Oops! Wrong movie. This is more like The Twinz of Terror go to Mackinac Island. Well, they did go to an island, roight?

They went there to meet up with one of the UU’s boys and his wife and children. Bikes were ridden and I dunno what else. Me? I made an early run to the Up North Laundry and then came back to the moominbeach and my loverly little job. I don’t want to blahg too much about this but I was so impressed with the work my new colleague did today I told him he could take the rest of the day off. Of course, I had to qualify that I do not have the power to give him an afternoon off, which he well knows. But he got the point. My team hires good people.

I had NPR rolling quietly in the background as usual today. The Guadalupe flooding? OMG. Fact. A facebook/childhood friend of mine lived on the Guadalupe River for 40 years and is familiar with its flooding issues. She lives in a nearby city now. I don’t think she moved because of the flooding, just relocated.

Scary? That camp. 28 kids, counselors, and the camp director? At this moment I am listening (on NPR) to a woman who went to Mystic Camp for many years as a child. She LOVED it and is (of course) devastated about the flood. I went to Camp Wikweia (a Campfire Girl camp) a few times as a kid. I didn’t really like it all that well but there were some good times.

Once when I was at Camp Wikweia, my cabin and some others were scheduled to actually camp in sleeping bags maybe a quarter mile down the shore for the night. This was one thing I was excited about. We got there and I’m gonna guess we roasted hot dogs and s’mores over a faaaar. And we went to bed. In the middle of the night, we were roused from sleep by camp staff in cars. There was a severe thunderstorm. “Get in the car”, a camp admin said to me. “Oh no, get some of the younger kids first, I’m not scared.” “Get in the car!” Brave [stupid] tomboy was one of my many childhood personas although as an adult, I don’t go outside in lightning. I got in the car and everyone made it back to camp safely that night but I have always wondered whether they made me get in the car because of who my parents were or just because I was THERE. I hope it was the second. It was just a thunderstorm and Clear Lake was a little lake that couldn’t begin to overflow if it tried.

The folks who died at Mystic apparently didn’t have a chance in hell and I am still processing that. Another news story that freaked me out almost more was about two sisters (11 and 13 years old) who drowned on their family’s vacation property. They were staying with their grandparents in a rental house/cabin adjacent to their property. At some point during the night the dad tried unsuccessfully to kayak to them. Later he discovered a text, “We love you.”

All of the flooding is awful but that broke me. My daughters are 2-1/2 years apart, which means they were 11 and 13 once long ago.

We have a 3-year-old (and a newborn) visiting next month. Do we have life jackets? At least for the 3-year-old? Not sure. We found this child-size life jacket in the shed, which turns out to be quite a bit bigger than a 3-year-old and maybe not the right form factor. It doesn’t exactly fit the GG either.

We will all figger this out by the time our cousin-guests get here.

When we were kids we wore fugly old orange life jackets, old and faded. We wore those in my uncle’s speed boat and our family’s canoe. One of my memories is when we took the canoe out into the lake to watch an eclipse of the moon. We were halfway out into the bay when something came paddling up to meet us. It was my beautiful dog Tigger, swimming out from the shore where it was WAAAAY over her head because she in no way shape or form was gonna be left behind. I wish I had a pic of that but no iPhone in those days.

Then there was the time my dad and his buddy Pete Sherman took me and a bunch of the Sherman kids out in the canoe over to the sand islands in Mosquito Bay. Dad and Pete were paddling and there were like six of us little kids sitting between them. I was wearing one of those fugly old orange life jackets and a seagull shat on me. Lovely.

We won’t talk about the time the GG and my cousin’s husband put Lizard and my cousin’s son into the canoe WITHOUT life jackets and paddled them away. All of the women on the beach that day were LIVID. All turned out well but us beach women are a rather extreme force of nature.

Alas that we haven’t been able to eradicate f*cking MAGA but we are working on it, that is those of us who are still alive are working on it for those who have left us. The Commander and Radical Betty among others. They worked to help women gain equality and respect and thanks in part to them, I have always had that and I will work as best I can to pass it on to other women. We are just as intelligent and capable as men are and we deserve respect.

After our Friday afternoon party, WELL after because at this time of year, it doesn’t even begin to get dark until something like 10:00 PM, the Bay Mills Indian Community fireworks started up. I headed down to the beach and after many many many bloopers, I managed to get this pic. I was using optical zoom on my iPhone and it was also doing some sort of night mode thing that I don’t totally understand.

