anne's chit chat

I have been overwhelmed with the interesting people I have discovered these past few days…overwhelmed in the sense that it is so exciting!!! I have been reading and commenting on other blogs (I think I might have needed a break from my own blog for a bit). I really have appreciated and enjoyed all the new people I have “met” this week. Thank you so much for all your kind words.

I am in a strange mood tonight…a little lazy, a little indifferent, and a little bored. It is sometimes hard living alone, not living in the same state as my partner, having friends that are all married…

Is there enough satisfaction in knowing that the people I care about are thinking about me and I thinking about them?

Right now I feel really really small. I feel alone. Not sad alone, not really lonely, just small.

I was just surfing Blogger blogs. I read posts and comments and witnessed as cyber relationships formed, people sharing their lives with individuals from another place.

The comments I receive from people make me happy. To know that someone randomly living in this world actually took the time…well, it just amazes and astounds me to no end.

Chance. Choice. Randomness. Who are we all and what are we doing?

I have tears of pure emotion. I am real.

rolling green pastures
Originally uploaded by akl.

On Sunday the drive back from Dubuque, Iowa was really great. We started out the day wonderful with breakfast at a local cafe, Cafe Manna Java. It was delicious.

When we got home to Mankato we made brushetta and watched Six Feet Under all night! Jake and I were exhausted from the long weekend.

I got home to St. Paul last night and installed a window air conditioner in my kitchen. (It doesn’t take much to cool my little place except that I realized my radiator was still kicking out heat! I called up Jon, the maintenance guy in my building and he came up to my room. By gosh it really was (and has been…) heating my apartment! whoops!). The problem was fixed and it is cooling down in here.

The picture is from this weekend…somewhere between Shullsburg, Wisconsin and Dubuque, Iowa. Aren’t those rolling green pastures?!

brookecasey
Originally uploaded by akl.

Jake was in his friends Casey and Brooke’s wedding this weekend. The wedding was in Shullsburg Wisconsin (population 1200) and the reception was in Dubuque, Iowa. The drive from Mankato took 6 hours.

Eastern Iowa is really beautiful. Rolling green pastures dotted with family farms. The reception was set right on the Mississippi River, which runs through Dubuque.

We ate delicious food and danced all night!

Paige asks, “What did you throw at it?”

“My recyclables,” I say.

Last night at 3:30 am I hear some rumbling from the dumpster two stories down from my west window (I think that it is the regular “divers” who collect the aluminum in the dead of the night…). I am surprised to see instead the biggest raccoon I have ever seen!

I am naturally annoyed and open my kitchen window to yell at it (remember it is 3 am and I am still half asleep). My yelling, clapping and knocking on my window does not phase this giant raccoon. I grab a pot and bowl and bang them together, still nothing.

I turn and look around my tiny kitchen…I grab a tin can from my recyclables and chuck it out my window!

I completely miss. The raccoon just looks at where it landed and then up at me and then carries on….

I shut my window and go back to sleep.

“I would have paid money to see that!” Paige says.