LaurenandLloyd.com
where our wasted time becomes your wasted time
The eastbound light at 6th & Seward was red instead of green this morning, so I turned south. Walking across the street brought me that much closer to the one thing that could negate my healthy walking. I was unable to resist looking back at it. Tomorrow I might not be so strong….
It’s been a wet couple of weeks around these parts. All the storms have brought rain that has flooded the creeks and rivers. We have little floods every so often, but this one is a doozy. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I went out to Wal-Mart Saturday morning. Here’s the parking lot to Orscheln’s – right by the Big Blue River.
This is just south of there. That’s not a lake – that’s somebody’s corn field. Can you see the telephone poles?
I think I’ve mentioned the Ag Pavillion before. There was a wedding reception scheduled to be held there on Saturday. Um, didn’t happen.
The couple was also supposed to be married in a church in the town of Ulysses, but the church was wrecked by a tornado. Nothing like omens, huh? They found other accommodations, and we saw the wedding party stop by to look at the flood.
Lastly, this photo is just for irony.
If they handed out awards for being lazy and forgetful, I’d wonder why all these awards are cluttering up my house.
Today did not go as planned. It was filled with promise – I got up at a reasonable hour, went to the post office and bakery before 9:00, then came home and made a list of things to get done. That’s where the breakdown happened. I didn’t feel well so I took a nap, then Lloyd took a nap, then I re-watched the movie I rented, then my stories were on, then it was 9:30 (bedtime) and I saw the paper on the fridge reminding me to make birthday cookies for a college girl. Today.
ARRRRRGGGHHH!!!!!! I’m part of this group of ladies who bakes cookies or cakes for Concordia, and I remember agreeing to do this one, but I thought it was for the 7th. This card said ‘for April 5th’. As I was frantically flying around the kitchen assembling ingredients, I kept asking myself, “Is today the 5th? Maybe it’s the 4th and I’m ok.” (If Lloyd had been awake, I’d have asked him, but he was on his second nap – yes, he naps before bedtime.)
*sigh* The cookies won’t be as good as I like, because I only had mini chocolate chips for some reason. I called the girl when I started baking to apologize and left her a message to call me back before 10:30 if she’d still like me to deliver them, and it’s 10:27 – no call. I am the Ruiner of Birthdays.
UPDATE: I called her at 10:29 just to be sure, and she was there! It may have been an inconvenience for her to stay up a little longer and meet me at the door, but dang it – she got her cookies!
I didn’t actually take any pictures that turned out this nicely (I only had my phone). But I took a lot of pictures, and these are each several of those combined.
P.S. There are a couple of photos added below, and for some other great shots – go to Brad’s site.
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Did you know that the U.S. Poet Laureate (2004-06) lives in Garland, a little town about eight miles from here? I bet you didn’t. (Beth, you don’t count.)
Our little once-weekly newspaper has a little poetry section in it that Ted Kooser (Mr. Laureate to you) ‘hosts’ He picks two poems from all ’round the nation and prints them, with permission. I don’t have permission and I’m doing it anyway. There have been a couple that I regret not keeping, because now my feeble memory can’t even remember what they were about – just that they were awesome.
I’ll reprint “Catching the Moles” by Judith Kitchen:
First we tamp down the ridges that criss-cross the yard
then wait for the ground to move again.
I hold the shoe box, you, the trowel.
When I give you the signal you dig in behind
and flip forward. Out he pops into daylight,
blind velvet.
We nudge him into the box, carry him down the hill.
Four times we’ve done it. The children worry.
Have we let them all go at the very same spot?
Will they find each other? We can’t be sure ourselves,
only just beginning to learn the fragile rules of uprooting.