Noah, are you out there?

Indiana is one, hot mess! Last weekend we had a tornado. This week it's flooding. Some goofy Hoosier has screwed up really bad with the Man/Woman upstairs, and all of us are suffering. Jeff, Ali and I are just fine, though the basement is seeping again -- and just after we'd dried it out!

My family back home is in the flood zone, though no one is reporting that they've had to be evacuated, as some people have. I got some of the lowdown from national television, but more from sister Diana, who lives at the top of the pasture where we grew up. She's next to the pond -- which apparently has decided to take on a little sub-sub-sub-suburban sprawl -- I'm not sure if the dam broke this weekend or during earlier gullywashers, but it's destined for a bigger portion of the property.

Diane and David, my brother, called me Saturday morning after seeing national news reports of flooding near Indianapolis. The pictures reminded David of the time he, Donnie, Debbie and I were investigating the creek (which now separates Diana's house from Jason's on my mom and dad's homeplace) after a huge rain storm. Normally a placid, ankle or knee-deep waterway, that day it was roaring and rushing through the little concrete bridge as it crossed under the road.

Donnie and David (who later would drag some gasoline down to the creek to see if they could light water on fire -- yes, they could and yes they did) saw the rushing water and had a little chat about just how fast it would get to the river. They must have argued over the mathematical calculation. Then they saw innocent, gullible little me, circa age 5. "Hey, Cheryl! Want to see the river?"

So they tossed me into the raging creek. Now we lived no where close to the river and I'm not sure if they'd planned to run alongside the creek the 10 miles or so before it would hit the Eel River carrying a stop watch or what. My dim recall is that they tossed me and then got distracted by a bug or a snake or an errant fart. Who knows. But Debbie was on the job. She snagged an arm or leg as I rushed through the bridge destined for a watery grave and pulled me out.

I remember the boys laughing and wagering over whether she could actually get me out. I think she shamed them into helping. The whole thing is a bit of a soggy blur. It was not the first, nor the last time my siblings would experiment with ways to kill me...

So David calls today to see if I'm anywhere near a creek and to warn me not to fall in. Funny boy, that David.

It didn't rain today but the forecast is for more tomorrow. If you see Noah, send him my way. If he happens to see my brother David floating by, just tell him to whip out a stop watch and track his progress. He's a good swimmer.

In other news, Jeff and I spent most of the weekend cleaning up -- in the basement and in the yard. But we found some time Friday to go to the Indians game. Ali and I were apparently on the big screen for a moment -- just enough time for Amy Tokash to spy us and call me up to tell me they were at the game, too.

Jenna and Ali squealed so loudly when they saw each other, I 'm sure the guy in right field heard them. It was so much fun. We ended up staying for the fireworks, and walking around in the park, Ali and Jenna held hands. So of course Amer and I had to, as well. We love going to the game, but having Team Tokash there made it even better.

Today, we took a late afternoon break from yard work to take Ali and the Ogdens to the pool. It was a lot of fun, too, and a good break from all the sweat and the dirt. Afterward, we let Karin make us dinner. I'm not sure either Jeff or I could have done much more than order, and I'm not sure we'd have had the energy to dial the phone.

Note to all you weekend gardeners: plant spikes only if you think you'll like them for all eternity. They're hard to dig up and harder to keep killed. Ditto for lillies of the valley. Oh sure, they seem pretty and they're perrinneal and not much work. But killing them? They'll be shading the cockroaches long after we're gone.

Working in different parts of the yard, Jeff trimmed two trees to within an inch of their lives and got rid of two stumps from trees that needed to go. I dug out an acre of lilies of the valley and dug up a few sections of black-eyed-susans so my neighbor could have some. They came from her yard when she'd decided she had too many. Then hers all died while mine have multiplied like rabbits. She's mentioned how much she wishes she had some back every time I've seen her this summer.

Alison was on stick pickup duty. She'd started with me on spike removal and we'd negotiated a $5 deal if she did good work. About 15 minutes in, she decided she needed a snack and never returned. She ended up crapping out on stick duty, too. No money for Al this weekend...