the flow

so my brother, player, is in town and the new tradition is that whenever he’s in town i take him and my other brother, homie, out to eat. we’ve been going to applebee’s since it’s close to homie’s work. we had a nice lunch together. homie had to go back to work, so player and i decided to drive around the city and look at the flooding and dikes. in a separate post, i will put up the pictures that i took a few weeks ago of the flood waters so you can see for yourself.

anyway, you won’t believe what happened.

so we go up north to royal oaks (for those of you who know fargo). royal oaks is a little community about half a block from the river on the north side of town. normally, the river flows, then there is some grass next to it. next to the grass is a road and then a grassy knoll and then on top of the knoll are the houses. well, now, there is no grass, no road, and no knoll. there are sandbags at the top of the knoll and when you look down, the water is right below. player and i walked up to the top of the hill to look at the river and our shoes got really really dirty because, despite looking like hard earth, it was really soft clay. one of my uggs got pretty dirty, but i’m over the uggs, so i didn’t care. we squished through the clay to see the river. it was impressive.

so then we drive to another spot to look. this time, it was closer to our house - about 4 blocks away. we live near a golf course that is next to a river, separated by a road. the golf course is almost on a hill and the road and river are down below. now there is no hill and the water has completely engulfed the golf course. in any case, player decided not to go near the sandbags because it was the same sticky clay. i trudged ahead and of course get stuck. my boots sunk way deeper into the mud than they should’ve. i decided to back track and lifted my foot out quickly to take advantage of some force. well, take advantage i did. my foot came flying out of my sock and boot and landed directly in the wet, sticky, mud. i yelped for help and my brother came to pull my boot out of the mud and guide me back to the parking lot. there was a couple standing there laughing at me. i stood on a stoop while my brother searched his car for something to wipe my foot with. i thought i would put it in the snow that was next to me to take advantage of the moisture in the snow and get some of the mud off. didn’t work. instead, it FROZE the mud to me and then my foot was cold as ice. eventually he found a towel in his trunk (in his golf club bag). player took a twit pick of me wiping the mud off as seen here:

i hopped back to the car and got in. we didn’t feel like we were done just yet. we went a few blocks away to this baseball diamond that is near our house and right next to the river. since my feet were already dirty, i thought i would climb the dike this time to get a great shot of the river. player was like, “why don’t you just wash your foot off in the water?” made sense to me. so, i practiced my yoga stance and bent my leg to put the other in the river. and guess what happened. splash! i fell on my side and into the freezing cold water. lovely. my body instantly hardened from the chill. since the dikes are kind of sloped, i was able to stand up on the river-side of the dike and climb back out. player had to help me out, but only after taking another twit pic of me standing there, freezing to death.

actually, that didn’t happen. not totally. ha ha. i DID step in mud, which, if you know me, is a HUGE deal. but i didn’t fall into the water. thank god. in any case, it was a fun day of dike-seeing.

when we got home, i hobbled into the house and proudly showed my mud-covered foot to my parents. i had to go upstairs and wash it off in the bathroom, which reminds me of this time in high school...

so its the summertime and my two friends and i were cruising around in my parents really cool minivan. we thought we were really hot stuff. so hot, we decided to drive out to the fairgrounds to see if we could see one of my friend’s crush. one might consider this spying or stalking, but i just consider it teenage girlness. on the road in front of the entrance to the fairgrounds, we passed some guys in a convertible that we thought were cute. we took a magic marker and wrote our phone numbers on a pop can that was in the back seat. we tossed it out the window and the driver caught it in his hand for .2 seconds and then it bounced out and hit the ground - spraying pop everywhere. we quickly drove off.

or at least we tried to do it quickly. it had been raining all day and the roads were muddy. we went into the “parking lot” which was really just a muddy field next to the fairgrounds and went to park the car. i was going through the fields to park when the minivan got stuck. we were laughing and thought it was funny that we were in a minivan, which clearly would not make it through a muddy field. my always trendy friend, molly, got out of the back and went to the front of the car to push us out. leah was sitting next to me and we looked at her in the headlights while i put the car in reverse and drive. the wheels spun. when molly stepped away from the car, she was standing there in a bright white t-shirt with a line of mud spots right down the middle. so as not to get molly more dirty, leah and i got out to look. we decided we needed to put something flat under the tires so they would have something to roll onto. i took my parents cassette tape case and ripped it in two. we put it behind the front tires and nothing worked. the tape holder disappeared in the mud. we were walking barefoot around the car when 6 guys walked by to their car. “do you need help?” we readily agreed. so molly was driving and leah and i were in the back with the guys pushing the car. as soon as the car started going, everyone but me stopped pushing and let the car move forward. i kept pushing and when i realized no one was next to me, i looked back to see what they were doing, but kept my hands on the car. not a good idea. i fell flat on my ass into the mud. i was completely covered in mud. everyone laughed, including me. the guys walked off and we couldn’t decide what to do. how would i get home? i finally just decided to take my pants off and drive home in my underwear. when i got home, we stood on the deck and yelled into the house, “mom! mom! come here!” she sat on the couch yelling back at me, “what? you come here!” “i can’t!” we argued for a few minutes until she finally came to the door. she was not impressed. after taking a picture of us standing, caked in dry mud, she laid some towels all the way up to the bathroom and we took showers to get clean (separately, of course).

now that i think about it, i wonder if this time in high school was the instance that really made me mud-averse. i really hate getting dirty. today wasn’t too horrible, except i’m pretty sure i stepped in dog shit. not cool. i’m just telling myself it was a mud facial. except for the feet. a mud feecial. or something.