aggression twd cycle

Well good to know people are hostile toward cyclists everywhere, in case I thought it was just large cities. Someone leaned out of their car (SUV) window to tell me that I had missed a stop sign, which I don't think is true. People are mean to bike riders and it always puts me on edge. I pay a lot of attention to traffic and where cars are, b/c I know most drivers aren't that alert or concerned. So that put me in a bad mood.
But on the plus side when I was leaving the food co-op, there was a little girl eating grilled sweet corn, that they were grilling today, who was completely fascinated by bicycles. It was pretty funny.

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.

bark management fails...

our neighbor obviously has not mastered it. I saw the UPS delivery person standing outside her door for a full 2 minutes, listening to barking, while waiting for her to answer the door.

Also I saw someone coming out of the next building wearing a contamination suit? Should I be concerned?

life here on the flood plains

here is a photo of what the apartment complex looked like in the midst of the flooding last week-
Ames had a major flood and water main break

the first floor of the building had 30" of water, all the appliances were ruined/pulled out, drywall knocked down, carpets pulled up.

Granny's secret Kool aid habit and free food for me?

On Saturday at the hy-vee- Yes, this IS where many odd and interesting things happen...got in line behind this granny who was buying about $50 worth of Kool aid, all in individual little packets. Who knows why...Unfortunately the cashier was ringing up each one individually, although I'm sure there is some way to ring up multiples of the same flavor at once. That's one of those times you get in line thinking the person before you only has a few items and it will be quicker than scanning all the items yourself. Whoops. I think the packets were on some mega-sale, b/c they looked to be about 12 cents each, although I have no idea how much Kool aid is normally. She spent quite a bit of money on her total purchase though, and a lot of that on the kool aid....
Before when i stopped to buy a bagel, the guy working there gave it to me for free! I'd like to say it was due to my incredible charm or nice smile but I think he was just disgruntled, since he said, just take it, I don't feel like taking my gloves off to ring you up. But free bagel for me, so it's win-win.

Aliens on the bus and other things

Yesterday noticed there is a strange series of signs on the bus- this is under the "what you cannot do on the bus"- there are these little pictures to try to illustrate for you, or maybe for people who don't know English. 3 of the symbols make some sense: no eating, no music, no skateboards and then the last, is literally of a hot air balloon. Can't figure that one out. I will try to get a picture of it though.

mysteries of the universe, part 1.

You can't buy parsnips if you try to go through the self-check out line at the grocery store-

they don't have one of those little pictures on the select your produce screen- weird?! You can of course purchase parsnips, I suppose we have always gone through the checker check-out lines and the cashier types in the code for it. But if you are trying to do the self-check out, we found out they don't have a listing for it. Does no one buy parsnips?

They're probably looking at us like we're such troublemakers...freaks... buying parsnips, bringing their own bags, crazy...

Also I tried these unsulphured dried mangoes I got at the co-op and they were gross! :( How sad...they smelled fairly gross, oddly like cheese, and didn't taste good at all! I love mangoes and I used to buy these delicious dried mangoes at the co-op in Pgh, they sold them in the bulk bin. I bought these unsulphured ones at the co-op here in a package and they really were awful. Anyone know why? I don't know anything about the fruit-drying process but why were these so yucky? They didn't even taste remotely like mangoes... Sigh I guess eating FRESH mangoes right off the tree last summer in Tobago really spoils you.