Y’all have *got* to be tired of reading the typical Kayak Woman blather. I know *I’m* tired of it and I *write* the blasted stuff! Diarrhea of the keyboard, anyone? So today, I’m gonna post some stuff from none other than The Commander! She has access to post things on my blahg herself but is choosing to let me edit and post her stuff anyway. I guess she’s about had it with technology for the week after troubleshooting her blasted landline for about the umpteen millionth time and finally buying a new one. And heck, when The Commander asks commands me to do something, I do it. Usually. Anyway, I really haven’t edited this thing too much. Here it is:

Spring finally arrived on Saturday, the 12th of April, with beautiful sunny, no wind day.It was relatively pleasant for most of the week and now has returned to highs in the 40’s. I have seen two robins – usually scarce here at best. Betty says that I can drive in to the cabin but she probably means behind the garage, not to the front door.

April 6 to 12 was very busy with activities offered by the local library – a Sierra club film and talk about the Utah wilderness which includes many of our national parks as well as much private or government owned land. Oil drilling permits and private developments will eventually destroy many of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen. The week wound up with the arrival of Anne and Bill. [That would be me and the GG.] Snow that Saturday plus the news that a tree had fallen on their house during a storm across Ann Arbor on Friday – after they left for the Soo.

Anne and Bill left on Sunday and the week of 13 to 19 was busy with movies, meetings, and a phone which kept cutting off conversations plus cutting the internet off also when it was least appreciated ! ! ! Finally I reallized that it needed a new battery which takes a week to get because I cannot buy the right kind in town. We now have a new phone………………..

Betty and Mike have attended a series of concerts at Interlochen this winter. A jazz quartet was scheduled for April 18th for which they had tickets. Mike could not go so Betty asked if I would like to join her. Of course I would! So on Thursday we drove down to Petoskey, had lunch at our favorite bar, and drove on to Traverse City and checked in to the motel where Betty always stays.

After we checked in to our motel, we got on the road to Interlochen and found a very nice Italian restaurant with good food and a pleasant young man who gave us directions for the rest of the way to travel. We enjoyed the concert. It was a quartet consisting of a piano, bass, drums and sax. Loud but good jazz and more energy in 1 1/2 hours than I could imagine especially drums and piano.

Friday morning, we had an excellent breakfast at a restaurant about a block down the street — a place across the street from the motel where jack and I used to stay when we visited Traverse City. Clothing stores and then home with no further adventures. A very pleasant overnight and an adventure to be remembered!

You go girls!

P.S. Just to clarify: Saturday April 12th *ended* with spring weather but it started with a *blizzard*! It was way fun. But just to clarify.

Oh, probably not forever. School is too much fun. Really. So, here’s where I stand at the semi-end of the little back-to-college adventure I began a few years ago. I have been taking classes in the Washtenaw Community College Internet Professional Program. WCC is not some mickey mouse continuation of high school and I can’t speak for all of the programs over there but the INP program is RIGOROUS! We are trained in standards-based web coding, graphic design, user experience, and we get an introduction to project management. There is a *lot* of homework: coding, reading, writing, and critical thinking. Deadlines are stringently enforced and hanging around on Facesuck* during class is not tolerated. Nor is falling asleep and having your face bang down onto your keyboard. No, I didn’t do that, but the troubled young man sitting next to me in an entry-level class did.

I have been working my way through several certificates in the program. I earned the basic Web Technology certificate a couple years ago. I have been one class away from two advanced certificates, Web Graphic Design and Web Application Developer, for quite some time now.

I’m not sure I’ll ever finish the advanced graphic design certificate. I love art and graphic design and I think I rather have an eye for it. I’ve created some pretty darn cool designs (er, not this site…). But I don’t have any basic art training and I work *very* hard at it. I can’t just sit down and noodle something out in 15 minutes.

The class I audited this semester (php and Ruby) would’ve allowed me to complete the application developer certificate. So, why did I audit? Because, as a direct result of the INP program, I suddenly found myself actually throwing myself into the application process for a *real* job and I knew that with a real job and the family responsibilities of an old bag like me, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the assignments. And since the entire class was structured so that people would work with partners, I couldn’t let my partner down. I did get the job (as y’all know, like “shaddup already KW”) and I was right that I would need every single off-time second to deal with the house and kids and commander, et al. I love it but it is a juggling act.

