Please don’t. I’m talking to Mouse here, in case you didn’t know. She and her friend Lairi the Rake just walked over to the Haisley playground to relive their childhood, I guess. They met in about kindergarten and their friendship has survived over the years. Even though Lairi’s family moved out of the neighborhood into a different middle school district. And even though Mouse won the lottery to attend our beloved alternative Communist Martyrs High School. But then. Wouldn’t you know? Mouse and Lairi the Rake both ended up at Kalamazoo College and even shared a dorm room sophomore year. They both live here on The Planet Ann Arbor now and tonight they are hanging out over at the Haisley playground.

I hope they don’t take their shoes off. And leave them there. Actually, Mouse and Lairi stirred up quite some bit of trouble back in the early years of their friendship but I’m not sure that Lairi was ever involved in any of Mouse’s Shoe Removal escapades. As in, hey it’s 45 degrees, I don’t need no stinkin’ shoes. Probably the most egregious of these escapades was when The Commander sent some money for me to buy the Beach Urchins new sandals as a gift. It was enough money that I took them to Jacobson’s and let them pick out some beeyootyful suede leather sandals with multi-colored straps. 25 dollars a pair. It was all fine until the Beach Urchins were running around over at the schoolyard with some neighborhood comrades and Mouse came home with bare feet! It was way more than 45 degrees that day but still. I walked stormed over to the schoolyard. No sandals anywhere. I looked inside the back door. Bingo! Sort of. A chair with *one* of Mouse’s sandals. Alas. The door was locked. The next morning, I retrieved that sandal as soon as the custodian opened the door. A couple months later, Mouse’s other sandal was unearthed in the woods. Note to moom (and Grandmoom): buy cheeeeeep sandals for kids. And so I did. Nowadays Mouse buys her own shoes and I can assure you that she is more careful about her clothing now. Much more careful than her old tired moom.

We walked across Houghton Lake today. “We” meaning the Twinz of Terror and yer fav-o-rite blahgger. They made the same journey two weeks ago and I felt too sick (garden variety cold virus) then to walk with them. I am glad we got up there this weekend and had another chance! I didn’t remember to turn on my iPhone pedometer app until we were (I’m gonna guess) a quarter mile out but I think we did 4-1/2 miles on the ice. Except it wasn’t really what you would think of as ice. Not like walking on a skating rink. The ice on Houghton Lake is about 15 inches right now (an educated guess by the GG). It supports pickup trucks and the like. On top of the ice is a varying amount of snow. Average three inches or thereabouts. Every step involved sinking into that snow. Or not. One inch. Two inches. Three inches. More in some places. Very hard walking for someone who is accustomed to urban hiking. Skis may have been better. Or not…

We ended up right down the street from Little Boots restaurant. How did we do that? Absolutely wonderful place where we love to get breakfast. (Still missing Ron’s Restaurant though.) The Lord of Linden and The Beautiful Kathy just happened to be there too, so we caught a ride back over to the Group Home with them. An easy trip down the southbound I75 SUV Speedway. Shower? Yes! Feeling great, like I actually got some exercise today!

P. S. That second photooo is where we made landfall today.

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