Forty Years Later

Fleetwood Mac was in town for a concert and at the last minute we were able to get tickets to go on Sunday.  This was our first visit to the new arena in town, no named the Fiserv Forum, along with checking out the new Northwestern Mutual suite.  Nice arena that appears much larger than the old Bradley Center at least as you are standing looking up at it.  We did find it a bit difficult to figure out how to get inside and then getting to the suite required an elevator ride - never our preference, always like to get a workout.  Not sure if there are stairs to connect the ground level to the suite level - if so we never found them.  I guess that will leave us a challenge for our next visit.  The new suite isn't quite as large or luxurious (no couch or easy chairs) as the old one in the Bradley arena, but the food is a bit fancier.  Either way, we can't complain since we get to use it, usually, compliments of Northwestern Mutual.

Back to the concert the main reason we were there - Jo was enjoying a trip down memory lane since her first college concert in 1977 was to see Fleetwood Mac.  The concert was very enjoyable and we had the advantage of knowing most of the songs.  While the singers voices aren't quite as strong as they were at Jo's first concert they still could belt out the tunes and Mick Fleetwood went all out on the drums.  Sure hope I can be that active in 10 to 15 years.  The other plus for the concert was the absence of a cover band and so the concert started right off with a bang.  We got home late, for us, but we both had a good time remembering songs from our college days.

Pretty Wild Weather

We started our weekend with a little baseball.  We were able to go to Game 6 of the National League playoffs to watch our hometown Brewers fight to stay alive against the LA Dodgers (they were down 3 games to 2 in a best of 7 playoff).  Fortunately, the baseball gods were shining on Milwaukee and after a rocky first inning where the first batter up homered, the Brewer's bats came alive with solid hitting throughout the game.  It was exciting to be in the crowd and to cheer on the team.  After the game we piled into the car for the drive over to Madison arriving there just after midnight, tired but happy for the win.  Unfortunately, the game on Saturday night which we chose not to attend - we gave our tickets to some friends - didn't end quite as well with the Dodgers defeating the Brewers to head to the World Series.  We were glad we decided to stay in Madison as we we had contemplated driving back to see the game.

Saturday was the day that provided the title to this week's post.  We woke up to bright blue skies and headed over to the Farmer's Market to pickup Jo's favorite apple cider, some honey, a favorite cheese, some vegetables, and most importantly, a couple of sweets (cinnamon roll and a morning bun) to augment our breakfast.  We got back inside just as the skies opened up and it poured down rain for 45 minutes - great timing on our part.  As we were getting ready to head to the football stadium for the morning game, the shift in the weather led to a change in our planned outer wear.  We pulled out our rain gear and headed to the stadium in cloudy but now dry weather.  Wisconsin was playing Illinois so one of Alma Mater's was going to win, which is always nice.  As we snuggled together with 45,000 of our closest friends to stay warm in the cold and windy day we started to feel a few rain drops.  Out came our rain gear just in time to keep from getting buried in a snow storm - yes, you read that right - it started snowing during the first half.  And not just a few light flakes, it almost achieved white out conditions briefly and the yard markings were completely covered up.  Add the snow to 30 mph winds and you can see what fun watching college football in the fall is all about.

We braved the conditions and by the the second half we were sitting in bright sun with a few wispy clouds.  It was a very weird weather day.  Anyway, Wisconsin won although it wasn't a well played game on either side of the ball - of course, the snow, rain, wind, and cold might have played a factor.  After the game we climbed into our new sauna to warm up the extremities which felt really, really good since our toes were a bit frozen.  Then we spent the evening watching the above mentioned baseball game on TV - where it was warm and toasty!

Sunday we lazed around in the morning, before taking a nice long walk over to Vilas Park before joining Kathy for the UW women's volleyball game against Iowa.  Kathy and Jo hung out at the game with their good friend Bucky and helped cheer on Wisconsin for the win in three straight sets.  Then it was home to unpack from the weekend and mentally prepare for the week ahead.

Insert a Little Culture

To try and diversify away from attending only sporting events - which as you'll see below we still did a pretty good job of this week - we did attend two more culturally enriching events this week.  On Wednesday we were able to attend the dress rehearsal for a modern opera, "Prince of Players", at the Marcus Theater downtown.  While the opera is modern (it was written in 2010), it was set in medieval England and revolved around the transition from having men perform all the roles in operas and plays to starting to have women perform the female roles.  Interesting that this took a decree from the king to have happen, but then no one ever said history or life had to make sense.  Anyway I digress, the play examines the impact on male actors who specialized in playing females and the issues with them figuring out what they were going to do in the future as well as the impact on women now having to learn how to be stage actors.  Interesting plot line, however, the musical score was a bit discordant for our tastes.  With the choppy score it was a bit hard for us to determine if the singing was good or just average - but it did get a favorable review in the local newspaper.

Our next big cultural outing was to the Overture Center in Madison where we took in the first of our Broadway series shows, Something Rotten.  It was a well staged musical with a funny plot that made the time fly by.  The songs were enjoyable but aren't likely to catch on quite like the Hamilton score.  Still it was a fun way to spend the afternoon and we certainly enjoyed the short walk from our condo to the theater.  Afterwards, we picked up some pizza on the way home to eat quickly before we headed over to the UW Field House to enjoy our second volleyball match of the weekend - we had also gone watched a game on Friday night against Northwester.  The Badgers played Illinois on Saturday and since we could cheer on either team we came out a winner - the Badgers lost in case you wanted the actual result.  They did win on Friday night so it wasn't all bad news for the home town team. 