I have never been bothered by the sound of fireworks, at least not that I can remember. I empathize with people who are and aminals, who don’t understand what the noise is all about. Years and years ago when we were up here at the moomincabin on 4th of July, we used to take our kids into town for the Sault Ste. Siberia fireworks. One year I remember holding my niece at Brady Park while she stuck her fingers in her ears. She was pretty freaked out about the noise but she also had a big smile on her face. My own urchins were tumbling up and down the hill at Brady Park oblivious to the noise. I tumbled on that hill as a kid even up into my teenage years. It is closed to the public these days because there is a Native American cemetery atop it.

I’m pretty sure Sault Ste. Siberia still does fireworks but we have long stopped going in to town to see them there because we watch them from across the water at Bay Mills.

Although mostly we would drive safely into town to watch fireworks when I was young, I remember once when I was a VERY young adult and I rode in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of younger children. No seat belts or anything to secure anyone. We made it there and back safely and the dad of a few of the children (and childhood friend of my dad) thanked me profusely for my help in that expedition. Heck, I was still just a kid myself. Only a few years later that kind of thing would be totally illegal.

I was hanging out on the moomindeck this afternoon when I heard/saw a vee-hickle drive in to the moomincabin parking area. Hmmm. It’s a white car but it’s too small to be the the SUV of porterization. Also a bit too squeaky. (Not to mention that it isn’t 11:00 PM🐽) So, yes, it is Radical Betty’s last Honda Accord, which my cousin Grinch (Betty’s son) drives when his big white construction van has issues. It does have issues at the moment and to make a long story short, he likes to fix his own vee-hickles.

He is an extremely intelligent person not to mention handy as all getout and if I get it right is known as the best dry-waller in Chippewa County. You might guess that by the condition of his clothing. He arrived here after a day of work, knowing that after a hot day working inland, the moomindeck might be picking up some good breezes. (He lives two doors down.)

I am blessed with the best set(s) of cousins (of all degrees). I love them all. This guy has always been extra close to me. My first truly sentient memory of him was when I was three and he was six. (I have told this story a few times before.) We were in our granddaddy’s car (a Studebaker) with both of our dads and we were out buying smoked fish somewhere up on the res. My dad always hated fish but Grinch’s dad (Uncle Duke) loved it.

Both Grinch and I loved smoked fish and after the fish was purchased, we “fought” in the back seat of Granddaddy’s Studebaker over who got to hold the fish on the way home.

The Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchie is just about the sweetest guy on earth. I have loved him forever and will keep on doing so.

The main thing about today is it was the annual Piedy 4th of July party. I remember the first time I attended that party as a little kid. I think somebody grilled hamburgers and hot dogs and there was a huge bonfire pit on the beach and the Piedy boyz (high school and maybe even college) shot Roman candles over the lake. These days us kids are all old and baggy and many folks have grandchildren and even great grandchildren.

We all sat talking and I had a loverly meeting of the minds with two of the Piedy gals of my generation. We lamented MAGA and the fact that both our families are made up of people with mixed political opinions and that we have pretty much given up on trying to change their minds. I have long suspected that these gals are in agreement with me and now I know.

The funny part of the day… Except it was a complete pain in the you-know-what at the time. The GG walked to Brimley to watch the parade (and buy some junk food). He was hoping to meet up with our friends of porterization so as to hitch a ride home with them. Phone service was horrendous in Brimley today, resulting in a tangled web of text messages and phone calls that only intermittently went through. I got about half of them. The GG couldn’t find the Porters. The Porters couldn’t find the GG.

Eventually the GG called and through the static I was able to make out that he was on his way home and could I pick him up? So I did.

Tonight he was looking through the pics he took at the parade today. Lo and behold, there were the Porters! Just to the right of the flag. The GG was too distracted by the bugs and “pretty girls” in the parade to notice the Porters.

43 years ago it was a nice day for a white wedding. Or maybe it was just a beach wedding. Man oh man, my beloved mother was bugging me up the wazoo to wear shoes. On the beach? No mom I will not. She had been brought up “properly” in the Detroit area but she had also lived for umpteen bazillion summers on the beach by that time. Us kids always went barefoot here so I was puzzled about why she wanted me to put shoes on for my beach wedding. To hell with that. I went barefoot ANYWAY and when my dad joined me to walk with me down the “aisle”, he was barefoot too. I don’t really miss my parents all that much normally but I am tearing up a bit at that memory.

