I often miss the old days when the beach urchins were high school/college kids and I left the front door unlocked at night. When my kids and/or their friends arrived in the middle of the night, they would squeak or grok. I woke up sometimes and sometimes not. It didn’t really matter. But in the grand scheme of things, if I wasn’t already asleep, hearing a squeak or a grok sent me off into dreamland.

There were a lot of mice around here as the beach urchins were growing up. They were always a calming factor. Froooggy? Not so much. I bought Froooggy at Meijer and the young male cashier who was checking me out said, “That is ugliest aminal I have ever seen.”. I didn’t disagree with him but I knew Froooggy would fit into our goofy little family and he did. He also wreaked so much havoc around here for a while that the GG banished him to the Dungeon for a few years.

He’s been back for many years and new friends are learning to squeak and grok when they enter our house. I am loving it.

The pic is from a photoshop class I took at WCC a long time ago. The assignment was to commemorate a holiday (real or not). Mine of course was not real. I got and A on this because I met all of the assignment specifications. I found out later that my prof absolutely hated starbursts. But I think she understood that this whole thing was kind of tongue in cheek. I mean they are riding a Great Lakes navigational buoy, of all things? LOL!

Football aficionado that I am not, I do like the ambience of football on TV. So I actually blahgged about the Umich/Wmich game last night. At the time I published, Umich was ahead by one point and had been for a while. Then at about the last second, it seemed like Wmich was ahead (by one point?) and there was one second left in the game (something like that). I dozed and when I woke up (moments later), the clock had been turned back and Umich somehow won in the last second.

According to many folks who know (and care) more about football than me, Wmich played a much better game. And I don’t really understand the whole extra second thing. Don’t try to ‘splain it to me. It’s been ‘splained to me multiple times and I still don’t really get it. Why aren’t they using the Naval Observatory Master Clock? Or even a cell phone? Back in my childhood tech career, when I covered for our early morning computer operator, I had to call the Naval Observatory Master Clock first thing in the morning to make sure That Darn EPA’s computers were all set at the correct time.

The whole thing is weird. I am always glad when the “home team” wins. I did not go to Umich but attended a game every year as a child because my old coot’s yooperland bank bought ringside seats to be shared amongst the employees. I didn’t sit in the ringside seats with my parents. I sat with my cousins and aunt Bubs in the end zone. There were plenty of empty seats in the end zone in those days and we would walk in through the regular unwashed people’s gates and pay something like $2.50 a seat. Yes, the decimal point is in the right place. Those were good times.

I remember being more entranced with the cheerleaders than the games. THEY WERE ALL MALE! REALLY? We never had any male cheerleaders at any time in my high school marching band career. I envied those girls or at least I envied their uniforms, which woulda showed off whatever “woman’s charms” I may have possessed at that age a lot better than the stodgy old band uniform I chose to wear. Our band uniforms were AWFUL and most of them were ancient.

I’m getting bogged down in memories of my misspent youth here. I’m glad Umich won. I kinda hate how they won. I’ll take other people’s word for what a good game Wmich played. And I’m wondering about Umich’s coming season. I can just about hear my dad yelling, “C’mon, Umich, buckle down!” From heaven or hell or the Ryerson Party Bote. Or wherever he is. My uncle would be having a hissy fit. I’m not sure if he’d be on the party bote. Maybe not but love him anyway.

The title is in quotes because I did not come up with this. A facebook friend posted it. I’m not sure where they got it.

Umich is playing Wmich tonight and I have asked this about ten times because I can’t follow football but apparently Umich is still ahead by a point.

I care but I don’t care. Umich is and always has been one of my Home Teams. Well, the Sault High Blue Devils wee my original home team. My dad and granddaddy took me to a game when I was in sixth grade. My cousin Mac (late, alas) was a high school freshman. We were pretty proud of him but I don’t think he cared all that much about actually playing football and spent a lot of time on the bench. He was a cute guy though and lots of girls liked him.

Soo High was not doing very well that night and at one point my dad astounded me by yelling, “C’mon Soo, buckle down.” I think the Soo lost that night.

The next year, I was in the hight school band, which meant I was in the marching band. I took that very seriously. I played the flute and flutes are not particularly easy to hear in a marching band. Eventually, I was able to “take over” the ONE piccolo the school owned. It was in such bad shape that my parents paid for some repairs.

When I first went to college as a music major, females were not yet welcome in marching bands. That was okay with me. I was kinda *done* with marching bands anyway and wanted to focus on the flute and its repertoire. Females were eventually (and appropriately) welcomed into collegiate marching bands. One of my nieces was a trombonist and although her dad (my brother, also a trombonist) died after her first year of college, he was a HUGE supporter of the MSU marching band, his daughter and her friends.