Or maybe it was more that I knew I couldn’t deal with getting less than an A. Yes, folks, this old bag holds a 4.0 average in the rigorous INP program at WCC. I’m saying this not to brag, exactly. I worked my you-know-what off for those grades. It’s just that life has changed so much since I was an awkward, unpopular, junior high kid in a small, northern city who did her best to get lower grades in a rather desperate attempt to fit in with the in crowd. Not. Oh, it wasn’t that bad. I had band friends and a boyfriend that my parents weren’t crazy about (rightly so) and, by the time I was about a high school junior, I was aiming for As again. And got them. And continued to get them in college, that is, when I wasn’t totally pissed off at some incompetent professor. I had exactly two of those and they did screw with my grade point average but you won’t get anything more out of me about that in this post. Er, current college students: DO NOT EMULATE ME!!!! Figger out a way to get *around* that stoopid prof.

What’s next? Well, I may audit a web database class I’ve already taken because they’re changing the technology and it would be worth my while to learn it. Someday, I may re-take the class that ended tonight for credit. An official technical writing class would give me some handy tools to enhance a skill I have been using forever. And how about a beading class just for fun? Yeah! G’night!

*I don’t really have anything against Facebook but I won’t get on there. I’m sure my kids don’t want me on there and I don’t wanna be there. Er, where did the flinging trouts come from? ’cause I have been known to fling muskellunges. Many years before Face you-know-what.

I made the left turn out of my neighborhood without any problem this morning. Miraculously, there wasn’t any traffic. It did occur to me as I was halfway out into the street that I really couldn’t quite accurately *see* whether there was any traffic or not. There were so many construction barrels, all I could see was orange. I had a split-second of panic but it was okay and I was on my way. I thought. The Maple/Dexter light turned yellow and I slowed to a stop. I waited for the light to cycle. The cross traffic did its thing. It was my turn. I thought. I saw the opposing traffic enter the intersection. I waited for my green light. A construction bulldozer or whatever pulled up next to me. Traffic started filling in behind me. Hey wait! Why is the cross traffic going again? I didn’t get a green! Or did I? Could I have spaced it out? I know I didn’t. The next time the opposing traffic entered the intersection, I waved my hands in the air in a WTF? kind of gesture for the benefit of the taxi behind me, and *ran* the red light. I am *not* gonna sit here all day, you guys. Fix your traffic signal. Getting the rest of the way to Barry Bagels was not any easier but I won’t try to bore you with a complicated explanation. Getting home tonight? I have no words. A quick little 8-mile commute that took at least a half hour. It’s gonna be a long and probably hot summer. And no. Public transportation doesn’t go where I have to go.

And to whoever it was that left the crank voice mail message today? BITE ME!! Don’t worry, I don’t think it was any of my five readers. But I hate phones (er, except for my iPhone which is a great camera). I hate long, rambling voice mail messages about the wonderful things that your company can do for me, etc. The last thing I want to see when I walk in the door is that blasted red light blinking. Today, the message was nothing but buzzes. Like a busy signal. Sorta. I have a cell phone. If you know me, you should have the blasted number!!! Or, better yet, email me! We can arrange a phone call if we need to.

Sayonara, Kayak Woman

P.S. Don’t ask me about the price of oil, large SUVs driven by airheaded people with cell phones plastered to their ears, why the Planet Ann Arbor has a HUGE new high school that I get dizzy in, the most recent mortgage greed crisis, dropping the prime rate, what people are going to do with the much touted economic incentive check (btw, when are we gonna get that and how much is it?). Because you might not like the answer(s) very much.

I think I am more tired after this weekend of “staying home” than I am when we gallivant up to the great white north and back. And of course we weren’t “home”! We were gallivanting all over the planet and its surrounding asteroids yesterday. And today? Heck, let’s just take off on a hundred mile jaunt over to Kalamamalakazookman. Gasoline be damned.

