Weekly Recap

You may have been wondering why I haven't posted in a week. It's because my personal computer has a virus and won't work. At work we were evacuated today, so I took my laptop home and am able to post.


This week our state has seen destruction every day. Friends and family have lost much to the flooding. The news has been an intricate part of our lives. Pride weekend was postponed until September and Brewfest was cancelled. In short - we were stressed to the max. And then news of Tim Russert's passing reached us and we realized that we were stressed beyond what we know we could handle.


At the point of extreme stress I called my good friend Tim and we decided that we should come together and celebrate the strength of our community. To us, this involved drinking on the rooftop patio of B & B in downtown Beaverdale. I had some margaritas, he had some beers, and we both had some tasty sandwiches. We talked about work, the flood, our personal lives, our MBA programs, and the gym. We pretty much talked about everything in our lives.



On the way home we found Shawn on his front deck. Shawn used to work at our gym. We stopped by, waited for his fiance Angie (who used to work at our gym too) to come home, and had a few beers. The four of us gossiped about our gym for about an hour and then decided it was time for bed. Tim dropped me off, and I decided to post a blog before I hit the hay.



I had a great night, but there is a dark shadow over my fun. So many people have lost their homes. So many businesses were lost to the flood that may never open again. Is it right to have a good time when so many people are hurting? Should I blow off stress by having a margarita or should I be saying the rosary for people who have lost everything?



I really don't know what to do. The Des Moines river is cresting tomorrow and the epicenter of my adult social life, Court Avenue, may be gravely damaged by flood waters. I know that so many people have lost so much, and I shouldn't grieve for a petty social loss. But I can't help it. My adult life has been molded as much by Court Ave. at least as much as it was by college.



My adult friendships developed in CABCo and the Royal Mile. Friends have told me about marriages, pregnancies, breakups, and all sorts of social activities in the Court Ave. district. In short, I am who I am because of my family (with a very large shout out to my amazing parents), Alpha Xi Delta (the best damn friends a girl could ever buy), and downtown Des Moines.



I am thankful that the levees in Cedar Falls and Des Moines have held. I hope that they continue to do so. My prayers go out the the people of Cedar Rapids, and in the communities that have not been so lucky. I don't know that we have seen the worst that we will see this summer. I don't know if the flooding will continue. After the awful winter we went through and the spring flooding, I shudder to think of what may come.



One thing I am sure of is community. From sandbagging the Cedar River to sandbagging Union Park in Des Moines we have been coming together to make our communities stronger. We have come together to protect our state.



I hope we won't stop at sandbagging. I hope we work together to clean up the areas devastated by this flood. I hope we use our vacation to scrub our cities of the scum left by a flooded river instead of using our vacation as a staycation to catch up on our TiVo. I hope we use the tragedy to show our state how proud we are....how much we care. Iowa made me who I am. I want to opportunity to show my state how much it means to me. I encourage you to help me out. 83 of Iowa's 99 counties are now disaster areas. Get off your butt and help out. We need you.

Flowers from my yard

Biking to Work

I planned on riding my bike to work every day this week. The weather didn't cooperate. It stormed almost every day.

The entire city is soggy. The roads have all flooded. I rode past a chunk of asphalt the size of my back porch that had slid 20 feet down the street. There were three cars abandoned in the middle of the street (don't drive through water people!) . I got a little bit of water in my basement, and it has never flooded before. A few houses down from me my neighbors got four feet of water in their basement.

Luckily it only stormed one morning, so I was able to ride every day but Tuesday. On Tuesday I took the bus, because by the time I got ready it had stopped raining. I'm excited that I didn't drive my car to work once this week.

Next week I'm riding again. I hate leaving my house at 6:15, but leaving work at 3:30 makes up for it. It takes about 25 minutes to get into work, which is the same amount of time it takes me to drive when I include parking ramp time. It takes a little longer coming home, due to the fact that it is uphill for about half of the ride.

All of this riding has got me thinking about buying a new bike. I bought my bike in college. It is a great bike, but it has seen better days. I would love to have two new bikes: a hybrid for riding to work, the grocery store, and AK's and a road bike for when I ride with fast people. Until I get out of school I think I'll settle for a tune up on my old bike and maybe, if I'm feeling really spendy, a new backpack for carrying my stuff into work.

Last night was dynomite

Last night I went to a 70s party with my friend Sarah. I love going out with Sarah; incredibly random stuff happens whenever we go out. We once went out for a drink and stumbled upon a drag show featuring Ms. Gay Iowa. Another time we went to happy hour and ended up at a party in a loft in the East Village. You just never know what will happen when we hit the town. Last night was not an exception.

The party was a benefit for Stage West Theater Company. There were amazing costumes. Sarah and I decided to go with more of a 1970 look than a disco look. On the drive downtown we realized that we looked a lot like stewardesses. It wasn't exactly what we were going for, but it worked. The party had karaoke and dancing. Jr. High PE finally paid off, as I was able to teach the hustle to the party. After shaking our groove things, Sarah and I made friends with the second place winners in the costume contest and a disco queen.

