Lets just go all the way back ….

…about two weeks to the last time I wrote. January 25th, the weekend Alex Pretti got shot, when we were out in Denver.

Here’s our last Sunday morning walk that trip, down the boulevard with lots of really big houses.

And on the train pulling into the airport, Monday morning.

Monday night when I got back I watched a couple online organizing webinars, one from MoveOn and one from the Women’s March. They kind of overlapped, and I’m not sure how much either helped. In fact one person with a male-associated first name, bailed from the Women’s March event, writing in the comments as they left, “I’m leaving, I need tactics and this has just been performative talk.”

That first Tuesday after we got back from Denver it was still January. I went to yoga class and stopped at the cake store to get colored sugar for Mardi Gras King Cake and then went to Memorial Library to talk with library admin about what to do with the several hundred boxes of the former Friends books and other stuff that needs to be removed by March 13, because the UW-Libraries is severing its relationship with the Friends. Anything left will be deemed abandoned property and the University can dispose of it as they wish. [btw, as I try desperately to finish this post which I have been working on from Sunday to Thursday, I’m sitting in the basement at the library having helped 2 sets of booksellers carry off about 120 boxes of books, waiting for the final set, a couple of people from the Friends of Madison Public Library, who I think will take maybe 20 more boxes.] At that meeting, 2 Tuesdays ago, I floated the idea that maybe if we had a plan in place by March 13 we could leave things here a little longer, but got a pretty hard no.

Somewhere in there we passed the milestone of emptying the canister of bleached AP flour that I only buy for cookies; the rest of the time I use unbleached. So we’ll just say the date was last week of following January for 2025 cookie season. I am still working on the last 20 bag of sugar. I think I bought 35 pounds altogether but used the 10- & 5-pound bags first. 

Wednesday was a Jasper day. It was cold so we had to play inside. I took him to Barnes & Noble thinking we’d buy him a book, because they already had the book I got him for Christmas. But we got a dinosaur instead. It needed batteries to go, which fortunately I had at home, and a screw driver that worked to open up the dino and put the batteries in. It also came with an egg shaped container with goo with bugs in it inside, that fortunately Jasper was not too interested in. 

Thursday’s schedule was sort of my “normal” food pantry then volunteer at the library kind of day, except instead of going straight to the library after the pantry Susan and I went to the e-gym. Because we were going to be missing several Sundays. And the focus of the library work is different, too, because now I’m just organizing stuff to try to get rid of it or move it.

I went to a fellow librarian’s retirement party. It was in the same building where I used to work, H.C.White. The iSchool was upstairs from the undergraduate library, where the retiring librarian worked. And hosted dozens of practicums for my students. 

Friday I had in-person early voting training, and then a haircut at my hairdresser’s new place where she’s renting a chair.

In between I ate probably too big of a breakfast: homemade freezer waffles and yogurt with blueberry compote and granola, and I think I had a blueberry muffin as well.

 

Saturday I skipped an optional online training for election officials, and we went to the indoor Farmer’s Market. 

And in between those things I took a walk, to Trader Schmoe’s to buy fruit, and Bloom Bake Shop for Minnesota Strong cookies – see below. I took pictures of winter colors.

I left sourdough rising while we went to the market and baked it when we got back.

Oh, and I made Edd Kimber’s sourdough chocolate cookies, but I didn’t take any pictures of those.

Later we went to see the movie about the Milwaukee Neil Diamond tribute band Lightning & Thunder, Song Sung Blue. We took the bus to the movie theater but when we were coming home, we were going to have to wait 25 minutes for the bus. An Uber only took 4 mins to arrive although it cost more.

I thawed out some of the really good roasted tomato sauce I’d made with Tipi tomatoes from a U-Pick last summer, added turkey meatballs, and left it heating in the oven while we were at the movie. Then when we got home I made pasta and we had a quick albeit a bit late, dinner. And Tipi announced they’re done with CSA after cutting back the last few years. This year I’ll just be going out there for U-Picks and (I Hope) buying their carrots at the co-op.

Sunday, we went to Chicago for a day trip. We met john and Megan at Handlebar for breakfast. It was really good, just loud. John & I each had a Bloody Mary with fried pickle. Mark got the breakfast burrito. Both John and Megan had the vegan eggs Benedict, but no pictures of that. It was all really good, but really loud.

It was a pretty good concert, guest conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting Daniil Trifonov, Beethoven and Bruckner.

Plus I’d been really jumpy on the drive home because it seemed like it might be getting icy. Which disturbs Mark, and he’s driving, so I need to keep it to myself. I guess.

Monday morning Lucy encouraged me to sit around a bit longer. I went to campus and then kinda rushed home for an iSchool meeting. That night I made pork stroganoff using up the pork (I’d frozen it) from that dinner party that didn’t happen back in January, MLK eve.

From here I think I will skip the stuff I don’t have pictures of. So that brings us to Wednesday with Jasper.

And on Friday, an overnight trip to Chicago.

I sat downstairs on the train and cleaned out email. Which of course instantly piled up again.

When we got to Chicago, we went and got Firecakes for breakfast and walked to the hotel. But I screwed up and we went to the River North Sonesta, and we were booked at the Allegro Royal Sonesta. The other side of the river. That was the Bismarck before it was a Kimpton. Mark was remarkable un-cranky about my screw-up. We did get more steps. We checked in (paid extra for early) and ate our donuts and even got a coffee on the way to the symphony.

We saw a midday symphony, Salonen again, a modern piece with the composer to introduce it and her cellist buddy to play it, then pizza and salad and mozzarella sticks at Zarella. We had a pre-symphony lunch there in the fall and liked it, and this more relaxed late afternoon time was even nicer.

After the symphony and the pizza we went to see Stereophonic, a play about a Fleetwood Mac-esque band recording an album. It was pretty good but there really wasn’t enough music. We thought we’d already seen more interesting movies & documentaries about making music. And the characters were all pretty stereotypical so there wasn’t much interesting character development, either.

In the morning we got up and took the blue line up to Mindy’s bakery and took bagels and pastries to John & Megan’s. We ate and it was a lot easier to talk tha at Handelbar. They gave us to the 12:30 train. I left my phone on the coffee table and we had to go back for it but Megan did such a good job driving even with both me and John kibitzing, we made it

And that gets us to the Superbowl.

The funfetti is good, thanks Bayou St Cake – but I miss the gooey-ness of the almond filling I usually make. I’m going to try making king cake buns with the almond filling to take to the polls Tuesday, since that’s actual Mardi Gras.

And last but not least – we went to see George Saunders author talk on Tuesday, then went and ate pizza at Lucille. We got their Detroit style that they call steel pan.

This has been one of the hardest posts to write. Too busy with the Friends of the Libraries mess. Too distracted by real life. Minnesota, Epstein files, dismantling climate standards, impending nuclear war, election threats …. It was 50° outside today fer Crissakes and we’re in the midst of like 10 days of 40s & 60s. Both groundhogs were wrong – we only had two more weeks of winter. I should probably post a recipe or two. I’ll let you know how the King Cake buns come out. And happy Valentines.