We have spent our anniversaries many places but usually we are with family, my fam or the GG’s fam or whoever, at home on The Planet Ann Arbor, Hoton Lake or the moominbeach. This year was a quiet one. We are at the moominbeach and the GG spent the morning in the Lyme Lounge reporting his 522 hours of volunteer time on the North Country Trail so far in 2025. We drove over to Barbeau for lunch at Cozy Corners, not to be confused with the Cozy Inn in Brimley. Both are good places.

Upon returning from lunch, the GG took a pretty straight trajectory to a nap. I did an audio book for a while, then dozed off a bit until my earbuds fell on the floor. That woke me up.

We finished off the day with a porterized happy hour on Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench. And so good night.

It’s the Alicia G with a Portuguese flag. If you do not know what a “salty” is, it is an “ocean-going bote”, as my parents taught us when we were kids. Ocean-going botes can “sail” in the great lakes if they can navigate all of the canals, rivers, and locks. Like you won’t see big container ships anywhere near here because they can’t get through all of that stuff. On the other hand, lake freighters are not really suited to the oceans. Long story about length and width and ocean style waves although I don’t remember the details off-hand. Ocean-going botes require a “pilot” aboard to navigate the locks and rivers in the Great Lakes (and probably other places but I live on the Great Lakes).

I got this photooo last night as I was heading up to the moomincabin to put myself to bed. Dominion Day faaarworks were just starting in Canananada, which is a mile or so away from the moominbeach (as I’ve said a few times before). I didn’t see any of them but I enjoyed listening to them as I settled in for the night. I don’t like loud sudden noises (like smoke alarms that screech for no good reason in the middle of the night). Fireworks have never bothered me but I do empathize with people suffering from PTSD or other mental health conditions. I mean, most of us suffer from some sort of mental health condition or other. For instance, I have a very weird phobia (but oddly, not all that uncommon) against a couple of completely benign insects. And some basic social anxiety. And some OCD, although I try to keep that over in the corner where it belongs. And probably some other crapola.

Our beach doesn’t have a formal name. It has been called many names over the century the family has owned it. Mostly it’s just “the beach”. My dad would sometimes call it Sunset Beach and it certainly *IS* a sunset beach, at least in the summer. It faces northwest. Some people call it Birch Point Beach after a small peninsula a half mile to the east. And there’s Round Island Point Nature Preserve, which is adjacent to us on property we once owned.

The [moomin]cabin’s official name is The Veteran Greenhorn Society, LLC. And that’s fine. The Veteran Greenhorns were my dad and about six of his friends when they were in high school back in the late 1930s. They would tromp the woods in the area, packing pistols to pose for gunfight photooos, etc. (I have posted those before.)

At some point I informally started calling this place the moominbeach (moomincabin, moonindeck, whatever). Sometimes when I post photoooos on facebook I use the prefix “moomin” to indicate where I am. Beach, cabin, deck, garage, outhouse… Well, we don’t have an outhouse any more. If I need to use an outhouse I use the Old Cabin outhouse.

I posted a sunset on facebook last night and said I was at the moominbeach. A facebook/high school friend wondered where it had gotten that name. Well. It is a combo…

First, when I was taking classes at community college and I had a 9:00 o’clock class, I would get to the college library at 8:00 AM, cuddle up in a chair and watch the sun come up, study a bit if I needed to, and check my email. I had a lot of YAG emails in those days but, at that time of the morning, I often got emails from Lizard Breath on her college study abroad program in Spain. Once, one of us (can’t remember if it was me or her) mistyped me as “moom” instead of “mom”. “Moom” stuck and we still often refer to female parents as “moom” or “mooma”, i.e., mooma duck, mooma turkey, etc.

Second, there are Tove Jansson’s moomintroll books, a children’s series of novels that began in 1945. The beach urchins loved the moomintroll books. When I bought the first one I was thinking I would be reading it aloud and I think I even began reading it that way. But the beach urchins, quick green lizards as they are, were long-time independent readers by then and they absolutely took off reading every moomintroll book they could get their hot little hands on and left me completely in the dust. Okay then.

So somehow I started calling this place the moominbeach. I think it’s only my branch of the FinFam that calls this beach the moominbeach. Just our thing.

P.S. Well, also we are the *Fin*layson family, although unlike the author, we are not Finnish at all.

