The freezer, that is. Yes, I have a side-by-side. A refrigerator is a refrigerator aka it is what it is. What was I looking for yesterday? Whitefish fillets. Waaaaaay back in the beginning of you-know-what, I ordered a couple pounds of whitefish fillets (and a ton of other fish). A while back I thawed the whitefish just enough so I could separate the fillets and put half back in the freezer. They were in a ziplock bag.

Yesterday I wanted to cook the other half. I could not find the bag for the life of me. Everything is stuffed in there higgledy-piggledy and if I’m not careful, things fall out. On my head, if I’m down there rummaging through the bottom bin. (Bad light for a pic. Click and click again to embiggen and then maybe you can understand the scope of the mess.) I had to pull everything off every shelf before I finally found the fish.

This is the result of pandemic shopping. In normal times, I tryyyyy not to keep extra food around. It’s easy enough to get food. Just throw on a backpack and schlep over to the Plum Market. Or hop in the Ninja and head over to the Westgate Kroger or the Jackson or Saline Road Meijer. Quick trips all!

Back in March, shopping was impossible and for a short period we were totally reliant on Rodent Delivery. I tried to use shopping services at the big stores but pickup / delivery times were totally unavailable or a week in the future. Gradually I re-thought how to shop.

The small specialty stores were the first to offer curbside. After a couple months my fave Plum began curbside / delivery. Things I couldn’t get at any of those places I ordered from Amazon and some other “interesting” places. I still used Rodent Delivery but gradually became less reliant on her. Today I got an email from Meijer promoting their new liqwire pickup / delivery service. That’s one of the things I get from there if Rodent Delivery is going there but I thought, “yeah, but when can I pick it up?” Turns out if I had wanted it today, I could’ve picked it up this afternoon.

At any rate, in the beginning I filled my freezer and then I felt like I was rationing food even though we really haven’t had any trouble getting, you know, more food. It’s time to start eating it up and only replacing it when there’s some empty space in there (or we crave something particular).

I think I will try Meijer’s pickup service (they also deliver but the Ninja needs to be droven once in a while). According to their website, even the Sault Ste. Siberia location offers curbside. That’ll come in handy if we are up isolating at the moomincabin and need to make a liqwire or TP or potato chip run. Not sure about TP though. How is that supply chain holding up these days?

If Meijer works out I will use it but I will still order from all of the other little stores who came through for us early on. I shop at those ANYWAY. I can only get pre-breaded swordfish scallopini from Monahan’s, the GG will only grill Sparrow’s whole chickens, and I just plain love the Plum Market. I’ll never forget the time The Comm spent xmas here near the end of her life and she was so amazed at that place that she would STOP in the middle of the aisles, blocking traffic and waving her cane cudgel around in the air, pointing at things. Yeah, yikes is right! 🐽

P.S. We’re not out of the virus woods yet. Stay home, stay home, stay home and wash your hands. This “opening up” stuff is total crapola. Google “texas surprise party covid” if you are thinking about having a family party or maybe you’ve already seen an article about it.

Wednesday morning is Virtual Barry Bagels with MMCB. We began, as we usually do these days, with COVID talk which eventually segued (thankfully) into “how are your kids?” She has one, I have two, they are similar ages and know each other from middle and/or high school although they were never close friends. Oh, I don’t mean they disliked each other. Liz was three grades ahead and Mouse (same grade) ran with a different crowd. (If she reads this, she will probably hate that I said that, especially the use of the phrase “ran with” and the word “crowd”🐽 So that’s as far as I’ll go.)

Just about the time COVID started to hit the fan, MMCB’s son got a new job and moved to a different state. He works in college-level athletics in a hands-on capacity and just as he moved, his new school shut down/went virtual. So far he is still employed but I’m sure there’s a bit of worry there. But he’s much closer to The Planet now and his mom is happy about that and knowing what I do about him, I suspect whatever happens, he will land on his feet.

The truth is I don’t usually have a whole heckuva lot to say about my kids. They are both 30-somethings, good citizens with responsible jobs. They don’t ever ask me for money and I don’t get calls to bail them out of jail, etc. Actually I have to practically shove money down their throats. What is there to say?

We veered off into the topic of parents who are constantly interfering with their adult children’s business. I don’t THINK I do that. I had to mention that I don’t really know much about my kids’ jobs, even though I have probably asked them both about a gazillion times. One of them works at an art museum and the other is a grocery worker who happens to work at my long-time fave store. Before COVID, I would frequently visit her there as I made my rounds. What their titles are and how much they get paid and what they actually do? I don’t really know. I enjoy hearing them talk about stuff that happens at work but I don’t feel an urge to get overly involved. I think that’s a GOOD THING.

