Mani Pedi Barbi Belli

 

Another nice day today with sunshine and temps in the 70s. After Sue played flute again in church for the third Sunday in a row we went to Dickie's BBQ for some lunch. Then we harnessed up the cats and tried to get them to come outside with us. Ravel freaked out nearly blowing an O ring running away from Sue like a bucking bronco. After he ran around the outside of the house about four times we corralled him and brought him in. Maybe the boys are not ready yet for the stimulation of the great outdoors.

 

 

Here I am doing some immersion blending of Mom Williams' Swedish Pancake recipe. I was reminded that this was my favorite food as a kid three weeks ago when my mother cooked up a batch in Milwaukee.

 

 

It puffed up real nice in the oven but eventually decompressed as it cooled out of the oven. I made it exclusively for leftover eating as we'll be eating dinner at church tonight for the building fund dinner.

 

 

Look at how orange Nigel looks in the sunlight. Laura Dill and Leon came over this afternoon to clip the nails of all the cats in the house. Sue helped and it pretty much took four hands to hold these guys down for a mani - pedicure.

 

 

Ravel is one shiny and sleek specimen of a cat. Both cats have the really short hair above their eyes making their forehead skin visible at the right angle.

 

 

The party last night for Ryan and Mike's wedding was pretty fun. The guests were surgical (4D) and cardiac (4E) ICU staff and spouses. A few people wore vintage prom/bridesmaid dresses and at least one guy wore the same thing he wore to the junior prom--black tux with red cumberbund and bow tie.That was me. Enough people asked me if I was the best man that I started telling people that I was the best man. Two very pregnant women wore their wedding gowns that didn't really fit anymore because of their giant bellies. It was a good time.

Seventy One

 

Yesterday the temperature got up to 71 degrees which was the first time we reached the 70s in 187 days. This is the iceberg in the backyard that should be reduced to dirty water by the end of the day. April 27th and spring is here!

 

 

Sue tricked the cats into wearing their outside harnesses but then they didn't want to come outside. Ravel came to the door but was extremely wary.

 

 

When Sue placed him in the grass he darted back inside. Maybe these guys have never been outside? They were born in September and maybe their owner lived in an apartment and never took them to the cat park to frolic with the other cats. . .

 

 

They seemed thrilled by the smell of the Christmas lights that I brought in from the alley bushes.

 

 

Sue had collars on them the other night that lasted until we went to bed. then they probably assisted each other in shedding the Yoke of The Man.

 

 

Here's some vigorous playtime featuring the fortune cookie that Ravel will toss, bat around and chase endlessly. 

 

We're going to a wedding party tonight of a couple of folks I work with. They were married in February in Iowa and now they're having a celebration for their work friends.

 

Last night we met Ingrid and Paul at Supatra Thai restaurant on West 7th. It was great to catch up with them. Ingrid is in the call process for a pastor gig somewhere in the Twin Cities as opposed to somewhere outstate or worse, North Dakota. I should wait to say bad things about North Dakota until I've actually been there.

 

 

Even the cats are looking forward to spring!

Let's Not Dish Because Windows Ate Comcat

 

I think I'm sold on this whole Windows 8 fad. Instead of the "desktop" view that we've been looking at since the1980s, there's a collection of tiles that send you directly to your various emails, the Blog, the weather, Netflix, CNN, maybe my Finale program, etc. I've still got to load Finale and Word on to the new computer. I'll set up the new printer/fax/copier later in the week. Sue was enjoying changing channels on the TV from her laptop on the Comcast site and also telling the DVR to record from her computer. One thing we gave up was the dual DVR in which we could record and watch from both the kitchen and basement TVs. Now we can only record and watch recordings in the basement. Also, we can no longer pause the kitchen TV and rewind to the hear the weather forecast. We'll adapt. In the car I often reach down to rewind the live radio to catch something that I missed. I'm sure that technology is coming. We changed our TV/Internets/Phone service mainly to get a faster and better internet which it definitely appears to be.

