Random bits of my so-called life.

I am so ha-ard to please. But look around…

Okay, “Blah” would probably be a better title but then y’all wouldn’t want to read this, right? Roight. And, to tell the truth, there is an element of zizzywig underneath all the blah. I am facing my first week’s vacation in my new career next week and why the heck am I so apprehensive? I’m going to Fin Family Moominbeach, the absolute best vacation spot on earth in my not-so-humble opinion. But I am always like this before a vacation. As hot and swampy as it is here in the Landfill in the summer, when it is time to leave, I get this whole separation anxiety thing going. I *know* that as soon as I get on the freeway, or at least when I have hit the north-country again, I will be okay and I will start to relax. But now? It is six days before I leave town and I am a nervous wreck. I have the time to take next week off and I have even been granted the go-ahead to work remotely for some of the time so I don’t have to drain every hard-earned hour of vacation that I have as a new employee. My cute little first-born beach urchin is due in Thursday morning from San Francisco. How the heck did an old Michigan bag like me get to have a daughter in SF? Lots of people that I love will be up there and I know we will all be whoopin’ it up. And we will miss those who are not there. Jay and her family because they are too busy to head out here this summer. [Jim, Grandroobly, Don, and Katie. Sigh.] Uber Kayak Woman, who will be there briefly toward the end of the summer and by hook or by crook, I’ll meet her there. The next week will be okay. I will manage to leave the Landfill and I don’t even care what the weather is like up there. But I am still in a kind of blah state with zizzywig running through the background and I haven’t quite switched into glide yet. Somebody switch me, okay?

And that there picture is some sock yarn. I dredged that sock yarn out the other day and I couldn’t remember buying it so I wasn’t sure if it was mine or Mouse’s. It turns out that it is indeed mine. So now I have yet another unfinished (unstarted?) prodject to get going on.

[subtitle: Mouse, I love you!]

Going to the grokkery store in the 1980s… It wasn’t enough that you had to wrestle everybody and their mouse into whatever clothing was appropriate for the weather, easy enough during the summer months but I think I’ve blocked the process of struggling with snowsuits and toddlers. And there was the stack of books that had to be gathered for the five minute ride to the store. And we won’t talk about car seats. Or candy or Cheezits or pizza rolls or the two packages of stickers I had to buy every time we went to the grokkery store. Yes, two. Every time we went to the store. I think that added up to about eight bucks a week. Yes. Really. What? Did I spoil my beach urchins rotten? Of course I spoiled my beach urchins rotten. What were you thinking?

All this while avoiding the scrutiny of the Michigan Child Protective Services. I think the Planet Ann Arbor invented the Parenting Police. A cadre of busybodies always ready to interfere in your business with politically correct, careful psychobabble and then turn around and call the CPS on you. Like, “Ma’am, don’t you know that it’s 10 degrees and blowing snow? Doesn’t your baby have a hat?” Said as we are walking 30 yards or so from the car to the store and Mouse has yanked her hat off for about the 50th time and I have given up and stuffed it into my pocket so we don’t lose it. Or the looks I used to get when I would grab under Mouse’s *armpits* to lift her out of the way of some impendending disaster and the verbally advanced little rodent would yell at the top of her lungs, “STOP STRANGLING ME!” Or the time Mouse screamed at the top of her lungs all the way through the checkout line and about half the way home until she fell asleep. Why? Because I wouldn’t buy her any lipstick. The Mouse moments are the ones that are coming to mind but, make no mistake, there were plenty of Lizard moments too. “I *had* to cry.” Just for one.

I dunno why the Parenting Police weren’t doing something constructive, like lobbying for grokkery carts that could actually accommodate a couple or three babies and toddlers without making the tired old moom jump through super-hoops to schlep around the store. Nowadays, there are these Little Tyke-like vee-hickles that attach to the front of the grokkery carts. Some of them even play little cartoons and things. Why didn’t we have those then?

