This is a big birthday week in the cFam, beginning today with FlaMan’s birthday and ending in a week with The Lady of Linden’s, three that I am well aware of in between and a few others that I don’t really keep in my head because they belong to nieces and nephews of various degrees. It’s not that I don’t care and don’t worry, they are well taken care of by their own branches of the sprawling cFam. (Today is also my FinFam grandma Margaret’s birthday.)

The plan was to take FlaMan out to lunch at Johnny’s Pour House in Flushing (of all the things you can name a city). The GG thought FlaMan would bail but I had faith that he would rise to the occasion. He usually does and he seemed cheerful and upbeat about it when we talked to him this morning.

Alas, by the time we got there to pick him up (an hour away), FlaMan had fallen back asleep and the GG could not to save his life get him up, dressed, and out the door.

Instead we executed Plan B, which meant all of the GG’s living siblings (except FlaMan) converged upon the Pour House for lunch. That makes six siblings along with a few of us stray out-laws. All the “cackling hens” ended up at one end of the table and all the boyz at the other. Randomly (I think).

I ended up next to The Beautiful Gay (TBG, blonde woman, bottom right). TBG and I are married to the Twinz of Terror. I can’t even put this into words exactly but at one point our rowdy table was aroar with talk and laughter. I turned to TBG and said something like, “I remember when I was 28 and I married into this huge family and here we are all these years later!” Like how the heck did we get here? Of course I didn’t cry. Our end of the table was cackling and laughing to beat the band at that moment. But I have thought of that moment on and off throughout the day and it does almost bring tears to my eyes. I cannot put into words how much I love the family that welcomed this “outlander” into their fold all those years ago.

We didn’t let FlaMan totally off the hook. After lunch we all bombed his place for a family photo shoot. The GG got him outside and he happily traded his signature Stetson hat for The Lady of Linden’s birthday hat (complete with candles that aren’t easy to see in the crappy pic) for a few moments. King of the Day.

P.S. I am reluctant to post family photos in this space but today I felt compelled to do so. Everyone looks good or isn’t looking at the camera.

Okay, we don’t plan to die any time soon but the GG spent the day getting rid of “clothing he hasn’t worn in 10 years” and other crapola. Some of it is already dumped off somewhere, other things are awaiting a last chance for people to adopt them. Do either of the beach urchins really want the mini “bread pans” (we think) The Commander absconded with when she retired from her high school home economics teaching career. (She HATED that the life skills classes she designed and taught were lumped under “home-ec” but we’ll go there some other day.)

It is hard to get rid of stuff. Those bread pans? They TUGGED at both me and the GG. Neither one of us will ever use them and I bet the beach urchins would not either. And truth told, I’m not even sure where the mini bread pans came from. Plus the beach urchins have their own stashes to get rid of some day. Why do we all buy so much stuff? Why do we all save so much stuff? I do not know. I wasn’t rich growing up but I wasn’t exactly poor either. It was waaaaay after the Great Depression. Dad always had a job and mom had a job before I was born and another (better) one later when Jimbo and I (and Tigger) were capable of being home alone for a while after school. That started when I was 10 and Jimbo was seven. Tigger was probably the adult at that time, at least in dog years.

You have to be in the right mood to fling things and I was not in that mood today. That meant I hung around feeling a little guilty that I wasn’t flinging my own crapola. But I have been on many of my own flinging episodes, beginning 20 years ago or so. I was feeling pretty good about myself then until my parents started dying and I inherited a lot of their crap. Yada yada. More recently I hardly buy ANYTHING (except food) but somehow the “stash” seems to continually replenish itself.

So the GG did a lot of good today but WHAT ABOUT THE BUSHES? Nothing. Already seemingly forgotten? Maybe we’ll discuss the bushes in another year or so? This is not a complaint. It’s just how things roll around here. LOLOLOL!

I was scrolling through FacePlant today and the Scrap Box posted a pic of shelves full of National Geographic magazines and was asking for more to be donated.

Those of us who collected those (and our PARENTS) may have missed the boat, so to speak. When my in-laws moved from Royal Joke to Crazy Old Florida, they moved their collection of National Geographics to Rick Mott’s garage. I think the magazines eventually got dumped in some way, eco-friendly or not. We had our own smaller collection of NatGeos here at the landfill and I may have been able to recycle them by that time but not sure what I did with them.

