Suddenly Everything Seems Possible + Ice Storm Photos

This is what we woke up to the morning after the lights went out. All the following ice photos are from that first day – all taken through our windows. The snow photos were the second day, mostly also from our windows. Finally, on the third day, we went outside as a family and saw the damage first hand.

The climbing tree, broken branches frozen to the ground

Surveying the backyard.

The pine trees were like Narnia – only the bad, evil witch part of Narnia.

A few shots around town.

The golf course.

Not exactly a safe place to play right now. I have heard many reports of eye injuries as people clean up the branches all over town.

Yes, this is a power pole. Or should I say, was.

Nothing but splintered remains and criss-crossed lines.

Horray!

Our saviors from Wadena.

And so the clean up begins.

I apologize for not posting these photos sooner…I couldn’t look at them without feeling ill. Seriously. I had to avoid them for a few days to get a little perspective.

The following is what I wrote on Wednesday morning, after the lights came on the night before. Allow me add that the power was back out on Wednesday night for a few hours, but that was because of a tremendous thunderstorm and lightning hitting a transformer…just what we all needed, right? It is Monday night now, almost one week later, and again we’re having snow and wind like crazy. It has been a wild couple of weeks that I really don’t want to re-live. On the good side, people were safe and there were very few injuries – mostly the injuries came later with damage to eyes when people were out cleaning up fallen branches. There are some streets that look like tunnels, the piles of branches are so huge. This will take weeks to clean up…months, perhaps. And years to get back our trees.

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE FLIP ON A LIGHTSWITCH WHILE LOOKING FOR A FLASHLIGHT WHICH WE NEED BECAUSE THE LIGHTS ARE OFF?!!! I think that everyone has done this in their lives.

So many switches were on in our house, and that’s how I knew the power had come back on because there were suddenly lights!

We’ve put away the flashlights. The dishes are gently rocking on the Anti-Bacterial setting in my dishwasher. A load of towels is “cooking” on high heat. I turned on my electric blanket last night, just because I could.

But the TV? You know, I kinda didn’t mind not having the TV on. Not having the internet bummed me out, I admit. But I really don’t have to compulsively check Facebook every half hour in order to be happy.

I tell you what does make me happy, though. Three men from Wadena, Minnesota – a town about 5 hours north of here – who restored our power last night, just two hours shy of one week exactly from when it went out. (The oven clock came back on and read 9:06 – it picked up right where it had left – almost as if time itself had stopped. As if the past week never happened.)

I looked up Wadena on my newly-restored internet and discovered that this town of 4,000ish suffered a terrible E-F 4 tornado three years ago. In other words, these men know what it is to suffer at the hand of nature. They know what it’s like to need help from others. They came down to my town so that they could give back what they received.

I told them, “Thanks for leaving your homes and your families to come down and lend us a hand.” They shrugged and mumbled and waved for my camera.

I am not usually given to dancing. But I danced last night.

Suddenly everything seems possible.

THANK YOU, Mr. Electric Man

Still no electricity. Furnace is acting up because it doesn’t like the generator. The cost of a storm like this is in more than just dollars. It’s in sanity.

Here’s some statistics I heard this morning. I know there are more and perhaps better ones, but this gives you an idea. (I appologize if these numbers are incorrect – this is what I’ve heard as of Tuesday morning.)

One hardware store in this town of 12,000 people has sold $177,000.00 in chainsaws and generators over the past week. That’s just one of the half a dozen or so hardware stores in town.

As of Tuesday morning 991 homes are still without power.

2,000 power poles snapped or otherwise are unusable.

120 linemen have come to help us out, from across Minnesota and even, I believe, from South Dakota. The hotel parking lots (at night only!) are solid with power trucks. The image of all those trucks made me cry. We are so thankful for all that is being done to get us back into the 21st century!

I know, I know – we can live without electricity. We’ve proven that this week. But it sure is nice.

Here’s my daughter’s take on the storm – in her exact words:

Electricity. A necessity we take for granted. The power has been out for 6 days and it still is.

We had a HUGE ICE STORM. Plus we had a SNOWSTORM after that!

There are MANY trees down, all over the place.

Having the power out is scary. Mr. Al Oberloh [the mayor of Worthington] said, “Worthington will never look the same again.” I agree.