G’night, KW

I’m sure my regular readers (is it nine these days?) are wondering where under the sun I was yesterday. Did I get hit by a tornado? Nope. But severe storms whoooshed through our area and knocked our power out for 24 hours or so. Was there a tornado? I dunno. Apparently one was identified but it wasn’t close to us. We just had high winds as near as I can figger. A lot of trees came down, fortunately none of them on us. Been there, done that. Twice.

We are pretty much unscathed. We hooked up the refrigimatator to our portable generator, which also kept our phones charged. A ride-around this morning to “sight-see” and fill up our gasoline tanks with E-zero gas (no ethanol, important for small engines) also helped keep our phones topped up. We also have the Lyme Lounge in the driveway and it has a battery but we didn’t use it this time.

The thing I was most annoyed about was we needed to drop Mooon Yooonit off for scheduled maintenance at 7:15 AM. It was pitch black when I got up to visit the Water Closet at 6:15 or so and I could see lightning flickering in the distance and along came more deluges until early afternoon.

Long story short, I did not get a shower when I got up this morning. This is a bad thing. It wasn’t because of a water issue. We have city water and a gas water heater so there was hot water aplenty. It was because there wasn’t time before the dealer drop-off. This put me in a foul mood all morning even though I didn’t feel the usual grubby filthiness of not taking my morning shower. I must be getting older (and drier). TMI?

The power came back on early afternoon, just after we had made the decision to go out for lunch. I *finally* took a shower and we went out *anyway*, to Casey’s Tavern. For the coziness.

My coffee buddy MMCB is so sweet and thoughtful. She figgered out that our neighborhood was probably affected by the outage and offered freezer space. I didn’t need it because generator. So she offered a gas can so we could fill the generator up. I love her so much but I was ROFLMAO about this. My husband is a born and bred member of the cFam. I dunno how many gas cans we have at The Landfill but this is a pic of the Hoton Lake garage and I know we also have multiple gas cans here. If you are a member of the cFam, you are running small motors of every sort and you have to be prepared. And we are. Filling a couple of gas cans was the first order of business today, like I already said.

It was a loooonnng day though with its own high and low points. A low point being the 94-95 degree temperatures we hit somewhere south of West Branch. Or was it Bay City? The I75 SUV Speedway all runs together, except for when it crosses the Mackinac Bridge.

Anyway, we met up with The Uncly Uncle and The Beautiful Gay at their house in Gaylord for a nice lunch (a high point). Gay and I indulged in a little whine, as we do. Day Drinking if you will. She likes white but she keeps some red around for people like me. I don’t think she likes to keep partial bottles of red around so she packed me up with this partial bottle and a paper cup. I took advantage of the photo op, then stashed the bottle and cup in the back somewhere for the duration.

We had a second stop (hours later) at FlaMan’s and I did not need to be tipsy for that. FlaMan had not had the best of mornings for various reasons but he brightened up a bit after the GG got his TV working (The Big Bang Theory was his choice today) and gave him a shave. A lingering source of contention is how many of FlaMan’s razors are currently missing. I have to ask, how many razors can a man own?

Little Cat Z was here when we finally got home. Her purpose was to return Cygnus, which she had used to haul a (new) mattress and camping stuff to the moominbeach. She also brought us middle eastern take-out food, helped unload Mooon Yooonit and the Lyme Lounge, and started a load of laundry. She wanted to make freezer ‘hattans for us but the supplies for those were in Mooon Yooonit. Who raised this person? Her grandmoom, I guess. Her moom was always kind of a ne’er-do-well.

We listened to Fox News/Patriot Radio all the way down and about all I will say about that is if I hear one more nose tampon commercial, I am gonna smash my partial whine bottle into the radio. (Just kidding…)

Wikweia was my childhood Camp Fire Girl camp and that was a song we sung. There were some good times at Wikweia but I wasn’t the happiest of campers. Why oh why do I have to leave my woods and beach to go to camp? I wanted to leave Wikweia and go home to the moomin and all my cousins.

I am an adult now and I co-own part of the moominbeach and cabin and I have to go “home” tomorrow. Make no mistake, The Planet Ann Arbor is my chosen adult home and I love it there but I do not wanna leave the moominbeach.