National Geographic magazine was a staple in most American “intellectual” households when I was a kid. I dunno where my neighborhood BFF Laurie’s family kept their stash. I do know where the Boult’s kept their stash. It was in the attic. Laurie went to the Catholic grade school while I went to Lincoln School across the street from my house. Stinkin’ Linkin’ was not a bad place to go to school, but I always envied the prodjects the nuns at the Catholic school assigned, where the kids had to study a country or whatever and put together (with paper and glue, etc.) a “report”.

When Laurie was assigned these kinds of projects, I would often do a parallel project alongside her. I would always let her choose the best pictures from National Geographic. After all, she was doing it for a grade. I was just doing it because it was fun and interesting.

The GG is a Catholic school survivor and he has a lot of his own stories. Once when Laurie and I were in 4th grade, she told me that she had shown my shadow project to her nun-teacher and her nun-teacher was very impressed that a public school student was interested enough to follow along. I have saved that memory forever. (Of course I’m sure the nun knew exactly who my family was, Catholic that we were not…)

Cecropial is not a real word but Cecropia is. It is a BIG moth that this lepidoptera-phobic idiot was once terrified of. (And this is a luna moth, not a Cecropia.)

I’m not sure how I got to the point where I was terrified of big insects with exotic wings. When I was a small child I owned a beautiful butterfly book and I could name any butterfly in that book.

My cousin Mac was three years older than me. I admired him (and his older sisters) greatly. We lived in the same town growing up and next door to each other in the summer on the moominbeach. He owned a butterfly net. I bugged the shit out of him to take me (his 3-year-old GIRL cousin) out with his net to catch butterflies. Okay, he finally did. What did we catch? A monarch butterfly AND a BEE. Your 3-year-old heroine ran screaming back to the moomincabin. Mac was probably flummoxed by his stupid little cousin’s reaction.

To this day, I can’t totally process this stuff. I am not particularly freaked out about stinging insects at all now but I am still freaked out about a few butterfly species. Stinging insects can actually harm you (although they don’t seem to harm me much). Butterflies are harmless to humans.

In second grade, my class incubated and hatched a Cecropia moth in our classroom. I was like, “Oh no, I cannot do this”. Mrs. Bishop was one of the best teachers on earth and, knowing that I might freak out with a huge moth flying around the room, shw quietly shipped me to another classroom or wherever for the duration. She was also the teacher that had to deal with me vomiting all over my desk while our class watched John Glenn orbit the earth. I was legitimately sick that day and probably shouldn’t have been at school spreading what was probably norovirus around.

Cecropia moths do not freak me out any more, nor do luna moths. A couple of butterfly species continue to freak me out. This is not an uncommon phobia, as it turns out. My aunt Charlotte was also afflicted with it. She got herself over it by forcing herself to pick up butterfly wings from her son’s littered bedroom floor. I’m not sure I could’ve done that…

I don’t think I have ever written that cousin Mac died just before COVID hit. It was early March 2020 and we were at our annual Quiet Water Symposium for the weekend and I was happy birthday washing my hands. I was posting pictures of East Lansing where Mac had lived many years earlier. He often “liked” the pictures I took there. For some reason, I noticed that he wasn’t reacting to them that year but didn’t really think about it. On Monday morning, I was working at Cubelandia and his beloved (eldest) sister notified me that he had died. Mac and I had a complicated relationship but I loved him and I miss him now. Losing cousins is hard.

It’s not exactly the pic I was looking for but it’ll have to do for now. It’s the GG schlepping around on the moominbeach bay ice in old fashioned snowshoes.

I was remembering when my dog Tigger was young but not quite a puppy any more. At around the same time of year as this pic (February probably), my dad drove Tigger out to the moominbeach and they took a walk out on the ice. Tigger was nuclear powered and she took off like a rocket across the ice. Dad totally lost track of her. I can just about hear him swearing and he probably wasn’t saying something kid-friendly like “son of a pup.”

By the time dad was ready to head back to shore, Tigger was still not in sight so he went back and schlepped up the hill to Doc Read’s house where he was parked and drove home to town. I don’t think dad was all that worried about Tigger. I probably was but I don’t remember. What I do remember is Doc Read pulling up in front of our house to drop Tigger off.

