DID YOU SEE WHAT I THOUGHT I SAW?

I took these photos while visiting the Brooklyn Botanical Garden when I was in New York last May. I was trying to be creative capturing images of statues and all the petals covering the ground, scattering on the tree branches. Only recently while looking for a few nice photos of the cherry blossoms, that I took a close look at these photos and for the first time, seeing a different "interpretation" of the photos, more than just the petals on the "body" of the tree or where the spraying water seems to come from the statue (in the first photo)! I could not elaborate further because I don't want to be accused of having a dirty mind. I invite you to tell me, based on your "imagination", what you see in these photos!

MY HANDYMAN

I found this lawn mower in our backyard near the storage shed when I came back from running errands last Saturday. My husband explained that he rescued it from our next door neighbor, JT who was the author of the handwritten note, "FREE to a good home. It still works (kind of). If you want it, take it!". JT told my husband what the problem was and CP, being a handyman, offered to fix the lawn mower at no charge but JT being "A typical hot-blooded consumer would go out and buy a new/replacement device." (quote from Qaptain Qwerty), already purchased a new mower. CP plans to repair and finds a good home for this machine. If you need a lawn mower and willing to come to St. Louis to pick this one up, let me know. We have one and don't need another lawn mower, that is for sure!

TUESDAY TWO

I got this idea "Tuesday Two" from another blogger who every Friday would post five soul searching questions/answers. I thought two would be easier to manage. So here it goes, the first post in the "Tuesday Two" series.
I hope you like the above photo of two yellow tulips.

Two quotes by Mark Twain:
1. "A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs." How appropriate in this state of consumerism!
2. "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Need I say more about distortions (re-distribution of wealth, empty promises, foolish spending, deception and lies) that have been taking place?

Two "Easier said than done" from Life's Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. -
1. "Spend less time worrying who's right, and more time deciding what's right"
2. "Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems."

Two questions from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, Ph. D. -
1. "If a crystal ball would tell you the truth about any one thing you wished to know concerning yourself, life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?"
2. "Ignoring all financial considerations, would you rather spend the next five years confined to the city of New York or to the environs of Morro Bay, a beautiful, isolated town on the California coast?" Could you guess, from reading my blog and the recent earthquake in northern Mexico, what my answer would be?

SPRING HAS ARRIVED

It was a nice surprise that Sunday turned out to be partly cloudy and comfortable instead of the predicted rain. By the time we arrived, the church was almost full for the 9:00 a.m. Mass as everyone had the same idea getting to church extra early. There were people waiting to get in for the next Mass at 10:30 a.m. when we were leaving. My husband commented that how many of these people were "Easter Only" attendees! I finally remembered to take photo of the display of the cross and the American flag in front of this house. I plan to write to let the homeowners know how much I appreciate their patriotism and being faithful believer. "The Lord is my light and the one who saves me. I fear no one. The Lord protects my life; I am afraid of no one" Psalm 27:1In the afternoon, we went to St. Charles. Only a few shops opened on the Main Street, most closed for Easter. It was as if we had the town all for ourselves. We walked along Frontier Park and saw that the Missouri River was high but not overflown. There were people flying kites and families with kids enjoying a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

EASTER SUNDAY

Wishing you and your family a Blessed Easter!
Then Jesus said, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of time." Matthew 28:18-20

Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis (Lindell Boulevard) - St. Louis, Missouri (June 2008)

GOOD FRIDAY

St. James Catholic Church - Potosi, Missouri (Photos taken in May 2009)

HOLY THURSDAY

Saint Genevieve Catholic Church - St. Genevieve, Missouri.

PREMIUM PARKING AT THE ARCH

We went downtown on Sunday for the St. Louis Blues v. Edmonton Oilers game. It was not a real exciting game since the Oilers are in the last spot in the Western Conference. The Blues needed to win more than the Oilers because the Blues are still in the 10th spot, with not much chance to get into the Playoffs. The Blues won 3-2. Before the game, we drove by the Landing and I took these photos showing the rising water completedly covered the waterfront. You could judge for yourself how high the water was by looking at the photo with the Stop sign. For a second, I thought I saw animals in pairs lining up to get to the top of the arch!

