I will be honest and say that I was a little worried about the question I decided to ask Thursday night at the first day of Floodstock 2008 for this week’s On The Street. The plan was to ask “What have you done to help with flood recovery?” and I was nervous that I’d get a lot of guilty faces and silence in response. What if no one I talked to had done anything to help?

Turns out I shouldn’t have worried. All but one person I talked to had done something to help out flooded homeowners and business owners. Whether it was donate money or items or time, they’d all reached out to there fellow Cedar Rapids residents and helped at this dire time in our city’s history. I was very impressed by everyone’s efforts. I was also impressed by how many of them had volunteered through their place of business. How very cool that companies would release their employees for a day or more to go help flood victims. Maybe not good for the bottom line at first blush. But definitely a way to build company moral and spirit and give employees and the company more of a vested interest in their community.

I’m embarassed to say, though, that if this question had been flipped back on me I wouldn’t have had much to say. I haven’t helped anyone muck out their basement. I haven’t donated clothes. I haven’t even written a check. Sure we donated some food and we thought about going through our closets. But, did we get around to it? No. I’m ashamed of that. Because this is one case where the thought doesn’t really count for much.

We are in the process of going through our son’s toys with him. And I am proud to say that even without our example, he decided on his own to donate them after seeing toys piled on the sidewalk along First Avenue. After much contemplation over a couple of hours, he announced that he’d like to give some toys to other little boys and girls who lost theirs in the ‘big water.’

I think I should take a cue from everyone I spoke with and my four year old and get out and do something.

Here we are, having finished our first full week of real summer. It almost makes me nervous — getting to the summer solstice seems to drag on, but once it hits, bam! Summer’s gone.

Every fall and winter I begin to make a mental list of the things I am going to get done “next summer:” Paint my house. Camp. Golf more. Swim with the kids. Take a weekend getaway. Grill more. Hike more. Plant a garden. By the end of June I’m recalling that list and thinking, “Crap. Will I get any of it done?”

I have yet to paint my house (it desperately needs it), we haven’t camped in four years and I am well into my third summer of not swinging my clubs. We haven’t hit the pool once, although my daughter did go swimming at a friends house and both kids spent a week at camp, much of it in the pool. No on the weekend getaway and hiking, although we have fired up the grill quite a bit. Thanks to a very wet spring I didn’t get my garden in until mid-June, and by then I just went with the bare essentials (tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber and carrots).

When I think of the longer summer days I always believe I’ll have more time to get more done. Then I get all whiny and think, “Why can’t I do this?” And then something happens to remind me that those chores I didn’t get done are really quite small in the grand scheme of things.

Talking with people at the BBQ Roundup about their summer days, I met plenty of people who are grateful for the longer days so they could have more daylight hours to clean up after the flood. Many were without electricity — some without homes — and relied on the sunlight to get work done. One man, Mike Shaffer, was left homeless by the flood — his house is not salvageable. He told me summer always gives him a better attitude. Even this year? “Especially this year.”

Yeah, Mike. Me, too.

The other day my husband and I were talking about when he’d come downtown to have lunch with me some day soon.

We were several thoughts into the conversation before we both stopped dead in our verbal tracks and looked at each other. That won’t be happening any time soon, we both realized at the same time. Bricks, Mr. Beans, The Blue Strawberry, Brueggers and every other yummy lunch spot in downtown all have a lot of work ahead of them before they open again, if they ever do.

I’m sure there will countless other conversations like that all around the city this summer and perhaps for years to come.

It brings a tear to my eyes just thinking about it. I drove through downtown the other day for the first time on my way to the FEMA mobile stations to talk to those displaced by the flood. I was crying before I got to 3rd Street. Everything turned inside out, tables, chairs, office equipment, everything littering the sidewalks outside once busy businesses. Downtown was teeming, but not with people walking to and fro, on their lunch break or headed to a meeting. Instead disaster relief workers wearing hazmat suits and masks piled muck-soaked items in front of store fronts. As a writer, it pains me to say this, but words can not express. Pictures and seeing the devastation with your own eyes are the only way to fully understand. And even then it’s hard to wrap your head around.

I have no doubt that this this city will recover. But the Cedar Rapids as we once knew and loved it, will never exist again. There will undoubtedly be business and homeowners that won’t be able to afford to reopen or rebuild. The landscape of this city is forever changed.