As many dogs do, Tigger knew where Doc’s house was and also figured that Doc would help her get home.

So The Planet Ann Arbor had a tornado a few nights ago. Do we get a lot of tornados here? Not really. But we do get them.

Next Door Neighbor was LIT UP the next day. People were remembering tornado drills where they had to hunker down under their little elementary school desks. This was also a common practice to prepare for nuclear bombs. People my age who grew up here were taught that due to our hilly topography (glacial moraine), tornadoes kind of skipped over our city or dissipated (or whatever). A lot of those kids grew up not fearing tornadoes for that reason. I think the truth is somewhere in between. I think our topology is not particularly favorable for tornado formation. I also think tornadoes can happen just about anywhere depending upon any number of variables.

At my elementary school in the yooperland, we didn’t go through those under the desk drills. The yooperland almost NEVER has tornadoes and I was too young to experience air raid drills. The scariest bit of my elementary school years involved the Bay of Pigs. My parents told me that it looked like we (the USA) would be going to war. That was about all they said about that and I totally didn’t understand what was going on. I remember walking across the street to Stinkin’ Linkin’ school on a cold winter day under a watery sun. I looked up at that sun fearful that we were all gonna die. I was maybe five.

Of course we didn’t die. Because here I am with a home on the Planet Ann Arbor and a seasonal cabin on the moominbeach and two beautiful daughters plus a bonus daughter. And a billion beloved cousins.

Photo credit to mouse.

Just *try* to get to Dexter (not to mention Chelsea) from The Planet Ann Arbor. The plan was that the GG would walk to Chelsea and I would pick him up on Dexter-Chelsea Road for lunch at Cleary’s Pub.

Not so fast, KW. I texted the GG that I was leaving and I left. I got to the stoplight at Zeeb and went through it when it turned green. There were emergency lights but I didn’t process that they were actually *blocking* thru traffic until I got through the light and realized people were turning around. So I had to turn around.

Okay, I’ll just make the short hop north to the Miller/Zeeb roundabout and go left there. Nope. There were also emergency lights on Miller and they weren’t letting people through there either. Another U-turn.

All right, I can drive up to Huron River Drive but the speed limit is 35 and I need to get hopping. I decided my best option was to bop down to the I94 18-wheel Clogway, drive a mile to Baker Road and hop off.

Don’t worry if you’re not keeping up with all of this krap. I survived all this and lived to tell about it and *I* can’t keep up with it. It was KLUTZY driving (albeit CAREFUL because I was on 45-50 mph roads) and I can’t really remember how many U-turns I did before finally entering the damn Clogway. Knowing the GG would be a-wonderin’ where the f*ck I was, I parked for a minute near downtown Dexter to call and let him know what was going on. And yes, I already had a missed call from him.

I did pick him up on Dexter-Chelsea Road but after all that, when we arrived at Cleary’s, they were closed until later in the day due to some construction incident. Okay, we’ll head to Dexter’s Pub and see youz guyz in the next episode. (Both are fave lunch places and we sorta loosely alternate between them with occasional forays to Casey’s or The Sidetrack or The Griz or whatever). I figured out via GooMaps that there were TWO separate accidents on the same road and I won’t even try to describe how that all worked but there were a lot of emergency vee-hickles so I hope no one was seriously injured or…

And NO NO NO, we do not go out for lunch every day. Twice a week at the very most.

Pic is this year’s crop of robin eggs, nested in the “back” platform. We have three spots they like to nest.

Neither the GG or I can get a grip on what time the sirens started. Was it 1:30 AM? I dunno. What a cacophony! There was the regular outdoor siren and maybe a few others? And my phone was just SCREAMING. The GG looked at the radar and saw a “bow echo” (that might not be exactly the correct term), a tornado signature. He went into “freak-out” mode. That is, freak-out mode for the GG, which is different than freak-out mode for the rest of us. Meaning he WENT OUTSIDE. Actually he WAS nervous for real this time.

