Books and stuff

Tom and I went into Madison today and hit bookstores etc. I bought three mysteries at Half-Price Books and he got a stack of things. Then we found a display stand for a piece of sedimentary rock that he found down by the Wisconsin River. (He insists on calling it igneous, which is totally wrong and done only to annoy me.) It is very colorful and looks like it could have been sliced from the Utah sandstone in the picture.

Then he bought nine (count them, 9) pink flamingos to put out in the yard and in various places that he hopes will annoy Peggy. I am not the only target of his strange idea of humor.

We ate Chinese at a place we hadn't tried -- the Flaming Wok -- and decided it is our new lunch place when we are in Madison. Tom actually likes a Japanese place in the food court at the East Towne Mall, but it is such a chaotic place that he thinks no matter what you think you are ordering, what you get is purely arbitrary. Even though he is satisfied with whatever it is he winds up eating, I guess the uncertainty is too stressful. My favorite Chinese place is still the little take-out joint in Hyde Park, Wok-n-Roll. Bad pun for a name, but the lunch special was ample and cheap and the General Tso's chicken was great. (And just about the worst thing health-wise to eat at a Chinese restaurant.)


We came back to the Dells by a side road up through Portage instead of the interstate. The town motto is "Where the North Begins", which means, if you are going in the other direction, I suppose it is also "Where the South Begins." Pretty improbable to me. Portage gets its name from being the portage spot to link the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers, and I guess the 17th-century French fur traders said it was the way into the north by the river. Hence, where the north begins.

Not the critter

I thought I'd dress up my critter du jour report by telling you I saw an elk on the way into Reedsburg today for lunch, but although I slowed down by the Nanchas Elk Ranch, I didn't see any. (Click on their name to go to their website and hear an elk!) I have seen elk there occasionally, but not today.

Many days I see llamas -- fairly commonly raised in Wisconsin now -- and even this emu at one of the nearby petting zoos I drive by. Wisconsin Dells used to be a spot of natural beauty with lots of low-key, low-tech family fun spots -- stocked fishing ponds, petting zoos, deer parks. Now all that is at risk of disappearing under enormous waterparks, the world's largest wave pool and so on.

When I was at Holy Hill, we had a Living Nativity every year in December, and one neighbor came as a shepherd and provided sheep, goats and a llama. Not sure any llamas were there in Bethlehem, but how can you turn down a llama? Better yet, we had a neighbor who had a camel, Freddie, who was always the hit of the event with the Wise Men standing there looking nervous. You don't expect to be holding a camel standing in the snow, so who knew what he might do?

Rainy Days and Saturdays

Looks like it will rain all day today and Tom is at a meeting in Beloit, halfway to Chicago. I swept and mopped the floor, vacuumed the rugs, made my bed, went shopping (unsuccessfully) for a planned meal of chicken flautas, searched online without any luck for a replacement ballast for the light in the ceiling fan fixture in the living room and let the cats in and out and in and out and in and out.


If this keeps up I will be forced to sit down and write a story for my Penultimate, Wisconsin collection. Which begins thusly:

Penultimate, Wisconsin
Pop. 631

There are 631 stories in Penultimate, Wisconsin – give or take – and this is some of ‘em.

The first thing you’re going to want to know is, “How did Penultimate, Wisconsin gets its name?”

Now that may not be the first thing you want to know, but I’m telling and you’re listening, so deal with it.

How Penultimate, Wisconsin Got Its Name

According to the local story, there used to be a cheese shop where County Road ZZ ended at Highway 53 what runs alongside the Big Muddy. They was a big sign, “Last Chance for Wisconsin Cheese in Wisconsin”, which was an exaggeration if not a downright lie, lest you was planning to plunge into the river right there and swim across to Minnesober. Whatever the facts of the case may be, in the spring of 1923 a high wind tore through and knocked the sign about, and the only thing left hanging after the wind finished blowing was the two words: “Last” and “Wisconsin”. So the locals, such as they was in 1923, jokingly called the scattered houses along that stretch Last, Wisconsin. Which, after its fashion, it was cause’n of t’other side of the river being Minnesober and all.

Well, that scattering of houses never did amount to much, even in a state that prides isself on having a bunch of communities listed as “Unincorporated” on they road signs. Last, Wisconsin, you might even say, didn’t last.

Howsomever, another batch of houses did eventually reach that level of unincorporation necessary to merit one of them road signs. And some smart elleck down by Madison decided that it oughter be called Penultimate, because it was next to Last. And Penultimate it became and Penultimate it remains.

And that’s either the God’s honest truth or close enough to pass in the dark.

Sigh!

A friend who writes mentioned last night that he just completed volume seven of his projected eight-volume fantasy epic based on the Grail legends. Volume seven alone is 793 manuscript pages. I think he needs to find an Over-Writers Anonymous group.

And I need to sit down and write something...

Birds, etc.

When I was having my morning coffee, I saw the first bluebird of the year in the back yard. Peggy and Rich have a bluebird box, but she told me this year it has been taken over by swallows. Since bluebirds are supposed to return to the same nesting site year after year, it made me wonder if they are a bit late this year. They are considered a summer bird in Wisconsin, and can be found all over. At one time bluebirds had all but disappeared from the state, but apparently enthusiasts were able to bring them back with lots of nesting boxes and meal worms. Nummy!

Saw some of the day lilies in bloom. They are very short and may even be some of the ones I brought back from Mama and Daddy last month.

Did I mention flies in my latest critter report? They have begun to share the house with us again. Flies drive me crazy. Tom thinks they are one of life's little annoyances to ignore. If I can just convince them to stay at his end of the house and out of my space, I'll be willing to go along with him on that.