But darn. Somebody always hits the blasted fast-forward button on my life. So this morning I was on about my third trip to a grokkery store this weekend and Mouse decided to go with me. And it seemed miraculous that she was even up at that hour since the annual two-week festival of the Ypsilanti Artichoke Gatherers ended last night. Anyway. Okay. Off we go. There was something about the a/c setting that I’m blocking and then, “Moom, why do you always park way over here on the other side of the parking lot?” Uh, because this is the only place the runaway carts don’t go? Then a tussle with picking a cart. I was too incompetent to separate them. Then a bunch of stuff that I won’t even try to describe in the recycle room where one of the machines was outright broken and another one was barely limping along. And I was too incompetent to deal with the ones that almost worked. And then I was in trouble because another woman and I avoided a head-on cart collision when she *graciously* backed up and let me through and I think I even said, “thank you.” But it was still embarrassing for some unfathomable reason. And there was more description-defying jockeying around at the uscan. Which I am incompetent at using. All to the background sound of “Ugly ol’ witch in a big ol’ ditch. Ol’ witch. Ol’ witch.” Say it in a frog voice.

Nowadays when I shop with my children, they spend my money on healthy food. Fruit and vegetables and soy milk and I can’t think what else. Often healthier food than I buy. So today, we didn’t come outta there with any stickers and nobody actually yelled or screamed. We did end up with a box of Cheezits.

And that really *is* a stick in the picture up there. I thought it was a bird foot at first too. But when I removed it from the back of the Cute Little Blue Honda Civic and dropped it on the ground, Mouse protested that it had been there all week and it was “cute”, so I caved in and picked up the cute little stick and placed it back on the vee-hickle. Honestly, the things I do.

P.S. I love you, Mouse!

PPSS. Nobody *ever* called the CPS on me. There were a few people who thought that I was young (um, I had my first baby at *30*, duh?) and incompetent. And I am the first to admit when I am being incompetent. But I think I did do okay in the grand scheme of things.

In the first place, when Kayak Woman comes home from a long day of work, she likes to take off her shoes, put away her work computer and change out of whatever rags she’s trying to pass off as business casual before she does ANYTHING. She doesn’t appreciate it when she encounters an ALIEN standing IN THE ENTRY WAY obfuscating her ability to take off her shoes. In a THUNDERCHICKEN t-shirt, NO LESS! And when he immediately asks, “You’d like to take Ernie and Alfred for a walk, wouldn’t you?”, in those exact words, BEFORE she has even come in the door? She does not appreciate that either. And of course, the words “Ernie”, “Alfred”, and “walk” only kicked Ernie and Alfred into overdrive so that they began barking frantically and trying to jump over the dog gate and out of the kitchen but only Ernie was actually able to make the leap because Alfred is too short.

Secondly, Kayak Woman does not often talk about her dreams because, not only are they too convoluted to describe so that anyone could actually understand them (including Kayak Woman), they are also often quite disturbing. Sometimes they are so disturbing that she doesn’t manage to shake loose from them until she has had a shower and several miles of walking. Dodging skunks in the dark has a way of bringing one back to reality in short order. So she’ll just say that a tiny little subplot of nightmare du jour consisted of watching a movie on DVD in which the female star kept getting assaulted by men while she walked in a nice, “safe” neighborhood. Kind of like Kayak Woman’s neighborhood except that a sorta Lombard Drive-looking street was right in the middle of it all. With ice and snow on it. Go figger. Kayak Woman protested repeatedly (in the dream), “this is so stupid, it’s perfectly safe to walk around town by yourself. I do it all the time and that never happens to me.” And then she woke up. Yes, the rest of this blather is not a dream. When she walked into the school yard this morning, there was an old coot with a bicycle and NO CLOTHES who was picking big round white flowers out of the Haisley garden. Except it turned out that he actually had pants on, she just hadn’t been able to see them at first because he was partially obscured by a bush. As if this wasn’t odd enough at 6:00 AM, KW RECOGNIZED him! A neighbor. Numbers’s dad. She called out a cheery, “Good morning!” and he looked at her as if he had been caught red-handed. He needn’t have worried. KW is not the Haisley Garden Police. And so, she went on her way, wondering about the phase of the moon or if it was just the art fair bringing out the crazies.

