oops

My bad. I was supposed to blog yesterday. Then life happenend...

Then last night, death and destruction happened in my little state. A tornado tore through Arkansas, cut a path a half mile wide while staying on the ground for more than an hour, destroying everythin in its way.

A friend of mine's parents lost their house last night, but thankfully they're ok. Sadly, we are expecting Same Song; Second Verse tonight. But at least I won't be driving in it this time.

Do me a favor, and send some good thoughts toward the good folks of Arkansas this week. It's no fun living in tornado alley sometimes...especially in the spring...

...And the Rains Came...

The rains came last night. Heavy, relentless, sheets of rain are falling on the South Shore and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Most people in my neck of the sand like this weather-- at least a little. If you live directly on the water you may get nervous. But most old salt dogs are too smart to build something on stilts or on an open bluff without a seawall. The others... well, if you're going to move here you should probably ignore the snooty architect and the builders and listen to the locals. There's a reason our antique Victorians and weathered old Capes are still standing.


It's funny, though, how a nor'easter simply doesn't faze locals. I got up this morning to find weather-persons around the country wigging out a weenie bit. I went out with Max, got my two papers, a dozen donuts, and coffee. When I drove over the Green Harbor Bridge on Beach Street the tide was out. When I came back, via Ocean's Bluff, it was heading back in. There were rows of people wearing rain slickers taking photographs of the surf, which was not dangerous... but it was pretty. At Walgreen's it was pretty simple to spot the transplants... they were buying candles, matches, and milk.

You should already have the candles and matches. The milk's gonna spoil if you loose the power. We only stock up on perishables in the winter. We are more likely to loose the power then, but we just stick a cooler out on the porch and let mother nature be our frig.

Silly newbies.

Anyway, nobody around here was worried. We know when to worry. This is just a storm, not a nor'easter or a hurricane or a blizzard. This is one of those beautiful rages that follows the river to the harbor, hangs out off the coast when the tide is out, and later blows back in just to be belligerent. We like those storms. They make life interesting. I imagine people in the mid-west know when to get worried about tornado warnings. People in California know when to duct-tape the stuff down when a tremor feels a specific way. It's different when you've lived with it all your life. (I would probably wig out and run screaming like a baby if I encountered an earth quake. We live on a fault line, but it's the kind that causes mild tremors every 10 years or so, and it's not the kind that makes big holes.)

How's the weather where you are?

almost woodstock...

You may or may not know that my favorite band is STAIND. I adore them. Have considered running away and marrying them. The whole band. Not just the hot-n-angsty lead singer. No. The entire band. It's not polygamy if you think of the band as a singular entity...

Anyway, one of the items on my 40 Things to do at 40 list (y'all do know I'm 40 right?) is to see STAIND in concert.

That concert was this weekend. They came to MudEdgefest along with Hurt, Drowning Pool, Chevelle, and Slipknot.

It has rained here in central Arkansas for damn near 2 solid weeks, so we are pretty much floating away. This concert was outdoors. And it thunderstormed and poured rained most of Saturday.

I did not care. I was NOT going to miss my most favoritest band ever on earth. Rain be damned.

So I put on my high-waters, my duck-boots and wore my cutest smile and we set off for MudEdgefest.
See how cute my smile is? Srsly, I was workin' the cute Saturday night.
The traffic was horrendous. I was getting texts from my friend Griff who had been stuck in traffic for more than two hours. He was getting ready to give up. But I was determined to get to the concert. I didn't care if they concert coordinators didn't have a good contingency plan for 40 days of rain. I would swim through the swamp if I had to. I was going to see my future husbands favorite band live.

We decided to bypass the traffic and go down to the next exit to see if we could come in the back way. We found a place to park and set out on the hike to the cow pasture.
It was a huge procession. But it wasn't raining anymore and the temp was perfect, so we made the most of it.

After about a mile and a half, the procession came to a halt. The road was completely flooded out.

Knee deep in some places

I was undeterred. Yes it was swamp water. Yes it was disgusting. Yes I was slightly afraid a water moccasin would come and take me away.

But I didn't care. I wanted to see STAIND!

So we trudged forward. And not long after the swamp we arrived at the farm. And this is where the fun began.

There was mud:

And even more mud:

and even some mud 'rasslin:

and the obligatory concert mullet:

And then there was STAIND:


Totally worth the drama of getting there. So glad I went. The adventure was fabulous. Plus, I was rocking the cute-n-muddy look. As was my oldest son...

Have you ever wanted to do something so badly that you endured extreme circumstances to achieve your goal?