They aren't cat people

Just people who lost their house in a flood.

So, providing they don't balk at the conditions of the rental contract, WE HAVE OUR FIRST RENTERS!!! And really, I don't think they'll have any problem with the parts of the contract that state

• they are responsible for shampooing our dog
• they have to babysit our kids every other Saturday night (gratis, of course)
• they have to take me out to lunch on the 12th of every month
• and of course, we can't forget the Christmas bonus in December's rent check

Nah, they shouldn't have a problem with any of that.

Glad we could help them and they could help us.

Just because I have cabin fever

GoingLikeSixty does FridayFive every well, Friday. This week's is thought-provoking and because I'm cooped up and ready to start gnawing my arms off, I'm doing it.


Stupid Memes (And did you know that meme isn't pronounced "me-me?" Me either!):


Stupid Meme #1 - Eight Things You Like About Me


Now, it's just guessing here, but I'm thinking the top eight things you like about me are:

1. I'm funny as all get out.
2. I'm a redneck that still has all of my teeth.
3. I can say the alphabet backwards.
4. I have four tattoos. (Hey, tattoos are criteria for friendship in my book)
5. I alphabetize my canned goods.
6. I have perfected the most amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe in history.
7. I'm too broke to stalk you.
8. I have virtually an unlimited supply of phrases like "Happier'n a puppy with two peckers," "Worthless as teets on a boar hog," and "Bleedin' like a stuck hog!"



Stupid Meme #2 - Five Things About Your Underwear


1. I only buy my underwear at Lane Bryant. Yes, I pay like $6 a pair, but it is so worth it.
2. My underwear must match my bra. Every. Day.
3. I fold my underwear when I put it in the drawer, not just cram them in there like my oh-so-annoying husband does to his. He doesn't buy his at Lane Bryant (which is a blessing) and obviousy has no appreciation for his underwear.
4. If I had to wear "granny panties" I'd go insane within the first 2 minutes. As long as Lane Bryant makes pretty boy-cut panties for fat chicks, my sanity is safe.
5. Today I am wearing periwinkle blue underwear with stars and moons on them. (Bet you couldn't guess I also have a bra in that pattern. Told you they had to match.)


I never knew it would be so hard to write 5 things about my underwear.

Stupid Meme #3 - Write Eight Quadratic Equations
















Stupid Meme #4 - Seven Commandments You Have Yet to Break

Being a Baptist since I was a toddler, it goes against my nature to even admit I have sin, but I consider myself incredibly backslidden and not all that Baptist, so here it goes:


1. Thou shalt have on other gods before Me. (Nope, God, you're still #1 in my book!)
2. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol. (No golden calves around here, just the ordinary kind of calves.)
3. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God (I used to say a lot of dirty words, but taking the Lord's name in vain is something I do not do and will not do.)
4. Honor thy Mother and Father (Yep, still doing that.)
5. Thou shalt not murder. (Nope. No 55-gallon drums buried on my property.)
6. Thou shalt not commit adultery. (Why would I want two men in my life? One is plenty.)
7. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife or thy neighbor's house. (While we don't have many neighbors, it's still safe to say that I do not covet any wife in the neighborhood. I also am very happy with my house, too.)

So for clarification purposes, the 3 I suck on are:
Keeping the Sabbath day holy (We don't go to church anymore), not lying (Oh, I lie like a rug - I have kids and it's just easier to lie at times. i.e., Dog/Cat Heaven, Santa, other imaginary creatures) and not stealing (While I don't steal on a daily basis, I have stolen a thing or two in my sordid past.)



Stupid Meme #5 -Your Six Favorite Memories of Sochi.

Ah, beautiful Sochi. I have such fond memories of you.

1. While traversing the longest city in Europe I discovered that it really is long. My feet were tired that evening.
2 Often considered the most beautiful place to visit in Russia, I think I have to agree. Well, aside from the fact that it's, you know, Russia.
3. One day, after a few Russian ales, I felt brazen enough to ask a local how he would categorize the city of Sochi. He said he thought it was “basically considered a beach town.” Who knew? I didn't go check out the beach because I hear those chicks don't shave their pits over there and I just didn't feel up to that.
4. Sochi is often referred to as the Russian Riviera because its charming landscapes and scenery are so reminiscent of the Mediterranean. Ah yes, sweet Mediterranean Sochi. That one night on the beach....
5. The average winter temp in Sochi is 44', so that pretty much meant I had THO the whole time. Charming, indeed.
6. The air quality is considered among the very best in the world, so the damage to my lungs after all those years of smoking cigarettes? Gone in one brief trip to Sochi.