Speaking of Barry Bagels, I wonder if they do curbside. I kind of have a hankering for a tuna bagel… I mean we usually just drink coffee there but tuna salad on a tomato basil bagel with lettuce and tomato sounds good right now. I guess I am finally getting some version of my regular pre-COVID appetite back – not that I haven’t binged on potato chips a few times 🐽

P.S. This is already too long but someday I’ll have to [re]tell the story about The Commander and Radical Betty commiserating about their [then] “wild” children aka me and my cousins. They drank a bunch of whine, walked the moominbeach, and The Commander fell in the lake and COULDN’T GET UP! Much laughter from everyone including The Commander.

Here’s Mr. Covid Hair with his John Bolton mustache. He was at the moomincabin and it was HOT! Hence no shirt. I cropped the pic. You’re welcome.

HE GOT HIS HAIR CUT TODAY! I am not a happy camper. Yeah, I know #ThatWomanInMichigan “opened up” hair salons and barber shops, etc. I am a HUGE fan of hers but I think it’s too early for that. Our cases have seen a slight uptick in the last few days. They aren’t sky-rocketing but I think we still need to be careful.

Mr. Mustache claims that I am listening to “fake news” and not interpreting the “numbers” right. I don’t know if ANYONE is capable of interpreting the “numbers” accurately, given how little we STILL know about the virus. I do NOT listen to “fake news”. And if he keeps pushing the envelope, he is going to find himself living alone in an apartment for the duration.

He goes to Tina to get his hair cut. He loooooves Tina. I’m sure I would looooove Tina. I’ve seen pictures of her but I’ve never met her. But no matter how much you love somebody, if you can’t control who they are in contact with, they can infect you. And vice versa. The virus doesn’t give jack-doodly about your relationships. Oh, you shared a womb with somebody? You guys can get together. We’ll spare you. NOT NOT NOT.

Fair is fair, so here is yer fav-o-rite blahgger with her COVID hair. Actually this is not a recent pic. I took it in March 2019 before I got my last haircut. It looks about the same now. I usually just pull it back outta my face. Mine is kinda like Kellyanne Conway hair (shaggy) except not bottle blonde although it kinda looks that way in this pic. Not true! Mostly white/gray.

I am also wearing an expression that used to scare the bejeebus outta the LSCHP when he was my boss. I suspect it’s not unlike the one my Grandaddy wore when he was “collecting” from people who weren’t making loan payments. The Commander and Grandroobly bunked with my grandparents for a brief period when they first moved to Sault Ste. Siberia and she remembers it. I do not. He was always kind and gentle with us little beach urchins.

Anyway, I’m not getting mine cut and he STILL has his blasted Bolton mustache!

This is our third set of robins this year! Our first set fledged the *minute* we returned from Memorial Day weekend meaning we got pics of the juveniles. A couple weekends ago robins were building a second nest in a different location and I thought I saw yet another pair starting a nest in a *third* location.

I watched as the second robin sat on her eggs. At one point I guessed correctly that they had hatched and they are now big enough I can see them poking their heads up from my vantage point across the yard.

The third nest is “around the corner” and I didn’t notice it was progressing and then kind of forgot about it. Yesterday the GG was home from his Geology Tour and as he was about to get the grill ready he noticed the third nest directly above it. And they were hatching! One egg left to go and we can’t tell how many hatchlings. And yes he moved the grill.

We haven’t had robins in years. The GG made a prodject to make the holes smaller on all the birdhouses to keep out the “junk birds” (“house wrens” or “house sparrows” or whatever). I was annoyed at first but apparently when they use the birdhouses, the robins don’t nest near them. Too close for comfort. Robins have “open” nests BTW, they don’t (that I know of) use birdhouses. We also had a set of chickadees in one of our houses. They are small enough to get in the diminished holes and do not qualify as “junk birds”.

And yes, he went off on a Geology Tour. I am a bit reluctant about him traveling around but he was either at the moomincabin or in the Lyme Lounge out in the woods and the few trips he made INTO stores, he was masked (or so he said). The yooperland is not a COVID hot spot (KNOCK ON WOOD!) and we needed a little break from each other, as we do 🐽🐽🐽

We don’t really celebrate made-up holidays like Mother’s/Father’s Day in any kind of big way. Since both our beach urchins live within an easy driving distance we usually gather just to have an excuse to grill some steaks and party a bit. Not so much during this pandemic year. We could’ve probably done something in the back yard with *physical* distancing but people’s schedules were iffy and thunderstorms were a possibility although they didn’t happen. It’s okay. I miss the beach urchins, especially the DayTwa one (because I haven’t seen her in person since February), but it is what it is and there was a facetime between that beach urchin and her dad this morning and many text messages off and on throughout the day.

