The Chancellor's Investiture

 

Sorry that I haven't blogged in several days. It has been a very busy time. Friday morning Travalon and I got going and went to the pre-investiture breakfast, then I had to get ready to join the academic procession. I was shocked that they invited me, and I said, "I only have a bachelor's degree," but they said, "We can get you the robe." I didn't figure they would also get a mortar board for me, but I never get rid of anything, so I had mine from thirty years ago. Sorry, no photos tonight - Boethius is really misbehaving. It turned out I couldn't sit with Travalon because he had to sit down in the general audience, while I had to sit up in the choir loft, behind the speakers. That meant that after the first of two hours, when I knew my bladder wouldn't hold out for another hour so I had to sneak out "discretely," everyone must have seen me, because Travalon and our department chair sure did. The program was a lot of speeches: previous chancellors, the student class president, some guy who had been the new chancellor's boss at UCLA, and of course the chancellor herself. She did bring me to tears when she talked about our late previous chancellor, and also how she donated a kidney to her father. There were also some musical interludes, and a poem. Afterwards there was a campus picnic to celebrate the investiture, and to unveil the new chancellor's ice cream flavor. However, the planning was a bit weak, so we had to wait in line for an hour in the hot sun for our free food and ice cream. At least someone thought to bring us bottles of water about half an hour into it. I practically became best friends with the guy next to me in line, but then I lost track of him and sat at a table with some custodians... and when I got up to leave, my new buddy was sitting at the next table. Sigh. In case you are wondering, the chancellor's new ice cream flavor is Mnookie Dough, since her name is Jennifer Mnookin. It's basically cookie dough ice cream. I prefer Chancellor Blank's special flavor, Bec-Key Lime Pie. 

After that, I went to work at the office, and my boss kept asking me stuff. By the end of the day, I was so exhausted that I went to bed early and slept for nine and a half hours. Whew! Normally I sleep right around seven hours, so for me that was unusual. Being around important people is exhausting! 

Saturday morning Travalon and I went to find the pasqueflowers that were blooming in Hauser Prairie. Hauser Road is very short, maybe a mile or so long, but we couldn't find the prairie at first because the signs are very small. There is no parking lot, and there are barely trails. Prairie Man had told us the flowers were there, so I was texting him to find out where they were when we suddenly saw hundreds of them. They were so lovely! This inspired me to write a song, but of course I have already forgotten the melody (should have recorded it), and it only has one verse so far:

Travalon's wife doesn't make him buy her diamonds,

Travalon's wife doesn't make him buy her pearls,

Travalon's wife makes him walk through the wilderness,

She's one of those crazy nature girls.

Travalon took off to hang out with his high school buddy, watch a movie about John Lennon, and go to a Bobby Darin tribute concert. Meanwhile, I went on a rosary walk, but it was hot, so I wanted to be in the shade. There's only one really shady place in our neighborhood, and of course the cranes were there, so I walked around in circles in the little bits of shade I could find. They were doing a mating dance, and a crow in a tree right above me was trying to copy their calls. When I was almost done with the rosary, I heard a slight drone behind me, then something flew right over my head. It was the two cranes buzzing me! Why would they be so hostile? We've always lived in peace together before this.

Later I met Tiffy downtown, and we went somewhere different for lunch. She ordered pad see ew and got hers right away, while I ordered curry squash and never got mine. I had to ask the waitress about it three times, and finally she asked the kitchen and found out they didn't have any squash, so they just never made it and didn't bother to tell me. I always order pad see ew, so I should have just done it that day too. Anyway, they could clearly make it, so I said that's what I'll have instead, and they made it right away. Didn't give me a discount either, and the woman at the next table was also waiting forever because they forgot to make her order. 

It was a very hot day, like a day in July, and there were approximately three million people on State Street, so we went up to the roof of Tiffy's sister's apartment building until heading to Rich's place to have some leftover Easter desserts. The three of us went to the Mexican restaurant near his house, and we said we wanted separate checks, but they put Rich and me on the same check. Before I could say, "They can split it up at the register," he said, "Looks like I'm treating you today!" Then he was so kind that he dropped us off at the Baroque concert so we didn't have to worry about parking. Tiffy noted that there were both well-known composers like Handel, Monteverdi, and Corelli on the program and also ones we had not heard of before, and that there definitely was a reason we still know the well-known ones today. It's true, these obscure composers are rarely unknown gems. They fell into obscurity for a reason. Then Rich picked us back up, and we went through the light show at the airport. I made a video of it when Travalon and I went through it, so I'll try to post it at some point.

