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Lloyd is doing something to iPhoto and I can’t get to my pictures. Let’s mess around.

While logging into my account, I misspelled my name: Laauren.

Huh.
What would it look like with other extra letters?
Llauren
Lauuren
Laurren
Laureen
Laurenn

The double ‘e’ just brought back flashbacks, because that’s how my 8th grade English teacher, Miss Hansen, pronounced my name, ‘Laureen’. Grrrrr – it made me so mad, but I was a timid coward who never said, ‘Boo’. If I were brave, I would have said, “Yes, Miss Hanseeeeeeen? You’re an English teacher, for crying out loud! It’s a short ‘e’!”

So, let’s see your names. I bet they look wweeiirrdd.

We have company, and I didn’t get a post done. Sorry.

Here. Since I can’t find my camera in this squeaky house, here’s something I was trying to remember last night. It’s from Lamentations of the Father, by Ian Fraizer.

Saturday brought some really good mail. Some things that I had ordered online for school arrived (no photos), which I am embracing more and more as a way to shop. I never had to leave my precious stool, and I got a present! (Never mind the wasteful packaging – a necessary evil.)

My parents sent me plans for a really interesting tiny house I could live in brick oven to build outside. I think my dad wants some bread, huh? Now I just need to rip up the brick streets of Seward for supplies!

Another envelope held a Special Early Bird Pricing packet from the Omaha Performaing Arts Council inviting our ukulele group to buy tickets early to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. (Warning, there is a tiny swear in the song – d*mn – in case you are in a place where that would be frowned on, but the uke playing is phenomenal!) I feel a little dishonest keeping it, as it’s been well over two years since I’ve gone to a get-together. I sent an e-mail about it to the Ike group’s fearless leader, but I do still have this information…… Want to go to a concert next April?

Happy Father’s Day! I love you, Dad! Lloyd, tell your Dad you love him.

It was a very, very productive Saturday. I woke up at 6:30 and had a pretty steady day of doing a little housework, then taking a reasonable break. I acknowledged that any cleaning I was going to get done would be done very, very slowly, but that any forward motion was better than no motion. The Peperkorns are going to be stopping by Tuesday night on their way to Missouri and I won’t see them much but I’d like the house to be ready if they want to sleep inside. (They have a camper, but it’s going to be hot outside.)

It has been so long since I’ve done any deep cleaning that I’m thinking of anything I get done today as First Layer Cleaning – just getting the base layer of dust and grime off. See, if I thought of it as The Final Cleaning, then I would get discouraged when the unidentifiable bits of grime from wiping out the fridge fell on my freshly-swept floor. (I know – you’re supposed to clean from the top down, but that’s for people who have good focus.) I even moved furniture around!

It was a very quiet day, too. I didn’t listen to music or watch t.v. – just cleaned in the quiet. For the most part I didn’t talk, but I did greet the cat and mutter to myself a couple of times, and Deborah came over for a quick trip to Wal-Mart. (We know how to have fun, eh?)

Speaking of the cat, when I took a break, I took a video of her undulating belleh. It’s fascinating to me!

We had a big ol’ storm here Thursday night. Lloyd was meeting a computer guy for dinner at 5:30, and I needed to go pick up some photos at Wal-Mart, and as we left separately in our cars, it was dark as night. In Wal-Mart, I could hear it start to rain, and people were loitering at the checkout lanes. Since I’m not made of sugar, I bought my stuff and went to my car.

I was soaked getting in.

Ok.

It was raining so hard I didn’t take the highway back because I couldn’t see. I took the frontage road…. and I couldn’t see. I pulled off twice because it was so ridiculous. Every time hail would hit the roof of the truck I’d duck a little – like that extra half-inch I’m gaining would help if one smashed through.

When I got home, there was a message on my phone (which I had forgotten) from my director saying they were having water trouble at the Center, but that it was under control. I zipped over there to see (because I’m nosy), and got stuck in a flash flood at the corner of 3rd and Seward street. It was so weird – driving, driving, driving, slllllllloooooooooowwwwed dowwwn by waaatttteerrrr, then slowly getting out. As it turns out, your brakes don’t work when they’re wet, either. It was a fun drive.

Melanie and Rebecca had the window well scooped out, and then I decided to ugly it up to keep the water out. It definitely has my handprint all over it, doesn’t it?

At home later Lloyd and I heard one of those chest-thumping huge BOOOOOMS. When we drove back to school to check on the water situation, it turns out one of the trees on the courthouse was struck by lightning. (Those of you familiar with Seward should know that the storm knocked down the sign on the Cafe on the Square. No photo.)

(As it turns out, the two photos we took with Lloyd’s phone won’t download and I’m tired of trying. Use your imagination, ok?)