Postponed events like the Freedom Festival are obvious examples of how summer in Cedar Rapids will be different. No fireworks for the Fourth of July. I can’t imagine. But, there are other ways our lives, even those of us fortunate enough to not have been directly affected by the flood waters, will be different.

The people I spoke with at Hog Wild Days in Hiawatha surprised me with some of their answers to my question: “How has the flood affected your summer plans?”

One woman was planning on renting an apartment this summer. Now every place she calls asks if she’s a flood victim and she feels bad taking a roof from someone who needs it more than she. Another guy is on competitive ski teams. His season is in jeopardy if not cancelled entire due because the rivers where they practice and compete are the same ones that just tore through our towns.

Some people said they didn’t think the flood had affected them.

Maybe not yet, but I bet it will. Each and every one of us are going to feel this flood for years to come.

It used to be, when I was growing up, that summer was that idyllic time of life - no responsibilities, just hanging out with friends, playing softball, riding bikes and being outside as much as possible. When we lived in Alaska, my brother and I would join a friend up the street in his canoe and spend the days floating on a small lake near our home.

Then, because it was seldom dark in the summer, we’d play touch football or tag or just go on hikes with friends until the streetlights came on (there were no cell phones 30 years ago so our parents had to resort to the old-fashioned way of keeping tabs on us).

Fast forward to 2008. As my kids and I were planning the summer, we talked about softball, summer camp, basketball camp, mini-vacations and swimming.

Nowhere in our plans did it call for me to answer my phone 10 times a day to answer mindless questions.

“What can we have for lunch?” “How am I getting to softball?” “Do I really have to unload the dishwasher?”

And that was just on the first day.

Keep in mind that these “children” are teenagers - both well-equipped to make their own lunch, find their own rides and look around the house to see what has to be done. But once that ever-popular, “I’m bored” enters their heads, the first response is, “Call Mom.”

We are now one week into summer vacation and I have the hours counted down to the first day of school.

I first started watching “Sex and the City” when it premiered in 1998 and it was a fantasy to me. I was married, had two small children and lived in west central Iowa. What did I know about Manolo Blahniks, living the high life in New York City or drinking Cosmopolitans until dawn?

Then in 2002 I found myself 36, divorced and living in Eastern Iowa. Hello, Dating World.

Ugh.

I turned to my virtual friends - Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte - for tips and advice. After all, look at all the fun relationships they had: Carrie and Big, Carrie and Aiden, Miranda and Steve, Charlotte and Harry, Samantha and … everyone. I quickly learned, though, that dating as a never-married 30-something in New York wasn’t anything like being a divorced 30-something (and now 40-ish) woman in Iowa. And dating as a 30-something-turned-40-ish woman in Iowa is absolutely nothing like dating as a college co-ed, no matter where you are.

Much like anything else in life, dating in your 30s and 40s is a learn-as-you-go process. What attracted me at age 18 doesn’t hold much appeal to me now: “having a stable job” has replaced “earns enough money to buy gas;” “enjoys a quiet night at home” has earned top spot over “likes to go out and party;” and “must get along with my kids” has taken the place of … well, nothing, because it just wasn’t an issue when I was 18.

You also learn what you are and aren’t willing to put up with. I never would have thought that having someone sing “I love you” karaoke to me on our second date - and tell me he meant every word - would be as disconcerting as it was, or that having someone brutally mispronounce a word several times in one conversation would be unbelievably annoying.

At one point in my new dating realm I actually created a list of “rules” - ones that I wouldn’t share, but would tuck away in the back of my head for future reference: thou shalt not ask me to a movie and then pretend to have forgotten your credit card when we get to the theater; thou shalt not say “I’d like to do this again” when in fact you wouldn’t; thou shalt not whine at me on the telephone before we actually “go out;” thou shalt not keep me waiting for you to get off work when you forgot to ask if you could leave early; and the ever-popular “thou shalt not lie to me about wanting to date other women when in fact you already have.”

Many of the challenges we face dating in our 40s are just the “grown-up” versions of the same challenges we had when we were younger. Some people still cheat, many still want to be with Barbie or Ken and no matter how hard we try to hide it, there is still a part of all of us that feels that bit of insecurity when it comes to meeting someone new.

Nine years ago this week, my high school graduation day seemed like a momentous, the most momentous, ocassion. And, I guess, in a way, it was. We were leaving our high school cocoon of familiar faces and hallways. Some of us were even leaving the familiarity of our home state and town behind.