I live in the country, so we didn’t have rolling blackouts [as they had in town]. We just had no electricity at all. Our power lines are [broken down] and buried underneath lots of snow.

I believe that the electricity people are pretty AWESOME. They worked for like 24 hours straight to get power back on [for those in town].

The power went out at like 9:00 Tuesday night. It’s still out. Oh well. They have to get other pepole before us.

I think that I will remember this forever.

THANK YOU, ELECTRIC PEOPLE!!!

By Katie O’Donnell. Age 11

Ice, Snow, Devastation, and a Kazoo Band

There are moments in your life that you never forget. When I am old and wrinkled and more gray even than I am now, I will remember this week with tears, with smiles, and, possibly, with laughter.

My son asked me if, like with hurricanes, they name Midwestern Ice Storms. I told him that we didn’t rate that high on the weatherman’s scale.

“But it’s so bad!” he pointed out.

“Yes, it is,” I replied with a wry smile.

It really is so bad.

April usually is a time to anticipate bulbs poking out of the earth, to dig out asparagus recipes, to watch the daily progression of the leaves on the trees, the birds returning to the upper Midwest.

Not this year.

For those who don’t know, Tuesday night, April 9th, 2013, Worthington, Minnesota and the surrounding area experienced a terrible ice storm which left about 1.5 inches of ice on the trees, followed by 8+ inches of snow on Wednesday night. I live out in the country on ten acres of trees and stream and farmland. We lost electricity Tuesday night. Still don’t have it back as of Saturday afternoon. We have a generator – a reliable one – as of Friday night. The one we had, which came with our house 8 years ago, had never been put to the test before. Sure, we’d used it a few times for a few hours – but nothing like this.

It failed the test.

So finally, last night, my husband forked over $700 for a brand-new (and much quieter) one, so that we can have heat and toilets that flush and food that won’t give us food poisoning.

Can’t wash our clothes. Can’t run the dishwasher. No internet. No TV. (My son’s comment on these terrible facts: “Mom, what did you and Dad DO all day when you were kids?”)

But all of that pales in comparison with what’s happened outside of our windows.

Total tree devastation. It’s a war zone, a bombing site, an unrecognizable horizon.

And no, I have no photos for you yet – not until I get power back and can download all of my photos onto my PC. I’m in town right now, at my favorite hang-out, BenLees Café. It’s a refuge here from the sadness out my window.

My kids have named all of their favorite trees. There’s the Hosanna Tree, so named because its leaves resemble the palm fronds on Palm Sunday. (I think it will survive.) There’s the Shady Tree aka the Climbing Tree. It’s our favorite. My girls and I cried yesterday when we stood in front of it. I don’t think there’s any way it will survive. And then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Maple Tree – Mrs. Tree is doomed. Mr. Tree might make it – but it looks like he got a terrible hair cut.

And then there are 100 more trees – give or take – which have suffered the indignities of a very angry giant stomping through our yard and tearing twigs and branches off and throwing them willy-nilly all over the yard.

At least that’s what it feels like.

And sounded like.

Oy, vey, the sounds of the crackling ice when you stood outside in the silence of zero electricity. It was almost like running water, only then you realized that everything was frozen and it was just the constant crack of ice on trees as they blew in the wind.

And the sounds indoors: nothing. Utter, unimaginable, silence.

Until the generator goes on!

But there have also been sounds of laughter. Of a fire in the grate, of games played, of a Kazoo Band, and of 30 year old cassettes wallowing on my 30 year old tape player. (“Turn it off, Mom! It’s creepy!”)

And then there was the sound of tree limbs tearing, of thunder smashing right overhead, of a little girl learning to tie her shoes, running to tell Daddy when he walked in the door and his exclamations of pride.

Yes, I will look back on this with tears and smiles someday.

Someday.

PS – I will have photos for you – probably more than you could ever hope for – as soon as I can. I’m sure I’ll write more about it, too. There is so much to process – to think through and put into words – I know I’m not yet finished.

Reblogged from The View from Birchwood Hill:

Ok, I have to "reblog" this post because it is so marvelous. "Clyde of Mankato" is a fellow-Minnesotan. This post about a chaplain visit he made to a nursing home is full of humor, pathos, and humanity. I practically began weeping in the café as I read it. Luckily no one looked at me weirdly as my eyes were full, that's for sure. Please read this and experience it with me. - Gretchen

What’s a Little Ice When You’ve Got Angels on Your Side?