So here are a few pics of the fathers in my life and my kids’. First up, we have The Gumper (my father-in-law) scrutinizing Lizard Breath at Hoton Lake with the GG (her father) in the background.

And here we are at Hoton Lake with the GG and both of our urchins, one of them pretty dern fresh. Yes, we took her to the moldy old Hoton Lake cabin when she was three weeks old.

I couldn’t pick between two pics of my dad so here are two of him with the older beach urchin.

Finally here is my brother. He died in 2005 but he was father to two daughters. Both of them have earned phds, Pengo just recently. I know he would be proud.

I follow various North Country Trail groups on facebook and sometime this morning, a post flew by with a bare bear in close proximity to a tent. The tent looked vaguely familiar but I didn’t think about it much until the beach urchin who is camping this weekend texted a picture of that post. It is her tent and they were out hiking when this pic was taken and their food is locked in their car.

I finished a long read today, The Women’s Room, by Marilyn French. I think I will give it four stars on Goodreads but I kinda want to give it five only because I read it umpteen bazillion years ago and it sorta felt like an old friend in a way. It more or less documents aspects of the various “movements” of the 1960s and early 1970s from the point of view of a woman living through those years as an adult.

The narrator is older than I am. I was a very young adult when the book was written. Did all of those “movements” change my life? I could/maybe write a “book” about that albeit a very disorganized one. My life has been a mixed bag of missed opportunities (being too shy to grab them) and very lucky lightning strikes. One of the beach urchins once asked us (her parents) if we had any advice about how to find new career opportunities. Me? I had no good advice. I fall off cliffs into jobs. What I didn’t say was that once I fall into a job I OWN IT!

I do think that it may be easier to find good employment as a woman now. It is in my company but not sure it’s true everywhere. And I married a guy who is happy to pitch in with household chores and child care duties. When my first daughter was born, the GG did almost all of the diapering and bathing for quite some time. He was a whole heckuva lot more experienced than I was, since he had 11 nieces and nephews at the time.

My life has always been pretty darn good and the times when I thought I was “poor”, I was really not so much. I just couldn’t always buy luxury crapola. Now that I can [sorta] buy stuff without thinking about it, I couldn’t be bothered (well, except for Copper River salmon🐽). You may not be able to take your money with you but you can pass it on, not that I plan on going anywhere any time soon.

The doorbell frequently rings at this time of year. It’s usually young college students who are trying to get me to sign on to the clean water act or whatever. I am totally on board with clean water, especially being a Lake Superior beach front property owner. What I don’t agree with is exploiting young idealistic people to go DOOR TO DOOR to harass people for money.

A year ago or so, a young woman came to my door to bug me for money or sign a petition or something. It was something like 9:00 PM and even though the sun hadn’t yet set I was about to put my “women’s bedclothes” on and hit the rack. I told her in no uncertain terms that it was too late for anyone to be knocking on doors and that there were probably plenty of summer jobs that would pay better. She said something like “my mother says that too”. Sigh.

I haven’t had any door knockers this year. Until tonight. A young woman rang the doorbell. I went to the door. She was passing out polly-tickle flyers. I said something about COVID. She looked a little crazy at me and asked if I was under quarantine. I explained that I didn’t have COVID and wasn’t in quarantine but that I have been ISOLATING since March because I don’t WANT TO GET COVID.

I was wondering what the you-know-what was she coming to my door at all. She didn’t seem to understand the vocabulary. Quarantine is when you think you may have been exposed to the virus and need to hang out at home or wherever until you have reached a certain period of time without having symptoms. Isolating is hanging out in your home so you don’t come in contact with people who have COVID, asymptomatic or not.

Sorry, I am so taaaarrred tonight!

This photo was sent to me from the yooperland. I was annoyed at first because the photographer always sends me these crappy downsized sorta pixelated photos. I have photoshop and I can optimize full-size photoooos for the web myself, thank you very much. But then I decided it was okay it was fuzzy because somehow that felt appropriate for Trump.

Being the far-left liberal that I am (not), I was happy about the two Supreme Court decisions handed down this week. I do believe we need to *reform* immigration laws. I do NOT believe people who were brought here as babies and know no other country AND are contributing members to our society should be deported without some dern good reason. I don’t get the anti-trans thing at all. I mean, I know some of these people… And I guess that’s as far as I’m gonna go with that other than to say that sex and gender identity are not binary traits. Neither is skin color.

I doubt that my idea of reforming immigration laws matches that of most of my right-wing brothers. Also, regarding “sex and gender identity”, I know I am probably not using accurate vocabulary. I am just a baggy old bag who grew up when we shoved topics like this waaaaaay under the rug and didn’t EVER talk about them.

