Roger just got off the phone with Room & Board, ordering new furniture for our family room. When placing the order for the footstools, he said he’d take two ottomans.

“Wait, wait!” he told the woman on the phone. “That would be ottomen.”

By no means are we on Al Gore’s donor roll, but every once in a while we try our best to be good to the planet. Our local grocery store (Festival Foods) started offering these re-usable cloth bags for purchase. We bought half a dozen (and should have bought more since they quickly sold out), and keep them in the car. They’re good at hauling lots of junk!

Roger and I awoke to a huge clap of thunder early Saturday morning, followed by horizontal rain and incessant lighting. It was all we could do but crawl back under the covers and say a little prayer that our tree wouldn’t fall on our house. I did consider whether or not the dog’s crates, located in the living room, would be sturdy enough to withstand a falling tree and collapsing roof and protect little Kozmo and Newman; I determined they would and promptly fell back asleep to the sound of the whistling wind.

Saturday morning we awoke to no power, the sound of chainsaws and this—devastation throughout our neighborhood. Seeing as though we had no power and didn’t know when it would return, we got ready for the day and headed out for breakfast (along with the rest of Bloomington and Burnsville; the wait at our new favorite breakfast place, Jensen’s, was over 20 minutes). On our way there, we snapped these photos of the damaged trees throughout the neighborhood, some just within two blocks of our house. Fortunately, we were spared: our tree lost only one branch, and it lodged itself nicely between the four trunks.

After cleaning up the deck and yard, I ventured into work Saturday afternoon—to work on a project in an air conditioned office and with a computer that would last longer than the 120 minutes my laptop would give me. When I got back to the house around 6 p.m., there was still no power. So, Roger and I called up the folks and asked to crash at their new home in Savage. After obtaining the security code from my dad (and explicit instructions that included turning off the phone so that if we did trigger the alarm, it wouldn’t send a signal to the security company), we packed up the fridge and freezer and headed south with our thousands of condiments and pork tenderloin. When we arrived at their home, I transferred those explicit instructions to Roger, and on the count of three we entered the house to the sound of a screaming alarm. Assuming that it always did this and that silencing it only required punching in a simple code, we quickly punched in the digits and high-fived each other, proud of our accomplishment. Then, the phone rang, and I finally had my “Oh, shit” moment of the day.

“This is Kim from the security company. Is everything OK?,” a somewhat friendly but stern woman asked over the phone. As she drilled me for details, I couldn’t offer her the password that would end this nightmare (despite his explicit instructions, dad had forgotten one minor yet slightly important detail). She threatened to send out the cops if she couldn’t get a hold of my mom and dad for the code; all I could think of was on top of not having power, losing half the food in my freezer, and wondering if the power could come back in time for the TiVo to tape Glen Close’s Damages on Tuesday night, was that I was going to jail. A jail with no power.

Finally, the alarm was shut off, my mom and dad called to assure me that everything was OK, and Roger and I ventured out in a somewhat unfamiliar suburb (in the pouring rain, once again) to find dinner. We collapsed in an unfamiliar but welcome bed Saturday night. Yesterday morning, Xcel Energy had finished their job and our electricity was restored. We were home again and our fridge has never looked so clean.

Thanks to all our friends near and far for calling, e-mailing, Facebooking, texting and IMing today to see if we were OK (that’s you, Mike, T.J., Heather, Cathy, Ellis, and Chris). We are; neither Roger and I were affected by the I-35 bridge collapse, nor do we know anyone who was affected. It was touching to hear from all of you.

The Red Cross has established a web site to register yourself as “safe and well” for concerned friends and family to search.

This past weekend we received about six inches of snow. It was enough to keep us inside for most of the weekend … we only ventured out for the essentials: groceries and cocktails at Ryan and Paula’s Oscar’s party. But as if the half foot weren’t enough just five days ago, Old Man Winter decided to dump another 8 inches on us last night and through today. Here’s a view of the street from our front door:

When I came home from work today, I couldn’t find the driveway. I had to look for the stakes that were planted by our snow plow man this fall.

The backyard is worse! Here are the paths I shoveled for Kozmo and Newman:

There are only two paths and neither takes the dogs off the deck. So, it’s no wonder Newman doesn’t like to do his business outside. Once he gets inside, he scratches his little paw on the basement door. If we let him downstairs without keeping an eye on him, we’re likely to find little treats in front of the dryer the next morning (fortunately, dry, making for easy clean-up).

More snow is in order for the rest of the night and tomorrow!

We don’t get too many telemarketers calling our household, and when we do they’re usually diverted because we’re habitual answering-machine screeners (family members haved learned to just say “Pick up. It’s me.”). But in case you do get trapped by the guy trying to sell you chimney sweep services (honestly, it just happened the other day), here’s a great counterscript that should make the call a little more entertaining. Or, if you’re my brother, you just repeat the word “pancakes” into the phone in a monotonous voice until the telemarketer gives up!

