Guess We’re Not “Those People”

We have been living in our house for three days now and it’s starting to feel like home. If your idea of home involves stepping around boxes and weaving your way through piles of stuff. At least the old toilets are no longer taking up residence in the living room. When Tara asked me what we should do with them, I suggested hauling them into the front yard and turning them into planters. Amazingly, she shot down that idea, saying she didn’t want to be “those people.”

Fine. Our landscaping visions differ.

Our first night in the new house was pretty wild. We were awakened shortly after 3 a.m. by shrieking winds gusting to 60-mph, thunder/lightning, and torrential rain. One thing we have discovered about the house: because we are located in a draw – a terrain feature that is basically a miniature valley – thunder is really amplified here. It bounces off the hills and the shockwaves sweep down through the neighborhood, echoing so loudly you don’t just hear it, you feel it. Literally, the whole house shakes. It’s pretty cool unless you’re a cat or trying to sleep.

Friday, I spent the day “on assignment” in Spearfish Canyon hiking several different trails for a travelogue series we’re planning next summer. I’m working closely with one of our interns on this project; she’s creating videos to accompany my words. She brought her fiancee along and we ended up doing four separate hikes. None of them were super long, but a couple were steep. It got pretty toasty toward the end of the day, but the canyon is so lush and vibrant due to all the rain we’ve had, it’s absolutely breathtaking at every turn.

Saturday, I had another interesting work-related task. Rapid City has been dubbed the City of Presidents due to the collection of presidential sculptures erected on street corners throughout downtown. Yesterday was the official unveiling ceremony for our newest statue, Barack Obama. The event was held at the Elks Theatre downtown and was so inspirational! I loved every minute of it. It helped being surrounded by an adoring crowd of Democratic faithful who were clearly missing our former President just as much as me. The sculptor, James Van Nuys, is a regular Renaissance man who is also a musician and writer. He played guitar onstage before and during parts of the ceremony, and it was interesting to hear about a couple of other ideas for the statue that ended up getting scrapped. In the end, he explained that he based his work on a photo that he fell in love with because of the look of pure exhilaration on daughter Sasha’s face. I think the statue turned out beautiful and will be a real show-stopper when it’s installed downtown (just a block from where I work) tomorrow.

We’d been planning on going to Prairie Berry Winery for a customer loyalty picnic today (because, free food and free wine), but we just have too much to do around the house. There is a lot of unpacking and organizing to be done, and we already have visitors lined up, so we’re going to tackle some of that today. The hardwood installers, by the way, still haven’t finished their work. Presumably they are waiting on the extra box of bamboo to come in from Lowe’s, but who knows. We’re pretty irritated with them and have literally caught them in a couple of lies. I can’t wait to leave a scathing Yelp review.

After they finally finish up the work, of course.