Oh, and KW does not regularly have dogs or any other beasties. She just borrows Ernie and Alfred once in a while because it is so much fun to pick up dog poop and haul it around in a plastic bag.

Ciao, Bambinos

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange ya glad I didn’t say chair again?

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange ya glad I didn’t say dress again?

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange ya glad I didn’t say cookie again?

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

Orange.

Orange who?

Orange ya glad I didn’t say alligator again?

Knock knock.

Say it with a British accent, please.

That there hallway is my old office. Or, I should say, one of my old offices. There was another one in the green room of the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre. And one in the cafeteria of Scarlett Middle School. And the lobby of Clonlara School. And various nooks and crannies around the Ann Arbor Academy. And my kitchen counter. For six years, my office was wherever I happened to be, in and around the Planet Ann Arbor. And sometimes outside it too. Like the dining table at the cabin on Fin Family Moominbeach. Or inside that infamous rolling beastie, none other than the old Island Teal POC.

The STAC hallway there in the picture was one of my favorite offices. I spent two sweltering weeks there every summer for six years doing whatever I could do to support elaborate theatrical productions created by 70-plus young actors, ages 8-18. And their teachers. In two weeks. There’s almost nobody in the hall in this picture but you can see a little scrap of Tina’s shirt (the "8" there on the left). This summer she’s using my old “desk” as a changing table for her beautiful new baby. Wait a minute or so and one or two or three or 50 kids will come stampeding through. Those ratty looking old chairs and couches? Covered in blood, sweat, and tears. Little girls who weren’t cast as the leading lady. Sick kids. Hot, tired teachers and staff members. Administrators at the absolute ends of their ropes. Stage combat teachers with kitchen knives embedded in their feet. (Okay, that did *not* happen anywhere near the camp and we* do NOT have knives at the camp.) There was plenty of laughter too. Kids and teachers and everyone doing crazy things and frogs grokking away at the top of their lungs. And serious work, too. Learning lines, practicing scenes, working on costumes and props. Fighting with the decrepit old copy machine.

I am adjusting a lot better to cube life than I thought I would. I like my work and, of course, the pay is *much* more than a small non-profit could ever think about paying me. Unfortunately, that’s life. But I was invited to the annual YAG camp hot dog barbecue today. Beef or vegetarian option, if your child needs a more specific sandwich alternative, please provide one (fer kee-reist). We’ve* come a long way since the year no one thought to bring barbecue tongs and Jean had to turn the hot dogs with a garden trowel. I do miss the old vagabond office days. And sometimes I even miss the actors’ parents. Some of them, anyway.

*It’s been almost three years since I resigned (abruptly in the midst of an emotional crisis) from YAG and I STILL say “we” when I talk about the organization. Obviously, my heart is still in it.

“Are you all right?” Thus asked MWCB when I met her at the Jackson Road Coney Island for breakfast this morning. Whereas MMCB (note that MWCB and MMCB are different people) and I have been meeting at Barry’s every Monday for *years* give or take the times when she or I are off gallivanting and we have to miss or switch the day (horrors!), MWCB and I rotate through three restaurants. And we take turns paying. That’s triplets vs. duplets and while I was always a pretty good whiz at playing triplets in one hand on the puano and duplets on the other hand, I cannot wrap my brain around our restaurant schedule and I have to ask MWCB every week: where are we this week and who’s paying? So, would-be stalkers of old bags, good luck.

I was fine this morning. But I was running late. Why? I dunno. Why is it that I am always ready to leave the house ahead of schedule and then I get to putzing around with something or other and all of a sudden I’m looking at the clock going “Oh my gawd! I’m gonna be late!”? And then, I got behind some aging hippy chick in a rusty old Subaru or something who was going about ten miles under the speed limit and, for the life of me, I couldn’t zipzap around her. I know, I know… She was probably just dealing with an aging stick shift. Anyway, I was fine, but, I was late, frustrated, and generally discombobulated. With unkempt hair (stop lights were not long enough for brushing) and a dazed look on my face.

