The Sun Also (does not always) Rise

 

We’re having a week of rain here during our ever-cold spring.  Johanna left on Sunday after her grand and triumphal return to the Agape Choir.  On Saturday, Sue and Johanna had once last Panda Express meal.  It is possible that Johanna equates Minnesota with Panda Express.

Lazy day, lazy cat

Here I am showing off my rain coat and winter hat. 

It’s that kind of spring.

No, we don’t let them sit on the table or the counters or the sink but they do jump up there a lot.

I got a haircut today in time for our pastor intern meeting tonight that is taking place in our living room.

Along with cheese and crackers and a Let’s Dish cake, I’ll serve these nuts from Cudahy and some decaf coffee—wait, did someone say decaf?  Is my mother coming to this meeting? 

For such a live wire, coiled spring with claws, this cat has started to mellow out and is quite cuddly.  He accepts the pettings much longer than Nigel does.

I will be attending a bible study class starting this week at Rachel’s dad’s house where we talk about religion in Star Trek.  (Rachel is the high school student on my Intern Committee)  Seriously.  If you’ve ever watched Star Trek, you know there is a lot of religion in there.  I think Daniel, our intern is also in the class but maybe not leading it.  I bought some Braunschweiger today which tasted pretty good on rye bread but I can say without a doubt that it closely resembles either a French liver pate or cat food. Either way, the cats and I love it. 

Here’s Herr Pastor Daniel Rinehart.  Our previous intern, Ali, who is finishing up at the seminary this spring has landed an associate pastor  job at St. Michael’s Lutheran church of Roseville.  She is thrilled to find a gig here in the cities since her husband Ben works at The Three M.

Twin Cities to Twin Ports

 

Today, Sue took a personal day off from work and we road tripped up to the twin ports of Duluth, MN and Superior, WI.  From the Aquarium we had a good view of the harbor and the lift bridge.

Here’s a reflection of me taking a photo of a Rainbow Trout.  They had several fresh and salt water tanks with everything from turtles to sturgeon and trout to sunfish. 

Here’s a gar fish with the beak worthy of a dinosaur.

We got to participate in the feeding of the rainbow trout.

Model of a Moose

And then we got the back stage tour to see some holding tanks for the new Shipwrecked tank that will open in July of 2014.  This is a puffer fish on top and a flounder on the bottom—both salt water dwellers.

This is a replica of Johanna’s photo with the real Statue of Liberty in New York.  This one stands outside the Duluth Convention Center and has previously been featured in this blog.

Then we checked out the free Maritime Museum next to the lift bridge.

Here’s Lake Superior still full of ice chunks.

We waited around for this 750 foot iron ore cargo ship.  The lift bridge went up a full 10 minutes before this boat slowly drifted under it on its way east.  We weren’t sure where it was destined for.

We ate lunch at Grandma’s which sits right next to the lift bridge.

And finally, an artful shot of the harbor as seen from Skyline Drive.

“I’m the Champion Now.”

 

Mike and Judy drove 90 minutes from their northern home in Eleva to join us for our Easter Meal consisting of prime rib, cheesy potatoes (the same recipe as last week), asparagus (Spargel) with an Asian nut flavor, baguettes (French breads), cole slaw with peppers and a peanut sauce, Greek and German white wines, tap water, and a cherry torte desert that Judy brought.  It was a great meal!

 

Despite how this looks, Johanna still drinks water almost exclusively.  The German white was a Pfalz Gewürztraminer and the Greek white was about the driest wine I’ve ever tasted.

 

After a long walk in the beautiful weather with the Bergs, they left and we kicked up a couple games of  Scrabble.

 

Nigel hid most of the time the Bergs were here.  He’s a chicken butt.

 

We took a photo of Johanna’s use of a J and an X in “jinx”.  She also was responsible for laying down “hell” that was later turned into ‘'”hello”.

 

I believe I won this game but my hold on the title was short lived. . .

 

. . . because Johanna won the second game and declared, “I’m the champion now.”  OK, she didn’t really say that but I wanted to allude to the recent Tom Hanks movie where the Somali pirate tells him who the captain really is.

Easter Morning

 

Easter Morning

 

 

 

 

 

Shadows of a globe, Batman, and a coffee cup.

 

Brothers

 

Taking in the sun

 

Sitting like a Volkswagon Beetle

From Broadway to Network TV: J one ups C

Click on this YouTube link to see the channel 5 ABC news story that ran on the television news last night.  Johanna and I can be seen for about 1/2 second.  When they show the eagle being carried by the woman below, she was bringing him in to see us.  When they show the guy returning the eagle to the cage, that was right after we watched him eat.

 So now Johanna has made an appearance on American TV and not just on the community channel that Christoph and the community band appeared on at Christmas.  Johanna made the big time on network TV, ABC, one of the top four nationwide networks!  Poor Christoph!

 Here's an owl trying his best to ignore us as we talked about him.

 This display of pavers that looks like ordinary pavers laid out on the floor was from the Sacred Pathways portion of the Sacred exhibit at the art institute.

 This afternoon we went to Daniel Pfeifer's girlfriend Amanda's children's theater performance of Cinderella.  The show was at Inver Hills where I did my nursing degree.

 Here's Amanda who was the cinder girl.  Later she dons some sparkly tennis shoes and goes to the ball--you know the story.

 The loud step-sisters

 Then we three walked along the River Mississippi to look for some American Bald Eagles.  There is a big nest that's been in a tall tree for years.

We thought we saw some small heads popping up above the side of the nest and we definitely saw a big eagle fly out of the nest and head downriver.

The weather here is warm - sixties but the forecast is for rain.  Next we went to The Cub to get The Groceries for our Easter Dinner tomorrow.  The Good Friday service was as good as ever last night.  The choir was awesome and Dee Ann played her last edgy, angry, and French organ piece of her career at Augustana as she is retiring in about three weeks.  Good stuff.

The North American Bald Eagle

 

Johanna and I went to the Raptor Center at the St. Paul Campus of the University of Minnesota.  Did you know there are only two species of eagles in North America?  The Bald Eagle and the Golden Eagle.  And, the bald eagle is only found in North America so any eagle that you may find in Germany are of some other variety.

This guy weighs about 7.5 lbs and is about 5 years old.  He has some medical issue that prevents the Raptor Center from releasing him back into the wild.  The Raptor Center, which is basically a hospital for birds of prey, has about 100 inpatient birds right now, most of which will eventually be released into the wild.

This guy fed him some thawed out rat that he gobbled down in front of us.

We’re probably going to be on the news tonight on channel 5 or on KSTP.com.  There was a guy filming there. . . watch us at 5,6, or 10pm.

Then we went to the Minneapolis Museum of Art where we saw another eagle . . .

. . . this . . .

. . . and some French Impressionism.  We also saw the one that is hanging above my computer desk right now.  (I’ll show it later).

good stuff

a new acquisition

Pizza Luce tonight.  Sue just got home.