Sit Sasha Sit

Who takes pictures of / in their own alley? I do.

Sue prefers to not be in alley pictures.

Here’s our garage.

And here is Sasha, the neighbor’s Swiss Shepherd who almost always gives us a cursory bark just to let us know what is what. Good Dog.

Our back yard.

Even though this looks like a small side salad plate, it is in fact a large dinner plate. Sue made this enormous salad for herself. I posed the soda can next to it for size comparison.

My band played for Kaposia Days at the Central Square in South St. Paul. It was in the 90s and windy. It was so warm, there was no condensation, known to non-brass players as “spit” coming out of my water key, known to non-brass players as a “spit valve”.  These three teenagers are the royalty for the Kaposia Days Festival.

Chris from work and her granddaughter came to the concert in addition to Judy Berg and Sue. Judy flew out to South Texas this morning.

Over the weekend we were in Eau Claire for Britta and Nels’ wedding. It was actually in a barn in the hills south of Osseo, Wisconsin. We had a great time hanging out with some of Sue’s teaching colleagues. We also attended the famous Pancake Breakfast of the Viking Flying club of Strum, Wisconsin. Oh, and we attended Cody Timm’s graduation party at the Brackett American Legion hall. Busy weekend.

Today we took a walk on a trail in Mendota Heights along MN 110 and then I 35E. Nature was present and accounted for.

It was like we were in a deep forest a few steps off of Marie Avenue.

Here is my mother and I on father’s day at the Milwaukee Ale House.  That’s the Milwaukee River in the background.

This is my Father’s Day

Sue and I had a good road trip weekend to Milwaukee. In addition to seeing Sue’s hometown friend Pam Nelson and her husband Bill, going to the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra with Chuck and Dorene, seeing almost all of the Kruszkas that we know, and attending a fun Father’s Day soiree at sister Cheryl’s house, we did the following things. We took a really long walk with mother Dorene on Saturday morning after having some coffee at Jacob’s Well Christian Coffee Shoppe in St. Francis. we also played Bananagram and watched Cleveland beat Golden State.

We walked by the Milwaukee branch of the federal Bureau of Investigation (The FBI) and I resisted the urge to take a photograph of the property. I probably would have been arrested. Here is the view from the bluff-side park across from the St. Francis Catholic Center. We thought we saw something mysterious floating in the water that looked like a big stick but turned out to be . . .

 

. . . driftwood.

Sue said brother Steve once took photo of this intersection of street signs. Superior Texas?

Here’s the view of downtown Milwaukee from South Shore Drive in Bay View. Polish Fest was going on down at the Summerfest grounds just to the right of the Hoan Bridge (golden arches bridge). We strolled through the farmer’s market in South Shore Park. Almost everyone there had an exotic breed dog on a leash or a significant other wearing a fedora. The place is hip.

There has been a rash of beer gardens opening up in Milwaukee in the county park system. This one at South Shore Park looks pretty ripe for day drinking . . . if you’re into that sort of thing.

Sue seemed excited about the Beer Garden. Another trip perhaps. She laughed about the sign announcing the first beer was $4.50 and the refill was $3.50. Only in Milwaukee.

And the best part is they serve more than just Miller products. Surely the craft beer craze is approaching market saturation? We got a little sunburned on this 3.8 mile walk. the weather was perfect.

The four of us then went out to The Milwaukee Ale House for a little Father’s Day Weekend Lunch. We sat on the terrace overlooking the Milwaukee river and waved to all of the pontoon boats and tourist boats lazily floating by. We had a great weekend!

One Nation Indivisible

Last week I took a little urban, or rather, suburban bike ride in West St. Paul. I paused for a break at our church’s prayer labyrinth and new columbarium. In this photo you can see the boxy 2008 addition to the office section of the church. Off to the left around the corner is the addition to the fellowship hall and classrooms.

Here is the columbarium where there are many plots available for church members. Apparently, there is not a single cemetery within West St. Paul.

 

Hamilton the musical won 11 Tony awards this week after being nominated in a record 15 categories. The Producers still has the most wins at 12 but it probably all depends on what the competition is in a particular year. The book writer / composer / lyricist / lead actor, Lin-Manuel is a creative genius. I highly recommend that everyone see Hamilton when it eventually comes out on tour. To borrow the words of the character Aaron Burr, this show is inimitable; it is an original. Full disclosure: I haven’t seen the show but have listened to the soundtrack a lot.

The cast performed one of their numbers during the award show but left out the muskets out of respect for the mass shooting that took place in Orlando the night before.

 

Mom, here is the Kung Pao chicken I told you I was going to make for dinner. You are seeing quartered Brussel’s sprouts as the green vegetable.

Here it is plated with some California, Japanese-style rice.

Nigel being hoisted up.

On Memorial Day we took our traditional walk through the two cemeteries down 15th Avenue from our house.

Of course yesterday was Flag Day so these pictures are not so out of date. I see the date on this stone is 1918 . . . I recently watched a five part TV documentary on World War I with a lot of new video footage that had been colorized. It was pretty good and reminded me of the the fact that the rulers of Russia, England, and Germany were all fairly close cousins.

Let’s all pray our country gets through this election season in one piece.

Sue had her absolute last day of the year of school yesterday. I served her a gin and tonic when she got home. Peace out.

Start of Summer

I thought these pictures were already on the blog.

We took our traditional Memorial Day/beginning of Summer walk through the local cemeteries – Oak Hill Cemetery and the General Lutheran Cemetery. Someday, I’ll take a picture of the “General Lutheran Cemetery” sign because that’s very funny… as far as cemetery names go.

Even though Memorial Day is the traditional start of summer, I still had two weeks left with students. Yesterday was the last day and we spent the last hour of the school year in an un-air-conditioned gym. The smell was something and they were happy to be released into the 95 degree heat outside. The teachers were happy to be released to somewhere slightly more air-conditioned where we could enjoy a refreshing beverage. We have two more days of meetings, cleaning and grading before the real summer schedule begins.

We’ve been trying the cat perch out in various locations and have decided the cats like to be on the perch wherever it is. It is rarely unoccupied.