I think this is the first day of my latest career that I just did not wanna go to work. It wasn’t for any particular reason. I mean, there have been times when I was apprehensive about going to work because I had to present something to a group of people. But that was last week. Today I just had about a gazillion picky little detail-type issues to deal with and although I like detail work, I wouldda rather been a vagabond today. I’ve been working every day since before New Year’s 2008 with only one day off, I guess it’s okay if I felt that way today. Roight? It’s okay. It was a quiet day and I got into that zen kind of a mood and got all of those little picky things done. I guess I am settling in to this career and I hope it continues to work out.

Oh, btw, the title is something Woodring said about a quadrillion years ago. It is *not* related to me and my career (I am still learning). And it is not related to the fact that my first high school boyfriend once told his very unworldly girlfriend (that would be me) that he had worked for Superior Sanitation the week before and it took his very unworldly girlfriend (that would be me) months to figure out that he had worked for the local garbage company.

G’night,
Garbage Woman

Didja see that baggy ol’ woman sitting in her Cute Little Blue Honda Civic at the Dexter/Maple stoplight this morning? She was trying to brush the knots and tangles out of her damp bushy hair? Betcha thought she was running late to work and didn’t have time to brush her hair before she left the house. Well, guess again. Because that messy-looking old kayak woman was ME! And I was EARLY. It was just after 8:00 AM and I got up at 0-dark thirty and between 0-dark-thirty and 8:00 AM, I took a shower and washed my bushy hair, walked three miles, tended my weed bed and threw some compost out, ate breakfast, checked my email, did my on-line banking, washed, dried, and put away a load of laundry, made my bed, cleaned the Blue and Only Bathroom, washed the crumbs off the dining table, packed up a load of junk that was cluttering up Lizard Breath’s bedroom, decluttered the table in the kitchen, washed dishes (about five times), and put a couple bags of garbage into the Handy Dandy A2 Garbage Cart. Oh, and changed out of kayak clothes into what passes for business casual (no pantyhose, thank you very much), and said good morning to my Mouse. And I think I actually did brush my hair a few times in there but by the time I got my vee-hickle over to the Dexter/Maple stoplight, it was still damp and full of knots and tangles.

Noooooo, it was not Our Fav-o-rite Amphibian who said that. He’s just demonstrating the size of the mouth. Wide mouth frog anyone? This “Lucy, I’m home!” stuff has been going on, oh, I’m not sure, for about the last two years or so. I’m not all that crazy about it. The traditional way to announce your arrival at the Landfill is to, well, I won’t tell the Internet what it is, okay? If you are a Landfill insider, you know what it is. “LUUUUUUCYYYYY! I’M HOOOOOOME” shouted before you have even entered the Landfill and shut the door behind you just does not follow the tradition. I don’t even really mind being referred to as a 50s-era sitcom character. I LOVED Lucy. I remember watching Lucy on an old black-and-white TV set when I was a little kid and it must’ve been re-runs by then because, according to the gospel of Wikipedia, the original show ran from 1951 to 1957. I wasn’t born until 1954. Yeah, go do the math, I could care less and I’ll have fun, fun, fun till my daddy takes the T-bird awayayayay, doo doo doo waaah, wah wah wah wah waaaaaah, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Er, where was I, anyway? Oh, yeah. We first got TV in my house in Sault Ste. Siberia in 1956 and I watched Howdy Doddy Doody and that was about all there was for kids. I think I was sentient enough at three (1957) to be able to follow a basic sitcom but I’m guessing I remember re-runs of I Love Lucy. But Lucy was funny then and Lucy was funny all the years I watched the re-runs (over and over again). I haven’t watched TV regularly since about the time Mouse turned the Gulf War OFF back in 1991 or whenever, so I don’t have a clue about where the I Love Lucy re-runs are now. Maybe I can buy the DVD? If so, CHREESMAS LEEEST, YOU GUYS! Anyway, the GG has developed a weird habit of yelling, and I do mean yelling, LUUUUUUUCYYYYYYY! I’M HOOOOOOOOME! as he walks in the door after work. Assuming he gets home later than me but that’s a whole ‘nother topic. But last week, Mouse noted that when the GG yells LUUUUUUUCYYYYYYY! I’M HOOOOOOOOME! when he gets home, THE WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD CAN HEAR HIM! Today? The GG walked in the door and *quietly* announced, “Lucy, I’m home.”

