Flowers in December

Recently I got an electronic holiday letter from former work colleagues. We've not seen each other for years. I replied saying we should get together for coffee sometime. Then I sent another message suggesting we meet for coffee at the Como Park Conservatory so we could see the flowers--definitely a plus with the recent winter days we've been having.

I arrived a bit early and enjoyed the scene of the Como Park Zoo outside the windows of the Cafe at this location.

Soon my friends arrived and we enjoyed coffee or hot chocolate while visiting for awhile. They have kept up with my activities because  read the blog frequently.

We walked through the Conservatory area.Here are two pictures of orchids from the palm area.

The sunken garden is covered with poinsettias this Christmas season.

In what is called the North Room we observed a holiday tea going on as a fund-raiser for the Conservatory. Indeed it looked elegant.

Then we went to the Bonsai Room associated with a Japanese Garden found in this area.

 This fig plant is about 24 inches  (60cm) high. A sign beside it said it has been in trainings since the year 2000.

This particular bonsai shows up better since it is placed against a wall rather than a window. The sign below it helps one to understand the size of the bonsai. The sign identifies this as a narrow leaf fig and explains it has been in training since the year 2006.

While we were enjoying this room, my cell phone rang. I became rude and took this call. It was the moving company calling me about plans for Monday.

 We then wandered back to the exit and my colleagues made their way to the parking lot. I wandered through the gift shop and found some things that would be good for teaching English next summer, but I resisted. That box is already packed!

A lovely afternoon. Spent the evening with a less than pleasant smell as I ran the cycle on the stove to clean the oven! Another thing off the list.

Oh! The Weather Outside is Frightful!

Autumn lingered into the Thanksgiving weekend, and than bang! slam! Winter arrived. It's not just that snow arrived, but how it arrived. It came down on warm streets and then the weather in about 12 hours changed to sub-zero Fahrenheit scale. This means the salt and chemicals that go on the streets wouldn't work due to the low temperature. And the physical principle of cold air taking less volume than warm air went well into operation in the car tires.

This morning I went out to the car garage and entered through the Express door. When I said I needed air in the tires, the young woman at the check-in desk had the air compressor right there and I was out of there in about two minutes.The thermometer in my car said the outside temperature was -3 Fahrenheit ( -19 Celsius).

I came home really appreciating an underground garage!

I looked at the Updraft Blog on the web site for Minnesota Public Radio (MPR). This is prepared by Paul Huttner, a meteorologist for MPR.
According to his blog, right now 66.9% of the United States is snow covered.


Huttner's blog reports that last year at this time only 26% of the continental 48 states were snow-covered.

Still packing for my move next week, and this afternoon decided to carry back the dry cleaner bag to the office along with the gift I had purchased for the Toys for Tots project with which this property is cooperating. Slipped on my shoes and set off. This route is down the hall, turn left, walk to the elevator, take it down to the ground floor and exit the building there, walk across the street to the other building where  the manager's office is located, and replicate the walk in that building. That's when I realized I hadn't really made the mental switch to winter -- I should have had boots on for walking through the snow as I crossed the street!

Here are some views out the door this afternoon.

Everything is snow-covered. Officially we've had 7 inches (17 cm) of snow. What is unusual is to see the river snow-covered. There is enough ice on the river to hold the snow.

Looking upstream I see the electricity generating plant.

The setting sun is lighting up the steam plume from the plant. The bridge span is the north end of what is called the High Bridge.

Looking downstream one can see a view of the city center and the district heating plant. The heating plant supplies much of the downtown area of St.Paul.

Enjoy!

Good things on the Internet

In the past two days I've found myself using or learning about some good Internet resources.

First I tutor math at an elementary school and that program uses Xtramath for program. It was new to me when I started this experience. This can be used by schools or can also be used by parents at home. And kids seem to find it fun. Amazingly, this was put together primarily by volunteers.

Then last evening at a church meeting I learned about VoteSmart. This is almost done by volunteers, too. The primary staff are young adults who work for not much more than minimum wage for two years, supplemented by college age interns who work for only room and board, if I understand correctly. This is a good web site to explore and learn about those who hold political office or are candidates for office.