Added to the storm raging outside and all the alarms, a little text message storm began as the beach urchins reported that they were in their basements. Were their *parents* also in the basement? It was an intense storm and I’m glad the kids took shelter but I confess the GG and I never quiiiite made it to the dungeon (neither did npJane at her house). There was a LOT of lightning and heavy rain but we weren’t getting high winds here at the Landfill so we hovered at the top of the stairs and waited it out, ready to dive down into the catacombs if necessary.

We had no damage but in the cold clear light of day, other folks in the near vicinity definitely did. There was apparently a touchdown at Veteran’s Park, where one of the ice arena’s walls came down and it looked like some pieces of it scattered all over the park. We couldn’t get close enough to take a pic (although they were posted everywhere) because the city had all the park entrances blocked.

Lots of trees were down in the park and adjacent neighborhoods, then the tornado apparently skipped its way down to and through downtown, wreaking its havoc here and there as tornadoes do on The Planet Ann Arbor. I have not heard one report of death or injury and for that we are all thankful.

We engaged in a short bit of disaster tourism this morning. I took some pix of downed trees but for the most part, we tried to stay outta the way of the city workers cleaning up the mess. They had probably been working most of the night and didn’t need us and Cygnus in the way.

The pic I took to post is the Knight’s Steakhouse horse head with half its head severed. The second pic shows it in its glory years. I’m sure Knight’s will restore it.

A good thing that seems to be coming from this? A while back, our city council, in its infinite wisdom [snort], was toying with the idea of dismantling the local tornado sirens. Immediately after last night’s event (it seems), a decision has been made to keep them and enhance/refurbish them as needed. It’s true we haven’t had a tornado in quite some years but if you have a working tornado (air raid) siren system, why dismantle it?

Thanks to Our Northern Correspondent and my cousin Pooh for checking in on us.

A long day ending in a trip to Daytwa Metro to pick up some beloved travelers after a trip to San Francisco and thereabouts.

Texting from a loooong line of cars, I was thinking, “Do I have to P?” Naw, I’m okay. But it reminded me of my uncle Duke telling about when he was stationed in England some time after WWII and he and Radical Betty were driving around on some back roads in the middle of the night (I think) and she had to P. Nobody was around when she started that process. Alas, before she could finish P-ing, a bus pulled up out of nowhere and stopped. She could not stop P-ing to save her life so a whole busload of people got to watch. Much gnoffing accompanied the story from both Betty and Duke.

When you grow up in the yooperland, sometimes if you have to P you have to P. I remember being totally embarrassed when I was eight or so and my family and I were on a Sunday drive somewhere out in the tootlies. The Commander chirped, “We’re having a bathroom party. Do you want to join?” Yikes! Nope. Nobody could see us (there was nobody else around) but…

I have done woodsP, drivewayP, urbanP, and any number of other Ps but I always make sure there’s no way a bus full of people (or ANYONE) can see me.

At any rate, we retrieved our travelers successfully. I know airline travel is safe but I am always happy to get that “landed” text.

The contents of the refrigimatator had gotten into the usual state of disarray that they get into after a few weeks (or maybe a month or two in this case). My refrigimatator is particularly hard to keep up with because the GG is forever filling it up with extra stuff for his boondoggles or to supply FlaMan. I AM NOT COMPLAINING (although it does drive me nuts). But this is just part of the life I chose. I support the boondoggles (even cook lasagna for them sometimes) and I am a HUGE FlaMan fan.

Anyway, my main target today was the veggie crisper drawers and due to a design flaw when we redid The Landfill Chitchen, you have to pull the fridge out of its “nook” a bit so you can open the doors enough to pull the drawers out. This is a pain in the *ss but usually I can slowly trundle it out. Today? Wouldn’t budge. Did somebody put a ton of bricks in it? I did not know. I am not mechanically inclined at all and so was not equal to this task but I knew who was. My personal mechanical engineer. (Actually he is NOT an engineer, he’s a computer scientist, but I think he inherited a lot of his engineer dad’s DNA.)

After quite some assessment of the problem, it was determined that the wheels had deteriorated to the point of failure. I was standing at the sink watching, wondering how the hell do we fix that? Envisioning my refrigerator tipped on its side somehow? The two of us even with our kids aren’t strong enough to handle a job like that. Would we have to actually hire a repair person? Now. I am not averse to hiring such a person but the GG definitely is.

