I love the smell of lilacs…and the pretty delicate, purple flower blossoms are beautiful. They are a wonderful sign of spring. It’s always nice to bring a bouquet into the house.
This photo of our lilac bush was taken in 2020. It produced a lot of blooms that year.
The lilac bush we have in our backyard is an old-fashioned garden variety. The mother plant was planted in the yard of the house I grew up in, in NE Minneapolis when I was a little girl. In 1980, we moved to Burnsville and I dug up part of that bush from McKinley Street and transplanted it to our yard in Burnsville. Then, in 1994, when we moved to Northfield, I took along part of the lilac bush and planted it in the backyard of our new home.
Gary working on the lilac bush in our back yard.
The bush is old.
Partially pruned.
The past few years it has produced fewer and fewer flowers, and this year not many at all. We learned it is not blooming because it has a lot of old and dead wood, since it hasn’t been pruned. The only pruning it has received the last 29 years is when I cut off branches to bring in a sweet-smelling bouquets into the house.
Apparently, we should have been pruning the bush every year. Whoops.
So we decided to prune it way back this year. When we cut off the top branches, I cut off the smaller branches with blossoms.
A small bouquet of lilacs from the very top branches of our lilac bush.
That was a hard way to get a small bouquet!
We cut out a lot of dead wood and larger, old branches and trimmed back some of the new growth. We pruned a lot off.
It will take a couple of truck loads to get all the wood and branches from the lilac bush to the city compost site.
It was a good job that needed to be done. It looks pretty good…and hopefully the next year or two it will produce a lot more flowers once again.
In yesterday’s blog I referred to a birthday card my friend and I have been sending back-and-forth to each other since 1979. I am including a link to a blog post I wrote in October 2016 about this card.
Our little recycled birthday card is now a booklet with 10 pages added to the original card. It’s 44 years old.
This past year my friend, Diane, and her husband spent the winter in Florida, and enjoyed it very much. She did however, text me on my birthday to let me know the birthday card was back in Minnesota so it would be late in getting to me. She would send it when they returned from Florida. She continued to say her packing list for Florida next year will include, her swimsuit, sun tan lotion, and the recycled birthday card!
It is a very special card, from a very special friend.
My childhood friend and I have exchanged the same birthday card since 1979. I know I’ll hear from her in March, and a card exchange at Christmas, but only occasionally during the rest of the year.
So, when I saw a text come through from her last week I was delighted, but curious as to what she had to say. She told me about a new luxury apartment complex that was built in St. Anthony, Minnesota.
I don’t have many photos of the house where I grew up. My dad built the house in 1953, the year I was born.
The back story is my mother, Ruby, lived in the house my dad built, the house where I grew up in NE Minneapolis, for several years after my father passed away. Eventually she moved in to a townhouse, not more than a mile away from the house. It was newly-built, and well-built, small complex of townhomes, and a wonderful place for her to live for the next 20 years. After the townhouse, she moved into a senior apartment complex and enjoyed a few years there before she died in 2009.
For twenty years we would visit my mother at her townhouse in St. Anthony, across from the old Apache Plaza Mall, which is no longer standing. Office units and strip malls with a big grocery store took over the space.
Diane, my friend, texted to tell me about a new luxury apartment building that was built in that space across the street from where my mother lived in the townhouse. And she went on to write, “I thought you’d like the name…The Ruby Apartments!”
The photo Diane sent me of the brochure for The Ruby Aparments.
What fun! It made me smile.
And I like the logo…the capitol R in Ruby has a rectangular ruby stone as part of the letter.
A few weeks ago, a friend dropped off a gift for my birthday. It was a bag of Turkish Delight. I have been reading the Chronicles of Narnia so I’m not sure if that is what prompted the idea for the gift. In the book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Edward is enticed to go with the wicked White Witch because she offers him Turkish Delight, which he cannot resist.
The Turkish Delight package.
I had never tasted Turkish Delight before. It’s good… sugar-covered nougat with pistachios. My train of thought from tasting the candy was as follows: it started with the gift, to the book series I’m reading, to nougat candy, to candy stores, to Apache Plaza where my friend Diane and I would go to the Fanny Farmer candy store and buy a quarter’s worth of almond bark! What a crazy thought pattern.
I grew up in northeast Minneapolis, in a wonderful neighborhood filled with a lot of kids to play together. My two best friends lived across the street: Donna & Diane. A few blocks away, past a section of woods where we would often play, then across a couple busy streets, Apache Plaza was built, in 1961. It was the second enclosed mall in Minnesota, Southdale Center being the first.
Photo off internet: apacheplaza.com
Our moms would let us girls walk up to Apache Plaza together (neighborhoods were safer back then). I remember the layout of Apache well. We usually entered through Murphy’s Department Store. After looking at all the trinkets we’d go into the plaza and walk around. JCPenney’s was an anchor store, as was Montgomery Ward.
