who'll stop the rain

my ankles are swollen. is this a result of driving long hours in a car? i wonder whats going on... bizarre.

so yes. i have returned. to make a long story short (for now), i spent last night in walhalla, north dakota. i've taken some great pictures and plan on posting them soon. i took my grandma up north to see her friends from high school (60+ years they have been friends). it was a fun trip, but slightly tiring. more to come on that.

to summarize my evening other than that: i got home around 6pm or so, right as my father was pulling into the garage after a long day of golfing. we went inside and sat down to talk to my mom. all of a sudden, my parents ran outside to pull the cushions off of the deck furniture and put the awning up. it was an instant downpour. i think they saw something on tv or ... i guess i'm not sure. i didn't even notice it happening. blue skies that instantly turned gray. i was on the computer and it turned off - we lost power for about 20 seconds. after a minute or two, i said that i was going to go check my room which is on the east side of the house. we thought the rain was coming from the northwest and i didnt think it would be moving into my room. in my room, the rain had started to come in so i shut the windows. i went across the hall to the other room, on the side of the building where the rain was slamming against the house. the floor was wet 2 feet from the windows. the bedspread was wet and everything was soaked. it had been raining for not even 5 minutes. i closed the windows then called for help downstairs. i went to the bathroom and my parents room to close those windows. water was everywhere. then there was hail and gushing winds. it was insane how quickly it happened. and just as fast, it was gone. no more rain. the clouds opened up and everything was normal.

we decided to go out for a drink and dinner and ended up at a bennigans. initially we were going to go to mexican village but noticed on our drive there that the stop lights were out. i didnt really pay much attention to it until we got to the restaurant and a line of 15 people was waiting to be seated - the restaurant had no power and couldn't seat anyone. they had been out of power since we lost power - over 15 minutes, but ours came back on. we decided not to wait and headed to moorhead for dinner.

we ended up playing one of those trivia games that sports bars have where you punch your answers into a game box and play against others. it was really fun! i took second in the first round and totally kicked butt in the second round. if i knew more about (read: was more interested in) sports, i totally would've rocked the casbah. well, maybe. my dad is excellent at trivia. he knew what an ocelot was.

with that, i am going to finish iron chef on the dvr and then head to bed. 'night.