chochiyo_sama

The dam in Mantorville is one of my favorite thinking spots. Today, I came home via Mantorville, and I pulled in to take some pictures of the dam in its semi-frozen state. It was quite beautiful. I wanted to catch the way the sun lit up the huge blocks of ice that were caught above the dam, but I just couldn't get it right. If I had been able to take the pictures from the bridge, looking down on it, I think it would have worked. But there was too much traffic for me to pull my car over and get out to take pictures. Sigh.

Parts of the dam's overflow were frozen solid, but there was liquid water rushing over other parts. The big blocks of ice above the dam don't show off like they did in person.

There is a close up of the open water flowing over the dam. You can sort of see the blocks of ice above the dam--but they don't look as impressive here. There were enormous blocks of ice frozen into the water above the dam. Some of them were as big as the whole floor area of my bathroom!

This is a wider, more distant view. You can see how the sun lights up the ice blocks above the dam, but I couldn't get a close enough picture to really show how it made them glow.

Here you can see how cool the frozen flow is. It's amazing to me how water can freeze like this--as if it was frozen in the very act of going over the edge and is just caught in time in mid-flow.

I think this is the best shot of the light on the blocks of ice above the dam. It doesn't capture the essence of their immense size, but the light is caught--how it made them shine as if they were lit from the inside was so cool. I wish I had a better camera with a telephoto lens. Or that my fucked up knee would allow me to walk up to the top of the dam without risking serious injury or death so I could take pictures closer to the actual subject.

(Okay, so I probably wouldn't DIE, but I like to be melodramatic on occasion.)

Another unsuccessful attempt to show the blocks of ice above the dam. In this picture you can sort of see how they are on top of the frozen river...It was so cool.

Perhaps tomorrow, I will stop on the bridge despite its inadvisability and try to get better pictures.

I have been having massive issues with my knees. They hurt all the time, and if I sit for any length of time, which I do at school, they get so stiff and sore that I can hardly stand up. When i do stand, I want to cry. Then it is difficult to take the first few steps, and it hurts to take every step that follows. *whimper*

To prove that things are not as they should be, I even made an appointment to see Dr. W., which i never do unless I am desperately ill or it is time to have my blood tests or whatever. I was looking forward to getting home earlier than normal yesterday afternoon, as my appointment was at 1:30. Well, I waited for a very long time to see her, then I had to get x-rays of both knees. Apparently there was some kind of crisis going on at the clinic that put everyone behind. So, I never got home until after 5 pm.

While I was waiting for the x-ray tech to be ready to x-ray me, I was sitting on a wooden box in a little dressing room. Why do they have full-length mirrors in places like that? I spend about 20 minutes staring at myself...and thinking how grossly disgusting my body is. I look like a bloated frog with a tiny little human head on top.

Ugh.

Anyhow--there was no new pain prescription, which I was hoping for. She told me to double up on my naproxin and use tylenol. Well, Tylenol doesn't do Jack for me. What seems to work the best for me is just lying down with my leg up.

anyhow.

That's enough whining about my poor messed up knees.

I was saddened the other day when I went to my favorite "thinking spot" by the dam in mantorville, and look what I found.

My "waterfall" is dry!!! No water at all was coming over the damn dam.

There is a little closer view. It's like bone dry.

The muddy river bed is actually exposed. I wonder how all the little fishies are doing...

There's the view under the bridge. you can see a big patch of mud and rock that's usually underwater.

And, in other news, some pissy-pants little shit came into my room during break and ripped the head off the doll Theresamae gave me. I suppose it was someone who was pissed about getting put on closed campus for failing my class. Well, *I* didn't fail them. They CHOSE to fail by not doing their work and turning it in.

I started sewing the doll's head back on during homeroom, and one of my homeroom kids wanted to sew it...so I let him. He's quite a loveable character. Though he does frequently remind me that he will soon be graduating, and then it will be "all right" for him to "take me to dinner." That's a little disturbing. LOL.