Memories.....la, la, la.....

---------------------------------

Happy Friday, y'all!!

...and a good time was had by all

Last night, as I mentioned, we floated Tater, Bub and the tots across the creek. (Yes, there are pictures, but Tater forgot the cable that connects the camera to the computer.) We also found a back way in through the neighbor's field and were able to bring Mom and Uncle David in on the 4-wheelers. We managed to have a family 4th after all.

It was about oh, 3:30 or so when Tater called and said they were leaving the fireworks stand. That immediately threw our house into Absolute Freak-Out Frenzy mode. Paul headed to the creek in the little truck, pulling the little boat on the trailer. Kady and I got on one 4-wheeler, Abby and Sam on the other and away we went. By the time we got there, he was already out of sight, crossing Mosquito Bay, so we stood around waiting and engaging in all out war in the gigantic mosquitos from hell that now very close to my house. Paul had warned us to spray down with Off! before we headed that way. Thankfully, I had the foresight to bring the bottle along with us because one dousing was so not enough. No kidding, this is how bad the skeeters were - one flew up the leg of my shorts and I kid you not, bit me in my you know, nether bits. Seriously. Through my underoos.

(No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I know you're laughing. It's okay to laugh - I'm sure I look rather hilarious walking around scratching my cooter today.)

Anyway, I sprayed the kids down with repellent to the point their clothes had wet patches on them. And still, we swatted. At one point, I was standing there spinning around in a circle, spraying a shot of Off! as fast as my finger would let me. I was like the Off! Helicopter of Doom for the mosquitoes on Hudson Creek yesterday.

We finally heard the hum of the trolling motor and caught our first glimpse of the boat full of my swatting, slapping, cursing family members. The tots were in tot heaven, Tater was in having a meltdown because of the skeeters and Bub was remaining stoically manly in spite of the swarming bloodsuckers threatening to take his children aloft and simultaneously sucking his life force. They docked, I grabbed the tots and began hosing them down with Off! to save them from being skeeternapped or turned into little human raisins. We made it to the house with all five kids and then had to give them all Valium so they'd quit screaming about the water and the boat andohmygoshAuntKikididyouseethosemosquitos?? And then my kids kept hugging the tots because it was the first humans other than their daddy and I that they had seen in three days.

Mom and Uncle David called around 5:30 and said they were almost here, so Paul and Tater went out on the 4-wheelers, through the field to pick them up, Mom squealing and swatting at Tater to slow down or they'd crash and that just prompted Tater to go faster. When they made it back to the house without getting shot at by the cranky old neighbor man who says "no one's goin' through MY field, by cracky" the kids got all kinds of wound up again and it never ceases to amaze me how they feel that SHOUTING EVERY WORD THEY SAY WILL SOMEHOW MAKE THE WORDS MUCH MORE PROFOUND.

We ate outside on the cleanest picnic tables in the county due to one bottle of Clorox and my OCD. During dinner we discussed the water, the homes of people we knew that were under water and how law enforcement was having a hard time keeping people out of the stanky, feces-laden water. She disgustedly commented, "Do you know how many little girls have been swimming in that dirty, nasty river water? My gosh, do you know the things that can get up in there?" I said, "I bet the doctors offices in the next week are going to see an overwhelming number of vaginosis, vaginitis and vagistinkus." Mom, Tater and I laughed until we cried over that one. And being the crude people that we are, no conversation the rest of the night was without the word "vagistinkus." (You can use it, too, it's not trademarked by Ricky Bobby or Redneck Diva Inc., LLC. And of course you're welcome.)

The kids swam in the stock tank, we fought off more mosquitos, drank enough sweet tea to float a cow, shot off a few fireworks, shouted at the kids more than once to "MOVE YOUR BIG FAT HEAD!" and I think it was the best 4th of July ever.

Vagistinkus, mosquito-bitten cooters, cranky neighbors and all.

Conversation

Abby: Dude, you better not talk like that. You sound like a Baptist! [I totally have to wonder what she was saying that made her sound so Baptisty to her sister...]

Kady: I AM a Baptist!

Sam: No, you're not. Remember? Momma doesn't like 'them d*mn Baptists!'"

Abby: Well, she's a Baptist! She told me!

Sam: No....really?

Abby: Yep. Our mother is a Baptist.

Kady: (shaking her head) Momma's a d*mn Baptist.....