What did I do today? I took some recycle into town. I cleaned the refrigerator and packed some non-perishable food items. We had a Green Bag to take up to the res and just about when we were slowly mobilizing to head up there (and have lunch at Pickles one last time), some of the Old Cabin cousins texted to ask if we were still going to Pickles and if we wanted company. Yes we are and yes we do. Some of the other Old Cabin cousins were in the chaos of leaving and I have learned (the hard way) that sometimes it’s best to just stay outta the way.

As luck would have it, Cap’n*Queen*Leila was working at Pickles today. She came in after we were seated but came over to visit. As usual, I asked her boss if she was working. This time I had the presence of mind to tell her boss that C*Q*L was indeed our favorite waitress but that all of the waitresses at Pickles are great and C*Q*L is my fave because she happens to be my cousin. First cousin twice removed to be specific.

We finished off as many leftovers as possible for dinner tonight (and I unceremoniously threw a few things out) and then we texted the remaining Old Cabin cousins to ask if they wanted to do some deck time with us. And we did, until dark. On the damned road south tomorrow. G’night, KW.

Here we are, preparing (sadly) to return to our primary residence down on The Planet Ann Arbor in a couple days. The catamaran is in the moomingarage and that trailer full of trash went to the dump today.

Disclaimer: The catamaran doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to one of my cousins (first cousin once removed aka my cousin’s son). We happily store it in the moomingarage for the winter.

The trailer is loaded with crapola to take to the dump. Where is the dump? The GG asked me earlier this summer. I did not know. He wondered if the Old Cabin cousins would know. They might. But who would *definitely* know would be the Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchie or Jolly Judd, both cousins of mine who live here on the moominbeach year-round. The Grinch can be hard to catch up with but Judd is around and he pointed us in the right direction.

It was my (late) brother’s idea to build the garage. The females in my nuclear fam (beach urchins and me) were really against the idea. I wanted a “bunk house” with indoor plumbing. The beach urchins (I think) just didn’t want to cut down trees. My brother “won” and we (the family) built a garage.

As annoyed as I initially was about the garage, I came to love it. It provides a lot of storage space for botes (we used to put our sailbote inside the cabin for the winter and it was a pain in the butt). After The Commander died and we emptied The Dillon House, it served as a staging area for dispersing her possessions and a storage area for stuff we hadn’t decided what to do about. We’re still deciding about some of that crap (LOL).

My bonus daughter aka my brother’s daughter tentatively asked me a while ago if anyone had had any issues about the garage. I’m guessing she sensed tension back when my brother had it built. I was speaking only for myself but oh no no no no, Pengo. Yeah, there was some grumbling in the beginning but the garage turned out to be a GOOD thing. And there is room enough in it for my young cousin’s catamaran.

Tucked all over into various corners of the eastern yooperland are little taverns like this one at Strongs Corners on M28, the main thoroughfare between Sault Ste. Siberia and Marquette. They are gems. Limited menus but really good food. If you order a whine, they have it in those little individual bottles, which is fine with me. I don’t think their usual clientele are whine snobs and I can see how dealing with a big whine inventory would be a pain for a small bar/restaurant/grocery/gasoline outfit in (kind of) the middle of nowhere.

We stopped for lunch there today and were not disappointed. Our mission was a shakedown cruise for Mooon Yooonit and the Lyme Lounge to make sure both were in good order for a boondoggle in Oh-haa-o in a week or two, not to mention traveling to the Planet Ann Arbor sometime this week. Mooon Yooonit just went through some major repairs and the Lyme Lounge has been parked for a while.

Across the street from the Strongs Tavern used to be the Lumberjack. The GG has been there (with the North Country Trail folks) but the one time he tried to take me there, it was closed (Monday) so we ended up at Pickles instead. The Lumberjack is closed forever now. It was owned by a husband/wife team and, if I get it right, the husband would usually be hanging around watching soap operas while his wife managed the customers. A family bar. Tragically, the husband was killed by a snowmobile last winter.

I dunno if it’s really bear season right now. From what little I know about bear season, the dates and rules are complicated and since I’m not interested in bear hunting, I haven’t researched this topic.

BTW, if you are Canuckian or care about Cananananada (I am a YankCanuck and I definitely care about Canada), here’s a link to a funny YouTube video about the current (ridiculous) tariff situation. This was shared on facebook by a Planet Ann Arbor friend who is retired from many years as publisher of an excellent local newspaper (The Ann Arbor Observer). He was married to one of my best YAG buddies Paula until she died over 20 years ago. I still miss her and her sense of humor.