In addition to buying a quarter’s worth of almond bark at Fanny Farmer, we would sometimes go to the soda fountain at Woolworth’s and order a coke and French fries (I’d like to do that again!) I bought records (45’s or albums) at Musicland and spent hours in Minnesota Fabrics looking at sewing patterns and fabric. There was Brown’s Photo where our family had film developed, a pet shop we always walked around in to see the animals, and downstairs was a bowling alley. Apache Plaza was damaged by a tornado in 1984 and demolished in 2004.
The Turkish Delight was a delightful, simple gift given, that brought back such fun and crazy memories, especially a quarter’s work of almond bark!
When going through my cedar chest recently I found an afghan I crocheted while riding the bus to a job I had in downtown Minneapolis. The afghan is wool, made of granny squares with beautiful colors. I freshened it up and started using it again.
I still like the colors of this afghan. The granny squares date it, however.
And, as often happens, I started reminiscing about the afghan and the job.
In the early 70’s I attended a community college and took a class in interior design. And because of that, I landed a job at an interior design showroom, Gene Smiley Inc., a wholesale shop for fabrics…upholstery, drapery, etc.
This was my second official job. My first job was as a maid at a hotel downtown Minneapolis, during summers, in high school. My high school girlfriend worked there too, and we made $1.85 an hour. We were able to clean rooms together. We used to walk to work from her house in lower NE Minneapolis.
At Gene Smiley’s my main job was to cut fabric samples for designers. Only interior designers were allowed in the showroom to look at the fabrics, but mostly we would cut and mail samples out to designers per their request. I enjoyed the job.
The company encompassed the second floor with two large showrooms and one room for an administrative office. I worked with two women on our side of the showroom. The younger woman, named RuthAnn, made a lasting impression on me. At the time I thought she was sophisticated. She lived on her own, in a rented house, and always “dressed to a T”. She got married while I worked there. I looked up to RuthAnn. I still have, and make, her lasagna recipe!
The other woman, Phyllis, was a much older woman…probably in her 50’s (o my!) but very congenial.
Since Gene Smiley Inc. was located downtown Minneapolis, and I was living in NE Minneapolis at the time, I took the bus downtown. Riding a bus was not something new to me. A girlfriend and I often took the bus to where we wanted to go as teenagers, so taking a bus to work was not problem. In fact, I liked it. It was much better than driving! And I could read or crochet, which is when the afghan I pulled from the cedar chest was crocheted.
A new home for my old afghan.
There are two other events that came to mind when I started thinking about this job.
One, I remember the bookkeeper made some kind of mistake on my tax statement and ended up writing me a personal check to amend her mistake. I do not remember the extent of the mistake, but I remember her kindness. I had forgotten this tidbit until I started thinking about this job.
The other event I remember that stands out is quite comical when I think about it now. I cannot recall what I was going to do next but I was ending my time at this job and I distinctly remember asking my boss for a raise, after he knew I was leaving. He sat me down and said this was highly unusual – and I said, “but it will look good on my resume.” And if memory serves me correctly, he gave me the raise! When I think back on that now I just laugh!
I did, however, save my letter of recommendation from this job.
My letter of recommendation from Gene Smiley Inc.
At some point in time Gene Smiley Inc. moved from its Nicollet Avenue location to the International Market Square along with many other wholesale interior design showrooms. I have lost touch with the people there, but it was fun to think about them again.
It had been awhile since I visited the Como Park Zoo. I don’t remember the last time. We took our boys there when they were young, and I remember we had a winter picnic there one year. I have been back to the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory since then, but the date escapes me.
Growing up in NE Minneapolis, going to the Como Zoo was a popular place for field trips at my elementary school. I remember the cages were too small for the animals. Thankfully, they have changed that. I also remember a very large, and very old, tortoise roaming the grounds. According to Como Zoo history posted online, Toby, a Galapagos tortoise, came to live at Como Zoo in 1958. Small children were allowed to ride on Toby’s back. Toby is the tortoise I remember. In 1974 Toby was moved to the Honolulu Zoo, where he still lives today!
Monkey’s are always fun to see at the zoo.
Two other cute “monkeys” – Ezra and Zoey
Last week, before Christmas, we took our grandchildren to visit the Como Zoo. It is a nice size, not too big, and it is free. We went to see the monkeys first – a request from our granddaughter. We continued to walk around looking at the other animals including reindeer…how appropriate to see reindeer this time of year. It is fun to see the animals through the eyes of a child…
The beautiful poinsettia display in the conservatory.
We took time at the end of our visit to go into the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory. I particularly wanted to see the sunken garden room which was decked out with red poinsettias, white paper whites, and purple lavender…it was warm, smelled good, and was beautiful to look at.
Lovely to see fresh flowers in the sunken garden.
We all enjoyed wandering through the warm displays of plants in the conservatory. It is a special place, especially this time of year when the weather outside is frightful…
A path inside the conservatory.
I’m thankful for St. Paul Parks and Recreation Department who maintains the Como Zoo …I will not wait so long to visit it again.