And then today I attended a lecture at Metropolitan State University about the holocaust presented by Fred Amram, a professor emeritus from the University of Minnesota. Professor Amram was born in Hanover, Germany in 1933 in a Catholic Children's Home. His family is Jewish and when he was born Jewish parents were forbidden to deliver a child in any hospital in Hanover, so the Catholic sisters who ran the Children's Home made that site available to Jewish parents. His whole presentation is quite powerful. He explained he does this type of presentation to give voice to those who died. Look at his web site for more information.

Wow, it's amazing what one can find on the internet these days!

Moving Adventure #1

Today I got into the building where I am moving for the very first time. Here's the view I saw as I approached.

Am I moving into a construction zone? Well, for awhile. This building is being completed in phases. This is a view of what is called the South Tower and I am moving into the North Tower. The old looking facade is the front of the former Saint Paul Police Station.The rest of the building structure is very modern.

I found the door on the north side and had the instruction to call when I arrived. A construction worker was there working on what will be the call box for entry on that side and he let me into the foyer.

Wow! I had no idea the building would be European modern in style.

The representative of the property manager met me and we whisked up the elevator to floor 6, which is really floor 7 because to continue with doing things European style, ground floor is 0!

And here's the elevator foyer on the sixth floor.

My apartment is not too far from the elevator.

Here's the kitchen with about twice the storage space of my present kitchen. Behind where one would be standing here is a very large coat closet, also about twice as large as the one I have now.

The living room area is about the same size.

Should have taken the picture from a different angle. The window light confused the camera, but this makes it possible to see the big door with a lovely balcony outside. The balcony overlooks the courtyard with the swimming pool and green space. I'm looking forward to sitting on my balcony in the spring and watching all the landscaping come together in the courtyard. I figured out today that I can access the courtyard by going down to the second level and then going through a door there.

To make best use of the space the doors to the bathroom and the walkin closet are pocket doors, and the door to the bedroom from the living area is a translucent barn door that slides into the wall. The floor length window in the bedroom was a surprise too.

When leaving I decided to go down to take a look at the garage. I took the elevator to  -1 and then went through the door to the garage, hearing it clicked locked! And I had no key to open it!

Well, here's the picture of the empty garage.

No cell service in the garage to call the office and ask them to rescue me. I stood there for a bit and decided to see if the exit door would work from the inside. So I walked up the driveway and yes! the garage door slowly opened. In fact, it opens enough ahead of time that one won't have to sit and wait for it! But truly I was relieved to get out of this pickle so easily.

Walked around the corner to the Keys restaurant. How convenient to be able to walk out so easily to a good restaurant, most any time of the day!

Meanwhile the place I live looks certainly like someone is moving. It's hard to pack out of a small apartment. Where does one put the boxes?

Lighting Up the Christmas Tree

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Saint Paul lights a Christmas tree in Rice Park. The tree is always a donation, coming from a place where it had to be removed for some reason.

My older daughter and I set out around 3:30 walking up the street, then waiting for a train to cross, and then around the Science Museum and up 5 levels in the elevator there and then out the door to the nearby Central Library where I returned four books, renewed a couple and checked out two more.

We then went across the street into Rice Park. Music attracted us.

We learned later this was the Choo - Choo Bob band, obviously to entertain visitors a bit younger than we are!

Nearby I noticed a toy soldier figure.

 On the right in the photo in front of the toy soldier is a young man dressed in a formal Hmong costume. It is New Year's for the Hmong culture and the nearby Xcel Center was holding that festival. I later learned that about 30,000 Hmong were expected to take part in the New Year's festivities.

And of  course there are some angels heralding a new season.

From here we walked over the skating rink which is opening the first time this season. My daughter loves to watch figure skating so we stood for awhile. The performers were from the Saint Paul Figure Skating Club.

After this we walked into the Landmark Center to see what might be happening there.

We found a toy train exhibit.

 We were enjoying it when a woman standing beside us asked her children to pose for a picture. We stepped aside a bit, and I'm glad we did. One of the children stumbled and fell down backward bringing down the protective ropes around the exhibit and knocking the train off the tracks. The woman never did take a picture; the family just crept away. 

A big chess board took my eye.

Our next stop was the lobby of the Ordway Center where we got a cup of hot cider.