The video is mindful of the 2022 film Hundreds of Beavers (google it). In the YouTube clip, I especially like the bagpipes. Apparently there are more Scots in Canananada than my family (LOL). (My granddaddy owned some bagpipes but I don’t think anyone ever played them.)

Boooooo to Google Maps for changing Lake Ontario to Lake America. I know they also did that to the Gulf of Mexico. F*ck ’em for both renamings. When the Orange Baboon says JUMP, do youz guyz ask “how high?” Grow a pair. I certainly have.

First, there was what probably sounded to the “kids” like a possibly violent confrontation. They didn’t express any stress about this but I thought I could sense it (but I could be wrong). Me: Oh, that’s just Judd calling Bo. Judd being our always jolly next door cousin to the east and Bo being his parents’ big old golden retriever, who Judd takes care of most days. And yes, Bo had gotten loose and was somewhere on the beach as near as I could tell. At any rate, he was quickly corralled by the sound of it. Dogs used to be allowed to run free here at the moominbeach but times have changed. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Much later on, my sharp ears picked up from the Next Door Cousins on the other side, “Where are the womenfolk?” I yelled out, “On the beach!” I think that’s where they were. The GG had seen two thirds of The Coven down there (the other third is down on The Planet Ann Arbor). I’m not sure if they were still down there or not but I heard *their* voices in the Old Cabin a bit later so Imma gonna guess. I’m not sure whether The Coven would like to be called “the womenfolk” and I hope I haven’t stirred some kind of pot.

The “kids” left this afternoon and I am missing them a lot already. How fast can a week go? Too fast. There was a discussion about who would drive first, which led to a tentative question about who *could* drive, since Cygnus is my car. I have no qualms about either of them driving my car. Both are responsible *mature* adults that I trust.

That led to me telling my beach urchin something like, “You’ve been responsible since you were a little kid.” I was thinking about a time when I worked at the EPA in the morning and the beach urchins and I were scheduled to drive to Hoton Lake and the moominbeach in the POC that day. Little Cat Z was about seven and when I got home from work, she had made and packed PBJ sandwiches and stuff for us. Seven years old.

This is the view from the bench from yesterday’s entry. It’s a big marshy area. Fen? Not sure what to call it.

Bison burgers and sweet corn and friends were on the menu tonight. I wasn’t sure if I could snag the Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchie or not but I wanted to so I made sure there was enough for him. As it turned out I saw his rattly old white construction van go by on the road and I nabbed him, by phone, which works better than it used to for various reasons too complicated to articulate.

The Grand Poohbah and Le Marquis also joined us for a while but left when our food was ready because they had already eaten. So it was quite cousin-y here for a while but that’s how we like it.

The car repair saga is finally finished after no fewer than SIX Mackinac Bridge crossings and Mooon Yooonit is home. Bearings are fixed and it was determined that the “wheel speed sensor” was also an issue. That was the part that had to be ordered. I understand what the issue was but can’t clearly articulate it. Trust me that it was a pretty scary problem and was causing him (and me, now that I think about it) to overshoot some turns a bit.

Anyway, today eventually turned into a beach day but the chill of fall is in the air tonight. G’night, KW.

This morning the “kids” took off up to Tahq for a hiking/camping overnight. I *jokingly* told them to watch out for bears (and moose) before they left. Although there are bear and moose in the area (and even more of them at Tahq), I was surprised to receive a message that they had actually seen a bear. No pic but I think they saw it from the car.

The pic is one of three benches the GG built and installed on the North Country Trail north of Tahq. We also have one in front of the moomincabin: Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench, his original bench. I’d like to have a second one.

Little Cat Z sent the bench pic. My mouse sent a bunch of pictures of her garden, including the sunflower pic. She also went on a hiking junket today and sent a video of fish in a river/stream(?) and a *very* cute turtle swimming along. She was looking for rattlesnakes, of all things. Looking for rattlesnakes in the Great Lake State is a lot less dangerous than in many other places. The only rattlesnake we have around here is the Massasauga and it is very reclusive and not as venomous as many others. Meaning you are not likely to die immediately upon being bitten. So my mom-dar remained pretty calm.

Here at the moomin? We are not outta the woods yet, vee-hickularly speaking. Sitting outside the moomincabin is a red Chrysler Pacifica with 5,000 miles on it. No, we do not own it. It’s a very pretty vee-hickle but it is a loaner because apparently our Cheboygan connection did *not* have all the necessary parts to fix Mooon Yooonit after all. So we hope to pick it up tomorrow. Since I need to make a mini-Meijer trip tomorrow morning (bison burgers!), I will have to accept a ride from the GG because I am not gonna risk driving the Red Car, even as far as Meijer. It’d be the one time I’d hit a turkey or sandhill crane or deer (or bear). Defensive old lady driver that I am, I don’t want to take any chances.