Five months to go until us “socialists” have an idea about how the next four years will go. I wonder how long poor old Mr. Bare Bear here has been forced to associate himself with the Orange Baboon, who is no friend to the bare’s bear’s habitat. Likely that sign has been there since 2016. I knew those of us who are not INSANE were in trouble fall of 2016 when we took a little ride out into the county and saw big Trump signs everywhere. I have not seen more than a few ratty ones from 2016 yet this year but it’s early. I’ll have to be on the lookout for them.

P.S. Sex talk? I was 15. I had my first boyfriend. I was in “luv” with him and my parents knew it even though I didn’t discuss it with them. They were worried about me. (Pssst. He was from the “wrong side of the tracks”🐽) I was sitting in our shabby little Superior Street bungalow doing my geometry homework in front of Lost in Space re-runs and The Commander startled me out of my mind by entering the room with the question, “KW, do you know what sexual intercourse is?” The pencil I had in my hand flew across the room. Er, yes I did know what it was, and no, I wasn’t engaging in it. But I answered with a simple “yes”. TMI🐽🐽🐽

It isn’t a question for me. I AM MASKING. At least I would be if I ever went anywhere public. Walking at 0-skunk-30 it is really easy to keep faaaarrrrr away from other people. I do mask when my Rodent Delivery Service does a drop and I mask when I do a curbside pickup and I have masked for a few VERY small socially distanced gatherings in the landfill backyard.

We are “opening up” and the Great Lake State (for NOW) seems to be doing well at keeping things under control. I credit #BigGretch for that but also all of our citizens who have been following “the rules” and the businesses who have pivoted to keep serving their customers in inventive ways. Still, I am not going out to eat. I did a little exploratory drive-by downtown last weekend and there were way too many people oot and aboot for my comfort level and not as many masks as I would have liked to see despite the growing body of evidence that masks are an effective tool in stopping the spread. And again, how do you eat or drink through a mask? You don’t. You have to take it off.

The big grokkery stores have opened up their bottle return musheens again. I will not be returning bottles any time soon. Meijer sent out an email today saying there were long lines at the bottle return. I had anticipated this and I don’t even wait in line to return bottles when there isn’t a randomly deadly virus hanging about. We don’t have all that many returnables anyway and I know there are orgs out there I could donate them to but so far I’ve been too lazy to make contact.

And then there is the weird WTF stuff. I have been adamant about not using public restrooms since the beginning of COVID. If I can’t use Eco Terlet, give me a bucket or a deserted two-track road. BucketP and RoadP are fine with me. An article I read recently said 1) COVID can be shed via fecal material and 2) when you flush a terlet, minute particles of whatever go EVERYWHERE. I encountered the second factoid many years ago when a beach urchin read an article in the newspaper and thereafter made sure to close the lid on the Blue and Only Terlet before flushing *every* time. I admit that I kinda rolled my eyes at the time🐽

The thing the article (the one *I* read, not the old way-pre-COVID one) was fuzzy on was whether COVID spread in that manner could actually infect someone or was it just “dead” virus (not sure what the correct term is there and don’t feel like looking it up). Another one of the many things we don’t yet understand about the virus.

At any rate, it was one of those articles I kinda wish I hadn’t read but it did make me think I am right not to use public restrooms. Not that I have used anything but Eco Terlet, the moomincabin terlet, or the Great Outdoors in months.

Another photoooo courtesy of my cousin the Grand Poohbah (nicknamed after Winnie ther Pooh) and I asked for permission this time, my usual modus operandi. This is yer fav-o-rite blahgger working on a “crib quilt” on the moomincabin deck. The small child behind me is now my Rodent Delivery person and don’t be fooled by her outfit. There is a bathing suit underneath that t-shirt. Maybe even her “two-pee” but I can’t tell. But she is not bear bare.

My cousin Pooh is a much more prolific fiber artist than I am. She makes a quilt for every new baby that comes along, family and friends’ babies as well as the teachers she subs for while they are on maternity leave. Her paying career in this phase of her life is long-term sub in her local school district. She is a very popular sub, which doesn’t surprise me at all because she is one of the most intelligent, creative people I know and relates very well to children. Unlike her older (by a few months) cousin (meeeee) who would be a TERRIBLE teacher. As an old friend of mine who was trained as a teacher but didn’t pursue a career as one once said, “I would want to KILL the kids.” (Of course I would NEVER kill a kid. I don’t even always kill things like Murder Hornets.)

