Have You Been an Un-American?

The cats seem to be getting along better.

Monday evening was very nice. The Guy and I both went running right after work. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to after the accident, but he's gone a few times and says his back feels fine. Nice.

The Guy gave Coadster the laser pointer thingy to mess with Archie. Awesome.

After we finished running, The Guy took myself, Coadster and her boyfriend out for Sushi. My girls love sushi, but Coadster's boyfriend hadn't had much experience with it. He ordered teriaki chicken. the guy kept trying to get him to taste some sushi. He finally broke down and had a bite of Coadster's and said he thought it was all right. When Coadster was trying to show him how to use chop sticks, I suggested he just ask for a fork. He said, "No. I'll feel like a dork. I'm so American." Funny.

Archie's a little slow on the draw with the red dot.

Coadster and her boyfriend leave today. it was great to see them, even if only for a few days. stinky was sad that she only got to hang out with Coadster for about a half hour yesterday. I told her that when she comes back for a couple of months this Summer, they'll be fighting in no time.

Archie defying gravity to get that bad dot.

This Time, Baby. I'll Be Bulletproof.

Here is Archie looking like how I felt at points today.

So, you know how I had that horrible migraine last night, right? Well, I was hoping that today would only be better. But it started out with Archie puking, just as I was headed out to work. Not only did I have to clean up cat puke first thing, I was also late to work. Awesome.

Then I got off work early to give plasma and got the new guy who quickly gave me a hematoma. Awesomer. After I got home from that, I realized my computer stopped working. Of course, at that point, I couldn't mess with it, because I had to pick up the guy from work and head to a memorial service.

The service was for his ex's (who he was with for 10 years before me) dad. This town being as small as it is, (insert the perils of living in a small town rant here) I also knew the man and his family since I was in my late teens/early 20's. So, it was a sad thing for both of us...But especially for the guy.

After the service, we stopped at my place and I took Stinky and two of her friends to a game and the guy worked on my computer. He fixed it by the time I got back and then he took me out for Mexican food where we had a great talk and worked on sorting out our feelings from the visitation and all that led up to it.

So, yes. I did have one of those days, but I cleaned up the cat puke, and I made it to work without much fuss. My hematoma wasn't all that bad and we just switched arms and I gave plasma from my left one. I'm lucky enough that the guy can easily fix my computer...And that we're both willing to talk things out, so that we can get through even the saddest experiences. I guess depending on how you look at it, I really had one of those good days by the end.

He Found All Hands Against His Own. Found All Eyes Were Looking Down

Here is a barn and a silo.

Today we had our Fall retreat at work. It used to be that we had to do awful trust exercises and role playing crap at them, but I think we collectively and loudly rolled our eyes at that enough, that they actually try to do something useful at them now. Thank god.

We had someone from Disability Services come talk to us. They showed the video I'm Tyler first and then we talked about all the different kinds of disabilities there are and the best ways to help people. I thought it was really helpful and interesting. Because when you think about it, almost everyone has some kind of disability.

I had just talked to Stinky about it this week. She was whining about having to do drive-up (which apparently, everyone at the store hates to do) for a woman who didn't get that many things and how she would have understood it if the woman was disabled, but she thought she was just being lazy. I reminded her that a lot of people can look healthy, but I know some people in the beginning stages of MS, in particular, who don't have the strength or muscle control to lift much. Stinky said she didn't think of that. I told her to try to be as compassionate as possible, because you never know what's going on with anyone at any given time. Now, I just have to remember that too...

I Know Some People Wanna Make a Change

Here is a blue dress receptacle.

So, uh. Yeah. I've been a little absent from blog world this weekend. I was trying really, really hard to get some shit done in the real world, so blogging was thrown to the side for the most part. Did I get a lot done? Yes, I did. Did I finish my taxes? Um, no. But I've got it all set-up, so hopefully tomorrow will be tax day.

