All Right, Already! Take 2: Cavorting & Gamboling in a ND Fountain

Oh, you are a tough crowd to please! But you've got to understand: here in North Dakota, we tend to be fairly restrained in our cavorting and gamboling. We are an under-stated people.

But because you all seem to be so NEEDY and begged me mercilessly, Doug agreed to really loosen up and be absolutely WILD in his cavorting and gamboling. I, of course, had to stay completely dry with my precious Nikon D40.

Here, throwing all caution to the wind *, Doug approaches the sprinkler. (* not completely without caution; that's not in the North Dakotan lexicon. A fire extinguisher and ShamWow! are standing by in case of emergency.)

Here, you can see that my dear husband has become absolutely wild in his cavorting and gamboling.

And now he has given in to total abandon. . .

. . . . . . dare I say, rapture? . . . on the Northern Plains . . .



But this really was all a bit much, and he needed to retire to the lounge chair for recovery. . .

Aided, of course, by our trusty ShamWow!

First Step toward Recovery: ShamWow! & a Sippy Cup

ShamWow! really did come to the rescue yesterday, sopping up wine out of my printer, around all of my papers, across my book shelf with my digiscrapped albums. (ShamWow! seems to be suspiciously enthusiastic about its mission when it comes to wine; you may recall it's earlier distinction in absorbing the broken glass and wine when my husband forgot he'd bought a bottle and it rolled out the side door of the van onto the garage floor. Maybe ShamWow! is over-compensating for it's sense of Shame about Vince.)

It could have been much worse. Much, much worse. A few inches to the left and the trajectory of the WineTsunami would have hit my laptop, and my external hard drive sitting on the floor. Today, I assessed the damage further, and bizarrely, my printer is still printing! It's just as crappy as it has been, but no worse.

The good news is that only about 16 of the digiscrapped pages look wine-dipped. I managed to find the .psd files of 15 of them, and will do the necessary conversions and send the pages out to be printed (especially since I also drenched all my blank photo paper.)

So, the first step, after admitting there is a problem, is ShamWow! to sop up the mess, and then Sharon's brilliant suggestion of a Sippy Cup! Of course! If first I'm spilling coffee, then the next day wine, all over my printer/computer/expensive stuff, this is the perfect solution!

And look how well ShamWow! blots up those tears! One would wonder (if one was you, not me)if I'm crying over the scrapbook pages, or about life having come to this: drinking Zinfandel from a Sippy Cup.







My husband is a tad horrified that this same person who went on a wine-tasting tour in Napa Valley last September would sink to this. Hey! I didn't SAY I'd be bringing it wine-tasting, if we ever do that again!

The River Crested in Grand Forks! 49.5 feet, and falling

It's a good day in the neighborhood! The Red River of the North officially crested yesterday, at 49.5 feet, and is now falling. We're suppose to have a 2nd crest in a few weeks, but the expectation is that the worst is over (except for that wild card that Mother Nature can dish out from time to time.) Soon, we may be able to reopen bridges!

To celebrate, I consulted The Beautiful Miss Bonnie on a book review. Actually, Bonnie is the 2nd tier reviewer, because first Becky brought this book to my attention back at Christmas time. First-off, there's nothing as scary in this book as ShameWoe:( Vince the Bad. Bonnie scrutinized this book carefully, and gives it four paws up a tail-wag and drool. . . . very high marks indeed! It's a book of short stories by Stephen King, Just After Sunset, and she really liked the first story, "Willa," set in a creepy old train depot, but "The Gingerbread Girl" was her favorite. All the stories held her interest to the end, but Bonnie suggested that the last one, A Very Tight Place," is more gross-out than anything. But extremely Stephen King-ish gross out.




And because Bonnie did such a great job with this review, and because many of you urged me not to blame ShamWow! for ShameWoe:( Vince's behavior , I decided to give ShamWow! one more very cautious chance. (Mandy said," Remember, its not the product's fault. Its still a good sham wow, right?" and Jeanne said, "Remember it's not fair to blame the "kids" for the "adults'" mistakes.") Bonnie is personally testing out ShamWow!s suitability for a picnic.

Oh, Woeful Day! ShameWow :( Evil

Is nothing sacred? It's with heavy heart that I write this post. I am just crushed! My good friend, Jeanne, wrote in yesterday's post comment about Vince, the ShameWow:( LowLife, that there were news announcements that Vince had been arrested for allegedly beating up a prostitute (one who wouldn't let go of his tongue.) Eeewwwwwwwww! Now, this is NOT something that can be cleaned up with a ShameWow:(.

I don't know what to think. My bubble is burst; my illusions are destroyed. Will there be a morning after?

I find myself looking suspiciously at ShameWow:(, and suspecting that there's Actual Evil inherent in its spongey yellowness.

I combed my recent photos, and think I've found further evidence of its Nefarious Influence. Look at these two, perfectly fine, sweet, intelligent, upstanding individuals, who would normally give you the shirt (ShameWow:() off their backs:



ShameWow:( turned them into Vicious Hounds, tearing at each other, tooth and claw, to win the Precious ShameWow:(. Oh, the horror of it all!

Why, oh why did I not listen to Dylan the ShameWow:( Detector (and son of Sheila)? He was right, all along, about Vince.

Excuse me, now. I have to stop writing. And go wash my hands. :( :( :(

Oh, and the GOOD NEWS is that although the river is now at 49.5 feet, we still seem to be doing fine in Grand Forks, ND!!!! Hooray! We should have our first crest soon, and then apparently a second crest later this month. But I know it's going to be tough on Fargo, once they assess their damage.