I posted a fugly of my [mostly unused] studio yesterday and she sent me an old pic of one of her migrating studios from a much earlier year. I gnoffed at how messy it was but Been There Done That (and there again…). I think all Creative Types (as BFF archaeologist calls them) struggle with how to organize their constantly evolving stash of materials, supplies, books, and tools. Not easy.

Speaking of creative types, I bagged TeleCubelandia early today because my Rodent Delivery Service (RDS) was coming over to deliver whine, pick up a cooler and some ice packs, and drink whine with me. We were well socially distanced (more than six feet) in the back yard. So glad it’s warm enough outside to meet that way. We’ve been staying away from each other in person since March 12 and we’ve been doing fine but it is soooo nice to meet with folks in person again, even at a distance. And we DO meet at a distance because we are all convinced that this virus is not finished with our planet yet 🧡🧡🧡

So this is a pic my Delivery Rodent texted me of her new fiber arts studio. Well, at least in the summer and in good weather (click to embiggen and see my old owl soup bowl). Outdoor studios do not work out very well in the Great Lake State at least nine months out of the year not to mention we can certainly have inclement weather in the summer.

There is another pic in which she has an ironing board set up. She sent me that one because there was once another outdoor ironer in the FinFam. My aunt Katie was a busy doctor’s wife with four children and she was a WHIZ at cleaning and other household chores. Hence the nickname The White Tornado. The August I was 3-1/2 and my brother was being born, we were at the Old Cabin for the summer (this was before we built the moomincabin) and I stayed a week or so at Katie’s cabin. When my parents returned to pick me up, The Commander was amazed and not a little embarrassed at how clean the area behind my ears was. I don’t remember having my ears scrubbed but that otherwise tumultuous period of family history represents my earliest set of contiguous memories but we’ll talk about that another time.

Anyway, my uncle Don rigged up a lucky-shuckyal outlet on a big pine tree on the bank in front of their cabin and the White Tornado would set up an ironing board and plug in an iron so she could continue working while watching her kids (my cousins) swim. Mouse (of course) doesn’t personally remember this but I certainly do.

But back to the outdoor studio. Can I just say how ENVIOUS I am? The next pic is MY fugly fiber arts studio! Yes, it is in the Landfill Dungeon. YES IT IS A MESS DOWN THERE!!! About the only thing it doesn’t have is an oubliette.

To be fair, since I went back to college and subsequently sold my soul to Corporate America, I have not done a whole lot of fiber arts stuff. But that had already dropped off a bit. Let’s face it. Who wants to go down into a messy, badly lit dungeon to work on art (if you can call anything I do “art”). About lighting? I do have enough light to work down there. Unfortunately, there is almost NEVER anything resembling NATURAL LIGHT in the Landfill Dungeon.

I moved my “studio” from various places in the upstairs during various phases of our growing family. I mean I KNOOOOOWWW we only have two children but it’s a small house and as they grew they needed their own spaces. I moved my sewing musheen and associated crapola from an unused bedroom to the back room. But then I couldn’t keep the back room uncluttered with all of the sewing crapola so one day when the GG was somewhere else, I moved the desk and sewing musheen down to the dungeon. All by myself. And bought a whole bunch of Yaffa blocks (google it) to store my fabric.

I need to move back upstairs. I need a natural light source aka WINDOWS! I have my eye on the bigger “children’s” bedroom. This will be a prodject. I need to get some furniture outta that room (but not the bed because people do occasionally use it in non-pandemic times). But I am gonna need some more space… The Kiwanis drop-off will accept donations again someday and I am about ready.

Rather random thoughts today…

This is our house. It is not fancy or beautiful except for the chitchen and ONLY bathroom. But look at the beautiful green trees everywhere. We could have traded up to a different house but the kids (and their friends) loved this house and, well, location location location.

I am home alone for the evening and instead of heating up leftovers like I usually do, I am serving myself shrimp piccata with garlic bread and asparagus and salad.

The Ninja dragged me outta my driving stupor this morning and we explored Swan Corners and returned via Dexter and Joy Road. We took Joy because we knew there would be a lot of cyclists on Huron River Drive and we didn’t want to deal with slowing down for them simultaneously with impatient drivers behind us. We also hit downtown A2, where a lot of streets are shut down for construction and/or the pandemic.

Okay. I have said this before and I will say it again. I grew up with parents who voted for republicans. The republican party moved waaaaaay to the right of what my parents believed in and by the end of her life, The Commander was an avid Obama fan. Not sure what dad wouldda thought about Obama and will never know but I am gonna guess that he would not have supported Trump in any way shape or form.

If you are a republican voter who is struggling with Trump, here is a site you might be interested in.

And finally, I think I need to start a separate book blahg or journal maybe so I can keep better track of all the books I’ve been reading.

