What you got yesterday is what you get when I write my blahg at 10 PM or whatever the heck time it was. I am a morning person. And no, we hadn’t just finished eating dinner but we were still hanging around the dining table with the whine and the cookies. Dinner was a little late though. (What else is new, roight?) Honest to Pete, I had actually gotten the chicken into the oven early, for me. Alas, The Commander’s oven didn’t seem to be operating at full power. It always seems like it’s something, doesn’t it? This was just chicken thighs and I turned up the oven and they eventually cooked and what the heck, I could’ve cooked them on the stove-top for that matter.

I’m really not all that crazy about traveling up to the Yoop at this time of the year but once I get there I love slodging along through the cold and the dark and the snow. I walk along the escarpment in the darkness before dawn. Above the lights of the twin cities and the huge flame at the steel mill across the river burning brightly, surrounded by huge clouds of steam. I walk along the waterfront, noting whatever freighter (or not) is locking up (or down). Is it a salty? What port is it from? They’ll keep locking through, in and out of Lake Superior, for another month or so and then they’ll hang it up until sometime in March. Sounds? Almost other-worldly. Beeep beeep beep. Buzz buzz buzz. Gates are opening and closing at the locks and folks are backing up big cranes and things. THUNK! Clank clank clank. Something over at the steel plant. Whoooooooshhhh. Not sure what that was but finally figured it was something to do with the steel plant. Freighters horning to signal their departure from the locks. Trains whistling and clunking and clanking around. And suddenly, as I walked down into Brady Park, an order shouted over a loudspeaker. I stopped in my tracks, trying to hear the words. A Coast Guard cutter or maybe even an ice-breaker parked there by the Paul Bunyan, its lights blazing, mobilizing for duty. Were they talking to me? Well, of course I knew they weren’t.

I really needed a few more days up there this time to hang out with The Commander and the Grinchie and Green Guy. To do a little more Christmas shopping. To go out to Fin Family Moominbeach. I’m sorry all you folks who live out there. I just did not make it out there. Sigh. To walk. To walk all over town. Through my old neighborhood. Up Cotie’s Hill (I do not know how to spell Cotie’s) where you can’t sled any more. Down by the waterfront. Out by the airport. I mean the one my dad flew little Cessna airplanes out of all the time. An evening flight around town, anyone? Yes, let’s go. Well take Grandaddy or maybe a friend with us.

We are home on the Planet Ann Arbor. The driving was beautiful today. I have so much to do between now and xmas that I have been making proclamations left and right since we got home. We are eating leftovers this week! I have gifts for these people but I don’t have gifts for these people! Don’t put my skirt in the dryer!

And that is my loverly new ski jacket there in the pic with a few shambling mounds behind it. The “master” bedroom has been a hazardous waste zone since late summer. I am sorry. You were maybe expecting more outta that jacket? Well. You haven’t seen the zip-out lining or the velcro attachable hood or the secret pocket and wire-securing loop for my iPhone. Except that I don’t listen to music or news or whatever when I’m walking. I listen to the ambient sounds of my neighborhood. Whichever neighborhood I happen to be in at the time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 6:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.