-------------------------

Swear to you -that conversation just took place in my living room. I really have to quit dissin' the Baptists around the kids.

Now we get stoopid

This may forever go down in the family history books as the dumbest, most cockamamie stunt we've ever pulled, but when you add one Redneck Diva and one Tater together, you kind of know you're gonna come up with someone outrageous. We Bass girls are dangerous at times.

We are floating Tater, the tots and Bub (Bub's dad had another minor stroke last night, so we're extending the right hand of ex-in-law fellowship to him) across the creek so we can spend the 4th together. Don't worry, we're not entirely stupid - we're not putting them across the river, just the creek. The river is roaring like you wouldn't believe, but the creek is nice and stagnant and is harboring mosquitoes like you would not believe. Mom and Uncle David declined the invitation and all I have to say about that is, well, every party has a pooper and it seems we have two.

We gave Tater the option of floating back across tonight or just spending the night and again, here is where we show you a perfect example of our intelligence - they're spending the night. It wasn't the dark that frightened us, it was the fact that if the mosquitoes are this bad during the day, we honestly feared they might carry off a tot at night. Feral vampire mosquitoes, we grow out here on Hudson Creek, I'm tellin' ya.

We've got the hamburgers and hotdogs covered, they're bringing ice, soda and oh yeah, gotta remember to tell her to bring beer. Lots of beer. The kids and I are making cookies and zucchini bread, possibly a cake, too. And best of all - Tater has a digital camera. I may retain my sanity after all. I can't stand the thought of not sharing better pictures of the adventure than my phone would provide, not the mention the fact that it's kind of expensive to send a bunch of pictures from my phone. (Yeah, I tried the Bluetooth thing, but didn't realize I needed separate software for my Razr, yada yada yada.)

Paul and Abby are out by the barn now, hooking the trailer up to the small truck, cleaning out the small boat and Kady and Sam are bouncing off the walls like two tweakers who just ate a couple dozen Krispy Kremes. I am still in my pajamas, laptop's in the kitchen so I can blog and bake, barking out orders to get the kids to clean up the house and oh yeah, gotta find a bra. (I haven't worn a bra since the beginning of this adventure because heck, it's just us here and it's not like company's gonna drop in AND while I'm on the subject, contrary to what GoingLikeSixty might think, I'm no MaryAnn and they ain't got coconuts droopy enough to hold these babies.)

Now I must go. I decided to redirect Kady's energy into making cookies, but my smallest tweaker is flinging cookie dough willy nilly and beyond. I wonder if the warranty on the laptop covers cookie dough....

Is it just weird that I am this excited about seeing other people? Technically I've only been stuck here since Monday....

We're floating the family across Mosquito Bay in a matter of hours. Keep checking back here for updates. Or you might tune into the local news.....just in case.

Well, this is fun

I've watched enough Animal Planet to float a cow, as Kady would say.


I've caught up on all the blogs I never have time to read.


I've found a few new blogs to read.


I've started working on a coconut radio so we can get off this island. (Thanks to GoingLikeSixty for the Gilligan reference)


My eye hurts. It hurt all last week, then quit. My mom offhandedly suggested I have glaucoma. She is so fun like that, putting thoughts in my OCD/borderline hypochondriac head. If it's still bothering me by the time we're rescued off the island, I'll talk to the Professor about it.

The kids swam in the Okie pool today (i.e. stock tank) and had a blast. The girls swam about 3 hours, Sam got in about 2 - he and his daddy spent quite awhile at the water doing God knows what. Paul just said, "You know, I've been busy all day, but it's driving me nuts knowing I can't go anywhere." I totally know what he's talking about - I'm still craving Chinese food.

I just watched the local news and it is absolutely amazing, the footage they are showing from Miami. Businesses that should be there, but all you can see is the top of their roof, homes completely underwater, Nott's Grocery, home of the best dang deli sandwiches in Miami (Cousin Stacey can't leave town without a bologna sandwich from Nott's) flooded.... we are so fortunate to be merely inconvenienced with being stuck in our house for a week.

I guess I'll go watch a movie. Or more Animal Planet.

The rain came down and the floods came up

Today is July 3rd and the Curse of the 3rd has apparently decided to resurface this year, after only a reprieve in '06.

