Meet Calvin!

Here's a new kitten I got today! His (well, I'm not quite positive it's a male, but either way) name is Calvin. We chose that name because the other cat is Cuddle Duds, like the underwear brand, so we thought it would be funny to continue giving the cats underwear names. If it was a girl, it might have been Victoria, for Victoria's Secret, for example. We had some fun vetoing "Fruit of the Loom" and "Hanes" and settled on Calvin Klein. Plus, he's orange like Hobbes, so Calvin's a good name for him.




Um... my garden is going pretty well in some areas (like the jalapenos) and not so great in others. Like corn.

This is the one ear that grew on the 2 stalks I had. The main problem, I am guessing, is that the one morning I went to look at the plants and saw that there was pollen all over the stalk, there was a huge thunderstorm an hour later and it all washed away. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Can you get kicked out of Iowa for failing at corn?

I should point out that I made some fabulous spaghetti sauce out of the tomatoes, basil and oregano I had growing, so I pretty much love the garden.

Yes, I realize this doesn't count as a real post.

Here is a picture of Radiohead playing at Lollapalooza, for your viewing pleasure!

It's been a month!

I was gonna upload a bunch of pictures, but it won't let me, so meh.

Sandbagging pictures

I've been internetless since last week sometime, so I am sitting at a coffee shop in Coralville.
I took a break from sandbagging on Friday to put bandaids on my bleeding fingers and took these pictures.

More floods

Some of these pictures are really quite pretty. I am curious what the Coralville Dam looks like now that the water is over the spillway. I imagine it's not great.

Floods

Yep, floods.

Thunderstorms

I would think that thunderstorms are terribly exciting and fun, if it weren't for the following things:

- They are always way early in the morning when I am trying to sleep. I got woken up by stormy craziness at 4:30 this morning and never managed to go back to sleep. The storm stopped literally two minutes before my alarm went off at 6 this morning. Come on, at least be later in the day when I can enjoy it, or be at night so I can just sleep in later to make up for lost sleep.

- There is a very real chance that any of these storms can turn into a tornado. I moved here a few months after a tornado tore half the city apart two years ago, and I saw how damaged all the buildings and houses were. That's just scary. It doesn't help to have a weather radio going off like crazy announcing "tornado watch in effect for the next 4 hours!" or whatever. I don't think I would freak out so much if it was just like, "Emily, there's a tornado about to hit your house, go to the basement now."

- I actually own my home. That means when stuff breaks, I have to fix it, and pay for it, which sucks. I've already gotten a rip in a window screen, chips in the tile on the table and two broken planters from storms. We've taken steps to try to prevent more outdoor furniture casualties, but I suspect we haven't seen the end of the destruction.

- Lightning's gotta strike somewhere. Last year, it hit my friend's house and like, blew up their tv. I like my tv. It has shows like House and The Office and Ace of Cakes. I don't want it to be blown up. I don't want anything else to be blown up by lightning either.

Storms can be pretty and exciting, but mostly they are loud and scary and make floods that make it hard to get to work, and I don't like them.

I guess, though, that it's our fault for being bad to the environment. You'd think this would motivate me to do good things like riding my bike to work. I might even think about it if it weren't raining so darn hard. Augh.

Here's a picture of lightning from last summer for you.