grassy knoll more

The other day Ryan and I were in the family room and all of a sudden Ryno's eyes lit up, his ears perked and he exclaimed, "THAT'S A BACK HOE!" ummmm,...excuse me? He ran to the window, threw open the blinds, and sure enough a back hoe was driving down our street. As funny as that is, Ryan's uncanny ability to identify construction equipment by sound is not the reason for this post. A back hoe was driving down our street because our little creek across the way was very close to overflowing and the city was bringing in sandbagging goods. We were headed out to our date a bit later and saw a bunch of people in the condos across the street (condos that back up to the creek) sandbagging.

Well we decided to join the sandbagging festivities. An hour or so into it, word got out (as it always does) and the Mormon battalion showed up and there were so many people there that we thought we could sneak away for dinner and a movie (Loco lizard in park city and Iron man 2) Around midnight we got a call that they still needed people so we came home changed clothes and were at it again until around 1 ish. yuck.

It flooded SOOOOO much. the river spilled out into the street and parking lot and the park that the river goes by had water up to six feet deep where there's usually no water. Sad Day. traffic's been a nightmare and there's tons of debris all over the place. It's since gone down a bit, but it's still really high. my arms are seriously sore from hauling all those 50 lb bags. lots of fun. And the poor geese lost the little grassy knoll that they so enjoy hanging out on.

So the picture above is of the bridge that the water goes under to cross the street. Usually there's a good 3/4 feet clearance and as you can see, that's not the case. That picture was taken in the evening when we started sandbagging and the river rose at least two more feet by the time it peaked. Some of the bridges in Murray park are submerged. Pretty crazy.

Scissor to the knuckle.

The other night I was over at someone's home cutting their hair when all of a sudden...woops, a big flap of skin had been chunked off the top of my knuckle. It was some kind of gnarly and my whole arm kind of went numb with a touch of shock. luckily I stopped my sheers in time and it didn't cut completely through so I gingerly placed the flap back down, put a few band-aids on and finished up the haircut. I am a soldier. When I was walking home (they're in my ward -right across the way) I looked down and blood had soaked through all three layers of band-aid. sick huh? The picture above doesn't do it justice -stupid 4 megapixel camera, but it's gross and I'll probably have a scar. =( Of course I've nipped myself here and there before, but this is my biggest wound yet. I'm hoping this is as bad as I'll ever get. I'm just glad i got had made the apt to have my sheers sharpened the next day instead of that morning. -they were extremely dull when the damage was done. Imagine if they had been at their peak.

two interesting tidbits

So there are a couple of interesting things relating to the picture above. First is that it is actually NOT a plate of potato salad that Ryan has brought home for me and Second is the manner in which he acquired this plate of interest.
So the stuff looks JUST like potato salad. It's so weird. You shove a fork full into your mouth preparing for savory mushy potato goodness and your buds are immediately hit with,....sweet and creamy??? This, my friend, is the trickery of the snickers salad. snickers candy bars chopped up into small pieces with diced granny smith apples all tied together in a vanilla pudding whipped cream concoction. Weird? absolutely. Delicious? absolutely. Ya, you're kind of sad that you're not getting to eat potato salad and you do feel a little misled, but you can't really be bummed for too long because, um, it's snickers salad. Who in the world would be sad to be eating snickers salad. Not me.
So now you're wondering how in the world Ryan came to bring this home or even know about it. (I had certainly never heard of it before) Well people, how do I even phrase this...ryan ryan ryan. He,...well he works it. I'm not even sure what he's doing, but it's working because he is CONSTANTLY bringing home treats from all the female students at his school. (If you can't remember or didn't know), Ryan works for everest college and although he doesn't teach anymore, he still has a lot of interaction with the students. I'm thinking that somehow, somewhere along the way he sent some sort of message that could have been any number of things; my wife doesn't feed me enough treats, you'll get a better grade if you bring me a delicious tasty, my wife doesn't know how to make very good treats...the list goes on. -NONE of the above are true, bye-the-way. Or maybe that's not even it. Maybe he pulls a high school girl maneuver and sneaks a backpack of skanky clothes out the door with him in the morning, changing before he gets to work. Would a little leg be enough to make those girls want to shower him with sugar? perhaps. and they do. FULL PIES! not even kidding. More than one student has given him a full pie of his very own and one student even made him TWO full pies. The last pie that he got came with a brand new can of whipping cream. I feel the need to point out that Ryan doesn't even like pie. In fact, he barely eats treats of any kind (a terrible thing that I've been working relentlessly on curing him of for the last three years). So,... who ends up eating all this crap? me. of course me. no wonder I'm turning out to be such a little butterball. This is my cross to bare. -and if you hadn't already guessed, the snickers salad did, in fact, come from a student. but he did eat most of that one -thank heavens.

