Day 303: Angela's Scream,Wella Color 411 & Exploding Houses

Wella Color 411 (medium brown) in my hair, hiding the grey. . .

My husband came into the living room, while I had this in my hair, saw my camera and remote set up, and said, "You're really brave."

But what the heck? It's Halloween!

But now here's a REAL reason for a real scream: I got a phone call today from the local tv station, asking for me by name, asking if I wanted to be interviewed live regarding my living in a house on my street that had the defective gas lines "like the house that exploded in Fargo had."

What??????????????????? I went into survival-mode, plumbed for information, hearing that Excel energy was not telling which houses specifically might explode, the houses on my block that had been built between 1970 and '73 had defective materials in the gas lines which were now corroding, causing gas leaks, that could. . well. . . expode! The caller asked if I wanted to talk about how I felt. I declined, saying that until that very moment, I hadn't known about this, wasn't being kept up at night thinking my house could explode at any minute, and was going to instead get off the phone, call my gas and insurance companies.

The gas company "handled" me, is about all I can say. The guy stumbled about and said that basically he didn't know if MY house would explode (although he hoped none would), but that they were hoping to have all the gas lines replaced by 2010. 2010!!!!

Now THIS is the stuff nightmares are made of!

Day 302: Ghouls Among Us

Just some of my fun-loving neighbors:




Which version do you like better?

OK, and now I'm going to include my husband's REALLY BAD JOKE for the night:
I just killed this little gnat that's been flying around for several days, evading me. But it fell onto my NEW, pink, computer keyboard, and I complained about it. My husband said, "Well, you can send the laptop back to Dell and complain there's a bug in the system. . . "

Day 301: End of the Beet Campaign

I wanted to get some photos of the beet trucks traveling through town, preferably crossing the bridge, and at sunset. This turned out to be harder than I thought, and it shouldn't have been!

Today was the end of what is known as the "beet campaign"; an army of trucks transport the sugar beets, 24 hours a day, to the processing plant, American Crystal, in East Grand Forks, where these big, ugly, beets are turned into sugar. For days, these trucks take over the roads, sliming them, and I always tried to be wary of the beets that might fly out at my windshield, or one of the very sleep-deprived drivers swerving suddenly. It's a hard-worked way of life in this community and today was the end of it for the season. It generally ends very abruptly, not necessarily because all the beets have been harvested, but because the plants are at capacity, and the temperature has changed. The temperature of harvesting is critical, or that sweetness you'd expect from sugar, won't be there.

Anyway, with such an army, a photo should have been easy. But not for a novice like me! I sat at the bottom of bridges. . . that were the wrong angles for the sunsets. And I started too late, so the army was no longer an endless processing but a slow trickle of stragglers.

I watched the "whens" of sunset (with my little gadget above the weather pixie), but there surpisingly few sunsets that I could head out. And those crucial moments between the perfect sunset, a truck passing, and adequate lighting, were rarer than I expected.

And I got cold. Just when I'd give up, and go sit in my car, two or three trucks in a row would pass faster than I could jump out and get in position again! So here are a few attempts this year, and I'm forewarned now for next year!

Day 300: A Cemetery in Mexico

Thought I'd be on theme tonight by posting a few photos from a cemetery in Mexico.








Brian, Dianna and I saw these last May when we were there. They don't seem to have the "scariness" (or the gloom) of a US cemetery.

My Perfect Husband

This is my 4th layout for the Type + Writer class. I used the words that Doug said to me a few months ago. The photos are from our recent balloon ride in Napa Valley. Doug has just climbed out of the balloon basket in the top photo, and the bottom left photo is while we are up in the air.

Weeds and Wildflowers Loving You papers; Jessica Sprague Type + Writer template; fonts: Jane Austen, Fertigo Pro, Parma Petit

Day 298: Joe, the Balloon Guy

I couldn't resist this title.

Will you forgive me?

Day 297: Halloween is creeping upon us, And a Duh! Moment

Already, just in the two days since I took this photo, the trees have shed all their leaves. It rained and was dreary today. . . the winter is insinuating itself into our lives already! Just look at the numbers my little weather pixie is already registering!