The next thing he did was pull a little package of plastic thingies off the top of the fridge. Whut? “Oh, I ordered these wheels a while back.” New fridge wheels. Again. Whut? He then began telling me about methods for LIFTING the fridge up *in place*. Or at least pulled out of its nook.

BTW: The fridge is *in* that nook because it was the only place it would fit. This is not a large kitchen but, unlike at the moomincabin, I do not usually find myself butt dancing with other people. Unless they are deliberately trying to butt dance with me. TMI? At the moomincabin, I was usually butt dancing with The Commander. Not deliberately.

The Lyme Lounge got sprung from its winter berth today and has made its way back to the Planet Ann Arbor awaiting a summer of adventures all over the place. Looks like a nice spot to camp, right? It’s actually the UU’s garage in Gaylord and I doubt the GG slept in it the couple nights he was there. But who knows.

So, how did the Lyme Lounge get its name? Back in 2013, the GG ordered a Scamp trailer and he and our daughter mouse drove over to Minnesota to pick it up. They encountered Stormy Kromer along the way.

After they picked up the Scamp trailer, they made their way outta Minnesota, through northern Wisconsin and across Michigan’s upper peninsula. They did a lot of hiking along the way and they picked up dozens of ticks. Yick. One of the best ways to get rid of ticks on your body is to take a SHOWER but although the Lyme Lounge has running water (cold and hot), it does not have bathroom facilities. This is a tick. There were other suggestions for naming the Lyme Lounge but it was named after Lyme Disease.

After the GG and mouse arrived at the moomincabin, the GG didn’t feel all that well for a couple days. At one point, I suggested the urgent care (as much as I hate those things). He refused. In the end, we *think* he was bitten by black flies (there were all kinds of buggies out there besides ticks). Black fly bites make me feverish, as they did to Radical Betty.

So the Lyme Lounge is now here at the Landfill for the duration.

I’m getting great photos texted to me from a couple of exotic places, San Fransisco, and Naomikong Point. I love them all but I will limit myself to sharing one from the Naomikong area for now.

Naomikong Point is a place in the yooperland I have known my entire life. It is about 30 miles west of the moominbeach. When I was a child, getting there involved the crappiest of crappy dirt/gravel roads and took forever. My parents liked to drive old two-track roads but but they didn’t do this one frequently, especially with young children.

Fast forward into whenever “they” built the Curley Lewis “highway”. A nice paved road over to US123, which leads to Paradise and Tahquamenon Falls. It used to take three hours to get from our beach to Tahq. Now it’s more like an hour or so. Whoosh! My parents had issues with Curley Lewis and perhaps they weren’t alone because I note that the road is called something else now.

I reconnected with this area when my brother and the GG took some of the beach urchins and my brother’s young rescue dog Sam out there many years ago. Part of the trail is along the beach and I remember that my brother went a little ballistic when when Sam rolled in poop and my brother threw him in the lake. (It is shallow there like at the moominbeach and Sam was fine.)

Naomikong is where I first encountered a TICK! Uber Kayak Woman and Radical Betty and I were hiking the trail there and Radical Betty encountered a “bug” she couldn’t identify. We took the “bug” into the Chippewa County Health Department and it WAS a tick.

The pic is the suspension bridge crossing whatever creek is coming through at this point. It’s not Ankodosh. There are multiple creeks in this area.

P.S. A lot of people (including the GG) mispronounce Naomikong. The “a” IS pronoucned as a long a. Na-om-i-kong. Not Nom-i-kong. Of course I do not know how the natives pronounce it. It might be totally different…

I drove out to the Jackson Road Meijer this morning in a goddamn DELUGE. A frickin’ chilly deluge, thank you very much for Cygnus’s pre-heater starting her at 85 degrees, as she does unless I change her pre-heat temp, which I didn’t do this morning. I needed that heat this morning as well as the high-heat “bush-warmer”. I dunno when it’ll get significantly warmer again (I don’t think tomorrow…) but it did dry up quite a bit later.

