Detour on the Way to the Airport

[Guest post by Doc.] One of the few benefits of all of my work travels is that, on occasion, I actually end up somewhere pretty neat.  This year, I have been lucky to go to some very beautiful places with magnificent views.

For example, in March I was in Jacksonville and had this view from my room.

Then in April I was on the opposite coast and could see the palm trees and the Pacific Ocean in Hermosa Beach, CA.

In May, I was smack dab in the middle of the country but still managed this impressive view from my hotel window in St. Louis.

I even found an appealing view in the middle of South Dakota...

But today, today was incredibly special.  Not only was the weather perfect and the scenery spectacular, but today I visited one of the most impressive places in our wonderful country.  Situated just across the Potomac from Washington, DC (and right on the Blue Metro Line) is Arlington National Cemetery.  I spent the night in Arlington, VA last night, so I decided to jump on the Metro and make my way to this historic landmark.

Walking down the immaculate drive, you can see the circle entrance to the Cemetery.  One of the things that continues to amaze me about our country is the vision of those that came before us - the vision to set aside several hundred acres of prime real estate and to spare no expense in creating an inspiring entrance.

As I began to walk the grounds, I was enthralled with the clear blue sky that created a warm 80 degree morning.  The Cemetery was not yet bustling with activity, and while most of the patrons worked their way towards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or JFK's final resting place, I was on a mission to find a specific spot.  You see, I am fortunate to have a special connection with these sacred grounds - my grandmother is buried here.  Eventually (but hopefully not soon) my grandfather will be buried here as well.

As a Marine Officer, with a distinguished career in both wartime and in peace, my grandfather has been honored by our country to have his earthly remains laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.  My grandmother, his wife of over 50 years - a woman who watched him go off to war, welcomed him back after he was wounded in the South Pacific, moved with him from Virginia to California to Hawaii to Indiana and all places in between, shared in raising their children, and ultimately settled down with him in the area where he grew up - also earned that right.

She was laid to rest in June of 2004, and while I have been back to the DC area many times since then, this was my first trip back to see her tombstone.  Much has changed since I was there 7 years ago and so I took a few pictures to share.

Situated along the east side of Cemetery, very near the Visitor's Center, is this spot.

While I had broken a sweat walking over to this area, I was pleased to see  that there was a little shade.  My grandmother did not like being hot, so having this tree provide her shade along with a breeze off the Potomoc, I knew it was cooler here than many places in the Cemetery.

If you have not been to Arlington, you cannot fully appreciate the immaculate grounds and the attention to detail.  While it looks like all of the tombstones are lined up, it is incredibly impressive when you see not only the straight lines but also how they form perfect diagonal lines as well.  These two pictures, one to the left and one to the right exhibit the precision with which the stones are laid.

After I had spent some time in quiet reflection and was getting ready to leave, I noticed one more impressive site.  Standing behind the tombstone, I took this picture.  Look closely back between the trees...

Can you tell what historic landmark it is?  It's the Washington Monument.

All in all, it was an emotional day for me, but I am very glad that I took the time in my schedule to visit this place and remember my grandmother.

The Longest 24 Hours Ever

5:10 - Shut down computer and pack up to leave work.  Working late on a Friday afternoon = not a good start to the weekend. 5:15 - Make it to my car and race home.

5:22 - Free Lolli from her kennel and head outside to go potty (her, not me).

5:30 - Back inside, head upstairs to change clothes.

5:34 - Reach the top of the stairs and hit a wall of hot air.  Send text to Doc:  "Warning: it's 85 degrees upstairs."

5:38 - Doc's home.  He decides to turn it off for a minute and then turn it back on.

5:50 - With swimsuits on, we hop in the car and head to my brother's house.

6:20 - Arrive at swimming party at Parker's house.

6:22 - He shows us his new water shooter.

6:23 - Doc cannonballs into the deep end.  I decide to sit with my mom and Beth Elizabeth because the water is COLD!