Today’s Rodent Delivery included these two boxes of strawberries from the farmers market and SIX 🐭 made masks, three for the GG ad three for meeeee! Mine are on the left.

These were the first strawberries of the year here (they’re a wee bit late) and we have our eyes peeled for shelling peas but I don’t think they’re available yet. Sugar peas probably are but I’m not all that crazy about those. A lot of people love them but they seem stringy to me. I DOOOOOO love to sit outside and shell peas. But we’ll get there!

I was oot and aboot just a wee bit today on my own doing a weeeeee bit of curbside pickup. In the process, I drove by a few restaurants who have recently “opened up”. Oh dear. This is not going to work well. People waiting to get inside one place were NOT six feet apart. And anyway, is six feet apart an actual scientifically determined measurement? Who knows. I am more comfortable with maybe 20 feet away but whatever. I saw people pushing the envelope on even the six foot distance. Masks? I didn’t see them…

I am not going out to eat *in* a restaurant any time soon. If you are thinking about doing that, whatever you think about your own safety, please please please consider asking the folks who are serving you how they feel about “opening up”. We are ALL *still* vulnerable to contract COVID but we are MORE vulnerable if we are hanging out in restaurants and bars. What about the people who WORK there? Those folks are there for hours and hours and hours as people come in masked or unmasked. And how do you eat/drink with a mask on anyway?

If you DOOOOO dine at a restaurant (inside or out) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tip extra well. Your servers are risking their lives to serve you.

So my Rodent Delivery Service dropped off this stuff today and since she had a half hour or so before her work started, she sat in the back yard with me (we were at least 20 feet apart). No whine today because she had to go to work.

G’night, KW

I certainly dated yooper guys back in high school, etc. Like two serious relationships when I was a kid.

And then I left town and never totally connected with anyone for more years than I cared to count. Until I ran in to this character. He was not a yooper in any way shape or form. He grew up in Royal Joke but he did spend summers at his family’s rustic cabin at Houghton Lake… The first time I went up there for a winter weekend with him and a bunch of friends, I started thinking like we might have something in common. The second time (a few weeks later) we drove up with his beautiful sister Susie 🧡 and I met two of his brothers and it wasn’t long after that when we turned into a couple.

I was accepted into his family immediately and was always welcome at Hoton Lake. My fam accepted him too but, oh man, it was a bit difficult for him at the moomincabin in the beginning. My dad and my brother could be authoritarian about a lot of things, botes for one. The GG grew up with botes and was accustomed to taking them out on Hoton Lake whenever he wanted to. Not always so much at the moomincabin because “people” could be fussy about them. Sigh.

The GG, as a twin of terror and smack in the middle of a set of ten siblings, did not particularly respect “authority figures” and he got around that crapola by taking botes out *anyway* and eventually brought a cFam bote up to the moomincabin.

Man oh man. My brother died and then my dad died and the GG became the Boat Master. And one of my moom The Commander’s best friends. He took good care of her and her property in her later years of life. So there he is tonight, the Cabin Master. He opens and closes the moomincabin every year. He has fixed numerous plumbing problems over the years and and he helps with the Old Cabin if needed — he fixed a kitchen sink plumbing issue over there today.

Do you think I married the right guy? I certainly think so. Of course there is no question that we made good children! In a way, that’s all that matters.

First a disclaimer. I did not take this photo. My uber cuzzint Pooh sent it to me. I texted it to my dad’s grandchildren, then I posted it on Instagram, cropping it and apping it along the way. I did NOT ask for permission to use this photo and I didn’t ask permission to fold, spindle and mutilate it aka app it. So asking for forgiveness I guess 🐽. I LOVE this pic.

That’s my beloved aunt Radical Betty and my dad (her older brother) and we are all at their older brother Don’s 60th anniversary celebration with his wife Katie aka The White Tornado. These two people have been dead for a while along with their big brother and alas, their much younger sister Bubs, who died in March during the early waves of COVID, although she did not die of the disease. They were all so much fun and I miss them all. I don’t have words for why I miss them and if I did, it would take up many posts.

We hosted our first visitor today since *before*. It was my “baby” cousin npJane, whose mom was Bubs. She parked such that she didn’t have to enter the Landfill to access the back yard, where we could appropriately social distance. The main topic was a minor plumbing issue at the Old Cabin that npJane didn’t have time to research/fix when she was up there but the GG will definitely be able to sort out when he heads back up.

It felt soooo good to meet with my cousin in the back yard today. We’ve been wanting to meet since her mom’s death but so often spring weather in the Great Lake State is crappy enough that meeting outside is not feasible and so we haven’t really been able to do it.