We’re at the point of actually connecting with when folks might be at the moominbeach this summer. An email missive today reminded me that Memorial Day is May 25 this year. After a double-take on the date, YES, we will be at the moomincabin! Cocktails on the deck are in order. Unless it is 54 degrees and SLEETING like it was a few years ago when I arrived there. Still. It’s like we sit through this long fugly winter and all of a sudden, summer is a-coming and we are not really planned for it.

This photoooo is from July 16, 2016 at 7:34 in the morning. Before Trump grabbed our country. And yes, that’s exactly what he did. Reading/listening to the book Lucky Loser. Credit to one of my sisters-in-law.

I have only been following the Artemis mission whenever the GG has been following. Hopefully I’ll be able to find it tonight because I think I want to watch it land.

When I woke up today I fully expected the GG to head north to his ugly brother’s house and then to the yooperland. That was what the plan was yesterday, at least. This morning? I think I’ll postpone until tomorrow. Okay. That’s okay but… If you wanna eat, you have to let me know when you’re gonna beeee here. Luckily I had made an impulse two-pork chop purchase the other day so I pulled those outta the freezer. But also, our city and even our neighborhood are far from being a food desert. Plum Market and Aldi and numerous restaurants are easily accessible.

So today was a work day instead. Yes, he is running the snowblower. I have other pics of him raking and filling compost carts for weekly pickup, which only happens in the “warm” months. I’m being facetious here. Today was a pretty warm day but it’s been a cold spring.

At some point, mouse posted a rather inscrutable photo and the GG could not process it.

“Is that mouse’s bike?” he asked. “Zoom in on the bottle,” I replied. “Degreaser and cleanser” and there is a bike chain there. Yes it’s her bike. What did he think?

The next thing I knew, he had retrieved his e-Bike from the Landfill Dungeon. The NEXT thing I knew, I had a phone call from one of his brothers. Brother had called the GG’s phone but the GG hadn’t answered his phone (because he was riding his e-Bike) so somehow it got routed to me. I had a GREAT time talking to his brother. We don’t see him all that often. We all have adult children and this brother has grandchildren scattered around the country. The talk veered to politics and it was a breath of fresh air to talk to someone about our hatred of Trump despite what some of our relatives might think. Make no mistake. Every branch of every family I belong to has people who don’t agree with me. And people who do. How do we still get along? I do not know but we do. It’s moments like this afternoon’s phone call that help. You are not alone.

The GG decided to walk to Ypsilanti today and suggested we meet up at the Sidetrack Bar and Grill for lunch. Okay!

Problem. Where the hell IS the Sidetrack? Don’t get me wrong, I have been to the Sidetrack more than a few times. We used to have work luncheons there and while my last MacMu uncle was still alive, his kids would fly in to town and we’d meet up with all of them there. Good times!

COVID hit and my uncle died and my work went totally remote. My uncle and his wife died OF COVID but they were living in a skilled nursing facility and had many health problems by that time (they were 90-something). It was the early days of COVID and things were very chaotic everywhere. Still I am sorry they had to go that way. (The GG disputes that they died *of* COVID and he may be right. I may be misremembering. They did HAVE it though.)

That’s a long way of saying I haven’t been to the Sidetrack in a looooong time and I had a few panicky moments of “where IS the Sidetrack?” before I left. I know how to get TO Ypsi (which is 11 miles away by freeway) and I could clearly *visualize* the Sidetrack but…

I (wisely) looked it up on GooMaps on my phone, then plugged my phone into Cygnus and let it direct me through the trip. I hadn’t wanted to take the I94 Clogway but at that time of day, after ONE traffic light, I realized right quick that it was the best way to go. GooMaps was fine but I tried to turn off the *radio* at one point and GooMaps stopped talking too. I had to turn into a gas station and stop to get GooMaps talking again. One more little hiccup (my error, not GooMaps) and voila! there was the Sidetrack right in front of me, just like I remembered it. Of course, by that time, the GG had already texted me wondering where I was. I was two minutes late, fer kee-reist! (But learn how to use your car, KW!)

We sat at the bar and I kept thinking I was looking out a window and across the street. Until I noticed the GG gawping at me in one of his signature hats. I was looking into a huge mirror LOL!