6:30 - Nick pegs Elizabeth with a water-logged ball.  Not a nice husbandly thing to do.

6:30-6:45 - Pops, wearing his new sanuks, mans the grill.

6:32 - I ask Bren if she's gonna get in the water, and receive this look as an answer.  What was I thinking?

7:00 - Food's ready!  We all head inside to eat.

7:20 - Nick declares that the corn on the cob is awesome.

7:21 - Mom couldn't agree more.

7:30 - Jett, back outside after eating, decides to drop his swim trunks and water the flowers.

7:33 - Parker, wearing a swimmy diaper, wants to "teetee like Jett."

7:34 - Still working on getting "in position."

7:35 - From the kitchen table, we see a small sprinkle.  Success!

7:36 - Thankfully, he remembers to pull up.

7:40-8:00 - Chit chat around the kitchen table.  One topic is baby names, as Parker still wants his baby brother to be named Target.  My sister-in-law told us she prefers Elizabeth over Beth, thus her new name on the blog.

8:15 - Bren, always the homebody, is ready to go.

8:30ish - We hit the road, headed back home.

9:00 - We're welcomed back home with more heat.  Turning the AC unit off and then back on didn't work.

9:32 - I texted my friend Allison, who had to have her AC unit repaired last year, for a name and phone number of a good repair man.

9:35 - Doc calls Landmark AC's 24 hour service and requests a call back.

9:45 - I declare that we are sleeping downstairs.  It's way too hot upstairs.

9:46 - Start dragging out air mattress and quilts.

9:53 - Our beds are made for the night.

10:48 - We get the return call from Landmark AC.  The repair man says he has an 8am appointment and then we'll be his next stop.

10:50 - Satisfied that our AC will be fixed early the next day, we decide to call it a night.

10:51 - Lolli gets put to bed in her kennel that's sitting in the kitchen.

10:55 - As I get settled on the air mattress, Lolli cries from the kitchen.

10:56 - Doc moves her and her kennel into the half bathroom and turns on the vent for some white noise.

11:00 - Lights out.

11:01-12:45 - Sleep.  Glorious, silent sleep.

12:45 - Lolli wakes up and starts barking.  And whining.  And yelping.

12:55 - I can't take it anymore.  "Doc!  Wake up!  What do we do about Lolli?  She's driving me crazy!"  "I guess we let her out and see if she'll sleep with us."

12:56 - Lolli is freed from her kennel and is so excited.  She runs laps around the living room.

12:57 - Back on the air mattress, I tell Doc that surely she'll settle down in a minute and we can go to sleep.

12:58 - Lolli realizes I'm practically sleeping on the floor and thinks its the best. thing. ever.  She pounces on the air mattress and bounces me around.

1:10 - Snotty, wet nose in the eye.  Surely she'll settle down soon.

1:12-15 - Click, click, click of her claws on the hardwood floor as she roams around.

1:18 - Flying leap onto the air mattress and wet, snotty nose in the eye.

1:25 - Laying at the foot of my bed, she's finally still.  "Please let her stay there," I pray.  "I won't move the whole night, if she'll just stay still."

1:28 - Back up and roaming around.

1:30 - Barking.

1:40 - Click, click, click...more walking on the hardwood.

1:45 - Lolli jumps up on the couch to check on Doc.

1:47 - She jumps from the couch to air mattress.  More bouncing.

1:50 - "Dear God," I pray, "please let me tune it out and fall asleep.  And please let whatever she does to the house during the night be something I can handle in the morning."

1:50-6:00 - Walking, jumping, bouncing, wet nose in the eye.  She never settled down and went to sleep.

6:17 - With approximately zero minutes of sleep after the initial 105 minute nap, decide to just get up.

6:18 - Take Lolli outside.

6:25 - Come inside and feed Lolli breakfast.  Contemplate changing clothes and getting a jump start on yardwork.

6:30 - Upstairs to change clothes, I try to convince myself it's really not that hot and maybe I can lay down and get some sleep on the bed.

