New Photos

I've added some albums to my Yahoo Photos. The new albums are "Summer 2006 housework," "Fourth of July 2006," and "Winter photos 2005-2006." Of course, you're welcome to browse the other albums as well.

On the Road Again

I decided today to go to Billings next weekend. One of my friends is going to be there for another week and a half, and I want to see her before she moves back to the east coast. Plus, I still haven't met my adorable niece in person, and I want to do that.

It's a long drive- just over 1000 miles each way. Even with gas prices the way they are, it's still much cheaper to drive, so all I'm giving up is time and comfort. But when I think of my friend Charisse's bumpy journeys across the "roads" of Afghanistan, I don't think I'll have much to complain about in my air conditioned, comfortable car. I am going to need audiobooks, though.

Flowers don't belong in the attic

I worked soooo hard this morning. Yesterday I bought several flowering plants, and this morning I planted most of them. When we took out the trees in our front yard to which Brent is allergic, we had a flowerbox put in, which was filled with gorgeous, almost black soil, but nothing else. This morning I put in three rosebushes: one pale pink, one red, and one yellow, along with two daylilies and two diplodena, which is apparently a tropical plant, so I doubt it will survive the winter. It has beautiful bright pink flowers, though, so I'll just enjoy it this year. Then I planted two coral impatiens next to the garage. I still have a lot of empty spaces, so I think I'll go get some more flats of petunias, because I love them. Right now most of the flowers are pink, red, and purple, but maybe I should get petunias in a riot of colors to fill in everywhere.

I still have raspberries and a butterfly bush to plant in the backyard, but it was hot, I was tired, and the soil in the backyard is really heavy and hard to work with. I think I'll tackle it tomorrow, after the sprinklers have softened it up a bit.

Kaboom!

It's been a lovely 4th of July weekend, which we spent in a small town. Small town America is really the only place to fully appreciate this holiday. We were in Eager, Arizona, where Brent's aunt and uncle live. We arrived Monday night, then spent Tuesday involved in all the festivities. We watched a great parade- with floats both fancy and simple. I would post photos, except that I forgot the cable for my camera.

We next went to a barbecue that was a fundraiser for one of the local Boy Scout troops- barbecued shredded beef sandwiches, coleslaw, baked beans, homemade cake, lemonade, and since it's Arizona, sopapillas.

Our next destination was the airport, where we helped set up for the fireworks show. This is a huge event, with thousands of dollars worth of fireworks. We sorted the different sized shells into cans, and set them up at different firing stations. The larger shells were in stations that were half-buried underground, and that have to be fired electronically. We helped wire all of those together, then had a training session.

After a family barbecue (6 of Brent's 17 aunts/uncles and their families were there), we went back to the airport, suited up in coveralls and hoods, and began the show. We had one last safety lecture, including the instructions that if anyone were to get hurt, the show was over. I was assigned to guard the can of 3-inch shells, which meant that when the people who were loading shells came up, I had to open the lid so they could get shells out, but the rest of the time keep it closed so that no flying embers or sparks got in the can. When the show started, it was just amazing. There is no way to describe what it's like to watch a fireworks show from directly underneath. There's also no way to describe how disconcerting it is to have explosives going off, about 20 yards behind you, and that while you know you're probably safe, there are no guarantees. I thought of my best friend, who is a combat veteran, and how he would never be able to do this, because he's been in a real battle, in which the explosions are meant to hurt him, and that this almost minimizes how serious that situation is.

Almost. After about 15 minutes of firing, we had a "low break." This is when a firework explodes closer to the ground that it's supposed to. We'd had one earlier, that had only gone about 50 feet up. The pressure from that blast was amazing, but it wasn't a big deal. The second one, though, was. This was one of the 6-inch shells, which is the largest size that are allowed to be set off by hand. It exploded inside the steel pipe, and apparently landed between the 6-inch shells station and ours. The concussion from that blast felt like someone shoved me, and I was at least 15 yards away from it. There were five or six people who were closer, though. Most of them just got hit by the blast, but two of them got peppered with pieces of shell and gunpowder. And one of those was also hit by something- maybe a piece of the wooden rack that holds the pipes, and had a huge gash in his leg. We immediately ended the hand-firing part of the show, and they set of the electical finale rounds, which were at the other side of the field. They brought an ambulance out for the two guys who were hurt, and that was the end of the show.

There were a lot of us who were really shaken. Safety is a top priority for this crew, and while everyone on the crew is volunteers, most of them have been doing it for a long time, and those of us who were new were kept far away from lighting or loading shells. It was still scary to see someone get hurt, and while he'll be fine, there's always the chance that it could have been much worse.

This morning, while we were leaving town, we overheard some people in the grocery store complaining that the show had only been 15 minutes long. I wanted to tell them that someone on our crew had been hurt, and to explain that it was our policy, but I just didn't feel it was my place to try and straighten out the gossip. I'm sorry people are disappointed that the show was short, but I'm grateful that Mark is going to be ok, and that the person who ran back to the family area only had to tell Mark's wife that he was going to the hospital for stitches, not that it was anything worse.

So, do I plan to do it again next year? Absolutely. But I'll always be aware of how real it is that while they're in the shape of pretty stars and flowers, they're still explosives.

So, anyway

I'm sure the last thing this universe needs is for someone who already has a blog to have another one, but here you go. My entire purpose for this is that while I have a livejournal, I have a couple of friends with blogs here, and I can't comment without one of my own. I tried to find a way to link the two, but instead discovered that there's a whole hornets' nest of hatred between the blogspot and lj communities. Frankly, I don't get that, but whatever.

So, about me. I teach school, so I'm currently off for the summer, and I've spent the last three weeks ignoring the pile of work I need to do before the next school year. I also have a new classroom to organize, but I'm pretending that doesn't exist, also. In addition, I'm married, with two cats, and no kids. We're working on having kids, but so far that's been really unsuccessful, and tremendously discouraging.

What else.....I saw Superman yesterday, and enjoyed it, although I missed the "pause" feature of watching a movie at home, but I think I chose to go to the bathroom during a less-than-crucial part of the film, so it's probably all right. I love movies in general, and our dvd collection could probably only be described as "totally out of control." It's probably only rivaled by our book collection and my shoes.