Minnesota - Seven Quick Takes

Lake Vermilion

Minnesota:

1. Cabins in Minnesota do not have air conditioning. In late July or August, when the temperature hits the 80 degree mark, they smell exactly like saunas and are just as hot. Fans are of little help.

2. The restaurants in northern Minnesota have the best blue cheese dressing. Which makes up, a bit, for the aforementioned lack of air conditioning.

3. Ice cream cones come with three scoops. If you ask for a single scoop, you get a raised eyebrow and at least two scoops. Minnesotans take their daily calcium requirements very seriously.

4. Minnesota politics is interesting. It is the land of Jesse Ventura and Al Franken.

5. One of the local restaurants served Tilapia instead of Walleye at its Friday Night Fish Fry. Won't be going there again for that. Tilapia. Really?

6. The Chocolate Moose in Ely is where it's at. Trust me on this one.

7.  Despite what the state website may say, the mosquito is Minnesota's state bird, not the loon. Vying for second place are the horse fly and the deer fly. Bring bug repellent with 100% Deet.  Spray the cabin, the boat, your clothes, your life jacket, even your fishing pole. Bring several cans. You can also spray the bugs themselves - you will come to hate them that much. Just sayin'.

More than Enough for Me

Suscipe Prayer:

Take, Lord, and receive
all my liberty, my memory,
my understanding and my entire will,
All I have and call my own.

You have given all to me.
To you, Lord, I return it.

Everything is yours;
do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace.
That is enough for me.

-St. Ignatius of Loyola

Thanks, Pope Benedict XVI

The news broke early this morning that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning at the end of this month due to ill health.

As a non-card carrying member of the Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club and an Anglican, I am sorry to see him go. It is my fervent prayer that the next pope will be cut of the same cloth, because B16's service to his Church and mine has been gratefully received, by me, if not by everyone.

May God richly bless the retirement of the Rottweiler of the Faith.

I Am Ann, A Stone

I am part of a wall. It is what I am meant to be and all that I am.

I am a living stone, oddly shaped, planned and placed by God.

I am built upon a foundation whose cornerstone is Christ, whose mortar is the Holy Spirit, and whose owner is our Father God.

I am connected to all the stones of the wall, resting on some, holding up others.

I am strong and weak, sheltering and protected.

I am uniquely created to never be complete or whole alone.

I am in love with what God has created, with my fellow stones.

I am at home in this wall, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.

I am Ann, a stone.