I know I've been neglecting the Nest all week but, as usual, I have an excuse - I am a professional slacker, after all.

Funny has been in short supply with me because I am trying to vicariously battle a flood that is 1000 miles away. Since most of my family, as well as the all-time best BFF, live within spitting distance of the Red River of the North. In case you haven't been paying attention, it is currently at an all time EVER high of 22 feet above flood stage.

Thousands of hardy Mid-northerners have banded together to try to save Fargo-Moorhead from becoming the modern day Atlantis. They have closed 3 universities and pulled high schoolers out of class (like they would be hard to convince). People have come from far and wide to help. They build dikes and add sandbags and don't even have time to feel a bit safe before the National Weather Service raises the river level predictions. Yet again.

And have I mentioned that the temps are well below freezing?

They have evacuated some nursing homes, a hospital and whole neighborhoods. The mall is even closed today to keep people off the roads. Is it not a sign of dire circumstances when the shoe stores close?

Unless you live there or have a very good memory, you probably don't remember how devastated that same area was by flooding in 1997. The aforementioned BFF lost her house. Can you even imagine her anxiety at this point?

I feel very helpless. All I've been able to do is call my mother and repeatedly suggest that she take everything valuable or irreplacable out of the lower level of their home. She says she's not worried but her memory lapses suggest otherwise. Hopefully my dad will catch her before she moves everything back down the stairs because she can't remember why she brought them up in the first place. Luckily my younger-older brother is close by, not only to help my parents but to reassure his anxiety-clad sister.

They expect the river to crest tomorrow and stay there for 3 to 7 days. Hopefully, the dikes will hold and be high enough, and the sewers won't back up and the electricity running the sump pumps won't go out, and that (please, please NO!) it doesn't rain or snow any more. That's an awful lot to hope for, so if you all have any pull with the Big Person upstairs, or you have any spare karma to send, some positive energy with which to influence the universe or, for Marial, some virtual valium, I would really appreciate if you could direct it towards the 'Otas. They need all the help they can get.

Thank you and have a great weekend.

Peace, Love, Sandbags