July 3rd, 2003 - Car vs. Motorcycle wreck. Paul worked at Wal*Mart that day. The kids and I had gone swimming at Tater's and came home around 9. Sam answered the phone when it rang and after saying hello, handed me the phone and said, "Oooh! Momma, I hear sirens!" The idiot who caused the wreck had called, screaming, and failed to tell me anything more than "Paul's been run over by a car! Meet me at the hospital!" - not whether he was alive, dead, dismembered, or D) all of the above. He was thrown from the bike, bent the sissy bar to a 90' angle, dislocated his shoulder, skinned up the left side of his body and got four staples in his head. To have been hit by a car running 45mph while on a motorcycle with no helmet on, I don't think he fared too badly.

A week before the wreck, our attic fan shorted out and caught our attic on fire. A few days after the fire, Kady spiked a 105 fever and while it turned out to be a case of Roseola, it was still scary nonetheless.

Summer 2003 kinda sucked.


July 3rd, 2004 - I don't have any pictures of this year's drama. Tornadoes had hit the neighborhood and while we didn't sustain any damage, we were without power for 3 days. It was really hot because duh, it's Oklahoma and it was July 3rd. Since, at the time, we were the only house in the country, we were the house to host the 4th of July festivites and to shoot off fireworks. We held the shindig regardless. Heck, it was cooler outside anyway.



July 3rd, 2005 - Window snake! I had been on the phone with my uncle and just as I was hanging up the phone, I caught sight of this beauty. After I finished peeing myself, I hollered for Paul. The kids were gone, so we both cussed while we (read: he) tried to coax it out from between the windows. We tried a coat hanger, wasp spray and the garden hose. I think it was literally a combination of all three that finally got it out. It was a black rat snake, harmless, but still incredibly creepy.


July 3rd, 2006 - Nothing happened. It was weird. I was no less stressed, though, because I kept waiting for something to happen all day long.



July 3rd, 2007 - The Great Flood.

(I apologize for the pictures. My digital camera is dead, so these were taken with my phone.)This shot is to the west of our house. The water here is creek overflow. The light reflection just left of center of the pic is about 10 feet up from the intersection. The intersection is .3 miles from our house. It was very strange to drive up to water halfway up the hill this morning. It's an eerie feeling seeing all that water where there used to be road. We went down there last night and it was just closing in on the intersection on 3 sides then. Today it's halfway up the hill.



This shot is to the east of our house and is all river. Literally. The trees on the right of the shot hide it, but all out that direction is pasture. There were horses and cows in it yesterday. As of evening, just before nightfall, there were still some livestock on an island out there, but we never heard whether they found a way to get them in or not. They're from California and I don't think they've figured out quite yet that when we say the river's gonna flood, we kind of, um, mean it.



This is a closer shot of the river. The green stuff midway up, left side of the shot, is actually weeds that had grown up to the top of the fence row. The water is calm right here, but just 1/2 mile further east, the water is rolling like crazy. We can sit on our carport (1 mile from the bank) and hear the river roaring.

We stayed down here for quite awhile because you would not believe the earth worms that were heading for dry land. Some were as big as small snakes! The kids had a blast chasing me with them and listening to me squeal and threaten them bodily harm. We skipped rocks awhile, then the neighbors got tired of the strange redneck family from up the road being out in front of their house and came out in the yard and stared at us. So we left.

The phone lines are still working, but the humming, static and buzzing is so annoying we can't use the land lines. So far cell service is still excellent. The internet was kaput last night, but today is working fine. We have electricity, TV and internet, Oreos, sweet tea and fireworks.

If this is the Curse of the 3rd for this year, I can totally handle it.

Just wow

From the KTUL website:

Miami - Officials in Ottawa County have asked residents to evacuate to higher ground as the Neosho River is expected to crest at record-breaking levels early Wednesday morning. In a press release from Miami City Manager Michael Spurgeon Monday morning, the City of Miami urged residents to prepare to move to higher ground.

"Miami officials would like to advise the public that flooding is imminent and to make plans to evacuate to higher ground and out of harm's way," the release stated.

About six hundred homes in Miami are under a mandatory evacuation order and parts of the town may become landlocked by early Tuesday afternoon. Families have until 5 p.m. to evacuate.

Officials say they anticipate flooding to cross Steve Owens Boulevard and many other roads into the city. They recommend residents gather an emergency kit containing medication, insurance information and valuables with their personal effects before evacuating their homes. They also urge residents to obey barricades and not to drive into flooded areas.

Two Red Cross shelters have been established in Miami. One is located at First Christian Church at 2424 S. Main. The other is at First Baptist Church at First and A streets. Three other shelters are on standby.

Flood stage in Miami is 15 feet. The expected crest is 27-point-5 feet by early Wednesday morning. The record of 26-point-26 feet was set in 1986.