Today Travalon and I couldn't get going fast enough to go downtown at nine for Mass, so we went to the nearby one at ten. They had a social hour afterwards, and the other Famous hoped we would hang around, but we apologized and said we had to get going. We were going to go to Crema Cafe for brunch, but now they are closed on Sundays, so we went to the Daisy Cafe instead. It was a rainy, miserable day, and Tiffy wanted to head home before the weather got worse. Travalon and I went to Olbrich Gardens and hung out in the conservatory, then I took a long walk in the driving snow before Irish class. I kept hearing a train in the distance, but it never passed by. Only four of us made it to band practice, and they wanted to see photos of the investiture, so I went to pull out my phone... and it was gone! I texted Rich using Hardingfele's phone, since he can track me, and he said the phone was at the same house I was at, so I hadn't forgotten it in the car. We went outside and found it face-down and soaking wet in the grass, but it seems to be no worse for wear. I guess it fell out of my coat pocket...? Good thing my bandmates wanted to see photos, or I might not have realized it was gone until I got home! Of course, by then we had forgotten about the photos, so I never did show them any. I will try to show you, my readers, tomorrow. Hopefully Boethius is more cooperative then.

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The Chancellor's Investiture Dinner

 

Today was a very enjoyable day. I worked on campus and went to a listening session with the dean, then in the afternoon the same dean hosted a panel discussion about astronomy topics as part of the investiture celebrations for our new chancellor. As I was heading to it, I thought, "I should have told Richard Bonomo about this!" Then I got into line... and who should be right ahead of me but Rich? The talk was very interesting, with a professor from UCLA who has won a Nobel Prize and is also best friends with our chancellor talking about black holes, then a professor from our university talking about the Ice Cube neutrino detector at the South Pole, and then another professor from our university talking about possible life in the universe. Afterwards people asked questions, and they all had questions about possible life in the universe. One person had a question about black holes, and nobody had a question about Ice Cube.

Then this evening I walked over to Camp Randall, to Gate 10, and as I walked into it, an a cappella group serenaded me with "Sweet Caroline," so I sang the "Bomp bomp bomp!" part along with them. Bucky Badger was there too, and the Chancellor greeted me with a hug. We were all herded up to the fourth floor for signature cocktails and hors d'oeuvres as a string quartet played everything from Pachelbel to Cold Play. We were overlooking the Field House, and suddenly the band came out and played! I was hanging out with my shared governance peeps, not just university staff but students and academic staff too, because we all felt kind of shy among all those bigwigs. Our former Chancellor Donna Shalala was there, who left to join the Clinton Administration, and our former governor Tommy Thompson, and our mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway. I was next to her in line for the buffet, so I had to tell her how Jilly Moose submitted a snowplow name that was Salt-the-Roads Conway. She liked that. She said the contest was so popular that they are doing some other naming thing now. She said the finalists were so funny, and I said, "Three of them were mine." And three were Tiffy's! 

The dinner made me think of a wedding. There were lots of speeches and toasts, and we all sat at long tables with elegant tablecloths and candles, in a room overlooking the football field. Travalon arrived not long before dinner, and he enjoyed talking to the Chair of the Central Committee. We started with a dinner roll and Caesar salad, then I had salmon, gnocchi, and asparagus for dinner. Dessert was a tray with three flutes: the middle one held champagne for yet another toast, and the two outer ones held strawberry shortcake on the left and brownies with raspberries on the right. There were tiny Terrace chairs that we got to take home, and as we left, we were given chocolate shields of the university made by a fabulous local chocolatier. Wow, the University really knows how to throw a party!

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All-Day Conference

 

Today was very beautiful. I was at an all-day conference, and between sessions I could pop outside for a few minutes. I took a session on our new purchasing system at work, then I wanted to take one on Excel, but it was full, so I took one on using your annual review to expand your career instead. In the afternoon I took one on work cultures and one on planning for retirement. Ah, retirement! It is many years away for me; in theory I could retire in a few years, but there's no way that I could afford it. 

After the meeting I went to my office for an hour, and then I went to get a haircut. The bus went right there after work, but I wasn't sure about catching one from there to where my car was parked. After the haircut I walked up to the Square, and about six minutes later a bus came going right to where my car was, so that was very handy.

Here are some photos from earlier. First, some DuoLingo bragging:

I just thought the moon looked amazing right after Vigil Mass, and it was reflected on the water of Lake Monona.

Someone seems to have drawn a Florida panther on the sidewalk at work!

And there are crocuses blooming in our neighborhood! It really is spring!

It took Boethius so long to load those four photos onto the blog that now it's really late and I must get to bed. Tomorrow Travalon and I will have dinner with the Chancellor (and a lot of other people), so I'll let you know how that goes.

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Travalon's Photos with Other Cameras

 

Here are some photos Travalon took with other cameras, now that his good camera has died. First, using his old camera (the one he gave to me), he took these photos at Okee. This camera is a Canon, just like the one that isn't working. Here is a pelican.