After talking to our new friends for a while, the randomness started. There was an officer at the party. He's usually a detective, but moonlights at parties downtown because the people are so much fun. He was a really nice guy, and even played along with our photo ops. Not many people are willing to handcuff or reenact police brutality for a photo, and I appreciate his willingness to play along.

After the party ended we headed to a few bars downtown. We ended up at the Royal Mile, where we became friends with a bunch of competitive body builders. They were really nice, and even let us pose with their trophy. Sarah and I can't get enough of props in photos.

It was a night filled with costumes, random encounters, and disco. I wish every Saturday was that cool.

Weekly Recap

I had a relatively dull week. I suppose if you ring in the week by going out on Sunday night it makes sense if the rest of your week is pretty slow. Even though the week has been dull I have been productive.

On Tuesday I got my haircut and hit up Angie for tips on how to style my hair for the 70s party on Saturday night. I am now the master of the back comb. I finally finished lobster mitten #3. I couldn't tell you the last time I picked up my knitting before that. After the excitement of mitten finishing I made artichoke risotto. I know that doesn't sound like a very exciting day, but trust me, it was just what I needed.

On Wednesday I taught spin class. I rode my bike to class. It was the first time I'd been on my bike in a week. I feel like such a slacker. Next week will be better, as a co-worker and I have committed to biking to work every day next week. I love biking to work, but I hate getting up before six. If I am biking by myself I'll often hit snooze enough times that I end up taking the bus or driving. I don't know biking co-worker well enough to stand him up, so I guess I'll be up early next week.

Yesterday I had Econ. It goes from six to ten on Monday and Thursday for five weeks. After I'm done with Econ I have a month and a half off until my next class starts. I plan on doing a lot of reading for fun over the break. In actuality I'll probably end up going to happy hour or dinner every night to get caught up with everyone I loose contact with when I'm in class.

I know that in the end getting my MBA will be worth it, but at about 8:30 on Thursday night the last place I wanted to be was in school. On a ten minuted break from class I talked with some of my friends about how we've pretty much stopped caring. We just want to be done. Hopefully nobody overheard us. If they did, we'll never get asked to be in a case study group again.

Tonight was just about the craziest Friday night ever: I cleaned my house for about two hours. I have a small house, so that should give you some idea of how dirty it was. The night is still young, so I might head out for a few, should the opportunity arise. It certainly won't be a crazy night, as I teach spin in the morning and I need to rest up for the 70s party.

Tomorrow Sarah and I are going to a 70s costume party. I need to wash my dress and polish my boots. My look is really more 60s, but I like the shoes better, so I'm going with it. I've never been what you would call fashion forward, so it would make sense that my look would be slightly outdated. I plan on taking lots of pictures and busting out some disco moves. Oh, how I hope they play The Hustle.

AK O'Connors

Last night was a fun night at AK's. I was able to truly relax, having turned in my take home final late in the afternoon. After spending most of my weekend thinking about school I was ready to think about anything other than product management.

Upon arriving at AK's I noticed a poster for the band playing that night; Brother Trucker, one of my favorite bands was playing. I knew I was in for a treat. Stimmel, Todd, Todd's roommate Justin, and I ordered some food and enjoyed the band. After a while Todd and Justin decided to head to the Saddle. Stimmel and I weren't about to leave Brother Trucker, so we stuck around.


It's a good thing we stuck around, because about a half hour after Todd and Justin left Nate and Mark showed up. As you can see from the photo of them below, there really isn't anything quite as intimidating and gangsta as a couple of programmers at an insurance company.

Mark and Nate were in rare form. Nate is by far the most conservative person I know. It was enjoyable listening to Stimmel and Nate discuss politics. Mark and I spent our time talking about other, more important things, like beer.

It has been a relaxing, long weekend. I wish all weekends were three days long.

Happy Birthday Carnahan!

My friend Carnahan officially entered her 30s yesterday. To celebrate the big 31 we head out on the town. We started off at Taki for some sushi. The waiter brought us special bomb pop drinks because we were celebrating a birthday. We also had a drink called a flirtini. It was very tasty, but incredibly embarrassing to order. Asking the bartender for a flirtini sort of feels like ordering a vodka kool-aid; it's delicious, but it makes you feel like an underage drinker.

After Taki we headed over to Cooney's to see Ellen, Justin, and Ellen's roommate from Detroit. Cooney's is the other Irish bar in Beaverdale. I included a picture of one of the signs. It makes me want to be an Irish diplomat. Tomorrow we're meeting at AK's for un-happy hour. I'm pretty impressed that we will have hit up every Irish bar in the neighborhood in one weekend.

After that we headed to Dubays. There were lots of current and former CABCo people there. It was sort of like a flashback to my mid-twenties when I spent every weekend there. Carnahan was finally able to meet and thank Robert for giving me some dance tips. I told Carnahan Robert's two rules of dance: don't move your arms much and dance at half the speed you think you should. Those rules improved her skills enough she was able to dance at a wedding last summer without being mocked.

After sharing the story of her date with the most popular guy in my high school class with Stimmel we decided to call it a night.

It was a great night out. I am excited that we have a three day weekend for Memorial Day. I could go for a few more nights like this.