We had a mix of weather today, ending with fog banks obscuring the Canadian side of the Upper St. Marys River (No there isn’t an apostrophe in Marys.)

I did a quick grock run to Meijer at 7:30 or so this morning. It was mostly hot all day but thunderstorms rolled through in the late afternoon. After that, we sat om Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench for a while.

There is a big fog bank where Canada usually is. It’s less than a mile away from our American beach. I can (and have) kayaked over to Canada but we know better than to land on the Canadian shore. Sadly, since me and my beach cousins are descended from immigrants from Canada, who came from Scotland. All that said. I think us Scottish waspy type people were probably treated a lot better than those who don’t have pale skin. I have light skin but I always tanned to where a friend once said I looked “black” but we’ll go there some other day (or not).

Some people in younger generations don’t like us putting the American flag down on the beach. As much as I hate what our country is doing these days, I am not unhappy about the flag being there. I HATE the crapola going on in our country but it IS our country. We need to take it back from those who would usurp the constitution our fore-fathers crafted. They were not perfect but they had the right idea.

The other reason we put the American flag in front of the moomincabin is to let Canadian folks know they are approaching an American shore. Landing in our country can be very dangerous these days and Canadian shores are only about a mile away.

I woke up at something like 3:30 AM and never totally got back to sleep again. It happens sometimes and I try not to stress about it too much.

Today was our second trek to the yooperland for the summer. Two cars and The Lyme Lounge. Lots of crapola including probably a whole bunch of chainsawing gear.

Driving was smooth sailing until we got an hour or so south of Grayling. A line of severe storms was in the pipeline so we opted to have an early lunch at Dead Bear until the storms rolled through. It turned out that the storms didn’t materialize at all. But lunch was good and the second half of the trip was uneventful.

It was 81 degrees when we got here and a part of me wanted to get inside the moomincabin and open all the doors and windows. Uh, no. It is cooler inside here than it is outside. We did eventually open some doors and windows but not right away.

npJane is here and we spent time with her on the moomindeck and beach including dinner on the deck. Mini-filets, wild rice, salad, garlic bread, and peas from the farmers market which I did my best to ruin by putting them on HIGH instead of low. Somehow they survived.

The sunset was a bit iffy tonight but I utilized my iPhone’s optical zoom capability and a bit of an app to get this photooo at an opportune moment.

I’ve had just about enough for today so g’night, KW.

The photo is from 7:00 AM at the farmers market. I thought it would be the last day I could get shelling peas but Donahee’s said they’ll keep having them. We’ll see though. Other people also had them but Donahee’s takes a plastic card for payment. The gal who took my plastic card remarked (in a friendly way) on “you and your tie-dye”. I refrained from saying something like, “tie-dye is post covid biz-caz.” I can only guess that they might be calling me the “pea woman.” It’s okay. Shelling peas and tie-dye both float my boat.

I remembered to take the route home that would take me by the gas station. Cygnus was not dangerously low but I’ve been putting it off for a couple weeks. There was a minor kerfuffle at home in which I had expected to have Cygnus at my service all morning. Not so much, even though I could swear we talked about it last night. The GG had it all loaded up with stuff to take to FlaMan’s place in Flint. I was pretty darn cranky for a few minutes but then I decided to apply one of the mantras I use for adult children to male partners with selective hearing. “She’s apparently talking but I can’t hear the words.” The mantra is “go with the flow.” I mean, Moooon Yooonit was available but she is ALWAYS filled with all kinds of crapola, including a “monster” in the passenger seat.

To be fair, my daughters, all “three” if you include my bonus daughter Pengo (niece), are well capable of taking care of their own business and do not need any advice from meeeee.

It was busy on our block today. The neighbors across the street held their annual garage sale. We did not attend but a few years ago we picked up a cute mid-century modern style cocktail clock from there. “It’s five o-clock somewhere.” It now hangs outside the moomincabin bathroom.

They wrapped up their sale mid-afternoon but then the street started filling up with traffic AGAIN. I wondered if all the new folks knew the garage sale was over? But they were going to the next door neighbor’s house, not across the street. Struck as if by lightning, I realized it was L’s birthday! L is the daughter the next door neighbors had approximately a year ago. It was touch and go for many months because she was born with genetic abnormalities and needed oxygen and a feeding tube at first and I dunno what else. She still has a long road ahead of her but from what little I know, she is getting excellent care and is thriving. Lots of happy noises from the neighbors’ back yard today.