After 19 years of living in the Mid West, I think I’m beginning to belong.

I have joined the ranks of Minnesotans who say, “If we stayed home at the least little bit of nasty weather, we’d never go anywhere for six months.”

I have survived two horrid driving events in the past month and a half, and I am alive to tell about it, with my untainted driving record still in place.

Lest you think I am bragging, let me hasten to assure you that I know – I KNOW – that God has at least one angel on perpetual “Keep Gretchen Safe While She’s Driving” duty – so it’s not to my credit that I’m alive…it’s to His.

I don’t know why He has chosen to protect me in this way. All I can think is that He must still have some plans that involve me and it’s just not my time yet. Which is fine with me.

Both of these wretched driving situations of the past few weeks have involved freezing rain. Both involved me saying, “What am I, nuts?” as I drove along the highway at speeds less than half of the 65-75 suggested miles per hour. And both found my husband out of town and my kids and I braving the elements together.

And both, I must admit, did not take me out of the house for life or death reasons.

Take last night, for example. The kids and I drove out to our pastor’s house for a book discussion with some other couples from church. I like this chance to talk about interesting stuff, and the kids like the opportunity to play with their friends. I’d seen the weather report, yes. I knew that the rain was beginning to fall as we left the house…but I’m an optimist. I figured, “Either the weather report is exaggerating and this won’t come to anything or I’ll drive home in the freezing rain and put those angels to work.”

Okay, I didn’t really think about the angels. I just hoped for the best and ignored the worst.

When we left their house two hours later I was slightly worried. As we slid on our tennis shoes across the road to our car – holding tight to each other’s hands – I was a little more worried. As I started up the car, after breaking the ice on the door handles, I was in full “praying mode”.

This was one of those, “Kids, please turn off the radio and don’t talk,” car rides. What usually takes us 13 minutes took us 35. I saw a few semi trucks pulled off the road and I wondered – not for the first time – how truck drivers do what they do.

The temperature was 26 and the rain was relentless. In the dark and the conditions, I managed to make a wrong turn. I forgot to put on the Four Wheel Drive until I was about three miles from home. The ABS brakes kicked in several times.

But, despite it all, we made it home.

When the garage door finally shut behind us, I realized I was shaking.

“I never stopped praying,” Meep, our oldest daughter said.

“I prayed a little,” our son added.

The six year old was asleep.

Yep, she’s a born Minnesotan. “Mom will get us through. What’s a little ice?”

Either that or the angels were singing her a lullaby as they kept our car on the road.

That’s What Friends Are For

I mentioned last week that I’m writing several articles for my local newspaper. It’s going well so far and I’m having fun! I am certain that I’ll have all sorts of epiphanies to share with you about the whole process when I’m done.

In light of my creative juices being entirely taken up by journalism right now, I have asked my blogging friend Audrey if she was willing for me to re-blog one of her lovely posts and she was! I have mentioned Audrey and her blog, “Minnesota Prairie Roots” before, though it’s been awhile. Audrey is one of those amazing people who is able to blog daily. I can barely make my once-a-week deadline!

Audrey (r) and me, in her lovely backyard last summer.

Audrey writes about life in Minnesota. Every post includes relevant and often very lovely photographs. She writes about daily life, about heart-warming people, about thought-provoking issues. She writes about quirky restaurants or stores she comes across, local places of interest, Minnesota authors, Minnesota news, Minnesota life. But don’t count her out just because she’s not writing about YOUR state or country, because everything Audrey writes is, at heart, about humanity. About things people will find interesting, humorous, and important.

I met Audrey “virtually” a year ago last fall, and since then she has become a lovely and knowledgable companion in my writing journey. She and her husband even welcomed me and my family into their own home last June and served us a delicious meal. Boo, our six year old, calls Audrey, “the lady with the great backyard.”

I call her my friend.

I picked a post of Audrey’s from last November. It’s about a museum in northern Minnesota…but, mostly, it’s about one man and his amazing dream…

So…please click on my next post and find her fantastic story!

Thanks!

Gretchen

Ice Fishing is for Real

Yes, those are trucks on the ice.

When I moved to Minnesota I really had no idea what I was getting in to. I grew up in the moderate climate of Washington State, on Orcas Island, a location further moderated by the ocean and the rain shadow of the mountains. In my memory at least, it rarely got above 75 in the summer or below 25 in the winter. I’m sure it does get warmer and colder than that, but as a kid who was 15 when she moved away, I never paid much attention.