Er, whatever, I swear, every time I tried to write the word “shift” in that there title, it came out, well, you know. And dinosaurs poop in the grass, don’tcha know?

Anyway, that is Softy Beanbag in the pic and she is draping herself over MY the GG’s 12″ G4 Powerbook. At the Houghton Lake group home. Where we went for the weekend and Mouse even went with us. And the UU was there too. (You guys! I don’t mean the Unitarian Universalist Churst Church. [Uh, I Chursted again. Sorry.]) Anyway, y’all know me well enough to know that I don’t go to church. The UU is the Uncliest Uncle! The one who shares DNA with the GG.

The Houghton Lake kitchen is in the background and anything that is red back in there was definitely channeled by Grandma Sally of “you go girl” fame, which, in this particular memory’s case, is about vee-hickles and brothers-in-law and that’s all I will say.

Anyway, driving up to HL on Friday night was spookily devoid of vee-hickular traffic. And we thought that the point wasn’t particularly jam packed with people like it usually is. I know it wasn’t a holiday weekend and we haven’t been here on a holiday weekend this summer, so maybe it’s just a fluke. And then, coming home today, we made a last-minute decision to take the I75 SUV Speedway and, whaddya know, we were in two slow-downs between West Branch and Bay City. Couldn’t figger why…

I dunno. I am wondering what the $4 gas prices will do to the tourist business. As a property owner, on one hand, I am happy to see fewer people. It makes it easier for me to travel north. But. What happens to the local businesses if there are no tourists. I’m not gonna go any further with the *many* trains of thought I have about this. Sigh…

I started the Sockzilla Prodject two whole summers ago and I may actually finish it one of these days. They are in a loverly beach/woods colored yarn and the pattern is called “Mouse Says Do This Next”. And that’s why it has taken me such a blasted long time to finish them. Because after I got through one sock and got started on the second one, Mouse went back to Kzoo and then Senegal and then Kzoo again and she wasn’t around to tell me what to do next or frog my mistakes or re-do those bloody wrap stitches that are involved in forming the heel. The heel that I messed up so many times that I finally showed her the blasted sock every time I finished a row so she could check it and tink out my mistakes every time. Frog? Tink? Listen to me talkin’ like a knitter.

And yes of course she had school breaks and yes of course we could’ve probably squeeeeeged some time in here but you know how it goes. “We’ll just do it later.” And then later comes along and we’re all off doing other things or drinking gin margaritas or whatever.

Mouse is an expert knitter and when people ask me if I’m a knitter too, my standard answer is, “I know how!” Because I do. I wasn’t a bad knitter back in the day. I could follow patterns like nobody’s business, making intricate color and stitch patterns. But. I rarely finished anything. I dunno. Knitting was just different back then. First of all, it was hard to get decent yarn. And even if you could get the *yarn* you wanted, you couldn’t always get all of the colors you wanted or enough of each color you wanted. And did I mention I was a pattern follower? Meaning that I wasn’t a very creative improviser if I didn’t have exactly every thing I needed. Plus I would just get bored. I was stuck on trying to make sweaters. Second-sleeve syndrome, anyone? And I hated blocking. Or maybe I just never had the patience to learn how to do it properly. And then the darn sweaters didn’t always fit. Or they would be too blasted hot. Or whatever. My knitting skills languished for years.