Actually it’s pretty comfortable out in the Landfill back yard at this point. We ate dinner (leftovers) outside tonight and communicated with a couple of the GG’s siblings and my cousin npJane.

npJane drove up to the moominbeach today and reported that it was 40 degrees cooler there than when she left the Planet Ann Arbor this afternoon but it is not sleeting. She is staying at the moomincabin for the night before opening the Old Cabin tomorrow and managed to get the frickin’ water heater going (fugly old fashioned fuse box involved) and also the propane heating stove. I was like, “why did you need the propane heater?” Well of course it was because it was 55 degrees up there, not 95 or whatever it was around here today. Crapola in any case and we had the central air on all day here at the Landfill. And I am happy that npJane got the propane heater going. We are fam-i-ly. I’ve got all my cousins and me.

I made the GG talk npJane through the procedure for turning on the water heater. Me, I am wishing we had regular old circuit breakers like I have in my house. But I am a wimpy sort when it comes to lucky shucky. I knew the GG would be able to explain this to npJane and I knew she would be able to understand it. And actually I also understand it. I just hate doing it.

The GG is lighting a ceegar in the pic, not trying to blow himself up.

Sing it to the tune of “You’re in the army now.” My dad’s version from when WWII interrupted his college studies.

You’re in the army now.
You’re not behind the plow.
You’ll never get rich, you son-of-a-bitch
You’re in the army now.

I have posted these lyrics before. My dad? Forestry student, mechanical engineering student, WW2 flight instructor, automotive factory worker in Detroit while restarting his college career, hay fever (?), tannery worker, banker. I don’t think my dad ever had hay fever except maybe as ruse to get The Commander to move to the yooperland to get out of living in his in-law’s house in Garden City (near Detroit). This was you-are-my-wife-goodbye-city-life Green Acres style without the penthouse in New York. Or penthouse anywhere. My mom adapted to the yooperland with bells on and lived there happily until her death in 2012. My dad never finished college despite every advantage but he became a Successful Failure *anyway*.

My dad did his time behind the plow as a kid. His dad (my grandfather) was not a farmer, he was a banker. But if I have it right, he crawled his way up from manual labor as a teenager into the banking biz. He was an immigrant (Scot, born in Canada) who became successful at banking and was greatly respected around town. I’m not sure he graduated from high school? I could be wrong.

My grandfather made sure his children graduated from high school and sent all of his children to college and one to med school. He also wanted his children to know what it was like to work HARD for a living, especially his sons. So when they were kids he arranged for them to walk 10 miles out to Dafter on non-school days where my great-aunt/great-uncle Alice and Alec lived on a farm. The brothers helped with whatever farm work needed to be done. There were probably a few automotive vee-hickles around Sault Ste. Siberia at that time but not too many and I don’t think the family owned one until a few years later. But I could well be wrong.

So my ballot is on the way. Hopefully I will get it before we leave for the yooperland but probably it’ll get hung up in held mail. But we’ll get there. VOTE VOTE VOTE.

Not that I was. The GG and Joan drove from Interlaken (long a), NY to The Planet Ann Arbor.

When they got here, the GG almost immediately turned on the Landfill A/C. I’m sure he was thinking I was batty living through five days of 90-plus temps without it. But truly, it was mostly not that bad, probably because it was windy most of the time. Today? The temp was 10 degrees lower but the air was mostly still and it felt hot and muggy INSIDE the landfill. I did not complain about the A/C being on. For one thing, Joan is spending the night and a guest’s comfort is more important than my little foibles. For another, I am enjoying the relative cool in spite of myself.

We took Joan out to eat at our fave Dexter’s Pub. It was louder than we expected. I dunno why we didn’t expect that. Usually we reserve a booth, which is a little quieter, but we were winging it tonight and it was too late to make a reservation so we got seated at a table, which was in the middle of things and noisier. It was still good.

And now we are home and the GG is chilling out in bed and Joan is having Joan time (blogging) and KW is having KW time (blahgging). I’m sure Joan’s blog entry is a lot more interesting than KW’s blahg entry.

At any rate the GG’s Adirondack NCT adventure is a wrap. It was very successful, a good time was had by all, and the GG has once again widened his circle of friends. G’night, KW.

npJane came over today to get a key to the moomincabin to make a copy of it so she could have her own personal key. There’s a key next door at the Old Cabin but she needed her own key and I totally agree. Like why are we only now getting around to this? Not that there’s anything crazy going on in the fam (there isn’t), just that this is a good thing for her and for us for various logistical reasons that are too boring to go into.

