was wishing I had stayed home and slept in. It was hard hearing that alarm after so many days of sleeping until I woke up!

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