The other big event for the weekend was celebrating someone's last birthday with a five as the first number.  We had cake, opened some presents, and she took a deep breath to get ready for the year starting with a six. 

Go Brewers

As you can tell from posts since September we go to a fair number of sporting events.  To keep that trend going, Jo was able to get tickets to the Milwaukee Brewers post season playoff games.  The Brewers had a great September and went down to the wire with Chicago Cubs beating them to secure the National League Central division title.  Then it was time for the multiple playoff games to get to the World Series.  First up was the National League Divisional series which had our Brewers playing the Colorado Rockies.  We got to go to the first two games of the series at Miller Park on Thursday and Friday last week.  Very exciting to be there along with 44,000 fans and it helped that both games were exciting - especially Thursday's which went into to extra innings.  Unfortunately, the National League Championship series which begins Friday between the Brewers and LA Dodgers conflicts with other sporting events for which we have tickets - what is a poor fan to do.  We are hoping they make it all the way to the World Series and we can get tickets to that, we haven't ever been to a World Series game.

After the baseball game Friday we hopped into to our car and headed to Madison for our next round of sports.  As usual we had the car packed with various items for our condo as we slowly begin to decorate the place.  It is starting to look a bit lived in.  Saturday morning we were up for a walk in the misty/drizzly weather before picking up a few items at the Farmers Market - Jo had to get her apple cider.  Then we spent the rest of the day catching up on a backlog of unread newspapers until our friends Greg and Rhonda from Milwaukee joined us.  We had invited them to join us for the Badger football game against Nebraska.  It was a evening game at 6:30 and fortunately the weather cleared a bit so we didn't have to sit in the rain (short side not -college football should be played on Saturday mornings or afternoons, night games just don't feel right).  We had dinner just before the game with everyone enjoying a burger and milk shake and then it was off for a 30 minute walk to the game to burn off some of those milk shake calories.  The game was exciting although the crowd was a bit subdued - could have been the after effects of starting to tailgate at noon for an evening game.  Anyway, we managed a win even with a somewhat leaky secondary.  We finished the evening sitting around discussing world events, Northwestern Mutual, and life with Greg and Rhonda (Greg worked with Jo at NM until his recent retirement).

Sunday morning after a short stop at the coffee shop downstairs for a hot chocolate we bid farewell to Greg and Rhonda and decided to head home early as well.  Spent the rest of Sunday watching the Packers - not good news there, doing a little cooking, and getting ready for another week.

Home Sweet Home

We spent an entire weekend in Milwaukee for once.  It was nice not having to make the drive over to Madison on Friday and therefore we could enjoy some home made pizza (pepperoni in case anyone cares) for once.  It made for a very relaxing weekend as we tried out a few new things around town.  Saturday morning after getting in a hard workout we headed over to our first (and probably only) Kopp's custard for the summer.  Hard to believe that it took us until the end of September for our first Kopp's but to make up for it we decided to try the Kopp's burger.  Their burger regularly wins the best burger in town award, so we figured it was finally time (after seven years of eating just their custard) to try it out.  It didn't disappoint - great burger, lots of topping to choose from, and most importantly to the neat eating crowd a bun that could stand up to the juicy burger and ingredients.  We topped it off with some Turtle Pecan custard to make it a perfect meal.  Now if it just hadn't been 55 degrees outside while we were eating the ice cream it might have been ideal.

Jo got a massage Saturday afternoon while I perused the college football games - bye week for the Badgers - and caught up on some fun reading.  We capped off our diet extravaganza with cauliflower macaroni and cheese.  Nothing makes a Wisconsinite feel better on a cold Saturday night than a bowlful of melted cheese.  We figured some exercise would be valuable after that so we braved the cool temperatures for a nice walk before watching the hometown Brewer's advance their way to a tie for the NL Central.

Sunday's weather was rainy and overcast but we braved the elements to take in the Harvest Fair and Maker's Faire (their spelling of Fair, not mine) at the WI State Fair grounds.  The Harvest Fair was mostly an opportunity for all you can eat pancakes from the Lion's club - I only managed five  and Jo four though, so all you can eat is rarely economically viable for us any more.  Then we toured the Expo (everything you might need to groom or feed your horses/cattle - not a market segment we need a lot of stuff for) and the cattle judging.  Jo always seems to really like cow judging although we are both a bit mystified at what makes one cow better than the other.  Afterwards we toured the Maker's Faire which is pretty much exactly as it sounds.  People displaying various things they have made.  Some really interesting hobbies out there especially one person who had managed to jury rig up the equivalent of a 3-D printer using clay to make pottery.  Did make us both feel a bit sluggish being around all these people finding time in their lives to make some interesting stuff.

Then it was home to some cooking.  We made a batch of bread and butter pickles using the last cucumbers of the year, Jo cranked out a tray of cinnamon rolls for a work event, and we (that's the royal we, since it was mostly Jo) finished it all off with a batch of meatballs meaning that beyond the spaghetti and meatball dinner that night there are some great lunches of meatball sandwiches coming in the future.