BENJAMIN AT THE WURSTFEST

Last Saturday we took Benjamin to Hermann, Missouri for the Wurstfest. As mentioned in previous posts, Hermann is one of our favorite towns when driving the T-bird for weekend/day trips. In fact, we like the town so much that we have been trying to find a nice 2nd/weekend home here. My sister CH visited Hermann when she came to St. Louis in 2005. We had lunch at Hermannhof Winery, then went on a tour of the winery and CH purchased a bottle of wine to take back to New York. The line at the Hermannhof Festhalle was really long. It must be at least 100 people waiting to sample and/or to purchase the sausages from six different purveyors (a fancy name for suppliers of food or sausage makers). We decided not to wait and went down to the waterfront. The boat ramp was submergered under water. We saw a large object in the river (bottom photo), turned out it was a dead tree (above bottom photo), probably the entire tree, including the roots, fell into the river. The weather people predicted rain but it turned out to be a nice sunny day. For more information about Hermann, visit http://www.visithermann.com/ or http://www.hermannmo.info/ to read about the early history of Hermann.

IS IT SPRING YET?

These photos were taken around this time last year but looking around my backyard, I am still waiting for signs of spring. There are no flowers ready to bloom and there is no sign of pretty white flowers as last year (photo below). I noticed there are a lot of activities with the birds flying around, in and out of the trees. They must be building their nests. I sure look forward to again seeing the robbin's beautiful blue eggs (bottom photo).

PALM SUNDAY AT ST. MARY MOTHER OF JESUS ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

These photos were taken last year when I was in New York on Palm Sunday. Actually I came in on Wednesday, April 1st, the day before my Mom was scheduled for an operation. The surgery went well and I spent the next few days at the hospital, sitting by Mom's bedside. I was committed to make the trip because I would never forgive myself if the operation did not go well and I was not there with my family. Last year, Palm Sunday was on April 5th. My husband laughed when I told him that I attended 8:15 a.m. Mass. He almost did not believe me because he knew I did not like to get up early. I explained that I had to since Mom was scheduled to be discharged that morning. I flew back to St. Louis the following Tuesday after we were able to secure a nurse and a homecare aid to provide medical follow up and assistance with chores.

LET THERE BE LIGHTS - DOWNTOWN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

EARTH HOUR - LIGHTS OUT IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

NEW YORK IS ON MY MIND - CHERRY BLOSSOM AT BROOKLYN BOTANICAL GARDEN

New York is always on my mind and in my heart. When I heard on the news about the Cherry Blossom in Washington D.C., I immediately thought of my sister, CH and our time together at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden last May. According to the website http://www.gonyc.about.com/, "Cherry Blossom Season at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden lasts from April 3 - May 2, 2010. Hanami is the Japanese name for cherry-blossom viewing, and the Japanese have long-established customs surrounding this tradition, including picnicking under the boughs of cherry trees and trapping fallen petals in cups of sake. Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s peerless collection of cherry trees—-the largest and most diverse outside Japan—-creates a canopy of blossoms in the spring worthy of celebration."
These photos were taken the day after a heavy rain came thru so there were more petals on the ground than on the trees. Also, it was the end of the festival so there was not a lot of people there. I was glad that neither CH nor I fell while walking around on the wet ground. The pathway looked pretty but it was muddy and slippery under all the pretty pink petals. We asked other visitors to take photos of us together and it sure was a nice day to be with my sister.