hair on hold

So unfortunately I'm not going to be able to do hair for about a month and a half. =( This morning as I was headed out to do the usual day off errands I may have hit the guy in front of me at a stop light. The Mazda wasn't harmed toooooooo much, but unfortunately my wrist can't claim the same. The air bag was deployed and my hand happened to be in the wrong place. Ryan and I spent all day in the ER only to discover that I now have a hairline fracture in my radius. oh fun. How crappy is this though? The last time I had a cast it was made of this awesome plaster of Paris stuff that was easily taggable. I was kind of expecting the same thing -despite the fact that the medical industry has had at least twenty years of advancement since then. The new stuff, albeit baby blue, is so rough and fibrous that you can barely get a set of initials on that cast without destroying your sharpie. It sucks! Everything about this cast is so extremely annoying ESPECIALLY typing. All I have to work with good old lefty is a couple of fingertips and a thumb that occasionally makes an appearance. On the up side, Ryan will be doing a lot more for me around the house; cleaning, cooking, massaging my feet, typical servant boy stuff. I'm already thinking of possible outfits for him to don. ...something slutty. Hey, whatever it takes to distract from the tight annoying cast right?

I guess it's a kind of a good thing that the cast has put me out of commission work-wise, because we're down to one car now while they decide if the Mazda is salvageable. I'm secretly hoping it's not, because obviously the only thing that's kept us from getting a Maserati is the fact that we already have a Mazda that's been in perfect working condition. So we'll see I guess. Maybe THAT's what I'll do all day long. shop online for Maseratis. (just in case).

oh, ps, my hair is dark now. Even though the red/orange was really pretty and I've never had so many people say to me, "is that your natural color?" or "oh! you guys are going to have red headed kids for sure" it was just fading way too quickly all the time. But the dark is good too! and, AND it has a really awesome green streak in it. I was trying to talk everyone I know into putting some green in their hair but no one would do it so I had to step up and handle it. You can't see it in this picture, but trust me, it is very cool looking. I get a lot of comments on it too, but happily no one has yet mistaken THAT for something my body produced naturally.

I need a fly swatter

I am coming down off a total adrenaline rush and now I have a bit of a situation. It's a nice spring day (I can say spring day right??? it's almost APRIL for crying out loud -I'm choosing to ignore the forecast for the weekend) So I got back from the Dr this morning and what did I find? a freaking WASP in my home -and were it ONLY a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. No no...it was the awful huge flying bug that can sting relentlessly and never dies. (I should have said "sting relentlessly without dying" but in my nightmares they never die so I'm letting it ride)

It was downstairs swooping through the air and checking out our light fixtures for potential nests, I'm sure, and I couldn't handle it so I went upstairs to hide. What else was I supposed to do? We don't currently own a fly swatter, it was flying all over the place, and I really really really hate them. I figured, Fine. If it wants to busy itself making a home in my light instead of trying to find a way out and then getting pissed because it can't and then getting in the stinging mood, I'm ok with that. I'll just have Ryan destroy our lights when he gets home. Problem solved.

So I ventured downstairs briefly to grab some water (avoiding the nest making zone) and on my way back upstairs happened to look down (thank you Divine power of intervention) RIGHT before I was about to step on THE WASP! yes, that is correct. It was CLIMBING the stairs to find me. What. The. Hell. I ran into my bathroom and shut the door.

Now I realize this all sounds dramatic over a stupid bug, but really...I hate them. a lot. I hate bees because they sting you, but at least then they die. I like to think that they take that into consideration and thus only sting when left with no other choice. wasps do not have such thoughts in their head and they're a lot bigger. I must have had a traumatic experience when I was little or something because I really do just freak to a ridiculous extent.