6:31-7:45 - Lay on bed with three fans pointed on me and try to nap.  It's so hot I start wondering if the air has been sucked out of the room because I can't breathe.

7:45 - Doc's up.  I'm back up.  Get dressed to do yardwork.

8:00 - Doc heads to Home Depot to get some supplies.  I start mowing.

9:04 - Doc gets a phone call from our repair man.  He'll give us a call when he's about 20 minutes away.  It should be around noon.

9:05-12:00 - Since we're stuck out the house until the repair man arrives, we knock out lots of yardwork.  We mow, edge, weed-eat, install metal lining around the flower beds, put up mesh fencing so Lolli can't jump through the iron gate, round-up every weed in sight, and so on.

12:00 - We're sweaty and dirty with no where to go.  It's way too hot to go upstairs and shower.  The downstairs is cool but we're way too gross to sit on the furniture.

12:10 - We decide to wash the cars.

12:47 - The repair man calls.  He's finished up the job he was working on but has another one in the same neighborhood.  He asks permission to go ahead to that one first since it's closer.  We say ok.

1:30 - I decide since I can't shower and I can't sit on the furniture, I should bake a cake.  That makes sense, right?  I run upstairs to get a clean t-shirt to throw on before heading to the store.  While up there, I check the thermostat.

1:50 - Home from the store, I start working on my cake.  At some point, the thermostat topped at 94 degrees.  How is that even possible?

2:11 - Finally, another call from the repair man.  He's tied up at the second job and is sending another guy.  The other guy should be there in 20 minutes.

2:20 - With my cake in the oven, I brave the upstairs and try to take a super fast cold shower.

3:00 - Doc looks out the window and sees that our repair man has finally arrived.  "They sent us a 15 year old kid!"

3:05-5:15 - Turns out, the "kid" knew what he was doing.  We had a bad part that needed to be replaced - the capacitor? - and a lot of sludge that needed to be cleaned out.

5:30 - We watch as the digits on the thermostat slowly start decreasing.  Yay for cool air! And yay for finally getting to shower and get cleaned up

The Lord Said To Noah...

...there's gonna be a floody-floody.  Lord said to Noah, there's gonna be a floody-floody.  Get my children (clap!) out of the muddy-muddy, children of the Lord. Hopefully you know that song and could hear the melody as you read it.  If you don't know recognize that first verse then maybe you at least know the chorus:

So rise and shine and give God the glory-glory.  Rise and shine and give God the glory-glory. Rise and shine and (clap!) give God the glory-glory, children of the Lord.

I will officially have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the night now.  While we should always remember to give God the glory (glory), the point right now is that there's gonna be a floody (floody).  At least in our neck of the woods, anyway.

I'm sure you've all heard or read by now that the Mighty Mississippi is getting even mightier.  The water levels have been steadily increasing over the last couple of weeks and we are within days, if not hours, of it reaching it's peak.  The big question is will the flood wall and levee hold?  For the sake of my house, I sure as heck hope so.

Doc and I headed out on an early walk this morning.  We decided to go check the water levels, as we have just about every day this week, but this time I decided to take my camera.  I realize that if you've never seen the areas that I took pictures of without standing it may be hard to visualize just how crazy this is, but I will try my best to explain each picture.

Here's the view as we walked on the upper sidewalk.

See those trees floating in the water over to the right?  The river is usually on the other side of them.  There's a walking trail that runs on this side of those trees that Doc and I have walked on hundreds of times.  We haven't seen that trail in days.

The edge of the flood water is lined with trees and debris.  I hope this trash doesn't linger for long once the water finally recedes.  I think someone should go ahead and start skimming the edge of the water now.

Last week I saw a man pull two huge catfish out of the water.  I'm sure his dinner was good that night, but you couldn't pay me enough to eat something out of this water.  It looks grody.

Our island has been closed to thru traffic for a few days now.  Last week the number of spectators out gawking at the water was unbelievable, and made the whole neighborhood chaotic.  The crowds are smaller now but we're still spotting non-residents out taking pictures.  (Though they're hard to spot since residents like me are walking around with our cameras too.)