The GG was ecstatic to score two actual business cards today. One for a business that deals with old coins and stuff (we’re selling, not buying) and one from the guy sitting next to him. I couldn’t hear the whole convo but I think he fixes OLD cars or something. Anyway they were gabbling away about auto assembly plants (the GG put himself through college by working at Hamtramck Assembly and others) and stuff that happened in Royal Oak in the late 60s, where the GG worked the night shift at a gas station on a busy intersection and was robbed at gunpoint a couple times.

P.S. The first syllable of Ypsilanti is pronounced “ip” (short i), not “yip”. If you say it with “yip”, my mother WILL HURL LIGHTNING BOLTS AT YOU. She spent her first year of college there at what was then (I think) called the “normal school” (but now Eastern Mich) before transferring to Michigan State (where she met Radical Betty and Betty’s brother aka my dad). You’ve been warned!

Something like that. I think we were having the convo at the moomincabin. [Psst: KW, where the hell are you gonna go with this? I do not know. Some of it might be snarky.]

An NPR show (1A?) had a segment about trad wives today. My ears perked up although I didn’t really listen to all of it that closely. I think it was mostly about the sort of wives that don’t work outside the home but somehow have the cash to take care of whatever “million” kids they have and keep house and still have time to make Instagram posts showing off their beautiful lives. And maybe a camera crew and some professional chefs, etc. Hey, I said I might be snarky.

Okay. Growing up, my mom was a “trad mom” at first. Sorta. In a shabby little bungalow in the eastern yooperland. She had worked (retail at Monkey Wards) before I was born but my parents decided she needed to stop to raise me and a few years later, my brother.

We never lacked for ANYTHING but there weren’t many luxuries.

When I got to be 10, mom got a teeny tiny teaching job. I was trusted to take care of my brother (and the dog) one afternoon a week. That job led to a master’s degree in education and a full-time job with benefits at the high school. We could actually afford some luxuries at that point. Although my parents were ALWAYS frugal. Thank you mom and dad. We’re trying to emulate you.

A [beloved] relative (doctor’s wife) at one point asked mom why she wanted to go back to work. Mom said something like, “I’m tired of being poor.”

So as an adult, I mostly fell into jobs. I had a childhood tech career and then a second career as a stay-at-home mom, volunteer, and lowly paid youth theatre guild administrator.

Here’s the “kicker”. At a time I didn’t think I would ever work for pay again, the LSCHP hired me into my adult tech career. It turned out to be a job that paid me well. Who’da thunk it?

Do I look like a trad wife in this pic? I do know that my dad’s childhood friend Otto McNaughton Jr. took a fantastic pic of me but I don’t think I look much like a trad wife. Ann Arbor hippie maybe. I also look like my dad here.

One of the things about the GG that I like is how he geeks out about all kinds of things. Vende Globe sailboat race? Yes. Right now it’s the current moon shot. In the pic is a spreadsheet he has been keeping for at least 30 years.

When did Neil Armstrong walk on the moon? It was 1969. I was 15. My parents had an ancient Zenith black and white TV at the moomincabin and they watched it there but I, being a TEENAGER, went over to the Piedmont cabin to watch it on their color TV. It was MUCH cooler to watch TV at the Piedmont cabin, which was the coolest place to be in our teenage years. There was no place at the moomincabin to hang out. The living room was essentially my parents’ bedroom.

Problem with the moonwalk? I was sick as a dog when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I wasn’t throwing up, “just” fever and maybe sore throat but I can’t remember. Go home, KW. I can’t. I have to try to be cool. I have a bit of a history of being sick during space things. In second grade, when John Glenn orbited the earth, I threw up all over my desk.

I’m not really watching this moon trip. It’s on in the background and the GG has been a bit grumpy about the pictures, given that back in 1969, camera technology was nothing at all like it is now and he thought they should be better. Apparently the astronauts are taking iPhone pics and that’s what I’d be doing if I was on the Artemis II mission. I can barely stand to board an airliner so you won’t find me on a space mission.

Today was difficult for me. I got myself over caffeinated and the GG got into a HUGE rummaging rampage throughout the afternoon. I was going absolutely nutso.