We had a load of stuff for Mouse’s birthday/apartment and her buddy Amanda decided to ride along. They were high school friends and Amanda now attends Albion and y’all might think that hitching a ride back to Albion by way of Kalamazoo is kind of a long way to go but some might say it’s better than riding an Amtrak train that hits a dump truck which subsequently explodes but that’s not my story to tell so we won’t go there, except to say that my mouth stayed open for quite some time. But it was great to have Amanda along and hear her stories about Albion and her own study abroad in London (and trains, yikes). Oh, not to mention that Mouse and Amanda got to see each other!

Anyway, that gorgeous breakfast is from the Crow’s Nest. The Nest Scramble. Eggs scrambled with spinach and feta and a few tomatoes and I dunno what else. I guess I could prob’ly approximate the dish at home if I didn’t get too distracted. But I never seem to actually get around to *doing* it. I have to drive 100 miles to get it. We went from there to Mouse’s apartment, where we installed a couple of mirrors and I forget what else. On to Meijer to buy a blender and some limes and avocados and pine nuts and maybe some lemons and I forget what else. Oh yeah, tonic water and a related adult beverage. Where we gave the uscan cashier a few little conundrums about the rules for selling adult beverages but we won’t go there either except to say that Mouse is definitely legal and said cashier didn’t seem to want to argue about that given that the Mouse parental units were clearly and happily involved in the purchase.

Back to Chez Mouse for more fussing around with tools and things and, of course, KW got bored and decided to stroll around the neighborhood. On the road again at about two and home at four after a stop in Albion to drop off Amanda and take a gander at the house where I first met my nephew-to-be Chris, driving his big wheel up and down the driveway. Sorry, guys, didn’t get a pic. There was a neighbor hanging around and I wasn’t brave.

I’m tired but somehow I’m managing to drag dinner together. Click here or on the pic for more.

Actually, I’m not sure what Stormy thought about it but in my estimation, it couldn’t have been a bad birthday. In the first place, I allowed him to accompany me on some typical Saturday morning Planet Ann Arbor errands. I lost him in Whole Foods but he turned up at the checkout, where he had purchased a box of something that he wouldn’t tell me about. I still don’t know what it is. My only purchase was maple pecan granola for the beach urchin known as Mouse.

Home for a while, where the GG made himself an egg breakfast, then out again. To Ace Hardware, Lowe’s, a nursery near Dexter that I can’t remember the name of but I may well go back there to pick up a new flowering crab or two (I need trees!), the Dexter Floor Store (where we *finally* got serious about ordering carpet!), Panera to pick up a lunch, Ace Hardware *again*, and English Gardens.

Then, the GG worked on the broken log splitter that’s been cluttering up my house and life for at least 15 years now. He was ecstatic when the guys at Midas Muffler (or wherever) welded two hand-sized parts together for him. For free! I’m guessing they are going to blahg about him as weirdest customer of the month or last ten years or whatever. Hmm, how many muffler guys blahg?

Finally, our new neighborhood high school, Sky High, was officially dedicated or whatever you want to call it, today. We went over there to take a “self-guided” tour. And we did. Into all of the various closets and bowels of the building. Hey, I was with a guy who used to self-tour himself all over the Shrine of the Silver Dollar Little Flower, over there in good old Royal Joke. He kept saying stuff like, “these doors are easy but I need two knives.”

I’ll bore you with more pics of the new high school later this week. For now, you can click here or on the pic for a short slide show of Stormy Kromer The GG on his 2008 birthday.

I don’t have much to say today.

I won’t bore you with all of the stoopid blasted traffic situations I had to deal with on the way home. The oil tanker that was going 40 on the freeway in front of me and all of the nincompoops that kept passing me and wouldn’t let me in even though my blasted blinker was on. The woman in the Jetta who was sitting in her vee-hickle next to me at the Plum with the engine running, enveloping me with the smoke from the ciggy she was suckin down like crazy while gabbing on her blasted cell phone. And just other people who didn’t use turn signals when they needed to or, well, if I go too far into this, I will get myself into some kind of awful trouble by stereotyping drivers or whatever. Like, I am not generically fond of female drivers. But I *am* a female driver. So. I dunno.

This is April 25 and I am between birthdays here. In a couple of ways. I am between my last birthday and my next birthday. And I am between Mouse’s birthday yesterday and the GG’s birthday tomorrow. There are a *lot* of Courtois birthdays this week and in April in general. And there are some Fin birthdays too. Happy birthday to all!