The GG and next door cousin Judd took a VR string trimmer mower down to Jeep and Pan’s to deal with some yard stuff and we were later rewarded by a loaf of lovely sourdough bread from the Bay Mills farmer’s market and, more importantly, a deck visit with Judd, chilly as it is today.

This pic is actually Mr. Golden Sun making an attempt at trying to shine down on us. I know. You can’t even see him, can you? It rained ALL DAY. I am not complaining. I don’t mind rain, especially when I am here and it is warm outside. The “kids” worked (at their jobs) on the deck almost the entire day. I loved this. I longed for a job that would’ve allowed me to do that when I was their age. They had a plan to hike the Jim Fin after work today. It was almost kiboshed by tstorms but in the end, those all subsided and they were able to carry out their plan.

On the other hand, the GG and Mooon Yooonit are semi-maroooooned down at the Straits of Mackinac. All four of Mooon Yooonit’s wheel bearings are bad. The front bearings were fixed today in Cheboygan and the rear bearings will be fixed tomorrow. THEY HAVE THE PARTS! YAY! It can be difficult to get “foreign” (aka Japanese) vee-hickles fixed around here and sometimes parts have to be ordered. Please god or whoever, we do NOT have time for that kind of thing.

I initially found myself getting really annoyed, like why didn’t we get this fixed earlier in the summer, like on The Planet Ann Arbor, where a lot of people drive “foreign” (aka Japanese) vee-hickles and parts are easy to come by. But I settled myself down and am rolling with it. The GG is safely ensconced in a room at our fave Driftwood motel and restaurant in Iggy and has probably had an olive burger and a brew for dinner. We ate eggplant parm here and visited the folks at the Old Cabin after dinner. All is well.

Me? I ran errands in Sault Ste. Siberia this morning. What car did I use? Well, of course I took my own vee-hickle Cygnus X-1. The “kids” drove it up here because they were hauling up a mattress that wouldn’t fit in either of their cars. In the late afternoon, Little Cat Z asked, “Moom, are you bored?” Answer? I am almost never bored here and I was “reading” an audio book. Anyway, since Cygnus is here, I could’ve gone anywhere I wanted to.

Round Island is the bit of land in the middle with Gros Cap (Canananada) on the right and Iroquois Point (USA) on the left. On Round Island, there used to be a lighthouse or more accurately (I think) a lighthouse keeper’s house. It was a big brick/stone building and when I was a beach urchin, it was still visible from our beach, at least some partial walls and chimney. It was a ruin even then.

You couldn’t see it from right in front of the moomincabin, where this pic was taken. You had to walk down the beach toward Doelle’s (to the right in the pic) until the north side of the island (the “back” as we said) was visible.

At some point in my adulthood, Radical Betty was walking the beach and when she got to the point where the remains of the structure on the island were usually visible, there was nothing there. It had fallen down. Did it wake her up? The Back Light (which fell down a few years later) probably did but not sure about this one. I think it’s too far away and across too much water.

This is pretty much all that’s left of it today. The GG went to the island and got a photo to send to a friend who knows more about our light house-related structures than we do. I think this is part of the chimney.

P.S. Godspeed Dolly. I’ve never been much of a country music fan but have become more of one in recent years. I wouldn’t pay for a concert ticket but then I don’t really like concerts of any sort. But she was one of the good ones using her fame and wealth to help others less fortunate. Now. I think I will go nuts if I hear “Nine to Five” one more time. It has been on repeat all afternoon. She wrote many many more songs than that one. Let’s mix it up a bit.

The GG loves to shoot guns with folks and there is an abandoned gun range not too far away from the moomincabin. I enjoy going there although I do not shoot guns. I have never shot a gun in my life.

The last time I went there with the GG, we had to navigate some fugly deep sand on the two-track forest road to get there. Of all things, we encountered a border patrol guy on the road. He spied our gray hair and felt a need to warn us about the road conditions. I was annoyed but the GG just said, I’ve been out here a bazillion times. Nobody shot guns that day although there may have been one in Mooon Yooonit.

I didn’t go out to the shooting range today but I remember when the GG took various beach urchins out there and taught them how to use implements of too much fun aka guns. They do not use guns nowadays (that I know of) but they know how.

The pic is of me, my childhood dog Tigger, and Danny Sherman, my first boyfriend. Let’s go honeybunch.

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