This picture was taken as we approached the berm on the road.  They have closed down one side of the street and built it up even with the grass on the right of it.  In this picture it doesn't look like much dirt, but the pile gets bigger further down.

This part of the berm has been sandbagged all along what used to be an entrance to a parking lot.

This is said parking lot.  Kinda just looks like a boat ramp now.

Another view of the parking lot.

In this picture you can see the top of the bike rack that sits in the parking lot.

Here's a birdhouse that looks like its about to go under, and right behind it you can see the top of a park bench.

Doc and I walked around to the other side of the island where the Wolf River is.  Some homes that back up to the Wolf River have already been evacuated.  From the pictures below, you can see why.

To get those pictures I was standing out on a bridge that leads to the boats in the marina.  The water was right up to the bridge.  The picture below is of the same house as the one above, but this time taken from the back of the house that is still dry.  Sandbags have been piled up between each house at the edge of their parking garages and the water is all the way up to the sandbags and seeping through to the parking lot.

I couldn't really tell if any water has actually made it into the houses or not.  It's hard to tell with the way they're situated on the hill.  They look dry in the back but like they're floating in the front.

The condos across the parking lot from these have taken precaution and sandbagged their parking garages and storage areas.

A camera crew was getting set up at the edge of the water.  I'm not sure which news station it was.

Look at all the trash that has been swept up to the shoreline.  Isn't it disgusting?  Seriously, why isn't anyone out there with a skimmer?  Or couldn't it be burned off? That is not going to be pretty when the water recedes.

Not only is the Wolf River bringing us trash, it's also taking over our playgrounds.  I've seen some pretty unhappy children peering at their playgrounds covered in water.

The park closest to our house has water (and trash) up to the edge of it but none of the play equipment has gotten wet.  It's a good thing, too, because if it were to go under I might have to take a container of Clorox Wipes out there once the water goes down to get all the filth off before our kids play on it.  Seriously, the water is so gross!

I suppose if your dog swam out there to use the bathroom, you should still grab a bag and pick up after it.

So that's the latest in our neck of the woods.  Please feel free to send up prayers and good vibes for that flood wall to hold firm -  I'm kinda fond of my house.

It's Done

My hair is gone.  I wasn't nervous at all until I was actually sitting in the chair.  When my hair stylist made the first snip, I nearly yelped.  A lock of about 5 inches fell to the floor. Now I feel naked.  And I used way too much shampoo this morning.

Here's how it went down.  I showed the stylist the pictures of both Anne and Heidi because I was still undecided.  He liked Heidi better so that's what we went with.  Except I'm not sure that it really looks like Heidi's. 

Ready for pics?  He was running behind when I got there so I had to wait.  I tried to sneak a before shot without anyone noticing that I was taking pictures of myself.

Behold, the Before.

Even I can admit that my ends were looking kinda grody.

Thirty minutes of holding my breath later, I looked like this:

I like it.  I think.  It feels so weird.

He did cut some short pieces in the front but, as expected, I don't like them.  Luckily, I can still tuck them behind my ear. 

Here's a picture of the new do today, after styling it myself.  I was sitting at my desk and trying to be discreet again. 

I think one side may be a tidge longer than the other.  That seems to always happen when I get my hair cut.  Get ready to give me a trim, Mom.  :)

So what do you think?  Is the length good?  Should I try to get my money back?  What about highlights - yay or nay?

Oh, and since we're on the subject, I'm not the only one who got a haircut this week.  Lollipop went in for her first grooming appointment.  Since she's still a puppy the groomer suggested just trimming up around her face and feet and, ahem, private areas.  That was fine with me, because as much as I wanted her bangs to be trimmed, I was really nervous about the rest of her hair being cut.  I don't have good before and after pictures, but I did snap this one while we were in the bathroom hiding from the tornadoes.  Someone left the groomer's with a pretty little bow...

Do I dare ask whose haircut you think is cuter?