But I *like* to knit. There are so many beautiful, amazing, natural fiber yarns on the market now. And socks are quick to knit. Really, they are. And so are scarves and things. And shawls offer a chance to do fun and fancy stitches but they don’t have to *fit* you exactly right.

So. Today I got re-a-started on Sockzilla. We were sitting down by the water here at Houghton Lake. Mouse figgered out where I was on my second sock and what I needed to do next. And then I (very stoopidly) did it wrong, so she frogged it out (and I think she tinked a bit too, listen to me trying to talk like a real knitter). And I have two ridges or four rows until I get to those scary wrap stitch thingies again and after that, the heel is done and I can work on the straightaway of the foot for a while during my lunch hours. And then I’ll need a bit of help with the toe but that’s pretty easy. And then. I have a scarf and a shawl to make… Oh yeah, and there’s another unfinished prodject that I haven’t posted about in a long time either…

I’m on yet another (yikes) “social” network. Click here for my Ravelry profile! And join if you are a knitter.

Love y’all, KW!

You know it is going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day when you find yourself crying your eyes out at 7:00 in the morning over a 24 year old garbage can. Actually, it’s probably more like 30, since I think it was old when we moved in. And why we have to keep all those frackin’ oil containers, I do not know. Sanity, anyone? Please?

tink

It was a very small sound and it was coming from my pocket. The one I keep my phone in when I’m walking. I wondered if somebody was text messaging me or something. It was 6:15 in the morning and, at the *moment*, the only people who *would* text message me were either in *my* timezone or further west, so that seemed pretty unlikely. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and, to my absolute sheer utter horror, I realized that it was calling Mouse! In her cozy little Planet Ann Arbor bedroom. At 6:15 in the morning! Quick as lightning, I pressed “end call”! The last thing I would ever want to do is call Mouse at 6:15 in the morning unless it was pretty darn urgent. Nitroglycerin, anyone?

I mean, once when Mouse was in high school, I *needed* to call her because I needed to remind the GG to do something and I couldn’t get him to answer the phone. I mitigated that situation by begging her pardon at the beginning of the call and telling her about a cute little owl I encountered (really) that morning. No owls today and no point in trying to pass off a cute rabbit story since they are ubiquitous around here these years. But Mouse is usually the *last* person I would try to reach out and touch telephonically at 6:15 in the morning.

tink

Dern, it did it again. Yikes! I hit the “end call” button again and jammed the phone back in my pocket. Not a minute later, tink. What the *heck* is going on, I thought, as I hit “end call” yet again. Well, turns out, I was jamming my phone into my pocket *before* the touchscreen blacked out and went into “lock” mode. And somehow, my pocket managed to both hit the Phone application button and Mouse’s cellphone number. [Er, it also tried to call The Commander and The GG. Fortunately, it didn't try to call my boss!]

I finally figured out that I had to actively *push* the button — an actual physical button on the top of the phone — to make it go to sleep before I jammed it into my pocket again. So, no more problems.

But then I couldn’t figure out why Mouse hadn’t either answered my calls or returned them. Well, of course, it could be that her phone was 1) out of battery, 2) in her backpack three rooms away, 3) turned to vibrate. But the answer was that my loverly phone had been trying to dial Africa! Yes, it was trying to call her now-defunct number in Africa.

Venue: Landfill Neighborhood Theatre
Characters: Little Boy Down the Street (LBDtS), Sister of Little Boy (SoLB), Kayak Woman (KW)
Scene: KW walking swiftly to the Plum Market after work

Act I and Only

LBDtS [enthuiastically]: Hi, Jackie!

KW [surprised]: Jackie!?!

LBDtS: Oh, sorry!

KW: That’s okay. [quickens pace toward Plum Market]

LBDtS [stage whisper to SoLB]: She isn’t wearing black! She *always* wears black!

KW [nonplused]: ???

