Arboretum and China Lights

Yesterday we went to Mass in the gym again, and the choir sang two songs that I've sung in choirs myself. Then the postlude was a Prelude in G Minor by Buxtehude! I love this church! And it had a very pretty little tree outside of it.

Afterwards we picked up Tiffy and went to Ha Long Bay, a restaurant we've been wanting to try for a long time but it's always too busy. Apparently 11:30 on Sunday is the time to go! Tiffy told me the deep-fried noodles they had on the menu were really good, and I will say that they are a revelation. They are still chewy, fat noodles, but with a deep-fried exterior. So good!! Travalon got the curry duck he had liked at another restaurant, and he said theirs was even better. (My colleague remembered Travalon's duck fondly from the time we had gone with her and her husband to a Thai restaurant, but she couldn't remember what it was, so she ordered one duck on the menu, her husband ordered a second kind of duck, and her son ordered a third kind... and not one of them was the one she remembered Travalon ordering.) Rich joined us for a bit too, then he headed off and we three went to the Arboretum. Here are some photos. This first one is the leaves of a ginkgo tree, looking like little gold fans.

This is a tupelo tree by the main building.

Even Tiffy's foraging cousin, who is a big mushroom expert, didn't know what these cute little mushrooms were.

 

This is a larch, the only deciduous conifer that I know of. Tiffy said Deciduous Conifer would make a great band name, so I said it could be Larch Tamarack and the Deciduous Conifers. (A tamarack is another name for a larch.)

The wooden triangle thing is an art installation, a stylus on a wire in a box of sand, so when the wind blows, it creates a "drawing."

This is sumac.

This is the big tupelo again.

We saw four turkeys, but apparently Travalon only made a video of them and didn't take any photos. As we walked under the colorful trees, I joked about the Red Bull that had been in our shots the night before, that we didn't know until we drank them. I said maybe that's the secret ingredient in everything, and Tiffy asked, "Not beandzdzdz?" She just got an ice cream maker as a reward for a job well done at work, and I said maybe she should make some Red Bull and beandzdzdz ice cream. She thought that sounded awful, but I said red beans are used in all kinds of desserts in Chinese cuisine. "Red Bull and red beandzdzdz ice cream," I said, but she didn't seem sold on the idea.

I was the only one besides the teacher at Irish class, so good thing I didn't skip it! Then Travalon and I drove south of Milwaukee to see China Lights, like we have other years. This year the theme was "Under the Sea," and he got lots of great photos and a fantastic video of the volcano, so I'll post those soon. We planned to have dinner there, but our first attempt was a bust because we ordered fried crawfish, and they were whole crawfish but you can only really eat the tail, so it wasn't that much food for $15. Worse, we'd ordered pumpkin bubble teas, but it was really just orange Kool-Aide with bubbles in it, for which they charged us $7 each. After we had seen just about the whole display, we came across a stand selling pizza, but our pizza slices were cold. When we asked the guy to heat them up, he just took them, threw them away, and said he'd make fresh ones for us. I hate wasting food, and we had to wait quite a while, but I have to say that the hot, fresh pizza was very tasty. So lesson learned: maybe it's best to eat BEFORE going to China Lights. We'll remember that next year, when we will hopefully remember to go before the VERY LAST DAY, and if you buy tickets online, you have to buy a family four-pack. However, Travalon pointed out that the price for the four tickets was the same as two tickets at the door, so we weren't out any money, and at least this way we had tickets. What a bummer if we'd gone all the way there just to be told they were sold out.

Famous Hat

Lutheran Cathedral Centennial Party

 

Yesterday Travalon and I took the boat out of the water. It was the end of a very disappointing season; we got enough rain in the last week to finally get the boat off the lift, just in time to bring it in. So that was three times we went out in it: to bring it out, one actual ride, and to bring it in. 

In the evening I went to Lutheran Cathedral of the Midwest for their big centennial celebration. My OTHER choir director played an organ prelude for half an hour, and then there was a vespers service that included the cantata "Ein Feste Burg" by JS Bach. Listening to that glorious music made me realize how much I miss the 16th century hymns and fauxbourdon we used to sing there, and that they may still sing, although a lot of that was due to my OTHER choir director. I just loved his musical taste so much, but once he converted to Catholicism, he let us all know he was much further right than I'd ever guessed. Maybe that's part of the reason I've been going to parishes with terrible music. I keep wondering why beautiful music and liturgy is always most appreciated by people who seem not to care about the least, the last, and the lost. After all, that is the point of Christianity, not fauxbourdon, as awesome as it is.