Have a great day, little Mousey!

I promised to bore you with urban hiking pics this week and today is the day. I had tentative plans to attend a Refresh Detroit usability meeting at the Planet Ann Arbor Public Library tonight. Yes, Detroit. Dunno why. It kinda sounds like the idea is to haul in big construction equipment to raze all of the burnt-out buildings down there and, uh, refresh. Not. This is about web usability. Anyway, I am interested in this group but I was outta the house from 8-5:30 on Monday and 8-8:30 yesterday and I needed to go home today. Yes, I am a wimp. Anyway, for the last few years, this is one of the times of year that I do not always walk in the early morning. Because it is final exam time at WCC and I am usually frantically writing and studying. And then there was 2006. I only had one class that semester so I didn’t have that much studying to do and I know I was walking because I remember telling Jean (when she asked, i.e., “are you okay and are you still walking?”) that I was walking every morning. And I was, as in, get up, take a shower, walk and… What’s next? Anyway, *this* year, I am looking at the patterns that the bare and just budding tree branches make against the sky. And watching how the budding leaves unfold. I’m not trying to be poetic here, don’t get me wrong. It’s just something I’ve never observed in detail before. There are a few beautiful tree branch pics in my lightly captioned slide show today. Click here or on the pic to view.

Another one o’ them thar very short plays:

Longtime neighbor and fellow member of the once Haisley Mafia that I like and am friendly with but not really *friends* with, if that makes any sense: “So what are you doing these days?”

Kayak Woman: “I am a blah-blah-blah and I <insert long description of what I do using a whole bunch of technical words here>.”

LN [stepping backwards a bit and clearly missing a few beats]: “Ohhhh……. Well, I always knew you were really really smart.”

KW: [wide-eyed, speechless, and shaking just a bit]

THE END

Roight. I greatly enjoy my job but I am still on a huge learning curve and I feel “really really smart” about 5% of the time and, well, not so smart about another 75%, and speak-slowly-I’m-blonde for the full other 20%. [Uh, does that add up to 100%?] Not to mention that it took me a couple months of work and some digging into the company website about my official job description to come up with what I think is a sound-bite description of what it is that I do. And another month to be able to spit it out intelligibly. And, in the back of my mind is the nagging little fact that back in the day of beach urchins and the Haisley Mafia, it took me something like six months to be able to order a “double decaf cappuccino with hazelnut” at Barry Bagels without asking UberVicki, “will you order that thing that you always order for me?” And speaking of Barry Bagels, nowadays I stumble over ordering “tuna salad on a tomato basil bagel, untoasted, with lettuce and tomato” for my Monday lunch. I can’t do peanut butter *every* day.

Can you say duh?

How fast can you say it?

This morning as I drove to work, I heard about yet another large bank having difficulties with their profits or whatever. I sighed. Again. This evening, I got home and I was futzing around with my urban hike photos and I heard that *another* bank was having some kind of difficulties. This time, it was *my* bank. Big sigh.

I am associated in part with this bank because it has roots in my childhood. When I was a little kid, my granddaddy was the president and my dad (aka Grandroobly) worked his way up through the ranks. Teller, to assistant head teller, to head teller, to VP and eventually prez and then Chairman of the Board.

My grandaddy did not have a fancy investment banking degree or any of that shit. And yes, I’m swearing here. Sorry. My grandaddy never swore in front of me. He made up his own swear words. But I’ve posted my dad’s cow banking story and I’ll bet there was some interesting swearing going on behind the scenes when I was a kid.

Anyway. My grandaddy started out with mostly nothing. When he was a baby, back in the late 1800s, his family lived in northern Saskatchewan. It was a base for his father to run a Hudson Bay Company trapping operation. My great-grandaddy and his brother died on a trapping run and Grandaddy’s mom moved the family to Sault Ste. Siberia, Michigan, where she had relatives who were willing to help her.

When Grandaddy grew up, he decided that a small-time banking job might be better than calcimining houses, so he took a job at the bank and he eventually rose through the ranks to become the bank president. A highly respected one, who was fair but didn’t take any crap.