Little did we know, though, how many more life-altering experiences were in store. Or maybe that’s the point. High school is not the end. It’s the beginning.

But before I start sounding too much like a high school graduation speech, I better get to my point. My sister graduated from high school Tuesday. I couldn’t go to the ceremony. Too many miles and hours between us. When I spoke to her on the phone she sounded like she couldn’t decide whether to be excited or nervous. A teacher friend of mine echoed those sentiments in an e-mail this week. On their last day of school the seniors, while delighted to be graduating, were all a little bit terrified of what was to come.

That’s a loaded question to an 18 year old: What’s next? At that age you feel like your answer will be your destiny. Fortunately it’s not. How many of us, I wonder, are doing what they planned when they tossed that mortar board high in the air?

I am.

Sort of.

I always knew I’d be a writer. But, a reporter, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa? I couldn’t have predicted that. Nor would I have wanted to. That’s the fun of life. Not necessarily knowing what’s around the corner. Not being able to see how choosing path A) instead of path B) will change your life.

When I was 18, a senior in high school, I had narrowed down my choices of colleges to William and Mary in Virginia, Franklin and Marshall in Pennsylvania and Coe College here in Cedar Rapids. In the end, I chose Coe. Why is another post altogether. Point being, though, that I did. And my work at an editor of the college paper landed me an internship here, which in turn helped me get a job. While on an assignment for that job I met my husband and now we have a beautiful baby girl.

I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried. So, I guess buried in my ramblings is the one piece of advice I’d give to this year’s graduates. Don’t obsess about the big picture plan. Take life one step at a time. Do what feels right and see where it takes you.

- Carly

I’m sort of anal when it comes to our family finances. Actually, truthfully, I’m very anal (some might call it obsessed). I think it comes with the territory of living on a teacher and reporter’s salary and living the American Dream, which these days tends to mean lot o’ debt.

For the last couple of years we’ve slowly but surely been chipping away at that debt. Every time we pay something off I get a high (sick. I know). But it really is a rush to know that there’s now one more bill that we won’t be getting every month and therefore more money that can either a) go to other bills or b) go to fun things like dinner and a movie.

This is all the long way of saying that I get super excited when extra money comes our way, like in the form of this spring’s economic stimulus checks. Ever since the federal government announced that we’d all be getting a check in the mail (or in our case directly deposited to our checking account) I’ve been plotting how we were going to spend it. Of course my husband suggested a flat screen. But, poor him, he got shot down. Again. Instead, I mused, we could pay off so many other things. And that we did.

Last Friday when that lovely chunk of change materialized in our account, I was quick to start spending it. Anesthesiologist from our daughter’s birth. Check. Pediatrician bills. Check. A credit card balance. Check.

In all honesty I had more fun paying those bills than I would if we’d used the money the way the government intended and bought that flat screen. I was beginning to wonder if I was a little odd. But my conversations Wednesday with folks at the Noelridge Farmer’s Market confirmed that we were not at all out of the ordinary in how we spent the government’s money. Nearly everyone I talked to was going to be practical. One couple will use the money as a down payment for a house, many will pay bills, one is going to add it to her savings. The only “fun” answers were from one woman who is going to build a deck and another who is taking her family on vacation to see her husband’s family.

One woman laughed when I asked her what she was going to do with the money. She had just gotten her check that very afternoon. So she called her husband to tell him she was headed to the farmer’s market to splurge on flowers.

The bulk of it though will pay of bills, she said.

- Carly

No matter how many times we hear parenting experts tell us that it’s not our job to be our child’s best friend, as moms we still have this innate need to be “liked” by our kids.

We can’t help it.

Sure, our kids like us when they’re little. What do they know? We’re the ones who are there with the Band-Aids, ice cream cones and birthday presents. We let them help us decorate Christmas cookies, set the table and fold towels. We’re cool when the kids are under 5.

My fear was about when my kids were in middle school and high school — which is where they are now. Would I be the mom that my kids and their friends would joke with and talk to, or the one they all just kind of stayed away from and ignored?

My first inkling that my kids might like me came when I started noticing some of my CDs missing, and not just any CDs. What I was missing were my Eagles, Journey, AC/DC (I know — you’d never guess) and Collective Soul. When I asked my son about them, he sheepishly looked at me and said, “I’ve got them. Those are pretty cool.”