The entire purpose of my last post in which I mentioned Tom Cruise for a second consecutive time was really to lead up to this post, in which I write about Bloomington’s annual City Curbside Cleanup.

This annual highly anticipated event (also known as “Junk Day” in our household) invites the entire city to get rid of anything no longer wanted. And when I say anything, I pretty much mean anything: Boxes, carpets, appliances, furniture, mattresses, box springs, construction materials, scrap metal, bundled brush — it all goes to the curb (as long as it isn’t toxic) to be hauled away by the city. This year saw a plethora of computer monitors, dehumidifiers, inkjet printers and children’s playsets.

The amount of junk that’s collected is phenomenal. Last year, in our neighborhood alone, the average amount of discards hauled per household was 254 pounds. The neighborhood to the east of us averaged a whopping 327 pounds per household. As far as we’re concerned, the more junk hauled, the better.

However, Junk Day isn’t all about discards. It’s great for collectors. Items are “allowed” to be placed on the curb 48 hours in advance of the Saturday the junk is hauled away — but junk goes out much earlier than that. And that means out come the scavengers. Roger and I call them “trollers,” because they troll along the street in their cars like fishermen trolling along the river in their boats. They’ll drive by the piles of crap with no shame. Many get out of their cars to rummage. Some, in fact, haul trailers.

Each year I view it as a bit of a challenge to see how much junk can be hauled from our curb by trollers before it’s “officially” hauled away by the city. This year, we put out a few rolls of old carpet, the TiVo that died on July 18, 2004 (”The Day the TiVo Died”), an old inkjet printer, some miscellaneous boxes, and an old plastic milk crate. The milk crate was somehow hit by a car, throwing shattered plastic into the street. The TiVo was gone less than 12 hours after it hit the curb. (What was on there? I think some old Sex and the City episodes and the movie Whale Rider, not to mention some potentially embarrassing other late-night recorded shows.) The rest was left behind. I always feel a bit hurt when I see a troller get out of his car, rummage through my throw-aways, and then toss something back. What? Isn’t my junk good enough for you?

Apparently, this year, the trollers have become a bit of a problem. On the city’s Web site is posted a warning: “To report … scavengers that are making a mess, call 911.” Yes, 911 seems a little extreme, but Junk Day is a serious matter in Bloomington.

The old cliche rings true: “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” We can’t wait until Junk Day 2007.

A sure-fire sign of spring’s arrival in Minnesosta is the appearance of my seasonal allergies. In the past week I’ve considered converting to Scientology — after all, Tom Cruise stated in his recent interview with Diana Sawyer that he hasn’t been sick (including with the common cold) after becoming a Scientologist. Maybe if I become one, too, my allergies will go away. Roger’s dad was kind enough to slip me a few of his prescription Zyrtecs on Easter Sunday. I think he felt sorry for me after I told them that the blooming crabapple tree they’d brought into their living room for the holiday, uh, might be source of my sniffles.

Minnesota Stories captured spring’s arrival perfectly in an adorable video on April 10. It’s called “When Winter Lets Go of Minnesota.” Even if you hate babies you’ll love the video.

But the best sign of spring for Roger and me is the arrival of Bloomington’s annual Curbside Cleanup this weekend. Details will be saved for a separate post!

1. My new job. I’m still weirded out by the fact that I haven’t “done” much since I arrived … but when the place you’re going to is about 10 to 15 times larger than the place you’ve just left, one could expect the learning curve to be a bit steep. My first two weeks have been spent thoroughly researching the foundation, its affiliates and all of the departments and programs we support, and starting to build a web strategy that will help the foundation continue to raise buckets of money for health education and research at the University (today the CEO said the “b” word — as in “billion.”)
2. Michael Buble in concert at Orchestra Hall. This boy can sing. But he’s more than a singer — he’s a true entertainer. The best part about the evening (aside from the fact that we were in the second(!) row) was that I kept the concert secret from Roger until we arrived at the concert hall. He was pleasantly surprised.
3. An evening with Davy Rothbart of Found Magazine. Davy read some of his favorite finds from his three magazines and new book, and also read those that he’s picked up on his 50-state “slapdance tour across America” this summer. Roger and I, unfortunately, didn’t have any finds to contribute to the cause (I’m still kicking myself for not picking up the hand-scrawled note I found on a cardboard box in a garbage can on the streets of a pristine townhome development that said something about the edibility of the green banana pudding as if written to the next homeless person that would stop by looking for his next meal). But we’ll keep looking.

That’s it for a life update. We’re looking forward to the big wedding of R & P this upcoming weekend!