I hope we can someday get back to some sort of “normalcy” but it has to be science-based, not political. We did talk about an afternoon backyard social distancing whine type event where My Dear Uncle Harry (npJane’s dad) could join us and I am totally on board with that🧡🧡🧡

Love y’all. But let’s “open up” slowly!!!

I facetimed with MMCB from the back yard this morning. Hot and humid here but the breeze helped. We discussed (among many other things) our pandemic shopping habits. I have not been in a store since March 12. It was a liqwire store and I was on my way home from my last day working AT Cubelandia. I’m pretty sure some people think I am over the top but that’s my comfort level and it is what it is. Fortunately I live in a cornucopia of sorts and can get pretty much whatever I need with a little creativity.

MMCB? She likes to pick out her own groceries and doesn’t trust others to do it for her. She is not out every other day but she does shop in person. She is CAREFUL (wears a mask and follows the rules) and has cobbled together a short list of stores she’s comfortable enough to go inside. Costco, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s are her faves. Well, Costco is ALWAYS her fave. Whole Foods is not usually.

If she is shopping somewhere and employees are not wearing masks, she ASKS TO SEE THE MANAGER! She is not a “Karen”, rather she is the Quintessential Jewish Mother. She comes by that honestly as she *is* both Jewish and a mother. As I have always said, I would much rather be on the other side of a Barry Bagels table from her than the other end of a service call. I hope I AM on the other side of a Barry Bagels table from her again sometime. It won’t be soon.

I tried to point out that it is possible to do curbside pickup and get decent food if you are careful about where you shop and what you shop for but I’m not sure I was very convincing. She mentioned that she’d had to wait 20 minutes to get in to TJ’s and I said “I hate to wait” and apparently that’s something called schpilkas (or schpilkes, the inter-tubes are divided). I love Yiddish words. Radical Betty used to call people she didn’t like “schlecks”. I used that word with my Jewish buddies once and they were like “what is a schleck?” and gnoffing like crazy. I think the word RB was reaching for was “schlub”. But then she was a Scottish yooper.

I was telecommuting from the back yard today and all of a sudden, a, uh, TREE came around the corner and invaded my space.

Eventually we got some much-needed rainstorms. Intermittent drenching rain and high winds. Rumbly thunder all around us but no visible lightning that I saw. I won’t have to water my flowers for a couple days and The Ninja has lost its COVID hair (seed material) and it is 20-something degrees cooler (down from 93). But it’s summer [almost] and this is the Great Lake State and what the heck, we could have snow tomorrow. But probably won’t🐽

Extra thanks to Mouse/Raccoon for the booze/beer/Frito run for us and FlaMan today.

Love y’all, KW

I think I have posted that we have a second robin nest and today the intrepid GG got my selfie-stick up there to check out what’s going on. Two eggs and “we” think that will be all for this nest.

The Big Question is, is it the same parents or a new pair? We do not know. We know that robins sometimes lay more than one set of eggs per season. We know (we think) that they sometimes re-use the old nest but they also sometimes build a new one. I am only guessing about this but I think this is the same set of parents. Why? Because it’s a rather unusual egg color for robin eggs (that I know of, I am NOT a bird expert by any stretch of the imagination), darker than the usual. This color matches my kitchen tile backsplash. So, I dunno. Actually, the GG says more-or-less NAY and that the color is more a function of what they eat. I dunno what HE knows but I guess WE probably dunno who the parents are.

I draaaaaggggged myself out of the Landfill and surrounding neighborhood on Sunday, faaaaaarrrring up the Ninja for a mini-roadtrip down to Swan Corners. There is a swan pair who have SEVEN cygnets this year. That seems like an astounding number to me. I could not get a picture. Although people DO park at Swan Corners, there isn’t what I regard as a safe place to park. Well unless there’s a RARE bird sighting down there, then the roads are lined with parked cars and people with scopes are everywhere.

Driving? It’s just weird to me these days. I can’t describe it. I mean I can certainly drive just fine but I’m going slower, at least around town, and I am hyper-aware of my surroundings. Well, maybe that’s not different. I have always concentrated when driving. I was talking to my boss and she was saying sorta the same thing so maybe I’m not crazy.

And just now I made an off-hand remark to the GG about how HOT it was this afternoon. His response? Is the FAAAAANN on? The faaaaannn is a “whole house” fan and it isn’t as good as the central A/C that we rarely turn on but it does have a decent cooling effect. How the heck could I have forgotten the FAAAAANNN? Jeebus. Of course, I COULD also work outside. Is there an outlet out here? Hmmmm… We have outdoor outlets at the moomincabin… Oh wait, I guess we doooo have an outdoor outlet, just where I need it.