Afterwards there was a party with lots of tasty hors d'oeuvres (but oddly no desserts), and wine, and a beer brewed specially for the church by a former pastor who became a woman and then opened a brewery. I did try the beer, and it was tasty. Supposedly they were selling commemorative beer mugs, but I never saw them, or I probably would have bought one. It was so wonderful to see my old choir peeps, some of whom have long since left town and were back just for the occasion. It has been about a decade since I regularly spent time in the church, but I still remembered where everything was, like the bathrooms and of course good old Darth Luther. Not a lot seems to have changed there.

Today Rich, Tiffy, and I went to the nearby Mexican restaurant (and Travalon joined us briefly), then we went to the local corn maze and found nine of the ten secret punches. Usually we find eight. It was so beautiful out there. Travalon went to Devil's Lake, and he took almost two hundred photos, it was so beautiful. I'm too tired to decide which ones to post tonight, but look for those soon. Meanwhile, here is a photo of a window from the Lutheran Cathedral of the Midwest that they are restoring.

And this is "Umbrella Street" at the farm with the Corn Maze. I've never seen this there before.

Tiffy treated Rich and me to ice cream after the corn maze (which was a dog this year), and then she, Travalon, and I went to the East Side Club to watch the Badgers play Ohio State. I didn't have high hopes for the game, and while the Badgers forced three turnovers, they didn't capitalize on any of them. The final score was 24-10, which was not nearly as bad as I'd expected (I was thinking 42-0), so Ohio State remains undefeated. There was a birthday party upstairs that V05, the local disco cover band, was playing at, so we could hear the music drifting down the stairs. A guy at the party came down to watch the game, and he sat with us and was really friendly. It wasn't a big crowd watching the game, but enough people to make it lively, and some were wearing costumes since it's so close to Halloween. They used to have Packer viewing parties at the East Side Club, and they are trying to resurrect that tradition. They even had food, and not just frozen pizzas but a whole menu of appetizers, sandwiches, and burgers. I would highly recommend it as a place to watch Packer and Badger games. They had lots of free munchies too, or as the poster said, "munches." I had way too much salt today. They brought free shots around for both the field goal and the touchdown, and when we asked what was in them, they said, "Cherry schnapps and Red Bull." Red Bull late at night??? That's like waaaay more caffeine than coffee! We'll see if I ever get to sleep tonight...

I do have to say that yesterday evening, as I was walking from the Centennial party to my car, a couple of college kids were walking behind me, and then they passed me. The temperature dropped right after we got our boat out of the water (our timing was perfect!), and I was all bundled up, while they were dressed like it was still summer. I had heard them kind of laughing at my hat and gloves, but then they were complaining about how cold it was, and one said, "It was 70 degrees yesterday! What happened?" Wisconsin happened. They must be East Coast kids.

Famous Hat

More Color on Campus

 

Today I worked on campus and took more photos of the foliage between the rain showers. At Night Prayer, Jilly Moose suggested a title for this blog post, but now I can't remember what it was. I did show them all the bowed psaltery that my neighbor gave me the other day when I asked her what was in the little violin case. Just what I need - another instrument. I need that like another rosary. It's not in tune, and some of the strings are broken, but it seems like it will be easier to play than that sitar I have yet to master.

This first photo is looking out an office that faces west in my building.

More of that "Tiger Eye" sumac I encountered on a walk.

I don't love the colors just for the aesthetics; I am relieved to see them. I thought that, with the drought we've been having, the trees would not have made enough food to survive the winter. Because the colors in the leaves are from sugars, I figured this wouldn't be a colorful year. The fact that the colors are so vivid gives me hope that the late autumn rains have replenished the trees. Remember the little one that was dying in July? You can see it on the right side of this photo, and it has plenty of leaves.

This tree is already yellower than yesterday, so it must have drawn up some of the sugar in its leaves.

OK, I know there's a photo of this same crabapple tree earlier in this post, but it already looked different between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon. 

This is the view from that same west-facing office, but in the afternoon.

Here is the view from my own office window.

And if I look a little to the side, I can see the lake!

Ma Hat took this photo right in her neighborhood - they are having good colors over there too.

I am sitting on our porch right now, and earlier this evening I thought I heard a frog outside. This is totally the wrong season to hear a frog singing, so what did I hear? Or has the relatively warmer weather confused them, so they have come out and started singing?

Famous Hat