My dad ended up at the bank too (long story, of course) and, in his time, he steered the little local bank into a buyout by a holding company and the subsequent conversion to computer records that damn near drove him crazy. He was fair and highly respected and he didn’t take any shit (I don’t think). And he didn’t have some blasted MBA or investment banking degree or whatever. Years later that holding company was bought out by the company that posted its grief today. Dad and Grandaddy are probably haunting all those nincompoops today. You go, ol’ codgers!!!

When my dad’s little Yooper bank was absorbed by the first holding company and my dad was promoted to CEO, they strongly suggested that my dad should actually, um, GO OUT TO LUNCH sometimes. Eating a peanut butter sandwich at his desk was not appropriate for a bank CEO.

I think we’d do a lot better if more banking executives did have a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.

And just possibly, a stint at calcimining houses might give some of these people a reality check about how most people actually live.

National City, getcher shit together!

First and foremost, I didn’t think I was gonna post any shower pics. It was pretty dark and I’m in a phase where I hate flash photos. Most of the pics I got were uglies (my photography, not the people) or dark or blurry or whatever. I wasn’t trying too hard today. I was having more fun hanging out with my sils and nieces, et al, which is what I was there for. And I really don’t *want* to have people scurry away when I show up with my camera, et al. Yikes, there she is with that blasted camera again. She’s gonna put me on the web! Eek! But I sorta liked this pic, it shows the energy of the event, so I hope it’s okay. There’s Susie opening a gift and mom Kathy behind her and Sheila recording the gift. I know those on the west coast will want to have some documentation of the event. The only problem is that it doesn’t include Sally who had an integral role in the whole gift opening thing.

Anyway, my other pic is of some of the wonderful loot that *I* came home with! Sheesh! Black Thumb Banana was chompin’ at the bit about the little alyssum planter kit, so I *reluctantly* let her go and plant it. I HOPE she remembers to water it and stuff. You’d think she could handle something that small. I heard her mumbling around about square-foot gardening just yesterday. And I *love* the grocery bag. It fits right in with my bags from TJ’s and the Plum. I got to pick my own and I picked one with reptilian stuff.

Yeek! I haven’t actually explained any of this stuff yet! It was our beautiful niece Susie’s wedding shower. She’s marrying Mike, who is a mathematics phd and will be a professor here at the U of M starting next fall. They’ve known each other since high school. The shower was a great time and Gay and Kelly were there and Becky and her girls. And all of Susie’s sisters, of course! And about a billion other people. My favorite part of these things is hanging out with my sils et al but I did enjoy watching Susie open her loot. But, as I watched, I couldn’t help thinking something like, “when you are 50-something, you should have a *reverse* shower and get rid of all your, uh, well, crap!” Don’t get me wrong folks, I am a woman who has recently spent an un-godly amount of money outfitting her own college student daughter’s apartment. And ENJOYED THE HECK OUT OF IT! (Er, Mouse, did we buy you a teakettle? I can’t believe I can’t remember that!) And prob’ly nobody would want my old crap anyway.

Life is strange and that is all. Except love to Susie and Mike and Datura.

It was a gorgeous day. This morning, the GG and I did our “urban hike” down around the Huron River Barton Dam area. I took pictures and I’ll bore you with them later this week when I’m too stressed out to do a real post. People always note that driving from The Planet Ann Arbor over to Northern Megalopolis is long. It was 54.4 miles going over and 54.6 coming home. Yeah, that’s a distance. But I love to drive and the roads were dry and I enjoyed the heck out of being *alone* in my vee-hickle for that space of time.

Jim, we’re so proud of you and your robotics team!

Looking for Mommy, a Baby Story from 1986

I’ve known Master Doug my whole life and I like him for a babysitter. We do whatever I want to do and he brought me a big plastic blow-up globe and he even let me put bobby pins all over his hair.

But this is getting a little old, so I think I’ll get him to help me go look for my mommy.

Hmmm, my dad wears these gloves to go outside, so I’ll give them to Doug to wear. And, let me think about what else he’s wearing. He’s got the same kind of sweater on that my dad wears, so I guess he doesn’t need anything else. Now I’ll get him to help me get my jacket and my hat and my mittens and my boots on.