I don’t usually call people’s birthdays out on this boring blahg of blather but it is my youngest [biological] niece’s birthday today. I won’t tell you the number. That’s her business. Except to say that it is high enough to make me want to say what my dad once said to me, which was “happy UNbirthday”. That was because MY age reminded him of HIS age.

Anyway, it is pretty hard when you get to the part of the birthday song where you have to insert the person’s name to fit in “Pengo Janetto Cookie Tester Penguin Hoosh” (although it might extend the handwashing song during the coronavirus). It was the summer a lot of us were reading “Endurance” about Shackleton’s voyage to Antarctica. They ate a lot of what they called “penguin hoosh” and my niece is a long-time penguin lover so we started calling her Pengo Janetto Penguin Hoosh.

One day she was out of sorts about something. I have NO CLUE what it was. My parents ended up with four granddaughters (two and two) and when you have four young children in your cabin during the summer arguments sometimes happen. So I don’t remember what happened but The Commander came to the rescue as she always did. She was making chocolate chip cookies and she enlisted Pengo as a “cookie tester”. I dunno why that worked but Pengo got distracted and “Cookie Tester” became part of her “name”.

I can’t say that The Comm was as adept at handling sibling conflicts between my brother and I but she was great at dealing with her grandchildren and I believe she was probably a better influence on their lives than their parents were.

Brown? We aren’t sure what happened to this tree but all of a sudden, like two weeks ago, EVERY NEEDLE turned brown. Dead dead dead.

And… at the moment some of us are in an argument about whether states AUTOMATICALLY register all applicants for drivers licenses to VOTE. I say NAY. I am midway in the process to research this (for Michigan and California) and so far I don’t see anything on either website that they hand out a voter registration form to anyone who meets our country’s requirements to vote whether or not they get a driver’s license. Stay tuned… 🐽🐽🐽

Where do I start? I actually did some DUSTING (with WET microfiber towels) this weekend AND some sorting out of things to be donated once things can be donated again. For now, donations are mostly not accepted anywhere and I understand that.

I have been impressed by the folks who have spent their pandemic time cleaning out closets, etc. I have been doing that off and on over a number of years but having to intake deceased parents’ stuff slows the whole thing down. Even though The Commander spent YEARS doing what people are now calling Death Cleaning, we still have parental stuff to deal with… And then there’s the stuff the cFam doesn’t want to get rid of and some of it is in our house…

I have been COVID telecommuting since March and probably will be at least until the end of 2020 if the latest corporate missives are correct. Yes really and why was it that I didn’t want to work for Corporate America again? They treat me so well. Except I still have a grocery bag over at Cubelandia if they decide to RIF me. You never know. I will be okay no matter what happens but I remain happy to have a good job for now.

This weekend I was FINALLY able to stop feeling so NUMB from COVID fear that I could restart my off and on flinging project. Just a wee bit today but what I did made me sorta feel good. I can’t drop any of it off for now but one of these days I’ll be able to. When our fave drop-off places figger out contact-free dropoff, we’ll be there.

Here is the New Christy Minstrels on YouTube with Green Green. I remember this from when my grandparents used to take the whole fam out for a steak dinner at the old Holiday Inn up in the Yooperland (corner of old US2 and M28). People (not my grandfather) would play Green Green on the jukebox. This was an old-fashioned traveler’s type inn and not related to the Holiday Inn hotels we all know.

So, okay, the request was something like, I get off at seven and I have a camp chair in my car so maybe we could have some whine together socially distanced in the Landfill backyard.

Yes yes yes yes! You don’t need to bring your camp chair, you can use the purple adirondack chair. But buy some decent whine because I’ve been living off box whine for the duration. And please use your Venmo Grock buxx to buy the whine. Oh and some plain yogurt because the yogurt container I opened today contained homemade sandwich thins which freaked me out for a split second. What? BTW, Box whine is fine but meeting up with your daughter for the first time in person since COVID (except for masked front door convos) calls for something a wee bit more refined.

So here is my setup for social distance whine with a grockery worker (who has *probably* already had COVID but we can’t be too careful, no tests available at the time). The purple adirondack is probably more like 20 feet away from where I’m seated on the red adirondack. And there is a table with whine glasses and a corkscrew out there in the yard. Later filled with two bottles of whine and I cleaned the bird poop off it💩

I am missing the days when this person and her SO would come over and do laundry and have dinner. They have their own laundry facilities now and since COVID our meetings have involved drop-offs and pick-ups at the front door (not laundry, they were doing that by hand). We are strategizing on how to arrange a family dinner later in the month utilizing our big back yard to social distance. These are challenging times but we will figger it all out somehow. At least we are not plane rides away from each other. That would be so hard.