The course of the conversation brought up memories of the doors and locks on the moomincabin since it was built. In 1960. I was six. My (late) brother was three. Yeah, okay, do the math.

The photo shows the front door (to the right) and the back door to the left at the back of the photoooo. Both doors have a little lever that locks the door. The front door also has (or had) a sorta traditional lock that you had to unlock with a key. So even if you had a key for the lock, if you had locked the levers, you couldn’t get into the moomincabin.

I’ll never forget when this kind of thing happened to my me, my mom, and brother, after a trip to town. Somehow both levers got locked and there we were on the deck not being able to get inside. The Comm was a bit stressed out about this but with a few bits of good luck, the kitchen window (unseen in the photo but to the left of the refrigimatator) was open a bit. We pushed the window screen into the kitchen and I was enough of a monkey at that time of my life that I climbed through the window and over the sink and unlocked the levers on the doors. I could NOT do that now🤪

Eventually, after many many years but while The Commander was still alive, the front door lock broke and after many *more* years of multiple people trying to find a replacement without success, we went with “door 3”. The problem is that the doors on this ancient cabin are not a standard size (eeet eeez a cabin, roight?) and cannot be replaced easily. I mean we could replace them but that might require more renovation that we might want. What to do? I dunno. I’m just musing, not looking for advice🧡

I’m not talking about the bird. We’ll get to that. I’m talking about how extreme heat is interfering with my “purse” strategy.

I hate carrying a purse. I’m sure I thought it was cool when I was a tween/young teen. A purse! Just like the teenagers (and our moms except their purses were not “cute” or “cool”). They were functional. Except when they weren’t. When a purse is NOT functional it is because there is too much crap in it and you can’t find what you need when you, uh, NEED it. Like your wallet. A whole ‘nother issue. And then there is when crumbs or sticky things are in your purse. How long have those things been in there? Months? Yes, maybe. Cleaning that stuff up is kinda like cleaning out a grade school kid’s backpack after the last day of school. Does it move? Don’t touch it! Is it slimy? Handle with care.

Since the onset of covid, my “purse” has become a Patagonia polarfleece vest. I own several of them at all times so if my daughter tells me my vest is dirty, I change to a clean one and throw the offensive one in the laundry🤪 She’s always right!

So vest/purse. Left pocket? iPhone. Right pocket? Cygnus X-1 key fob, credit card, debit card, drivers license, and occasionally some cash if I think I might need it. I sometimes need it at the farmers market although many vendors now accept plastic which is really handy. I know some folks are not comfortable with a cashless society. I am not one of those except when something doesn’t work.

The problem with my vest/purse is that a polarfleece garment is not compatible with 90-plus degree temperatures. Since I am an early morning shopper anyway, I wear my vest on my early morning grokkery dashes and take it off as soon as I get home. We’ll talk about the related issues with that undergarment of FLINGING some other day. OR NOT 👀

Back to the birdie. The GG and Joan did their last hiking day in the Adirondacks yesterday and I *think* that’s when he got the pic of the bird. They are on their way back to the Great Lake State but are visiting friends of Joan’s in New York (state) tomorrow so they will not land on the Planet Ann Arbor until sometime Wednesday.

P.S. Thanks to longtime bloggy friend Margaret for inspiring this post👏

The GG sent this pic of today’s mud hike.

Liz sent this pic of the dinner in progress that I will get to eat some of. She stopped by for a ‘hattan this afternoon. We had thought about lunch somewhere downtown but neither of us felt like going anywhere near downtown during the heat wave. Cement City in the middle of Tree Town.

Mouse sent this pic of her return from a looooonnnng drive from South Carolina to SE Michigan with stops along the way.

Another hot day but I never felt unwell throughout it all. I slept well last night and my house stays relatively cool and I dunno. I still haven’t needed to turn the A/C on. If I need to I will.

As opposed to tick collection. The GG has a tick collection. He puts all of the little buggers he finds on his skin into little vials filled with alcohol.

I don’t know who the person is but she works for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. She is collecting deer ticks if I have it right. The ones that cause Lyme Disease. That’s the disease our Lyme Lounge is named after. On the trip to pick that thing up out in Minnesota, the GG and mouse were inundated with ticks every day. When they finally landed at the moomincabin, the GG was sick enough that for a quick minute, we thought he might need to head to the urgent care to get checked out for Lyme Disease. In the end, he decided it was probably black fly bites. And yeah, it probably was. I know from experience how nasty those are because they make me feverish. Same for Radical Betty. The GG did recover and has never showed any subsequent signs of Lyme.