Next we need my mommy’s keys. The keys to her little gold car. And we need to put my new globe in a big grocery bag so we can take it with us. That’s important.

Oh good, we’re outside and he’s putting me in my car seat. And now he’s getting into my mommy’s seat. I don’t know if he knows how to drive mommy’s little gold car. I know just how to drive it but mommy never lets me drive. I’ll hand him the keys and then I’ll point at the ignition and that’ll show him what he’s supposed to do.

Except he doesn’t quite seem to get it and we’ve been sitting here for a while now. I think maybe we’ll have to walk. And we can’t forget to take my globe with us ’cause that’s important.

We’ll just walk down to the corner here. Uh-oh, we’re at the curb now and I don’t go down the curb by myself. I’ll just stand here and wait and Doug’ll figure out that we need to go across the street.

We finally got across the street and we didn’t find my mommy, we just found some old drunk guy with a dog. I guess I’m tired of all this walking around so maybe we better go home now. I sure hope my mommy doesn’t forget to come home.

The End.

Ho hum. Actually, it was much closer to the RegenAxes in St. Louie than to us. Mouse felt it in kzoo. Nevertheless, I woke up right around the time it was reported to have happened (5:30 am) so it *could* have been what woke me up. Or it could’ve been my alarm clock. Or my house continuing to fall apart.

If you want big voluptuous plant life, y’all will have to truck on over to Archaeofacts. But Black Thumb Banana’s garden here at the Landfill is trying, at long last, in spite of Black Thumb’s best efforts at foiling it. Eet’s one o’ them thar galleries again. Cleeeeeeeck to enlarge.

It’s my new old favorite pitcher. I think it held milk at the dining table every day of my childhood. Back then, it wasn’t any particular item of beauty as far as I was concerned. I was much more enthralled with glittery shiny over-the-top stuff. I had totally forgotten about this simple, yet beautiful pitcher. Last weekend, when The Commander told me there was a package for me in the back bedroom, I was a bit skeptical. There wasn’t exactly a *package* in there. There *was* an object wrapped in bubble wrap. That must be it, I thought. And it was. A pitcher from my childhood. An object that I interacted with every day. At first, I thought she was giving it to me to give to one of the Beach Urchins but then I decided it was mine. For now. The Beach Urchins can fight over it someday. If they want it. It was never really a part of their lives I don’t think, at least I can’t remember if it was in use when the Beach Urchins visited Grandma’s Other House, the Real House, Where She Lives Some of the Days. Er, the other days she *doesn’t* live on the beach, of course. Which, since the beach is on Lake Superior, averages out to *most* of the days.

We all know of hoarders. People whose homes are so stuffed with junk that there are narrow paths through the rooms and dysfunctional appliances filled with papers and. and. Actually I don’t personally know anyone that bad and you probably don’t either. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s Children of Hoarders. But I know a few people who seem to unreasonably hang on to things and I can’t say that I don’t do it myself. It’s an ongoing struggle. Well. Not The Commander. The Commander is on the warpath. She wants to get rid of everything she owns before she dies. Which may not be any time soon. I have told her that when that eventuality eventually comes, I will not have a problem dealing with her stuff. Comparative to some other people on the planet, there isn’t that much. But she is driven to get rid of everything. It’s okay. I am actually impressed. Love you, Moom! You are a role model. She reads this, yaknow.

Anyway, after I did a double-take at what was in that bubble-wrap, I very carefully packed it up and took it home. I don’t really have a place for it here in this sorta hoarder house. Maybe it’ll be one more item that will spur the development of a new Landfill kitchen one of these days. This kitchen is sure ugly. I hope that when I die (and I’m not planning on it any time soon), I don’t leave my kids with a bunch of crap that they don’t really want. But I hope that I don’t give away whatever few things they might actually *want*.

Life ain’t easy whether you are a hoarder or not.

Love y’all, Kayak Woman

More drywall coming down, what else? Anyway, it wasn’t really night any more, it was a few minutes before my alarm went off. What the heck, after the awful dreams the commotion had interrupted, I decided to just get up and get going. I’ll spare you the details. I dunno about you but it drives me a little crazy when people try to tell me their dreams. I can’t even sort out my *own* dreams half the time let alone follow someone else’s. These weren’t prescient dreams, I don’t think. The old Celtic sixth sense has been pretty dormant for a while now and I guess that’s a good thing because I still have to forcibly knock 2006 out of my system sometimes. But now it’s 2008 and it’s Super Tuesday again and it’s gonna be a long day.