Just one of the villages.

Yep…sitting out on the ice. Better them than me.

We moved from Orcas to Bend, Oregon, in 1985. Located in central Oregon, Bend is considered “High Desert” in that it doesn’t get much rain…but it does get a lot of snow. Eleven months spent in Bend taught me that winters do exist and driving in snow was not something I looked forward to.

When I moved to Minnesota several years later, I was glad that I had that Bend experience to prepare me a little bit for real winters.

I was not prepared, however, for ice fishing.

Awaiting the elusive fish...

Ice fishermen...doing what I will never understand...and, I assume, loving it. More power to them!

Every winter, as the cold settles in and mittens, hats and scarves lose themselves in an organized-crime sort of way, I shake my head in wonder at the ice houses that appear on the lake. Still, after 19 years in the Mid-West, I don’t entirely “get” the attraction. Yes, I understand that the houses are heated, sometimes even fancified to the point of televisions and bunkbeds, but still, I don’t get the allure of a hole in the floor of your little house. What if I don’t look where I’m going when I climb out of my lovely bunkbed and accidentally step into the lake?

When I first moved to the Mid-West, I spent a few months in Wisconsin. I will never forget the evening I first met some of the local Cheeseheads. They were talking about ice fishing and I was convinced that they were pulling my leg. I mean, really! Ice fishing? That’s for die-hard Alaska-lovers, isn’t it? No one in the 48 contiguous United States goes ice fishing! That is ridiculous!

Luckily, I kept my mouth shut because, turns out, they were completely serious about their hobby. This was no joke, no set-up to fool a greenhorn. This was real.

Yes, it’s real. And I don’t mean to make fun of it. It’s just something that I, a temperate-climate lover, don’t understand. But then again, maybe it’s a guy thing and I don’t understand it because I’m, well, a girl. I realize that I’m treading on dangerous waters here (pun intended), so I won’t lump ice fishing in with football, mustaches, a love of fire, and other manly pursuits that I don’t understand. Suffice it to say, I get a kick out of the ice villages that pop up every year on the lake…

…even if I can’t fathom why on earth they do.

Catching Up

I’m behind in posting photos, so here’s a sampling of my past few months. Some from around our house, some from Minnesota in general. The captions will tell the story! All of them are kind of small for some reason but you can click on them to see them larger!

It’s been terriblly dry around here. This is a lake near our house…or, should I say, is supposed to be a lake. I believe this is a Redtailed Hawk, but I might be wrong.

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t stick around for long.

Cormorants near our house. I love how they dry their wings like this. They don’t have the oils in their feathers that most water birds have, so they have to hang them to dry!

This fall we drove up to Minneapolis and Saint Paul, aka The Twin Cities of Minnesota. Along the way I took a few shots…

I find old barns to be a lot more interesting than new ones.

In all my 19 years in Minnesota I’d never visited the Walker Art Center or the sclupture garden across the street. This is the most famous sculpture there, and has become synonymous with Minneapolis.

I kind of like this different view…

The Minnesota Capitol Building.

A bald eagle was hanging out along the highway. I was glad the photo turned out this well when going 55mph – no, I wasn’t the one driving!

Our back yard, a couple weeks ago.

Sunrise in Worthington, Minnesota.

A few minutes later a man walked by…

Belonging is Identification Enough: I Vote in a Small Town

In light of the voting bonanza going on across the United States today, I couldn’t help but post on this election day about a voting incident in my past. I think of it every time I step into a room to vote. Every time.

Picture this: it’s a chilly autumn day. The birch trees of Northern Wisconsin are rustling in the wind off of Lake Superior. Traffic on Highway 2 mosies past. No one rushes around in this town of 300 people, not even the cars hailing from Duluth. After all, the speed is 30 mph, don’ cha know.

It’s too warm for a winter coat, but too cool for just a windbreaker. You compromise with a University of Oregon sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a cozy hat, just in case. Layers are the answer.

The designated polling place – a building you have never been inside of before – beckons you with its sandwich board out front: Voting Here. It’s succinct, but serves its purpose.

You get out of the back seat of the car. Your parents get out of the front. Your tennis shoes crunch on the gravel as you approach the white door.