Emergency Response Team: Flood Control in Grand Forks, ND; 2009 contingency plan to the dikes

The level of the river is reading 49.22 feet at this point, and we've been getting plenty of snow here in Grand Forks today. Time to have the emergency crew standing by:

Super Bonnie in her ShamWow! Cape, at the Ready

See? I'm on theme today: "Ways to Save."

Yesterday's attempt to break up the ice jam near Oslo, MN, with a wrecking ball, didn't work. Apparently, Winnepeg has a machine which is like a backhoe that gets driven on the ice, and chomps it up. Kind of like a giant Pac-man, only different. I bet there's some guys who would fight over who'd get to operate that machine!

"Eat your heart out, Dylan," says Sheila (mother of the ShamWow! Detractor)

This is my good buddy, Sheila, who is a very nice person, although she is the mother of the ShamWow! Detractor. Sheila agreed to pose for me outside our office, demonstrating a recent snow mountain. These mountains seem to appear suddenly, overnight, and we never have a Good Explanation for them: Here's one possibility-- earth-moving equipment comes during the night and builds these structures to toy with us because someone's GPS system SHOWS Grand Forks to be filled with mountains, and then tries to make reality conform to digital pixels. Grand Forks is, in fact, so flat that the horizon extends beyond the contours of the earth an extra 20 miles in all directions from the city.

It's probably a government program of some sort. Unfortunately, these bureaucrats may order more raw material, because we are being told that a potential blizzard is brewing to the west of us. Ever notice how things are often blamed on Mother Nature?



Now, innocent looking though Sheila may appear, she exacted a heavy price from me for her cooperation. Look what she made me let her do!!!!









These are NOT technically great photos, but I blame it on Sheila. She was in such rapture as she got to hold Shammy (I mean, ShamWow!), that it was hard to be in her presence and hold the camera still. (She even put Shammy through his paces and made him perform for her, soaking up water in the sink!)

FYI: The current Red River level is now at 48.91. Whether the blizzard hits here in Grand Forks, or just in Fargo, to the south, we're likely to see that moisture in our part of the river, as it makes its way north. Apparently, the Army Corps of Engineers has assembled a team of experts on ice jams. Experts on Ice Jams! Who Knew?

In Oslo, MN, there've been efforts to break up the ice jams with helicopter suspended wrecking balls smashing into the ice. I kid you not! Ok, I have a flood suggestion: with all the antsy Grand Forks people who don't get to sandbag (because of the "permanent dike solution") how about if we shovel all these mountains of snows onto railroad cars and ship it to drought stricken areas of the country? Who cares if it melts en route, as long as it hits some place drought stricken?

Grand Forks Flood Patrol and a Texas Lake and ShamWow!

What's wrong with this picture? Here's this beautiful lake boat house. . . . at my brother's house in Texas . . . Wasn't I suppose to live at a warm place like this? In my next lifetime, I'm really going to pay attention to geography in school, and understand that ND is a cold place before I move there. . . .




But here's where I live . . . as the city tops off the dikes along the river, adding protection against the spring flooding.






We seem to be doing fine, holding our own against the potential flooding, although our neighbors 90 miles to the south in Fargo, ND, are being much more challenged. After the 1997 flood that devastated our city, we built a pretty extensive dike system; Fargo doesn't have this, and are desperately filling sand bags.

If the river tops the dike system, not even ShamWow! will be up to this! But speaking of ShamWow!, I'm sure it's been on all your minds lately. And I have a progress report giving it an A+ (unlike the grade the Shameless ShamWow! detractor might give it!) My husband opened his van door in our garage this past weekend, and out rolled, and broke, a bottle of red wine. (He doesn't normally drive around with a van filled with bottles of rolling around wine, but sometimes things just happen . . .) Anyway, ShamWow! sprung into action and sopped that whole gloppy mess up! We celebrated--not with a bottle of wine--but by giving the sweet little darling a bath and laying it out to dry. I should have taken a photo of it in action, but ShamWow was just to anxious too please and strut its stuff for us, that the mess was vanquished before I had a chance to grab my camera.

Als, someone asked about yesterday's photo and ISO. I used my 50 1.4 lens at f/1.4 and ISO 800. The fact that there were so many neon lights really helped to illuminate the shot, although it was still a little tricky not getting the light blown out, and losing all the detail in the shadows. A little tweaking in Camera Raw really helped!

Angela and Her New Purchase

aka: ShamWow Bliss!

Isn't this exciting! How did all of you not guess this? I was so excited when the UPS man came yesterday, I practically tackled him in the driveway (but Bonnie beat me to it. Sorry about that leg; I hear they work wonders with prosthetics these days.)

I know; I know. . .you're all thinking that this was kind of reckless, and foolish, what with the economy and all. (And besides, what the heck exactly do you really do with a ShamWow?) But you've all seen Vince, right? On the late night infomercials? Who could resist the sheer magnetism of ShamWow and Vince?
My husband is so jealous of this new love and passion in my life. But he had his chance. Was he increasing his attentiveness, and showering me with gifts, (this week, maybe a new camera lens; you know, because of the cataract thing, before I go completely blind, and have to operate my camera by braille)? No, not really. So when ShamWow! appeared on the scene, could you blame me for wanting to cuddle up with this, and dancing for joy?


By the way, there is one Fly in the Ointment, so to speak. It's come to my attention that there's a ShamWow! detractor running about, exercising his freedoms and liberties. Check out his link here, but trust me, it's just sacrilegious: Shameless ShamWow! Detractor
I'm thinking he's become so. . . damaged. . . and distorted in his thinking because of his toddler's pathological use of his credit card: Wild Child