At the end of the afternoon, I came out of the Water Closet and Cygnus’s car alarm was going off. I reached for my key fob but it wasn’t on the table next to me. Um, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I asked the GG. He was changing the batteries in my fob. The problem was that he somehow set off the alarm. HE COULD NOT HEAR IT. What would we do without my super ears, super nose, or super brain…

That is, if this photo was indeed taken on Easter. For the life of me, I can’t remember exactly which Easter it was but there WAS an Easter when we were solo (no kids were home) and it was 90 degrees so we grabbed some juice and loaded Cheerios into baggies and schlepped kayaks down to the river. I *think* it was pretty soon after we got our first iPhones in 2007, early adopters that we are.

This year Little Cat Z was feeling rueful that she was “abandoning” us to visit friends in SanFran. Abandoned? For Easter? I don’t expect my kids to come home for *any* holiday but they have traditionally come home for xmas except when they were on study abroad and Thanksgiving if they are within driving distance and the weather isn’t treacherous. Easter? Not an important holiday for us. LCZ’s best friend since middle school just had her second child. Go go go. Be with her and meet their baby. I have to admit, I knew she was going out to the left coast soon but I didn’t hang on to *when* so I was a little surprised when she said she had to be at Metro at 5 AM this morning (LOL).

Whenever this pic is from, there *was* an Easter when it was so hot we headed down to the river and breakfasted on Cheerios out of baggies. Oh, we always have an Easter type dinner. If there are enough people I try to do some kind of ham. That can be a challenge because a little ham goes a very long way. I never did come across quite the right ham form factor this year. I like the spiral cut ones but a whole ham??? I couldn’t find a *small* (like quarter) ham so nope. Too late, I wondered if checking out Harry & David might have been an option.

Anyway, we’re having mini-filet mignon and friends and GARLIC BREAD (Plum Market this morning: Mom, will there be garlic bread? Yes I made it yesterday.) Garlic bread is apparently the “star” of the meal although some people said they wouldn’t turn down grilled filet. Friends? Mashed potatoes (big gorgeous Yukon Golds), broccoli, and salad. Would have done asparagus but it’s too early for local. Right around the corner though.

Mouse and the racc are on their way over so there’ll be four of us and the weather is only suitable for die-hard kayakers today. 40 degrees and windy as all getout.

P.S. Please don’t tell me “he is risen.” [Delete long rant – you’re welcome.]

No that’s not my age, although it is the age I joined FacePlant and the age I learned to HIDE MY BIRTHDAY. I mean. Happy birthday is a wonderful sentiment but I don’t need to get it from people I haven’t seen in umpteen bazillion years who probably never did know when my birthday was. Nope. I don’t need birthday greetings at all but if I get them, I would rather they come from people who actually care about me.

That said, my childhood friend The Beautiful Mimi always remembers that her birthday is the same day as my dad’s birthday. My brain remembers weird stuff like that too and I love that she remembers that.

People (the GG) are always asking what I am doing. I think they want me to forge ahead into I dunno what. What did I do today? One thing I did was decrease the number of pairs of tights I own from 56 to 34 (canned laughter is appropriate here). The 22 pairs I am getting rid of are bagged for a donation dumpster. They are all clean with no runs or holes and some of them have never been worn. In any case, tights might be squicky for some people to accept from a donation site but whoever gets these is free to throw them out. Or maybe someone will be ecstatic? “I have a new job but I can’t afford stockings/tights.”

Without getting too much into the details, I kept some colors that I wear all the time. Black, raspberry, green (a few shades), blue, and a few others. I also kept my Halloween skull and bat tights. And three pairs of Ukrainian duo tights, one leg yellow, one leg blue. I don’t really wear those nowadays but I fervently support Ukraine so I can’t get rid of them.

Almost all of these tights were purchased from Snag Tights. I’m promoting Snag here but they do make COMFORTABLE tights for all kinds of sizes. No constantly tugging them back up over your butt. I became “addicted” to Snag when I was still driving to an office most days. That office space is now a church and my then tech boss (also a rabbi) is probably laughing his *ss off about that.

We have flood warnings for tonight but they will probably not do anything much to our property. We’re on pretty high ground here. The pic is from Hoton Lake many years ago. I sent it to DogMomster back then, suggesting that she could maybe start a business with a pontoon lawn mower. She was doing her own lawn mowing and I sent that as a joke but I got a chilly response. Things worsened after that and we haven’t communicated in over ten years. Not because of that though…