What I did notice after Saturday, is how much of a time suck kids can be. I know, I know. I've been a parent since I was 26 years old and I'm just figuring that out now? No, I've been very aware of it, but this weekend just brought it to my attention all over again.

Remember how on Saturday I told you that I had the day to myself? Yeah, well I got all kinds of shit done. Then on Sunday the girls were both home and they were all needy and wanted to hang out with me, and I figured, what the hell. So, we went to the mall and made fun of all the 70's clothes and ate food and then all got groceries together, and then when we made it home, it was late and almost time to watch the Steelers make it to the Superbowl. Guess what kind of practical things got done on Sunday? Not a whole hell of a lot. Guess how concerned I am that I didn't clean and sort a room or finish my taxes? Not at all. It's what I signed up for. In four years, when both the girls are gone and I'm living on the Riviera with a young stud named Bruno and I look back on this three day weekend, I doubt I'll agonize about what didn't get done. I'll probably just sip my Margarita, while Bruno applies sunscreen to my back and try to remember the names of those two girls who I had such a great day with all the way back when I lived where it was cold in the Winter.

No, really. I did get a lot done this weekend. I finally went through and pitched all my old tapes, both video and cassettes that I've had trouble parting with. Okay. I did save Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Anchorman and The Matrix, but everything else got tossed - including my Best of Blondie cassette and an old mix tape titled "Hits Del '95" that a coworker from Great Midwestern made for me 14 years ago. Sigh. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of Pavement, Morphine and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on that CD.


Here are some chairs that are really stacked.

Though I didn't go out on Saturday night, I did a couple of social things so that I talked to people other than just high schoolers. Since I'm not in a relationship and don't have an adult to speak to around my house, I find it very important to try to socialize with adults especially on long weekends. You know, just so I don't start every sentence out with, "OMG!" or "Totally!" It helps to keep my co-workers from killing me when I get back to the grind.

Anyway, I went to my friend's house where I watch football on Sundays on his 60" screen in HD and it was great, until they kept showing Hines' brutal knee twist about 7,000 times. Then today I went to George's at five to meet some ex-co-workers (again from Great Midwestern days). One is a professor in the Center for the Book here and the other is getting her master's in library science. Oh yeah, and they're both gorgeous. I could sit and talk about books with super hot women all day long, but I had to take Coadster to show choir only an hour and a half into it. Hopefully, we'll find time to meet again another night.

Okay. Tomorrow's Obama's big day. I'm so excited. I certainly don't envy the man, I'm just glad he wanted the job.

Everyone is Helpful, Everyone is Kind

Well, I didn't have my camera on me this morning when I went to relocate sandbags, but I did use my phone. The quality definitely suffers, but at least I was able to document the clean-up a little bit. This first pic is of the railroad bridge between EPB and the main library, for any of you Iowa Citians or ex-pats. You can see the water reaches right up to it. It has gone down some, so I don't know how high it actually got.

This is partly how we moved sandbags. We formed what we used to call a bucking line when I was in the California Conservation Corps. and used to buck wood from a crib to a bonfire. We then deposited the bags into a loader, which in turn dumped them into trucks that took them to flooded areas South of here.

It was great how much help we had. I know some of the athletes at our school have had their run-ins with the law, but today there were plenty of football and basketball players to make up for those other assholes.

This is a photo of the passing line. These bags of sand came out of the engineering building and were not only heavy with sand, they were also wet, so they were gross too. They left weird brown patches on our forearms and Coadster joked that we all looked like people who didn't know how to apply our quick tan lotion correctly.

There were also some who joked about how there really wasn't any flooding South of us and that this was all a ploy by the University to get people to remove all the sandbags for free. I'm sure CNN and all the other news websites were in cahoots using old pics from other floods, right?

The one thing I love about these kinds of experiences, is how they bring people from all different backgrounds together. So that the Middle Eastern engineering professor is cracking jokes with my high school aged daughter who is warning a college student wrestler from Las Vegas how heavy the next bag is. I just hope all this work actually does some good.