Then we walked over again to Rice Park, thinking the tree lighting was at 5:00. Well, no 5:30. A lot of speeches and some performances promoting various shows at the Ordway.

 I noticed the candle on the side of the Lawson Building was now lighted.

And as it got dark we could see the outline of the Saint Paul Hotel.

It has become a tradition in Saint Paul to outline buildings with the white lights. These stay in place until the end of the Winter Carnival in early February.

At last it came time to throw the switch and 15,000 LED lights glowed and the fire works started going off.

And here's a view of the tree.

A very nice late afternoon up in Rice Park.

Pipedreams at the Science Museum

Today at last I finished a very hard research paper that I'm doing as part of my volunteer research efforts. I decided it would be good for my mental health and physical health to get out for a walk, so decided to return some books to the Saint Paul Public Library. This is about a 10-12 minute walk from my apartment.

The sun was shining, but oh my! It was a wicked wind that was blowing. I should  have worn a hat. I stopped at one of the condo buildings down the street and went inside the entry area to fix the hood on my coat up around my ears. But I made it to the library, picked out some new books and then walked back across the street to the Science Museum and stopped there for coffee.

I was seated by the kinetic sculpture called Pipe Dreams.

 The colors at the top are actually reflections from a nearby exhibit.  And the yellow on the left is a dinosaur foot, part of a huge poster announcing a new exhibit opening in the Science Museum in March.

The information by the sculpture, which has been there since 1999, explains it works off a computer program somewhat analogous to a printer driver.

The above photo is blurry because it is taken through the plexiglass surrounding the lower area of the sculpture area.

The computer program, using the 1 and 0 of all computer programs, opens a valve in each of the pipes and turns water on or off.

The video below shows this just a bit better.

Other interesting designs captured my viewpoint today.

Behind were I having coffee are the ticket booths, with an interesting curved wall over the top. The afternoon sun helped to make the design interesting.

Soon I had to "bite the bullet" and myself walk back home in the cold wind.

The afternoon sun was lighting the housing area in which I live in an interesting manner, too.

The sun was lighting the windows in the historic elevator structure and making the apartment and condo buildings glow. It was quite beautiful. The above photo was taken around 4:30 in the afternoon. By 5 PM it is now dark here this time of the year.

Full-Time Volunteer

On Monday I met another retired colleague for coffee at the Swede Hollow Cafe.

Click on the link above to see the interior of the cafe. As we were walking to our cars at the end of the coffee conversation, I said I didn't miss work a bit, but that I have seemed to have turned into a full-time volunteer.

Last Saturday afternoon I did a two-hour shift at the World Jubilee Sale held at Colonial Church in Edina. That's the experience I wrote about in a previous blog entry.

Meanwhile I'm still working on working on agricultural research for Mano a Mano.

On Tuesday evening I helped make supper at Jeremiah House. Jeremiah House is a large apartment building that provides support for single moms and their children. It provides those with the dream of higher education with the support they need. See the link for way more info.

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings many of the residents must attend a life skills class. Volunteers cook the evening meal, so the moms can come home from school and work and have a good supper with their children and their friends and then make a 7 PM class.

Here is a start -- cheese and crackers and some grapes. There is bread, peanut butter, and jelly in case someone doesn't like the entree which was lasagne.

I brought salad makings. Another volunteer brought pies for dessert.

During the evening I washed a lot of dishes-- not my favorite activity, but this kitchen doesn't have a commercial dishwasher.

This morning I was back at Bancroft School in Minneapolis for my first try as a math tutor. I had only one student this morning, and probably good thing for the online math program, Xtramath, we use wasn't behaving very well. When we get organized I'll have two for sure and perhaps a third one.

This school building is over 100 years old with a "new" addition that is 50 years old!

When I walk on the stairs I can see the footprints from the last 100 years.

Notice the hallway is named Integrity. Values such as Compassion, Cooperation, and Communication are all over this school.

One thing I've never before seen in a school building is a mailbox.

This is no longer in use. I wonder if once upon a time it was a community mail box.

Maybe these aren't the most exciting pictures but I wanted to protect everyone's privacy and not have pictures of others in the photos.

For my international readers--I would love to receive comments about what volunteers do in your countries.