 

The weather forecast from now until 1am is this: "blizzard". The TWIN game was postponed until tomorrow and my band rehearsal was cancelled. Tom Prin, the local composer of the piece I arranged for the band, A Quiet Place has agreed to come to our concert to hear his piano music as interpreted by me. The concert is Monday 5/13 at 7pm at The Church of St. Patrick in Inver Grove Heights. I hope he likes what I've done to his piece. John in the Euphonium section has expressed concern over a C-sharp in his part multiple times. I will continue to reassure him that he is playing the right note.

 

 

Sunday Review

 

We had a nice day at church today celebrating our friends in Tanzania and Guatemala.  Our group of Tanzania travelers was well represented by our Mzee “Senior Statesman” Brandt who spoke eloquently about our experience at our companion congregation Ipogoro Lutheran.  I wore one of the skirts I wore in Tanzania but unfortunately had to wear snow boots and change into my sandals at church.  The bell choir also played my arrangement today and I was very happy about how it went. 

After church Doug (shown here wearing his ‘church clothes’) opened the brand-new laptop  he picked up last night.  It has Windows 8 which looks and acts completely different. 

The cats rediscovered their “barn” after I moved it to a new location.

We’re without TV today as we are switching to Comcast (aka “XFinity”) for our TV, internet and phone tomorrow.  Hopefully all goes as expected and we’ll be up and running tomorrow.  

Apples, Beers, Cubs

 

 Last night we went to the Minnesota Opera's performance of Puccini's final opera Turandot. I've known some of the music from this opera for a long time and recently I downloaded the whole show on I-tunes. I'll admit that I had no idea what it was about until seeing it live last night. It was sung in Italian with English super-titles projected above the stage. I loved the performance and fully recommend it like I do with almost any live performance of theater. We had a package deal that included two tickets on the main floor (row LL on the 50 yard line), two drink coupons, and a parking pass at the nearby Lawson ramp. We had Japanese food for dinner at Sakura. The sashimi was fresh and delicious restoring my confidence in raw fish consumed in the Midwest.

 

 

Earlier in the day I found myself in Fedex/Kinko's making copies of my new arrangement of Nessun Dorma from Turandot when a grungy singer-type guy asks me, "what are you doing with Nessun Dorma?" I said I had arranged it for concert band and tenor voice. He said he was singing in Turandot that very night. He's one of the trio of Chinese court jesters called Ping, Pang or Pong. The photo above is either Ping, Pang or Pong. Nessun Dorma (None Shall Sleep) is about the most famous Puccini opera aria around and Turandot is one of the most performed 20th century operas. The other three most frequently performed 20 century operas (for all of you opera buffs out there) are Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes, and my man Igor Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. This list demonstrates how international opera is with these works coming from Italy, Germany, England, and Russia. Stravinsky was Russian (actually Soviet) but he lived in the US for so long that I'd consider him an honorary Californian

 

 

While I shopped at The Cub Foods today, the lion cub and the cheetah cub rested on Makiko/Johanna/Christoph's bed while Sue worked on her paper. 

 

 

We're still trying to get these guys to sit still for a good photo shoot.

 

 

Milwaukee Pete sent me back to Minnesota with three bottles of Bischoff beer from Winnweiler, Germany where our friend Chris Campbell lived while he was in the air force. Some company in the US is now importing Bischoff so it's only a matter of time before we see it on tap at Applebees. The hefeweizen made Sue and I long for Germany. We are still waiting for airfare to drop so we can book some flights to Bavaria.

 

 

Here is my new creation that I've duplicated three times: Spicy Thai Tofu Green Curry. I'm bringing it to a potluck tomorrow night at my pastor intern meeting. I know Ben and Ali appreciate some kick-butt curry.

 

 

Here is a sequence of three photos showing an interaction with Mr. Ravel.

#1 The Captured Cat

 

 

#2 Captured Cat Gets Cheeky as he uncoils like a high tension spring bearing sharp claws

 

 

#3 Uncoiled Spring finds himself sitting alone on the couch 

 

 

On April 19th (yesterday) we got 6 inches of heavy snow. The night before the Twins game was called off because of the heavy rain that had not yet turned to heavy snow. The Twins were called off on Friday night in Chicago for temperatures in the 20s. I think Duluth got 18 inches of snow.