And the pumpkins are gone too! Our church pumpkin patch only has 40 pumpkins left to sell. Doug and I won't be working the pumpkin patch that Saturday, because they'll likely all be gone by then.


And here's my "Duh!" moment! I was wondering why my left hand has been hurting. Scott's been asking me to send him my photos from our trip together and I've been trying to do the editing of them, the changing them from RAW files to jpegs. . . and I finally tried to get a count of how many were left to do. A count of just the first day of the trip! I have 203 photos left to edit from the first day alone! So THAT's why my hand hurts! And no wonder I needed to by more 2 GB cards in the middle of our trip!

Day 296: Pumpkins! And Weird Gourd Things!

It's that time of year! Sugar-crazed children! Gory lawn decor!




But my favorite part is all the weird movies running on TV, especially Stephen King movies.

Day 295: Saying Goodbye

Now came a very hard part of our trip: Saying goodbye to Scott. He had us bringing him to an alley in what is known as the Mission area of San Francisco. A very nice alley, I thought.

Or maybe it's not an alley, but the front? I couldn't figure it out, but there were these really cool sunflowers planted about in small little spaces.


With inspiring signs and quotes. I KNOW Pat will agree with me, but I could swear, even with my limited botanical knowledge, that this is a sunflower and not an apple tree!

And Scott, whom I'm sure loves us dearly, probably felt it was time for us to go, already, (and cease and desist with the photography!) after the wonderful 8 days we got to spend together. We made our way back to Grand Forks, via Minneapolis. Scott made his way to his naval assignment inVirginia Beach, Virginia after a few more days in San Francisco with friends. It's just wonderful, though, having him back in the US, with Verizon connection to us!

Thank you, everyone, for the nice comments on all the photos, and coming along photographically, on this trip with us! I'm going to have to shift my lens now to what's available to me locally. Maybe I'll head out to that buffalo farm and catch a photo of the buffalo with a nice, fall sunset in the background. . . I haven't pestered them in awhile, and they haven't managed to move far away from me!

PS. I just got my November issue of Atlantic Monthly, scanned through it, and noticed an article on blogging. The author says "As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages--the opposite of a book." And "Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending."

Huh. It's true. When I think back to what I wrote here in January, February, I had no clue, other than the broad strokes, of what would come about in my life in the year to come, the things that would sparkle to the surface that I'd want to put on my blog.

Day 294: Last Night of the Seattle/SF Extravaganza Trip

Just outside Ghiradelli were these ships. I thought it looked like a painting! I might have walked closer to get a more tightly framed photo or two, but I was pretty tired of walking, and extremely cold! I was really wishing I'd at least brought a jacket or sweater with me!

In fact, we were all freezing, so we headed off to a nearby Macy's, prompted no doubt by my whining, and searched for jackets that wouldn't cost a fortune. I really like the jacket Scott ended up getting and Doug and I were mainly focused on "warm" and "cheap." When did basic sweatshirt type jackets start costing $70?

Scott's "list" next directed us to the Gold Dust lounge.




We basically zoned out in our own little worlds; Scott with his Blackberry, me with my camera and eavesdropping on the nearby patrons, and Doug tuned into a sports update.


Wish I'd combed my hair a bit before I let Scott get a photo of bedraggled me.



For the trolley, we stood in a long line about the size of our city before turning blue and giving up. We decided it would be not much more to pay for a taxi than the cost of 3 trolley fares, to get to the downtown area and closer to the BART station. (Especially if you factor in 3 funerals for frozen people.)

And taxi drivers are. . . strange. I say that with all due respect, having been one once when I needed to learn to drive. I can't help but wonder about mental status exams, listening to the drivers, laughing, talking in non-sequitars, and discussing what the other drivers on the road are about to do to them, and the things they've seen over the years. But mostly I was just very happy to be sitting down, not cold, and not driving on the mountain roads (with the taxi driver.)

This is how tired we were: after we got back to the hotel, we realized we'd never eaten dinner. And didn't want to. (Remember Ghiradelli's? That might as well be dinner!)