Drive go boom

We're grateful we all walked away from this fairly unscathed (especially me in the passenger seat :-)), but we're just shallow enough to be pretty bummed about the hassle and the loss of Cliff's birthday kayak, a dark green Loon 160 tandem with rudder. (boo hoo) Once the police report is finished (maybe sometime next month if we're lucky) we can go after whoever is determined to be at fault to recoup some of our uncovered expenses. (That is, if he's insured, probably our only hope. And of course we're not talking thousands, just our deductible, our rental car expense and the kayak.) In the meantime, there's this guy at work who keeps telling me that we can fix the kayak. You just order a chunk of plastic from the manufacturer and get a blow torch. (Hmmm.) It's being held at a storage yard in Prosser until we get the chance (and a vehicle--can't exactly strap a 16-foot boat on top our Corolla) to pick it up. I haven't seen it yet, but the officer told me it has a "few holes" in it.


(OK, I'm not a transportation engineer, but would you pull this load behind a Ford Ranger? Gulp.)

Local emergency response was FAST! Three cars were involved right after us (we were the fourth) and I was afraid we'd be watching crashes for a while. But police and fire trucks were on the scene in minutes with flashing lights and flares to warn others away.

As my ever-patient friends and co-workers (and Facebook friends and, now, Lair readers) will attest, I've gone on and on about this--part of my coping, I guess--so I shouldn't blame Ethan for being extremely upset that not only the State Patrol but also State Farm declined to take his statement! So if you want more details, call 1-800-ETHAN!! I'm done.

Stacy's hobbit house

Can you believe she is building the walls of this thing out of mud, sand and straw? I have the cleverest friends! The bottom section of the building is cinder blocks faced with stones. The posts out front are a couple of pieces of driftwood from Brenda's. The windows will be various bits of foraged glass and windows. The beams holding up the roof are huge, as the roof will be covered with soil and planted with native growth. A couple of nice big stumps are up there awaiting some gardening.

Tomorrow: Election Day

We'll be celebrating a co-worker's Nov. 4 birthday tomorrow. With an election theme, of course!

My contribution will be Rice Krispy Electoral Treats. They're supposed to be red and blue, but blue coloring doesn't work real well with peanut butter. Ethan helped me distribute the states with the CNN Election Tracker. We made all the states blue that are leaning Obama, and all the states red that are leaning McCain, and then we gave McCain all the tossup states. The results? Well, Sen. McCain, you probably won't need to be measuring those White House drapes. But I do think you're a little funnier than Obama. Maybe you can get a recurring SNL gig doing the Sad Grandpa?

P.S. I'd like to say that these are much more attractive in person, but no, they're really not. They looked better before the chocolate drizzle, but I think it will be worth it for the taste.