 

 

Sir Nigel likes to climb on top of things like the backs of chairs and counter tops. They both remain committed to every play session to which they are invited. 

Fun Day

 

We enjoyed the day celebrating Miss Maya’s First Communion. 

She is such a sweet little girl and obviously very adorable.

Adorable Masters of Disaster

 

I’ve been working diligently on my master’s paper and ‘hibernated’ today to do a lot of writing.  I did go out for an hour this afternoon and it looked like the cats were very busy while I was gone.

They knocked over their scratching post and dragged out a grocery bag.

Two cat-shaped coasters were killed and left to discourage others from trying whatever brought on this wrath. 

Apparently there was also a tussle with a shoestring. 

While I investigated what had gone on, the cats checked me out. 

Where was I while all this took place?  The pet food store to get more food and a few toys!

The “Cat Fortune Cookie” toys have proved very popular this evening.

Magic Carpet

 

 So the airport Red Carpet Hotel in Milwaukee has closed and everything is for sale before the demolition teams come in to erase this landmark from Milwaukee's memory. The one remaining business in the complex is Katie's former employer Magic Carpet Travel. They will be housed in a temporary trailer while the site is redeveloped into a strip mall and parking for the airport. The strip mall will include travel related businesses like a pet boarding store, and a car rental, and travel agents, etc. Side note: Pete and Katie were unable to meet Sue and I in China in the spring of 1999 because Richard, the owner of the travel store was about to have a baby. Richard's child must be about 14 years old now. Time flies when you have access to a magic carpet.

 

 

This is the central courtyard of the Red Carpet Hotel (most recently run by the bank as a Wyndham Resort.)

 

 

In the employee break room we found evidence of one final potluck that no one thought they needed to clean up. The hotel closed at the end of December. 

 

 

All of the equipment is for sale including, freezers, dish washing machines, pots, pans, glasses, linens, beds, sconces, etc.

 

 

Pete was sure if you made an offer on a hunk of wall, they'd sell it to you.

 

 

This is one of the grand ballrooms. I'm pretty sure I've been to some wedding receptions here. I think sister Cheryl worked as a maid here briefly in the early 1990s and brother Mike worked at the long-defunct Red Carpet Lanes bowling alley behind the hotel.

 

 

$225 for a four hole sink from the men's room. Pricey? Maybe.

 

 

Here is the signature architectural detail--the scalloped roof line with some pretty nice wood ceilings.

 

 

There are rumors that the developer will keep one of the 5 story rectangular "towers" and the central lobby area to be used in the new development. 

 

 

Over the past few weeks, during the walk through sale, it looks like folks have rifled through the desks looking for anything of value. There were work schedules posted on the wall from 12/2012 with phone numbers listed. If your business suddenly closed, you'd probably take your personal things and leave the rest for the scavengers. There were lots of computer monitors from the late 1980s that probably contain oodles of contaminating metallic waste. I hope they dispose of things properly.

*****

So long Red Carpet Hotel, hello more strips malls and surface parking.

They Paved Red Carpet and Put Up a Strip Mall

 

Yesterday my mom and I took a walk when the temperature approached 50 degrees after the rain let up. This morning the rain is coming down in sheets again.

 

 

I had to make use of the local Napa Auto parts store to pick up some new wiper blades for the old '03 Mazda.

 

 

Here's "The Circle" where we used to play baseball using a tennis ball to avoid breaking windows. Last year the city added the median and pseudo-rain garden so here ends the era of kids playing baseball at the junction of Henry and New York Avenues in Cudahy.

 

 New York Avenue has changed a lot. Most of the old big trees are gone and almost all of the houses are re-roofed and/or re-sided. Things just look different.

 

I will submit this photo to Google Street View to replace their previous photo which featured our 2002 Honda Accord. This afternoon Pete and I might do some urban exploration at the now-defunct Red Carpet Hotel on Howell. There are plans to rip it down to put up a parking lot and a strip mall.