This is the loon.

And here are photos from the causeway by Whalen Grade. First, a blue-winged teal.

Next, some wigeons with the white stripe on their foreheads and white bills.

And here are some scaups.

Travalon took these photos with his new Nikon camera.

A pair of blue-winged teals share a log with some turtles.

There was a pair of northern shovelers by our dock this morning! They were there again at lunchtime, but I didn't see them after that.

And a red-winged blackbird.

Travalon is still planning to get his good camera fixed. He took it to the camera store, but they said it might be as much to fix it as to get a new one. Still, if the lens is the part most likely to break, and they fix that, then the rest of the camera should hold up until the replacement lens breaks too. The reviews online said that is the part of the camera most likely to break.

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Loony Easter and 4 BWB

 

Saturday Travalon and I went to Horicon Marsh for the first time this season, and it was everything I could have hoped for. We saw all four Big White Birds! First we stopped at Patrick Marsh, where we saw lots of ruddy ducks and some red-breasted mergansers. I love how the ruddy ducks' tails stick up.

This is the female red-breasted merganser.

This is the male.

Here he is doing a mating dance.

Here are a couple of swallows hanging around the nest box.

We even heard a loon calling on Patrick Marsh, and I think I saw it briefly. Then we drove to Horicon, and the first thing we saw was a pair of swans.

Not much further down the road, we saw a whooping crane!

We heard lots of sandhill cranes bugling, and then suddenly the whooping crane bugled! After a moment, it flew off, and later we saw it flying in the distance with another whooping crane.

As we walked along the boardwalk, we saw a fake duck!

What the hey? I assume it's not a hunter's decoy, but something scientists have set up to study ducks at Horicon. Then we saw another one!

And then tragedy struck - Travalon's camera suddenly stopped working. As if the birds knew, they were suddenly hard to find. We went to the area where we have seen all sorts of ducks before, but there were only a few Canada geese. Then we went to the place where we often see the white-headed goose, but there were hardly any geese there at all. We did see a swan in the distance and several pelicans flying around. Then, as we were leaving, a large white bird flew over our car. It was an egret! So we saw 4 BWB - all four Big White Birds! In one day!!

Our next stop was to visit Travalon's mother, and to our surprise, as we were talking to her, his youngest older brother and his wife stopped in too. So it was a wonderful visit. Then we had to hurry back to Madison to go to the Vigil Mass at St. Patrick's. One of the brunch regulars was being baptized and welcomed into the Church. It was a very beautiful Mass, but very long. Travalon and I snuck in the side door so that we wouldn't miss the Exsultet. That's what I'm there for, and the random part where the deacon says, "Bishop, I bring you good news - news of alleluia!" and then he sings a really long alleluia three times, going up a step each time. I love that part.

Yesterday morning I left Travalon at home and went to Mass, and the quartet that includes my OTHER choir director and Kathbert sang the Victimae Pascali Laudes, which is what I was there for. Afterwards a bunch of us went to Fair Trade Coffee, and I asked one of the guys who got baptized at the Vigil about his conversion story. To my surprise, he started praying the rosary on his own and then thought, "Huh, maybe I should look into becoming Catholic." Imagine being attracted to the rosary when you aren't even baptized! I know people who have been Catholic for years who still aren't into it. 

Travalon and I headed back to Okee with his older camera, and we saw the loon again and heard it sounding off. He took some photos with the other camera, which I will post tomorrow. We went to the causeway and saw wigeons, northern shovelers, red-breasted mergansers, pelicans, scaups, ring-necked ducks, and of course coots, mallards, and gulls. Then we saw another loon! 

Back in Madison, we drove by Brittingham Bay on the way to Rich's house, and we saw red-breasted mergansers doing a mating dance, and further along, about a thousand coots. It was a gorgeous day, so before dinner Kathbert, our Slow Food buddy, and I walked to where there had been a huge fire and checked out the damage. Kathbert was the only one who was familiar with the place, and she was stunned at the extent of it. There were about sixteen people at Rich's; I sat by Travalon, his classic rock buddy, and two Korean women. Someone made beer bread that was so good, and Cecil Markovitch made olive bread, so I was bemoaning eating so many carbs, and then the two other women took up the chorus too, even though they are both very thin. There were about eight desserts, but I only tried one I liked and one I didn't, so I didn't finish it. Travalon was even better - he went for a walk during the dessert course so that he wouldn't be tempted. We are both going to seriously try to cut back on bad food now.