------------------------------

The county courthouse is closed for the rest of the week. Paul came in the house about an hour ago and said the water to the valley on west was about 6 inches from the road. He just took off on the motorcycle to see what's going on to the valley on the east. Mom heard a rumor that Wal*Mart was closing a 6pm tonight, but it's not. If a Wal*Mart supercenter closes and it's not Christmas, you know it's bad.

And while I normally would be content to stay holed up here for a week without leaving, now all of the sudden I have an overwhelming craving for Chinese food and pizza.

Dusty Monster

My cousin passed away about 8 years ago and in the process of moving his belongings out of his house, we ended up buying his entertainment center. Now, what you need to know is that Jeff loved big things - he only bought the best stuff and he bought big. His TV was one of those gigantic, wide-screen behemoths that rival ones in theatres. The entertainment center to house that gargantuan was essentially two tall towers with shelves, joined overhead by a slab of wood with a light in it, adjustable to fit whatever you want in there - a gigantic television, a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere, whatever. The towers had lights in them as well. We never used the lights, because well, it just looks a bit overdone to backlight your antique duck decoys and vintage shotgun shell boxes and fishing lures. Or at least, that's what I convinced Paul into believing. We might border on trashy, but we like to stay within the boundaries of some semblance of taste. We are rednecks, not white trash, ya know.

We didn't have a big TV to go inside the big wooden monstrosity, but we found a TV cart to hold our small, normal sized TV that matched the towers perfectly, so we were set. When we bought the entertainment center we lived in what is now our rent house - 800 sq. ft. of living space. The entertainment center just loomed over the living room. When we moved out here, though, it fit. But....because it was so HUGE, it would only fit in one spot - on the longest wall of our living room, just opposite the wall that is virtually all window. To watch TV during the day, we had to close the blinds and watch TV in the dark, otherwise there was glare that prevented you from seeing the TV at all. And over time, the entertainment center began looming over this living room, too. I resented the beast because I couldn't arrange my furniture the way I wanted. For six years I have literally just shuffled couch/recliner/big chair into different positions on the windowed wall. Paul loved that entertainment center - the biggest reason being that he boasted to anyone who cared (not many, just for the record) that "that sucker's is solid wood and I only gave $250 for it!"

For about the last 6 months or so, I really started working Paul, planting little seeds of animosity toward the entertainment center. Oh no, I didn't come right out and badmouth it, just here and there I'd sigh wistfully as I closed the blinds so he could play Playstation sans glare. Or I'd ponder out loud about how I wondered what the big chair would look like over there and then gaze forlornly. The one that got him, though, was commenting about nice it would be to be able to sit in the recliner and look out the front window, nay watch the deer frollick in our front yard from a comfortably reclining position.

Combine redneck man, recliner and wildlife and you get your way.


My mom has drooled over our entertainment center for years, so she and I worked out a plan, the proper money and goods were exchanged, but I told her she had to be patient. I had to get Paul completely on board first. God bless her, she's been patient and the last couple of months, she's been asking when I thought I'd have Paul convinced, so I started sighing more, gazing wistfully more and baiting the deer to come in the yard. He finally relented to giving up the monster, but then I ya know, quit the daycare thing and we needed the money to gamble buy groceries and the quest for a smaller entertainment center was kind of pushed aside. We looked around, but the low table thingy at Wal*Mart looked cheap and flimsy, Westco is too expensive and even though I knew what I wanted, we couldn't find it for the money we wanted to spend. Of course, what I wanted to spend and what he wanted to spend were two different things - I wanted to spend a couple hundred and he said he knew of a guy at work that had an old cable spool we could throw a piece of material over and it'd make a fine table for the TV and he'd just give it to us! See why it took so long to convince him? He's way more redneck than me.


But Saturday afternoon, Mom called on her way home from an auction and said she had something for me. She pulled up in my yard, opened the back door of her car and the light of Heaven shone down upon her backseat and I swear, I heard angels.

It may not look like much to you, but it's furniture nirvana for me. It's small, yet it holds everything we need it to hold, it takes up one itty bitty corner and doesn't tower over the entire living room. The room is opened up now and Paul sat in his recliner and watched deer frollick on the pond bank last night. Everybody's happy as a puppy with two peckers.