I had a long post about being a theatre camp administrator/evil snack lady but heck, it was just boring. I used to hang out here in the shadow of the UM Stadium for two weeks every summer. I don’t any more. Although I visited today. I love my job. But I miss this place. And all the kids and the teachers and the remaining evil snack ladies and, well, just everyone.

So, what are y’all doing about the current gasoline crisis? Is $4.00/gallon a tipping point for you? *Is* it a crisis?

MMCB and I were over at Barry’s this morning solving all of the world’s problems gossiping and, since no deer have died in her yard lately, the talk veered off into the realm of four dollars a gallon. I think the mortgage greed crisis had a cameo role in our spirited discussion too. We are both highly opinionated about how people should run their lives and we were being all high-minded about what *we* were doing to make the world a better place and what he/she/it/Yahoudi should do, etc., etc., ad nauseam. But we became stymied when it came to making any kind of prediction about the long-term effect this will all have on “the economy” and what shape any changes will take.

Personally. I gave up my minivan the POC a few years ago. Happily for the most part, although I cried when I drove away from it. I’ve been driving mainly two Honda sedans for the last few years. Gas mileage was a consideration behind that change but I have to admit it wasn’t really the foremost one. After the POC’s serpentine belt frayed at 13,000 miles and another umpteen little problems happened before the vee-hickle was out of warranty, I never had a whole lot of confidence in its reliability. And then it was hit by a tornado and then a tree fell on it. The tornado didn’t actually do much damage but after the tree fell on it, it just never felt right any more. I had been hoping they’d total it, but no… Not to mention that, in its later years, oftentimes I was the *only* person in the vee-hickle. It’s one thing to be hauling your kids and their friends around. But me and a couple bags of groceries? Hmmm.

Full-time employment has had the best effect on my carbon footprint. Although I drive to work five days a week, it is only an eight-mile commute to the south side of town. I am no longer randomly driving willy-nilly around town on multiple separate errands. If I need to buy groceries, I hit the Saline Rd. Meijer, which is on the way home. Or I walk to the Plum Market. Depending on what I need. But then, we still travel north frequently and there’s no way I can cut that out of my life.

I dunno. Is four dollars a tipping point? Have you changed your driving habits? What are you doing to change your habits? Are you biking or taking public transportation? Can you reasonably *take* a bike or public transportation to your work or wherever it is that you have to go? Are you still driving a hummer? Are you still driving a hummer with a beer in one hand, a ciggie in the other and a cell phone in, um, we’ve run outta hands… Okay, I was kidding with that last question. What do you think the future holds?

P.S. We won’t talk about The Indefatigable. It is a legacy vee-hickle. Kinda like Fortran.

I don’t know why I always face weddings with such dread. Maybe in part because I never know what to wear. I can imagine how stoopid that sounds to anyone who really knows me. Y’all are probably scratching your heads, thinking something like, “but she always wears that same outfit.” And that’s pretty close. I hate to get dressed up and I hate to shop for things to get dressed up in and so I wait until it’s too late and then I panic and end up wearing some 15-year-old outfit or other. And shoes. It’s summer and I must’ve dithered all day yesterday about whether I could get away with wearing my nice new velcro hiking sandals. Chacos, that is. New? I bought them the week before I went to California. That’s over a year ago. But that’s “new” for a pair of shoes in a place where vee-hickles last 16 years and counting. I remember the young whipper-snapper clerk at Bivouac eyeing my knobbly old feet with great suspicion and telling me he didn’t think the sandals fit me right and he’d have to check with his manager (!!!!!) before he could sell them to me. Say what???? Hey, I was, uh, *shopping*! Did I mention how much I looooooooove to shop? All I needed was for him and his “manager” to be analyzing my feet. I was mortified. These are velcro sandals, fer kee-reist! Somehow I managed to talk him into just letting me pay for the blasted sandals and then I high-tailed it out of there. And for the record, those sandals have about a gazillion miles on them now and my feet are fine, thank you very much.