Your mother enters first, you second.

Dad brings up the rear, having held the door politely for you both to enter.

The room is overly warm, with that usually-unused-and-suddenly-full-of-people feel to it. It’s musty. And a little too dark.

You hear the cozy sound of conversation as the door closes behind you and you move forward into the room, looking around expectantly, albeit a little shyly. All of a sudden – and when I say “all of a sudden” I mean INSTANTLY – all conversation ceases, every head turns to stare, and all of your insecurities come to the fore as every person in the room stares at the three of you as if you are aliens who just invaded this small Wisconsin town from the planet YOUDON’TBELONG.

It takes a moment for the voting judges to swallow their shock and stammer, “May we help you?”

You want to say, “Well, duh!” But you refrain.

All of the voting public (all one of them) have, by this time, pulled their heads out of their voting cubicles to stare as well. It’s like a staring fest.

You are, at this point, certain that horns must be growing out of your head. Your mother stammers (at least she stammered in your memory, though, honestly, you can’t ever remember your mother stammering in her life), “We’re here to vote?” With a question mark at the end, as if conceding that, possibly, she entered the wrong room through, really, she knows perfectly well that she’s at the right place and everyone else is freakish.

“Oh, well then,” the judges say nervously, “you’ve come to the right place.”

There is a small pause, as if everyone is waiting for everyone else to acknowledge that everything is okay and you aren’t the weirdos they thought you were.

Instead they say, “Do you have some ID?”

Mom, Dad and I (excuse me, “you”) grasp on to this question like it’s a lifeline to drowning victims.

“Yes, yes!” We all shouted like maniacs, rustling in our purses and pockets like the people in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when Harrison Ford asks his fellow blimp passengers if they have their tickets just after he threw someone out of the window and claimed it was because he didn’t have his ticket.

We pulled out our identification and brandished those little blue folders like flags of surrender.

The people in the room – if it was possible – looked at us with even more consternation than they had before. As if no one in the history of that town had ever come to vote with US Passports as their forms of identification. Okay…possibly no one had.

My mother held out her passport, picture page open, as if showing it to East German border guards. It worked for them: why isn’t it working now?

“It’s a passport,” she said carefully, and I half expected her to spell it out: P-A-double ‘S’-P-O-R-T”.

Still the blank looks. Still the suspicion.

Now, to give us credit, we had good reasons for using our passports as identification. It hadn’t been that long since we’d lived in West Berlin, where identification cards and passports were god. One time Dad had to drive me back across the entire city – no small feat – because I’d forgotten to bring my ID to lunch at Templehof Airbase. ID means you exist. You are allowed. You have permission. ID gets you through doors. But not in Wisconsin, apparently.

Now back to the story…

Time seemed to stand still for a moment as everyone in the room contemplated what to do. I half wanted to turn away, murmur “forget it” and be a bad citizen. But then came Mom’s – or was it Dad’s? – magic words, “We’re living at the Anderson’s farm place.”

It was as if heaven itself had opened the floodgates of blessing.

“OH!” Comprehension dawned. “We heard about you.”

“So you’re the people at Anderson’s place.”

“I heard there were strangers there,” someone said, nodding to her neighbor sagely.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?”

“Oh, well, then,” the judges said. “Come on over and vote already.”

I don’t think they even looked at our passports. Belonging was identification enough.

King Turkey Day Extraordinaire!

When I moved to Worthington 15 years ago, there were several things that I had to adjust to. No, I’m not talking about the prairie or the weather or the figures of speech. Not this time.

This time I’m talking about things like King Turkey Day.

That’s right. King Turkey Day.

LOVE this.

Love, love, love this.

I should probably explain what King Turkey Day is…though, to be sure, it’s all a little hazy to me. As I understand it, Worthington, Minnesota clains to be the turkey capitol of the world. So does Cuero, Texas. And so they decided to duke it out with a turkey race. We race here…then, next month, we race there in Texas. It’s all very exciting. Overall, Worthington has won twenty-some times, I think, and Cuero like 18 times. So, yes, it’s been going on for that many years, though Worthington has celebrated King Turkey Day for seventysome years. They used to run an entire flock of turkeys down main street. Can you even imagine?! That would have been a sight to see.

