Walk, Heart

 

Sue and I, a few of my coworkers, and several thousand other people walked in the Twin Cities 12th Annual Heart Walk this morning at Target Field.  That’s Darcy doing an inspirational dance with Cami on the right—two of my long-time cohorts.

Here’s Bill who had an LVAD and later a heart transplant.  He was going to walk with us but we kind of got split up among the thousands of people in the concourse.  He’s wearing a red pin on his shirt that has his heart transplant number.  I think he’s number 680 or so that have been transplanted at my hospital since the 1970s.  He got his in around 2009.  Bill gave me a Second Chance For Life T-shirt with the following sentence printed on the back: “Of course I’m an organ donor—who wouldn’t want a piece of this?”

Here’s most of the CVICU team including my boss, her husband and their two small children.  The little boy is Cami’s son Finn.  Marilyn, to my left was one of my preceptors when I joined the ICU staff.

These are two of our nursing assistants who both graduated with nursing degrees from the U  last week.  Jasmin, the shorter of the two volunteered to have Johanna tag a long with her to a college class at the U but it ended up falling through.

We walked the three mile route through downtown and around the lake in Loring Park.  Now Sue has another Heartwalk T-shirt to exercise in possibly replacing her 2011 Heartwalk T-shirt.

Here’s Molly, Sue, and Darcy

Afterwards, several of us had lunch at Kieran's Irish Pub across from The Target Center.  We had to sit at two different tables but close enough where the kids could still collectively get into trouble.

It was a fun day and tonight we’ll go to Sue’s work friend Adam’s 40th Birthday Party.  We may get a glimpse of “Three Beer Adam”.  That should be entertaining.

Ready for Summer

 

The trees have bloomed, the windows are open and we are ready for some summer here.  We are in full Boston/Maine trip planning mode.  We purchased our Amtrak tickets for our trip between Boston and Portland and did some serious planning/looking/comparing travel book to website information yesterday. 

A black cat assisted.  

This is my busy season at school – one concert last week and two concerts & a field trip next week.  Doug has been busy working and, apparently, chopping vegetables.  Our slightly-expensive-but- totally-worth it, authentic Tupperware container keeps fresh stuff at hand. 

Some of the other chopped items ended up in this very pretty spaghetti “ragu” as Doug calls it.

We bought a small table to go with our outdoor furniture yesterday.  It took about 10 minutes to put together.  It is the perfect size for 2 summer beverages and a plate of cheese & crackers.  We tried it out not long after the project was completed and declared it the missing item from our backyard relaxation time.  

A little mulching happened yesterday, too.  It also took about 10 minutes.

We decided to replace our electronic thermostat yesterday because the up/down arrows have not worked for about 3 years. 

This project took about 15 minutes and was much simpler than the never-ending flooring project we were doing at this time last year. 

And these guys did what they do best…

Tomorrow we are meeting some of our exchange-hosting friends for lunch and will probably go for our traditional walk through the General Lutheran Cemetery and the other cemetery – just to see what (who) is new. 

(Only Slightly More) Interesting Than Dirt

 

Since the weather forecast called for a beautiful 70 degree day today, I made a snap decision to go to Gertens last night and pick up flowers.  I had done my preview tour and was ready to buy. 

The yard side of the garage will feature Nicotiana and Salvia.  This is the first year for Nicotiana but I decided to give it a try since it is described as having pretty flowers and a very fragrant evening scent.  Since this has been designated  “the summer of fun” with no classes in the plan for either of us, I hope we will spend lots of summer evenings in the backyard. 

The Salvia was a mistake.  I thought I had picked up a flat of dahlias but grabbed these instead.  I could have returned them but the thought of going to Gertens on a sunny Sunday afternoon was more than I could stand.  The bluish-purple plant should go nicely with the red.  I tried them once before with limited success.  Can’t remember why – but we’ll find out if they fare better this year.

This is my first serious perennial plant – a rose bush in the corner where I often put a morning glory on a post. The roses formerly known as “Ann’s roses” always look great all summer so I thought I’d give it a go. 

 

Since we’re taking an early vacation this year instead of our usual July/August “harvest season” trip, I decided to try a few vegetables.  I’m going to call it a salsa garden – a tomato plant, a yellow pepper plant, a ‘salsa pepper’ plant and a 6 pack of green onions.  I’m betting I’ll have more onions than I’ll need.  Do you want some? 

A few of the leftover nicotiana ended up here.  They are related of the tobacco plant but I doubt anyone will pick them and attempt to smoke them. 

Here’s the area that’s only slightly more interesting than dirt.  I put in a pack of sunflower seeds along with a packet of “songbird wildflower seed mix.  I did this a few years ago and it gave me license to not weed this area.  After all, who is to know which is a weed and which is a wildflower? 

The leftover salvia was planted here too.  Salvia is supposed to have medicinal purposes.  I’m not sure what for …

I always. ALWAYS. plant Dahlias along the front steps.  However, in the midst of my buying frenzy, I grabbed the salvia instead of dahlias.  Fortunately, I picked up a flat of ganzia with no specific purpose in mind so they are taking the place of the traditional dahlias this year.  I’ve had really good luck growing these in full sun along the side of the garage.  We’ll see how they fair with the morning sun of the front yard.  

The flower basket is starting to fill out.  I was glad I picked this up last week.  The selection yesterday was more limited than the week before. 

 

It was a beautiful day to be outside.  There were lots of people out and about.  I was supervised by the “Jesus and Friends” car (it’s baaaack, Ann!!!) as well as my two helpers. 

Somebody was very interested in what was going on outside. 

This guy was very attentive early on but decided he needed a nap on his more recent favorite perch after a couple hours of squirrel patrol.

Gardening supervisor on patrol for squirrels

Somecat has discovered the cheetah on the fireplace.

Mother’s Weekend

 

I was in Milwaukee over the weekend partially for Mother’s Day and partially just for a plain old visit with my family.  Sue had to stay in Minnesota to do things like teach on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, conduct a middle school honors band on Saturday, and play in the bell choir on Sunday.  I always like to check out objects/places from my boyhood.  So here is the power pole in the backyard of my parents house.  Fascinating.

The weather was pretty nice for the most part.  We had a Mother’s Day dinner at the Italian place on Rawson with all my siblings, Nancy, and the grand kids.  Tom had to work—those 12 hour shift get in the way of life.  There are some photos on Sunanda’s Facebook page.

I always like to get photos of any “foreign” cars in the driveway.  In this case, that’s my VW Jetta.  I took advantage of the cheap Milwaukee car wash and paid $5.99 for a works wash that would have been unaffordable in Minnesota.

The grass is pretty green in Cudahy and the trees are a buddin’.

We watched a lot of robins flailing about in the bird bath.

I should do architectural photography.

Dorene, Diane, and I golfed 18 on Saturday morning on what one golfer described as “a perfect day for golf”:  Sunny, low 70s, no wind.  However, I did get a little sunburned.  This is the storm that rolled through on Monday night.  The piles of garbage on the street are for the city-wide large garbage pick up.

This one is a little too blurry to have made the cut for the blog.

Ebony and Orangey lived together in perfect harmony side by side on the love seat. . .

So much for going to Gertens "just to look"...

Cinco de Mayo

 

Yesterday we took a hike/walk in that linear park in Inver grove between 70th and 80 streets.  You know, the one with the really big hills.

Why do I look so tall?

There has been some talk around here about possibly selecting a lite cat food. . .

I’ve got a band concert tonight—in about and hour. . . so this is a quick blog entry.

Sue made some awesome veggie spring rolls and chicken pad Thai.  Happy Fifth of May.