And then there’s the small-talk issue. Like, I have a horrible time answering questions like, “how are you?” Um, doo-ya have five hours or so? I mean, I will be saying something like, “I’m fine”, in a limp little voice and my brain will be skyrocketing all over the universe thinking about my work and my family and all the fascinating projects I am furiously working on (or more likely day-dreaming about and not working on). But I never know what people really want to know when they ask that and I suspect most human beings (myself included, unfortunately) are just asking because it’s polite and may not really be all that interested in the answer. Or may not understand it. Like when I was in college. I always hated the question, “What is your major?” Because I would say, “music”. And then (if they didn’t think I was a singer, god forbid), they would ask what instrument I played, and when I replied, “flute”, they would say something like, “oh wow, that’s sooooo cool, have you heard of Jethro Tull?” Sigh. Yes, I know who the flutist Ian Anderson is. He’s in the band Jethro Tull (helloooo). I think he is very cool but I am a classical flute player and you just wouldn’t understand music by composers like Ibert or Jolivet or Bozza. Or even Mozart, for that matter. We won’t go into the stuff that would follow any truthful answer to, “where are you from?” and I have no words for “what’re you into?”

Yesterday, with my usual wedding trepidation, I waited to get dressed until 15 minutes before we left. I decided *not* to wear my Chacos, although I probably could’ve gotten away with wearing them. And I took a deep breath about the small-talk stuff. And what the heck was I worried about? I had an absolutely wonderful time! I mean, these are my wild, wonderful, non-stop-talking (at least in my generation), fun-loving *in-laws*. The Courtois clan knows how to throw a party (among other things) and this was a beautiful wedding and we gabbled and cackled and hugged the whole night. I am honored to be a part of it all. I even danced at the reception. Once. With my brother-in-law, also father of the bride, our niece Suzie (spelling?). She married her fiance Mike, of non-trivial zeros and other mathematical adventures. I won’t try to tell their story here because it is their story if when and where they want to tell it. But congratulations to all and an official welcome to Mike as he joins our family.

Love to all. Kayak Woman.

I had a party here at the Landfill yesterday and I managed to actually cook/assemble/whatever-you-want-to-call-it a whole bunch of food and do some other chores and eat and drink wine and participate in a relatively social way without hiding behind my computer writing or processing pictures or whatever. And I lasted until late in the evening without getting totally, completely, utterly, absolutely wiped out. And that has been a rare event in the last few years. We ate out in the back yard and had a fire in the GG’s birthday backyard fire contraption and listened to music from the neighbors’ house that corners up to the southeast corner of our yard behind the shed and all the poison ivy. Loud patriotic music and Copa Cabana and Y.M.C.A. We were singing along to that one and laughing out loud and maybe that’s why they toned it down before they started in on the Sound of Music. We used to spend tons of time in the backyard, watching the beach urchins run around and swim. (In little KMart kid pools, we don’t have a swimming pool back there.) And then we shot off some fireworks that the GG had stashed that I didn’t know he had. Which set off dogs and raccoons and probably scared Joan when one of them veered off over her back yard. Which is a little weird because back in the day, Burke and the GG used to have fireworks *wars*. We sat out there with NP Jane until the skeeters came out and even after that, I was able to finish most of the clean up and still not feel like I needed to be flat out somewhere. And the weather? Clear, sunny and 70s. Finally to bed around midnight and up early walking this morning. Well maybe not *quite* as early as usual but only half hour later at the most. Anyway, it wasn’t a Piedmont party on Fin Family Moominbeach but it was an A-OK holiday!

And there’s Froggy sitting there patiently in his owner’s little red wagon, which has been transformed into a log truck. Waiting for the party to begin. Patiently? Not. He was all looped up on frog juice and Listerine. Don’t kid yerself.

P.S. to yesterday’s post. I did end up sending my daughter to the Plum Market. For booze, no less. White wine to be specific. She rode her bike and we didn’t end up needing the wine after all. Be prepared!

P.P.S. Click here or on Froggy’s Logmobile for a tour of the Landfill backyard. With commentary.