Long one, feel free to skip, my journal. Friday night, had a long walk through the Golden Hill neighborhood with a friend. We wandered through the part of the neighborhood with the old Victorian mansions and looked at the houses and plants and it was nice. Mutual Friend Ice Cream literally opened their doors as we were walking by, so I ended up having a waffle cone for dinner. So good. Such a huge difference between grocery store and small batch premium. I really miss that kind of neighborhood stuff and I'm happy and excited that things are opening up again. I just really hope that people maintain the vigilance needed to keep one another safe as we navigate this challenge together.
Something that's really been weighing on me the past couple of days is the enormity of the devastation in central Michigan. Childhood remembered. Good times on the area lakes in summer and winter. Michigan is such a great place to grow up as a kid. Wild places to explore. Frogs, cranberry bogs, huckleberries, ice skating, swimming, hockey games. Nothing like that here. The devastation. Unbelievable. Places I loved just washed away. The adult realization that even though no lives were lost directly from the flood, there's no economic powerhouse that's going to pull those people from this disaster. Most don't have flood insurance and have lost everything they own due to multiple layers of negligence and mismanagement literally upstream. It's just so wrong and unjust. I'm angry, I'm sad. Downtown Sanford, it's just a couple blocks. Gone. It's a small village, 700 residents, they're not going to have the resources to rebuild downtown. The devastation is equal to what we saw after Hurricane Hugo although the area is smaller. This young man has done a phenomenal job documenting the devastation, better than most of the media. https://youtu.be/qBuQMEvqGH4 Media is focusing on Midland because it's the bigger town, but downtown Sanford took the brunt of the hit and it's not even directly on the lake. Our old house survived the initial flooding, my best friend's house about 6 houses upstream did not. Our family friends' house which was on the curve of the lake isn't visible at all; I'm wondering if it washed away. There was a lagoon that might have caught the current and created a whirlpool of sorts is all I can figure. I watched a lot of different drone footage and poured over maps to verify locations and flood plain water levels. Today, I could see the snags in the water upstream from the house that we were warned about when swimming off the dock and driving boats. We left more than twenty years ago, but I just really needed to see if the house was still there; it's weird, not much has really changed in the area as far as landmarks. Thursday, the berm on the Sanford Dam gave way (as opposed to water going over it) and the lake is gone. Without that lake, the area will die. There's nothing there to drive the economy to recover. I'm acknowledging my feelings, I will allow myself to grieve for a few days, then, we put that frustration into action and figure out how to help.
Move along. Time for bed.
Diet Calendar Entries for 22 May 2020:
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1509 kcal
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Fat: 74.87g | Prot: 75.63g | Carb: 139.84g.
Breakfast: Kirkland Signature Cage Free Egg Whites, Egg, Whole Milk. Lunch: Driscoll's Blackberries, Sweet Potato, Briannas Poppy Seed Salad Dressing, Chicken Breast, Kale. Dinner: Cold Stone Creamery Waffle Cone, Cold Stone Creamery Founder's Favorite, Cold Stone Creamery Coffee Ice Cream (Like It). Snacks/Other: R.W. Knudsen Family 2% Lowfat Cottage Cheese, Good & Gather Mixed Fruit Blend, Almonds, Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips. more...
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