AN UNEXPECTED EVENT HAPPENED LAST NIGHT

An unexpected event took place that created some activities in what would have been just another boring night in our life or to be more specific, in our bedroom. Wait, before you start looking for a video clip of "TOTA Totally Gone Wild" on YouTube, I am not talking about that kind of activities!
At around 11:30 p.m. I heard the first police siren that woke me up from my sleep. Then it became louder, accompanied by fire truck and ambulance blasting, completed with the lights flashing, coming right thru our bedroom windows!
I got up, went to the windows and looked outside, there they were, two police cars in front, two fire trucks and one ambulance vehicle to the right and two more fire trucks and one more ambulance to the left, of our house. I quickly walked back to the bed, only to find my husband sleeping soundly and snoring from the top of his lung, undisturbed by all the sirens and the flashing lights.
I "gently" shook CP to wake him up. "There are police and fire trucks in front of our house", I said "calmly"!
"Really, I did not hear anything", CP responded. After looking out the windows, CP declared that the emergency personnel had everything under control and went back to bed. Our house is in a corner lot of a cul-de-sac, so I could not see much from our bedroom windows. I tried looking thru the windows in the living room, also from the dining room, I could not see where the fire might be or what prompted such response. I put on my jacket and went outside, from the patio I was able to take these photos. Look closely you could see the hose was attached to the fire hydrant, getting ready for action. The police, the firetrucks and the ambulance finally cleared out the neighborhood around 12:15 am but I could not get back to sleep until almost 2am. Of course, my husband did not have the same problem!
When I was pulling out of the driveway this morning, I saw a car with an insurance company logo stopped in front a neighbor's house, three houses to the left of our house and there was a blue tarf covering part of the roof of that house. I am grateful to the firefighters for their quick response. It definitely would be scary to realize that we were so close to where the fire was. Last night I was getting to put on my Red Wings jersey and all my hockey stuff in the bag, in case we had to get out of our house and run for our live! (Here is a funny story about Qaptain Qwerty when he was about five years old living in Viet Nam. Every time he heard a firetruck siren, he would say, "Le le, lay bo do khong quan ban", translation, "Quick, I must put on my pilot jumpsuit". I still have a picture of the Qaptain in his favorite mustard color jumpsuit. The entire town could be burned to the ground, all the Qaptain cared about was his "bo do khong quan".) I guess we all have our priority!

SPRING TIME IN HANNIBAL, MISSOURI - NOT !!!

The first time I visited Hannibal was when my sister CH came to St. Louis in the summer of 1996. We started our trip pretty late (around noon) since CH did not like to get up early and it took her a long time to get ready. After lunch at Mark Twain Dinette (I remembered the place was packed with tourists), we decided to tour Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum. We were told that we had 30 minutes before closing time but we could come back tomorrow with the same admission tickets. We decided not to tour the home and the museum and just walked along the landing.

This year, my husband and I agreed that our first get-away weekend would be Hannibal and we picked the third weekend in March. We thought the weather would be nice and the town would not yet be crowded with seasonal tourists. As luck would have it, the rain started late Friday evening. All day Saturday was a miserable day of light rain mixed in with snow flurries. We paid a few extra dollars to get a room with "beautiful panoramic views of the Mississippi River and walking distance to historic downtown and major attractions". These were all true, except when it was raining, snowing and freezing weather. The view from the hotel window included the dinette across the street with its spinning coffee mug, not much of the river and a lot of noise when the trains blowing loudly while carrying at least 50 railcars coming thru every other hour!

There was no schedule listed for cruising on the Mark Twain Mississippi Riverboat. The rising water covered most of the parking area and flooded the boarding ramp. There would be no sightseeing while dining on the triple deck or dancing in the rain/snow! You could tell it was pouring from the photo below of Mark Twain statue by the Riverview Park and from the windshield as we drove toward Hotel Mark Twain. I started to wonder if there is anything in Hannibal not named Mark Twain or associated with the town most famous citizen!

PREMIUM PARKING SPACE IN HANNIBAL, MISSOURI

We went to Hannibal, Missouri last weekend. It is only about 1 hour and 45 minutes from our home in St. Louis. We left on Friday evening, stayed for two nights and drove home on Sunday morning. We got back home just in time to attend 12:00 p.m. Mass at our home parish. You could see from these photos that the Mississippi River was swollen with rising water. The above sign reads, "Parking for Parks Marina Staff Only". I am sure the Staff would not have to worry about someone taking these parking spots for awhile! How about the sign below, "No Parking Any Time. Illegal Parking Vehicles will be towed at Owner's Expense"? Should it be "Vehicles will be floated down the River at Owner's Expense"?

Here you could see that the water covered most of the road leading to the boarding area for the Mark Twain Mississippi Riverboat. We were able to walk to the Nipper Park (photo below) and I saw a big log washed up the landing. I guess there is a lot of debris in the water and the current is so swift that we don't normally see these large objects floating in the water. The town of Hannibal practiced "Better safe than sorry" by putting in place its levee door (bottom photo), just in case the water quickly got higher than expected. Back in 1993, the river crested near the 31.8-foot high-water mark — the second so-called 500-year flood in 15 years. Parts of the town were under several feet of water, but the historic downtown was protected by a levee built to withstand a crest of 34 feet. It is nice to live near the water but I am not sure about the constant threat of flooding.