Of course, we weren't happy yesterday when we started moving furniture - furniture that hasn't been moved since 2002 when we got new carpet. The entertainment center, book case and gun cabinet have literally not been moved in 5 years. Do you know how much dust accumulates under, on and behind large pieces of furniture in 5 years? A dang lot, that's how much. I grabbed the extension hose on the vacuum and had Paul tilt down one of the towers so I could remove any dust before we moved it out. Instead of finding a coating of dust, I found what appeared to be the lint you remove from the filter of your dryer - you know what I'm talking about. It looks like a little fuzzy doll blanket. We also found fuzzy dust blankets similar to this under the gun cabinet. It was comical but at the same time just really sad.

We spent the afternoon dismantling the TV, VCR, DVD player, stereo, PS2 and Super Nintendo, capturing dust blankets, finding about two dozen Nerf darts and rubber balls, sneezing, cursing, flipping each other off when the kids weren't looking and laughing. Paul had to run the antenna cable around the tack board, being careful to hide the cord to my liking, spent 30 minutes fixing a busted hooky uppy thing, only to find out after to got everything hooked up that the antenna doesn't work on that side of the room. He was royally whizzed, but I told him that we'd just call DishNetwork and get the locals tacked onto our package for an extra $4.99 a month, which teed him off further that we have to pay for something that's broadcast freely and has been for years. I explained to him that starting in 2008 they were phasing out analong anyway and it was either now or later and hey, how nice would it be to watch So You Think You Can Dance without squinting through static and wondering if the pasa doble is supposed to look so, um, squiggly.

It was an exhausting day, but entirely productive. And when the rain finally quit long enough to allow it, we hauled the monster entertainment center to my mother's where she can enjoy and eventually resent it, but hey, it's her problem now. No takebacks.

Flooded. For reals this time.

Awhile back, there was a threat of flood above and below our house. It got precariously close on both sides, but we were never isolated from civilization. The water got up to the road, but never went over. Ah, but now, a mere what, two weeks later we are facing that threat again and it looks like this time, it will actually happen. It's our turn to host the family 4th celebration, but it looks like we'll be celebrating without Mom and Tater and the tots.

We have a friend who is the flood plain coordinator for the county and he told us yesterday that we thought we had problems last time, but now we actually do. My mom had a meeting with the county commissioners this morning for an unrelated issue, but it was adjourned early because of a press conference regarding the widespread flooding. Yeah. Good times abound. I went to Wal*Mart last night and bought enough groceries to get us through probably next weekend if we don't go around eating bread and drinking milk all willy nilly and irresponsibly. We are going to be an island by nightfall. The river is expected to crest in town on the afternoon of the 4th and we crest 12-24 hours after that.

When we first looked at this house 6 years ago, we knew buying a house on the creek and a mere mile from the river, that flooding could possibly be an issue from time to time, but were told that the house had never flooded. We bought the house and have never regretted it. We still don't. And frankly, because I stay at home every day and quite like it that way, this being flooded in doesn't bother me too much. But....Paul has to work, ya know. He called his boss just awhile ago to tell him that he might not be able to make it in. His boss said he'd pick him up at Twin Bridges if he could get out in his bass boat. Then they both chuckled like it was such a silly, yet manly idea. Then his boss offered to send a helicopter. Talk about an employee friendly casino, indeed. Silly, yet manly, but somehow I'm not entirely sure he wasn't serious.

Nana's nursing home will be flooded, so they are moving all residents to one of the churches set up as flood shelters in town. This will wig her the hell out. She obsesses anyway and this will just be a bad thing for her. A couple I used to babysit for are moving out of their house because they are facing a flooded home as well. One factory in town is shut down and so is the college. I went to town this morning and had to drive about 10 miles around town on the west side and it looks like that route may be closed off soon - in fact they are saying that Miami might be very well isolated entirely before it's all said and done.

In 1986 while Miami was flooded, my mom had a kidney stone and we had to drive all the way around up by Quapaw on the north to get her to the hospital. That was probably a 15-20 mile detour from where we lived then. That was also the flood we had to get some friends out of their trailer in Picher by boat. I remember pictures of when the water was all the way up to Love's convenience store on Steve Owens Boulevard. The water is expected to crest about 3-4 feet higher than in '86.

So, if y'all need me this week, find me on the internet -that is the only place you'll be able to get to me. I rented some movies last night, stocked up on toilet paper, microwave popcorn and Cheez-its and the kids have enough fireworks to well, as Kady told someone last night, "We got enough fi-wowks to fwoat a cow!" I'm not sure how much firepower it takes to float a cow, but Kady is obviously convinced we're able if it comes to that. The neighbors might need that if they don't get their cows moved soon.