Speaking of crash-crunch, that theme continued as I was taking my walk and some guy came out and got into his vee-hickle. There was a crunched up old garbage can right smack in front of it and I couldn’t help but think something like, if there was a garbage can right smack in front of my vee-hickle, I would either a) move it before getting into said vee-hickle and driving off or b) back up a bit and drive *around* it. Did he do either of those things? No. As I stood in the middle of the street watching him in horrified fascination, he got into his vee-hickle and drove *over* the garbage can.

And finally, this has probably been all over the internet by now, so if 15 people have already sent you the link, I apologize, ’cause I hate forwards and the like as much as y’all do. I’m sorry but I’ve seen it all. But I can’t resist, so just click. It’s just a video of a raccoon reaching through a cat door and stealing a floor mat. In case 15 people *have* already sent you the link. Hi ho. And I can do without anymore crash-crunch toady today, thank you very much.

Y’know, it isn’t my job that has me stressed out. So far, there have been moments of stress and there will be big stress coming up beginning sometime in the next month. And that’s okay. That’s how it’s supposed to be. I have a lot to learn but I actually think I’m sorta up for it. For now, the stress comes from dealing with keeping up the Landfill. Laundry and vacuuming and de-cluttering. And going to the dad-blasted grokkery store *after* work because I was too disorganized to go on the weekend. And, yes, I was out of town on the weekend. But we were home early enough yesterday (because of the tree) that I could’ve gone then. Heck, the Plum Market is right on the corner. So, why do I spend so many afternoons careering around in the grocery store with all the other crazed after-work type people? And then. I get home and a certain entity is rummaging around for various documents and cards and tools and you name it! I wanna say, “Hey, I married you for better or worse but not for lunch!” Except that this isn’t lunch. It’s the end of the day when everybody, even geeked out government computer employees, just wanna get home. I can’t blame him. But I miss having time to myself at the end of the day. To ruminate or whatever. Does that mean I don’t have time to chew my cud any more?

And of course, this brought up a little slice of memory from my first career or whatever you want to call it. When the Beach Urchins were little, I had an intense part time job in the same place that the GG worked. He would drive over in time to start work at 6 AM and at 2 PM, I would pull up in the parking lot with the Beach Urchins in their car seats. I’d get out of the driver’s seat and he’d get in. He’d drive them home and I’d go to work. One day I got there after a particularly hard day of toilet training. I walked over to the office coffee maker and there was a puddle on the floor. I jumped about a mile! My *wonderful* boss witnessed this and said, “Go sit down, Mama.” I worked hard at that job and I loved my little urchins but sometimes work could be a refuge in its own way.

We were southbound on N. Maple, just coming up to our street. The GG snorted out a little laugh but we did make the turn into the Landfill neighborhood, having some idea of what we were returning home to. A quick interior inspection revealed that the only *visible* damage was to Mouse’s celing and wall. Mouse, it didn’t ruin any important possessions that I can see. And power is out to Mouse’s room (er, not, the impact apparently shook the light bulb out of commission) but everything else seems to work. Except that we aren’t connected to the Internet, which is why I’m stealing bandwith from a neighbor. But we’re here and, yes, it’s a mess, and I have to go call The Commander.

Update: Actually, we do have internet again, courtesy of the GG’s cabling skills. But he says we still have to call Com-you-know-what and he thinks they might not be happy about the do-it-yourself technique. I figger what the hell, the last time we needed Com-you-know-what to come out here, they sent a serial killer. As in, “I am NOT going in the BASEMENT with him!!!” Yes, he was that scary.

Another update: Rafters, trusses, and walls are broken in Mouse’s room. Rafters are pushed down into the walls. Oh yeah, there doesn’t seem to be any water damage. So one good thing.

Heading south to survey tree damage. Not sure if there’ll be regular wifi for a couple days. At least not for my real computer. My iPhone can go on line and I can hang out at Barry Bagel’s and maybe I can steal bandwith from the linksys or some other neighbor’s.