Mariposas

In the greens and golds of a late summer evening,

the monarch butterflies are readying themselves for a flight to Mexico.

Kind of miraculous, isn't it?

Long Weekend

Went out to the folks' place for a church celebration. I feel, as an atheist, it is odd for me to narrate a church program, but you know...whatever. Still good times. And I can totally make it sound impressive and put it on my resume.

My dad had a reading in Montevideo on Thursday, after which we got Mexican take-out and had a picnic in Artiga Plaza.














On Friday, my mom and I made brownies for a dinner at my grandparents' house.









































We walked out to get the mail with Cricket...














...and it tuckered her out.
















Saturday entailed a trip to Aberdeen (SD, not Scotland) to visit the sister, brother-in-law, and niece. We went to the beach, but Mer was the only one with a swimsuit.

















Cuteness...




And...I don't want to freak her parents out or anything, but this run is totally "Baywatch," right?

Also, thrilled beyond thrilled to discover several previously lost photos on my parents computer that I didn't know were there. Huzzah! The only reason I haven't tried to do anything new with my blog's appearance is because I thought that the picture on the header was the only version of that photo that I had. No longer are you and I confined to stare at the same freakin' sunset! Although, I do like it quite a lot, so I might just leave it...



Other sunset options...

Titanic

It was a bad one tonight, folks. A real bad one. It was about 10:30. I was just sitting on the sofa, enjoy "Louie" and getting ready for bed during commercials, when Direct TV told me that the satellite couldn't be found. Well, crap. In the past, this has been a fairly consistent indicator that there was a flood on the way. And boy howdy, was there ever.

This flood was epic. I mean, into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the laundry room. Almost into the bedroom, but for a clever towel blockade. Gushing in through the windows. Literally pouring in through tiny holes in the solid cinder block walls. There are no pictures. Just a 40 second video of water coming in between the floor and the wall, with me, towards the end saying "ooookaaaaaay..." as the panic starts to set in.

I called emergency after hours straight away, and it went right to voice mail, saying in case of medical emergency, fire, or flood I should call 911. But this wasn't like a life threatening flood, so I held off while I splashed in tiny circles in the middle of my apartment. I called again; no answer. Almost immediately after hanging up, they called back.

When the guy got here (unfortunately, it wasn't the regular maintenance man; he's kind of dreamy, so I like it when he comes to my rescue...alas), he took one look and said "You win" and then he took off. I thought to myself I win? I don't know what that means. The water was about two feet up the windows, so I think their priority was to drain the window well. About 20 minutes later, he came back with the shop vac and set to work. Another 20 minutes and an additional man later, they left. Now, I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the fact that these guys came and saved me from going down with the ship at 11 pm, but I do wish they would have helped me put my furniture back. I may have broken the top off of my DVD cabinet when I tried to move it by myself.

I guess I wasn't the only one with flooding tonight, though. As they left, I heard them talking about next door. I am oddly pleased that I won.