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Lent Fails

 

I had been doing so well during Lent. Okay, I did buy a bunch of stuff I didn't need at the International Festival last weekend, but then I just donated an equal amount to charity. Then yesterday I came to work, and only one coworker is there with me on Thursdays, and he brought in a donut. Just for me. My favorite kind. I felt like it would be really mean to be all, "No thank you, I gave up sugar for Lent," so I ate it. After work I had just enough time to run to Subway for dinner before the Holy Thursday Mass, but they had a really long line, and the co-op is next door and has a hot bar, so I went there instead. At that hour it was pretty picked over, but I grabbed two beautiful Brussels sprouts, a couple of vegan "fish" sticks, and a couple of tiny pieces of vegetarian pizza. The first Brussels sprout was everything I'd hoped, but the second one was too tough to eat. The vegan fish sticks were okay, and the pizza was pretty good. Travalon met me at Mass, and he joined in the procession with the Eucharist afterwards, so I happily did too. Religious conga lines? Yes please! While I don't love the music at that church in general, the psalm had some lovely harmony going on, but it was kind of weird to sing "Pange Lingua" to lounge piano accompaniment. I could have gone downtown an hour later with the bishop and beautiful liturgy, but I'm too lazy. Also, at St. Peter's they don't do the foot washing thing, so Mass is only an hour.

Today I took the day off of work, and it was gorgeous out, so I took several walks outside, and I prayed my Lenten chaplets. I have a Stations of the Cross chaplet, and I also have (had?) three Seven Sorrows of Mary chaplets: the first one I bought by accident, thinking it was a regular rosary; the second one was in a collection of rosaries my choir buddies were going through that belonged to our late organist, and I was the only one that knew what it was, so they said I should take it; and the third one I found in an antiques shop in Eagle River. I wanted to use the one that came from our late organist, but I can't find it anywhere. Did it somehow get mixed up with my regular rosaries and end up in the mandala in the loft? It should be in my "other chaplets" box. I used the one from Eagle River, and just after I finished, it came apart. So I got the tweezers and fixed it and also the rosary they gave me free at the Waukesha antiques shop that was made by a 90-year-old man in hospice. The crucifix had come off of that one. I went to the afternoon Good Friday liturgy at St. Peter's, and the music was not good, but when I venerated the cross, I actually began to cry, it was so moving. I talked to the other Famous afterwards. Travalon came home with a fish fry for my one meal of the day, and he also got a cup of clam chowder. I was really relishing it, but some of the clam strips looked odd, and then I looked more closely and they looked like soggy bacon. Who expects bacon in clam chowder?? Then Travalon said, "Oh yeah, I guess it did say there was bacon in it, but I forgot that bacon was meat. I was too busy making sure it was New England style instead of Manhattan style." So I ate meat not just on any old Friday in Lent but Good Friday. Whoops!

Then we went to the Lakeside Coffee House to see the band that had played at our wedding reception. I realize that was nearly a decade ago, but this iteration of the band seems very different. Of course Light Bright retired from the band, being busy with little kids, and they have replaced her with a woman who plays the fiddle. But I seem to remember the band having like six members, and one was definitely a slide guitar player. Now only the main guitar player still seems to be around, and besides the young fiddler, there is also a young standup bass player. They were really good and had lots of witty repartee between songs. Unlike last week, when I saw the Daughter of Denni's band in the back room overlooking the lake, this was in the front room. It's a cozier experience, with the soft light from all the mismatched lamps, and a much smaller space. There were a ton of people there, so it took us a while to find good seats. At first we sat in very high chairs with very low backs, so that wasn't too comfortable, but eventually we did ask a couple sitting at a table with four chairs if we could join them, and they said sure. I do love the Lakeside Coffee House and am glad it is back in full swing after the pandemic. Tomorrow night there's an Irish jam session, but I'll be at the Vigil Mass. Hopefully they have another one soon...

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Stuff I Got at the International Festival

 

So, FINALLY, I have photos to share of the stuff I bought on Saturday at the International Festival. I know one of my Lenten penances (along with not eating sugar) was to not buy stuff I didn't need, so technically I broke that, but it's to help local artisans. It's not like ordering something from Amazon. 

Here I am with Travalon and the new beach hat I bought when we first got to the Festival - notice that we still have our coats on.

Here is the hat. Surprisingly, the pink part doesn't glow under blacklight. This was sold by a Lebanese refugee, or so someone told me.

An Ecuadorian family was selling little felt animals. They were so brightly colored! I couldn't choose between the donkey and the turtle, so I bought the donkey and Travalon bought the turtle.

And guess what? They glow under blacklight!

This rosary and the tropical earrings were sold at two different stands run by First Nation people.

And here is my name written in Nepali. Isn't it cool?

Today I took a walk at lunchtime, and the water on the lake was so rough that I wondered if there were any loons around. I ran into a guy from the Shamrock Club, the one I went to lunch with a few weeks ago - no idea he worked on campus! No wonder he was able to meet us for lunch! Then I heard something - was it a loon call or just the cry of a gull? When I looked over, I did see a loon, so they are still around.

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