Score one for the mom.

Once I realized Justin really liked Journey, I decided to go for bonus points: “You know,” I said to him, “I saw Journey in concert back in 1982, and I think I still have the t-shirt.”

The reaction in his eyes told me I’d gotten more points, so I went in for the win: “Do you want it?”

Bam.

Of course, the shirt is 25 years old and didn’t fit my son — who is four inches taller than I am now — but he’s got it pinned up on his wall, his own little tribute.

Winning my daughter over was much easier. I got her a prepaid cell phone for Christmas to teach her how to monitor minute usage, and let her wear a little bit of makeup to school. (Of course my idea of “a little bit” differs greatly from her’s — we’re still working on that one.

The best evidence that I have a good relationship with my kids comes on those nights when I walk in the door and they both rush to tell me about the funny things that happened to them — rather than the “I need xxx for school” — or want to share a funny video, a favorite YouTube entry or just want to sit and watch a movie with me. Even better, when we can kid around and know it’s all in fun.

I think it’s safe to say I made it to “Cool Mom” status.

- Molly

This post kicks off what usually turns out to be an On The Street summertime trend — food. Nearly every summer event involves or revolves around food. There’s St. Jude’s corn festival, Blairstown and Lisbon’s Sauerkraut Days, Atkins and Fayette’s Watermelon Days, Solon Beef Days, Walker’s Pickle Days, Strawberry Fest in Strawberry Point and St. Ludmilla’s Kolach Festival. Not to mention the picnics at Jazz Under the Stars, Marion By Moonlight and Friday night movies in Iowa City.

I learned early on in this gig, to bring cash to these events, or something to nibble. It’s that or leave with a grumbling tummy.

In the case of the Amana Colonies Maifest, I just made sure to eat a big breakfast so I wasn’t starving. It would have been hard to ask people about their favorite German food without salivating otherwise.

Or maybe not. When I really think about it, I’m not so sure that I’m a big fan of German food. Shh. Don’t tell my grandma. My maiden name is Bossert, German for “the burner” (apparently way back when my ancestors got a kick out of burning and pillaging villages). And my dad’s side of the family took a lot a pride in their German heritage. But, not the extent that we ate a lot of German food. To be honest, I can’t really name many German dishes. All that comes to mind right now are brats and sauerkraut. And I can tell you I’m not a big fan of either.

A quick Google search reveals that there is more to the country’s dinner plate than just those two items though. And turns out I like a lot of them. According to a Web site called Travels through Germany foods that I think of as American got their start in Germany. Deviled eggs for example. I LOVE deviled eggs (it’s an odd exception to my anti-mayonnaise stance). Apparently hamburgers and meatloaf have Germanic roots. Then there’s potato pancakes, German chocolate cake, soft pretzels …

OK. I better stop. My stomach is starting to growl.

- Carly

I haven’t always been green, and by some people’s standards I’m still not quite there. But I do try, and I am, thankfully, encouraged by both my kids to try a little harder. (It’s always easier when the kids are already on board and I’m not trying to change my habits as well as theirs.)

My first real attempt at going green came before the catch phrase “going green” had even been developed. I was still a young reporter in Fort Dodge working on what would become one in a series of four-part series’ on recycling. It was the early 1990s and Iowa had recently enacted legislation mandating that county landfills decrease their intake a certain amount each year, meeting an ultimate goal of 50 percent fewer materials being taken to the landfills by the year 2000. Recycling was a major part of that reduction, and much education had to take place.

In order to fully understand what I was writing my family started recycling. Of course, this was back in the days when all that could be recycled was newsprint and things on white paper – advertising slicks were not acceptable – corrugated cardboard, some plastics and clear glass.

As the years went on more and more people started talking about topics that were hitting close to home: global warming; greenhouse effect; carbon footprints.

Then something happened. I started paying closer attention to the electricity I was using, the temperature on the thermostat, the types of materials I was buying. As the guidelines for recyclables expanded, so did the contents of my recycling bin. Now we recycle more than we throw away.

Are we perfect yet? Not by a long shot. I still use the old-fashioned lightbulbs, I still turn the furnace up a little if I get too chilly and every now and then I find myself buying something that comes in a Styrofoam container. But the kids are turning out the lights, shutting down the computer and turning the water off while they’re brushing their teeth.

I’d say we’re off to a really good start.

– Molly