These days there are just two turkeys…and a ton of floats. I have always enjoyed a good parade. There’s something patriotic about parades – no matter what country you’re from, the nation’s colors show up, national anthems are sung, politicians may even be present. The Turkey Day parade is no exception. Now, I admit, I do not fully participate in the King Turkey Days activities – and yes, I probably should. I have not tossed frozen turkeys, had a beer in the hallowed tent, or shaken the hands of the “other” guys from Cuero, Texas. Those things may be in my future, who can say. But I have, often, attended the parade. All two+ hours of it. And let me say, for someone who isn’t from here – and who, therefore, isn’t seeing hundreds of old acquaintances, returned home for the festivities – not to mention the fact that I don’t exactly love crowds – I feel like just being there is an accomplishment.

How great is this?!

Gotta love a little princess. Especially when riding on a Wood Duck.

This year, for the first time, I had the fun to actually being IN the parade. I had thought that I would be hidden away in the vehicle that pulled the Girl Scout float. I was wrong. I got to walk the parade, even though I never was a girl scout and I wasn’t even wearing the correct colors. I got to pass out boxes of cookies (“No, you can’t have one. You’re a teenaged boy, not a little girl!”) and I got to see the smiles on the faces of the wee girls as I handed them a whole box of cookies!! This was way more fun that I imagined it would be.

Waiting for the parade to begin…the wind, while a blessing for keeping us cool, was a bit crazy at times!

Two of our town’s lovely Girl Scouts!

Ok, so occasionally I gave out cookies to non-little girls. Ryan, the editor of our Daily Globe, was a fellow-thespian two summers ago and he just needed some cookies. And he has a daughter…so that’s my justification.

Let me back-up a little. Many of you know – but many of you do not – what being in the parade entails. It means you arrive at 12:45 or so for a parade that begins at 2:00. It means that, even though the parade begins at 2:00, you still have to stand around waiting your turn until almost 4:00 if you’re float number is 107, as ours was. It means that you drink bottles and bottles of water and that you kick yourself for not putting on sunscreen – and praise yourself for forcing it on your kids.

I love listening to these guys!

My husband enjoys these vehicles…I can’t even remember what they’re called, but they are kind of a hoot when they race around in circles…

Hanging out in the waiting line also means that you get to see all of the other floats pass your way. This is very fun and establishes camaraderie the likes of which I hadn’t seen since summer camp. It also makes for a lot of tired girl scouts. It also means that I had to miss my son in the middle school marching band because, like I said, I was stuck way back at #107 and he was #15. Bother. I heard the dulcet tones of Star Wars drifting to me on the wind once, at least, and that was fun.

Okay, so right up front I’ll tell you that this is a photo from last year’s parade, since, like I said, I couldn’t see the band this year. But it’s a fun shot. Even though we probably weren’t supposed to holler at him to look at us…

It also means that I missed seeing the turkeys race. Missed seeing Worthington’s turkey get beaten by Cuero, Texas’s turkey as they raced down mainstreet. Yes, I said raced. The turkeys race. If you’ve never seen turkeys race each other, relax, because I haven’t actually, either. The crowds are always so huge that I have never gotten a glimpse.

Here’s a parade entrant that I can’t help but be thankful for…though, to be sure, I hope to never know them better.

I also missed hearing the speaker. Missed my children gathering huge amounts of candy. (That was okay by me.) I was bummed to miss seeing the Worthington High School marching band, so am especially glad I saw them this summer. I also missed seeing local friends. I thought, erroneously, that I would see them all, that I would have the perfect vantage point. This is the dream of a novice. The view from the road, as I walked in the parade – passing the crowds on every side – is very different from the crowd’s view.

One girl scout watched me taking this picture and she said, “Did you get a picture of that pretty girl in the beautiful dress?” Yes, yes I did.

When you are in the crowd, you see everyone in the parade or on the sidewalks and you say “hi” a million times. Walking the parade means that your vision is tunneled…yet also focused. I saw lots of little potential Girl Scouts…but only about two friends, and that was because one of them had a little girl and one of them had my son and he had to yell at me about five times before I heard him.

They may not have been looking at me…but, even better, they were looking at each other…

I have to admit that I agreed to be on the float because I didn’t have much choice. It was either that or I would be a schmuck. So I said yes, and resigned myself to it. But here’s the beauty of the thing: I really, really enjoyed myself. No, I don’t totally “get” King Turkey Day….but, for the first time, I really, really liked it.