Weather update? It got up to 89 today (not 92). I snagged some shelling peas at the farmers market at 0-skunk-30 and was home by 7:20 or so maybe? A cloud layer kept Mr. Golden Sun from keeping us hot most of the morning along with breezes. Persistent winds allowed me to keep the Landfill doors and windows open all day. I felt cool as I shelled my peas in the back yard.

I am glad that the local NPR stations didn’t broadcast those BEEP BEEP BEEP weather alerts for a 92 degree day three days before it happened. They did that a few years ago. It kinda freaked my daughters out, like will mooom be okay. Yes. She will. 92 is not allll that hot and there are many ways to keep cool and if all else fails, moom can turn on the central A/C. Which she may have to do on Monday when she will be working.

What annoyed me about the radio this time was all of the suggestions for how to keep cool in hot weather. There are many ways for Michiganders to do that on our extremely few 90-plus degree days and most of us know how to do it if we have the means. Dunking into Lake Superior water will cool you off quick but most people don’t have access to Gitchee Gumee, including me when I’m on the Planet Ann Arbor. There are people who don’t have access to air conditioning in their homes. I didn’t have A/C in my home until about 20 years ago. It was horrible when the beach urchins were small children and we had a heat wave.

We were lucky to have a big backyard with a plastic kiddie pool. And a cool breeze just rolled through so I am ending this blather now.

G’night. KW

Which is cutest, the black widow spider from a couple days ago (South Carolina) or this red eft from the Adirondacks?

I’m not sure what a “heat dome” is but it seems one is heading our way. It is supposed to last five days. I will probably have to turn on the Landfill’s central A/C to get through this one. I hate turning on the A/C. It means I have to shut everything up and can’t hear the birds and insects and whatever is going on outside. But I’ll do it if I need to. Of course, the stuff going on outside today was garbage/recycle/compost trucks thundering through the neighborhood and a neighbor getting their house power washed…

I don’t really have much more to say today. On hot nights like this weekend promises, I remember filling a KMart type kiddie pool with cold water in the back yard and bathing the baby beach urchins and washing their hair in there. Almost like bathing in Lake Superior but a whole heckuva lot smaller. My (late) brother observed an episode of evening beach bathing one time and asked why his kids were not included. What can I say? Ask your wife. (She thought the water was dirty… Not.) Okay, I am riding my blahgging edge posting this.

G’night. Randomly watching Murder Bot episodes. Wonder if the GG would be interested. They are short. Kinda like Joe Pera but not anything near the same content.

The GG was looking at the Landfill driveway via a webcam last night and the title is the question he posed to me when we talked on the phone. Um… We danced around that a little bit and he couldn’t figure it out. I finally said, “I WANT YOU TO USE YOUR BRAIN TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION FOR YOURSELF.”

Answer: Oh, it’s Joan’s car😵‍💫 Ding ding ding, you win the booby prize.

Yes. Remember? You drove Joan out to the Adirondacks in Mooon Yooonit and she left her car in our driveway. (Men🤣)

I then told him that what I should’ve said was, “It’s my boyfriend’s car.” He replied, “But that would be a pickup truck.” Um, how long have you known me? I have never had a boyfriend with a pickup truck. I am not really attracted to men with pickup trucks (the GG knows that) although who knows, maybe I’ve just never met a pickup truck guy with the right chemistry for meeeee.

My second high school boyfriend used to sometimes pick me up in the Blue Goose, his family’s ancient “International”. I think that’s what it was. I think I even drove it a short distance once or twice. It wasn’t a pickup truck. It was a behemoth. Seven kids in that fam, six beautiful girls and BF, right in the middle. His dad more often drove his Toronado and BF owned a little Gremlin that he usually drove. It had an 8-track tape player and we used to play Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” as we drove around Sault Ste. Siberia. “Arguing” (don’t ask) about which one of us was closer to 18. I was 17. He was 19.

But I have no boyfriend and am not interested in one at this stage of the game, pickup truck or not.

So it rained a lot overnight and a few more times today. After a few hot days, I was chilly enough this morning that I put on a polarfleece vest and I’ve had it on all day. This weekend is supposed to head up to the goddamn 90s. I am not a fan.