-“When the Levee Breaks”, by Led Zeppelin.
If you live in Iowa, I’m almost certain you know of the flooding going on. It’s crazy. You always hear about these kinds of things, but they never happen anywhere close to you, you know? And now I’m hearing of how half of Mason City is flooded, among other towns around the area. Whole houses have been carried away. There are towns that don’t even have enough water for people to be able to flush their toilets, or take a shower.
A lot of these things are everyday, mundane things. Just today, at first, I really thought nothing of just going to the kitchen faucet for a glass of water. It’s not until I had filled my glass and turned the faucet off that I thought about it. I was like, You know, there are people in other towns that can’t even get clean drinking water right now.
There are so many people around here so worse off than we are right now. I guess it made me be thankful that all the damage we’ve gotten is a few inches of water in the basement.
I’ve taken a few pictures around town, they really only scratch the surface on everything that’s apparently going on around here.
This is a golf course.
This is another shot of the golf course. I couldn’t really see what I was going because I was driving straight with my right arm stuck out towards the right front window.
This is the doorway to our basement.
This is near an elementary school.
Near the elementary school.
A shot like the previous, but you can see the depth here a little better.
Look at how close the water level is to the bottom of the docks. Another couple inches and the docks would be underwater.
This morning, my dad was cleaning out things in the basement. We got rid of a lot of boxes that were just taking up space, we threw out some old, wet rugs.. We also dropped off a few things at the local second hand store. One of these things was my old toybox. We figured, if some family with children lost everything, or a lot, they might be looking for cheap things like toys, toyboxes, and the like, and they might be able to snatch my old toybox.
It’s seen a lot of my childhood, hopefully it will be as or more involved in someone else’s. In the same sort of vein… There’s a flood shelter at our middle school. They’re accepting donations. We gave some of our old books. I looked through mine and found a few that I don’t need, or want. I grabbed a couple stuffed animals that I’m not too attached to to throw in the box. Mom went out and bought a few decks of cards, some coloring books, posters to color, extra markers and crayons, and some crossword books and such for the adults. I also baked some chocolate chip bars.
To be honest, with the exception of cleaning out stuff in the basement, my day was just going to be another of the lazy days I have when I don’t work. To tell this bit of the story, I have to say that I make lots of 100×100 pixel icons to use on MSN, livejournal, message boards, and the like. Any new pictures of musicians I get, I go through them to see if there are any that are icon worthy. My icon project was Rick Allen. I was looking back through the icons to see what I’d made so far, and when I got to this one, I stopped a minute.
Now, if you know me at all, you know I can be a little obsessive. Still. I sat and looked at that icon for, I don’t know how long. With that, I pushed my chair back and decided to do something. I can find inspiration in the strangest of places, even in people like Rick. Someone I’ve never met, and might not ever see in my life. I can’t even pretend to understand what things he’s had to overcome. He really is an inspiration.
I can’t ignore the things people like him have gone through, and how I’m here with my mundane problems, and I still act like it’s the end of the world. Something has to change, I guess.
On a lighter note, the camera I bought on eBay came in today. I went macro happy, with the close up shots and what not. It made me very happy. I tried to call my boss today to inquire about my hours this weekend, but of course, she didn’t answer the phone. I hate playing phone tag with my boss, but she is almost never around when I leave work at the end of the day, so I never have a chance to ask her when I work. I’d ask during the work day, but I’m generally too busy to think of pulling her aside. When I try, she always seems to be too wrapped up in something to have time to listen. I’m guessing I won’t work until Friday…
Which reminds me. My first Community Band practice is Friday night, at like, 7pm, I believe. (Either 7, or 7:30. I’ll go at 7 just to be safe). Our first concert of the year is Saturday night, also at 7pm. We usually have concerts on Sunday afternoons, but this week we don’t, because it’s Father’s Day. Speaking of which, work will be a real killer that day. I hope my brother and I have enough energy at the end of that day to take our dad out to dinner or something (whatever mother has planned). Knowing our family though, we might take dad out the day before, or the day after or something. Who knows.
Well, I have a bunch of pictures to mess with, so I will end the entry.
♫ friction and harmony ♫ 