So my rational side had a bit of a chance to catch up to me whilst sequestered in the loo and I realized that I could not spend the entire day in there. I also realized that 'it' being on the ground was actually an advantage for me so I looked around frantically for something to kill it with. (things that I didn't care if they got wasp juice on). I grabbed a hand towel and whipped it with it. Let me explain. In times without a fly swatter I have seen people do this and kill flying bugs with it. mistake. it is NOT the ideal tool for eliminating a wasp. It just got so pissed. --maybe a tiny bit stunned, but certainly not dead, just really pissed. I knew it was going to attack so I grabbed a nearby shoe and slammed it a couple of times. STILL not dead but a little dazed. Crap. crap crap crap. Back to the bathroom for something else. HAIRSPRAY! I sprayed it with a rather extensive stream of aerosol Sebastian maximum hold and still it crawled around. HOW IS IT DOING THIS? I figured the shoe idea was good, my shoe just wasn't heavy enough. RYAN's shoe to the rescue and it died. At this time I would just like to say, that it's seriously a bummer he just wasn't here in the first place. Isn't that supposed to be one of the perks to being married? bug removal?

Now I'm faced with a dilemma. This tragedy happened right at the top of my stairs. I am not interested in picking the thing up and I don't want to accidentally step on any dismembered limbs that went flying in the take down. Is it wrong the I'm really going to leave it there until Ryan gets home to remove of it? Of course I'm going to put a glass over the top of it in case it really isn't dead and just tricking me, but that's about as close as I'm willing to get. Sorry for the long post. I feel better after letting it all out though.

Ryanism

So the other morning Ryan and I were in the bathroom getting ready and we were discussing a text that I had sent him the day before. The conversation ended, a silent minute or so passed, and then Ryan turned to me and said, "honey, we're textually active" hehehe. Good one. And yes. Yes we are.

the rest of Florida and Savannah

After the manatees we went to a zoo and saw...MORE manatees. But not just manatees, HIPPOS TOO!

This is Lou. The first hippo I think I've ever been this close too. He was AWESOME! I think these big fellas just passed up giraffes to top the list of favorite zoo animals. I love a good long neck, but these things are so meaty and have such stubby little legs. i love it.

After Florida we drove to Savannah and it was AWESOME. I love it there. love it. We went on a ghost tour one of the nights and went down into the rum cellar of the pirate house (where all the pirates used to hang out and the first two chapters of treasure island were written) We saw the rum tunnels that led out to the water where sailors were kidnapped and we ate there too. It was awesome.

We also took a day tour and walked through an amazing house, we ate at the Lady and sons, (Paula's restaurant), we went out to Tybee Island and saw the lighthouse and Ryan found a Georgia bulldogs restaurant. -he was really really excited about that. -besides, he needed a little pick me up after the abuse he got the previous night.

You see, when the trolley picked us up at the hotel for our ghost tour, we stepped on board to find about twenty five tipsy elderly woman ....and that's it. Even the DRIVER was a woman. They were all over Ryan it was hilARious. The first thing we heard when we stepped on the trolley was some 60 year old yelling "fresh meat" followed by an uproar of cackling. Cat calls, ...asking him if he "needed a mommy"... and then from one even more mature, "hell, I'll be his grandma!" hehehe They were on him all night poor thing. I tried to defend him as best I could, but it was me against a hoard of drinking daisies. there was nothing I could do. Finally when the night was over and they dropped us off at the hotel, I figured if you can't beat'em, join'em. I looked back as we were walking in, to make sure we had all the ladys' attention still on the trolly (of course they were all enjoying the view of Ryan's back side) and slap-grabbed his bum for all to see. You should have heard thr roar that went up from inside that trolly. The Windows were all closed because it had gotten cold, but you could hear the eruption within. A wave of squeels whoops and laughter swept out into the night while we continued to walk through the doors; Ryan's head help high the whole time. (I think he liked all the attention)

Our hotel was beautiful, the city was incredible, the weather was great and we even got to eat at Noble Fare (an insanely delicious fancy restaurant with an ever changing menu and truffles galore) courtesy of Kev-dawg and Kay (it's their favorite restaurant of ALL time). It was the best three days ever and I'm so glad we made it one of our stops.