misc. ramblings...

Well, in case anybody actually reads this... the stores in dwtn Ames are open to the unheard of hour of 8 pm on Thursday nights! Wow. Can you believe that? Sounds scandalous. I love it.
The cupcake girl's store is still open so we will see how she fares. I tried a different cupcake which was good but it was a "premium" cupcake and thus priced accordingly ($2.00 + tax). That is really too much for a cupcake. It was pretty good though.
When we returned to post-floodsville, we "met" one of our "neighbors". Well by neighbor I mean someone who lives on the next street over, in an actual house. We must have walked by his house a thousand times, because it is the route we take when walking anywhere; to downtown, to Hyvee, etc. Often he is outside - his house is right on the corner. I think a few times he said Hello to me when I was walking myself.
So imagine my surprise though when totally out of the blue we're walking by and this neighbor calls over to us: "OH you guys are back. I was wondering if you were okay with the flooding." I guess he has noticed us walking by his house for the past year or so. Either we're the rare youngish people who walk anywhere (?) or he is just very observant and/or spends a lot of time outside his house? He was pretty friendly and introduced himself and told us these were the worst floods he had seen in 30 years.
He seems like a pretty okay guy and it's nice to have some connection to people in your neighborhood.
Okay well time to get going since the repairs are still underway and that means there is going to be hammering all day long. I have to give the repair people and our landlords credit, they are right on top of the situation and making very speedy repairs.