Characters: Kayak Woman (KW) and her daughter Lizard Breath (LB)
Setting: The Landfill as KW walks in the door, returning from a trip to Hoton Lake (this was back in the day)

LB: Moom can you use your super nose to figger out what that smell in the refrigerator is?
KW: [sniff] Old Dead Broccoli

THE END. (Except for the trip to the compost heap.)

There are two bad odors in the Landfill this afternoon.

One bad odor emanates from the chitchen garbage. I usually try to get through a whole week with one kitchen bag of garbage. This week, there will be two. This one will go out tomorrow and there will be another one the day after Tday. We normally take our garbage, etc., out on Thursday night for Friday morning pickup but because of the holiday that’ll be delayed a day. Plus, we’ll have more garbage than usual.

I won’t go into a lot of detail about the other bad odor but I am going to do a load of laundry tomorrow. Hint, hint🐽🐽🐽

Here we are driving to our 2021 Thanksgiving destination. No, we weren’t going to grandmother’s house, it was mouse’s (then) house.

When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was usually at my grandparents’ house but sometimes at my uncle’s and maybe once at my parents’ but our house was really small. My grandparents’ house was approximately ten blocks from our shabby little Superior Street bungalow in Sault Ste. Siberia. We didn’t have to cross any rivers to get there or go through any woods. We had woods at the moominbeach.

When I was a kid and my parents went out of town to attend banking functions or whatever, I would stay at my grandparents’ house and I could walk to my school (Lincoln) from there. With my friend Helen, who lived a couple blocks away from my grandparents. My house was directly across from the school and that was cool but I also loved the long walk with my friend Helen, who lived near my grandparents’ house.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at mouse’s house that year but in general, I like to host it here at The Landfill. Yeah, it’s a lot of work but at the end of the evening, I can be Home Alone (with the GG of course) in my own little house so I can chill out a bit. People are always very helpful with dishwashing but if there’s something left for morning, I have much more energy for cleaning up then. Please don’t tell Fly Lady.

Although we were all vaxxed by that Thanksgiving, lots of people were getting breakthrough covid cases, so our kids tested before the event. The next morning I remember waking up to the news that a new covid strain was going around. Omicron. I was devastated (we’re all vaxxed!) but after I GOT omicron (probably) and didn’t get sick, I slowly lost my fear of covid. This virus was doing what many viruses do, which was mutate into a milder version that didn’t kill its hosts. I still masked in public for a really long time but I don’t any more.

The last few Thanksgivings have been at The Landfill. And that’s where it’ll happen this year too.

You know what goes on this week. I did successfully make gravy today. As a safeguard against another disaster, I left my colander INSIDE a big bowl on the counter overnight. I was lucky in that the Plum had turkey parts this morning. The Plum is an upscale store and is *always* well stocked but I doubt there is a huge market for turkey parts, at least not year-round, so it only carries them for a short duration during winter holidays. So I was prepared to head out to Meijer if I had to but was really glad not to have to do that. I did have other things on my list so it wasn’t a “special” trip.

I’ll probably be at one grock store or another every morning the next three days. I’m picking up a turkey tomorrow. Not sure about Tuesday, maybe Meijer. Wednesday I’ll get the rest of whatever it is we need to get through turkey day. And I’m picking up some goat cheese spreads from White Lotus Farms that morning. I used to buy those at the farmers market and they still sell them there. But I haven’t been going there that often because meal planning has been a bit nutso for a while here with Michigan’s Main Helper in and out of town a lot. Also, it’s difficult to GET to the farmers market because of road construction. I mean, I can GET there, but what the heck, I ordered it online directly from the farm and I’m picking it up there.

Tomorrow and Tuesday are work days. Wednesday is a Cooking Day (day off) when I will get almost everything I can think of cooked as much as possible so as to do as little as possible on Thursday. But there’s always stuff left to do on Thursday.

Axe-throwing? What could go wrong? Well. A few years ago the GG took a cue from the male counterpart of the family triplets (young cousins of mine) and asked for a BLOWGUN for xmas. That was all fun until he shot it into the back doorwall, which shattered. In a very controlled way but still. After a moment of horrification, I burst out laughing. After all, no one was hurt and the doorwall was replaceable (and was *eventually* replaced). Still, we will not be setting up an axe throwing area in the Landfill. I don’t know the people in the pic but I’m sure they are now “first buddies” with Michigan’s Main Helper.

Aaaaand… Lunch at the Griz with Lizard Breath and Michigan’s Main Helper. This time, I did NOT follow the sheeple and get stuck in the parking lot 🐽

Make no mistake, he didn’t earn this shirt by being named Michigan’s Main Helper. One of his daughters dubbed him that. Long story. But he won it at a North Country Trail (NCT) Bawbeese Chapter raffle today.

I was just thinking about getting out of bed this morning when he hopped into the bathroom and got ready to leave. To… 1) Help with a boardwalk building project with the Chief Noonday NCT chapter and then… 2) Attend a meeting and have lunch (and throw axes) with the Bawbeese Chapter. I know where these places are but I won’t bore you with Michigan geography today.

So he was gone ALL DAY and that gave me a chance to do some things (or try to do some things). I sewed one of Vandegriff’s missing buttons back on and since there are a few other missing buttons that we don’t have replacements for, I measured that button (5/8ths of an inch) and ordered some replacement buttons so I can replace the others. And labeled a ziplock bag “Vandegriff” so as to store future buttons with him.

I organized the family xmas “gimme pig” lists onto the iPhone Notes app (except for one beach urchin but I’ll do that tomorrow). Note that none of us are “gimme pigs” in any way shape or form. We ALL have to be DRAGGED into providing xmas lists. None of us need anything.

And then I ruined the make-ahead gravy I tried to make today. I won’t try to explain this in detail but in one of the penultimate make-ahead gravy recipe steps, I have to strain the liquid broth out of the chopped up veggies. The problem was that I needed to drain it into a CONTAINER, like a big bowl. Unfortunately, I managed to drain it into the SINK, meaning all of the broth went down the drain. Crapola.

In a moment of magical thinking I was wondering how I could retrieve the broth. Not. I will have to repeat the whole thing tomorrow. If I can find turkey parts. It’ll be okay. It’s easy to do and if I did it every week, I couldda done the whole thing without thinking.

I didn’t blahg about this yesterday because 1) I didn’t want to jinx myself and 2) by the time I got around to blahgging, I had kind of forgotten about it.

Except for the one time I got covid, I have not had a respiratory illness since December 2019. In fact, the virus I got that December (actually it seemed like two in succession but who knows) was so awful that when covid finally did land on our shores, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had already had it. I’m still not 100% sure what I had wasn’t covid. Probably not but there was sooooo much we didn’t know about covid in the early days. And so much we still don’t know. I will say that I was a lot more sick with that virus than I was when omicron finally caught up with me a couple years later, since my one symptom was a mild cough. Oh yeah, two symptoms, the second being extreme annoyance at the person who brought the virus home.

Yesterday, my right nostril dripped almost all day. I felt completely well in every way except I had to keep blowing my nostril. Yes, just the right nostril. As the day wore on, I worried that I might have to cancel my participation in our dinner date the next night (meaning tonight). I didn’t really think it was covid but since covid, I have become hyper aware of infecting others with contagious diseases. But then all of a sudden, I realized I had not had to blow my nostril in several hours. It was dry throughout the night and did not start up again this morning. I used one Kleenex all day today (typical daily usage). I can’t count how many I used yesterday.

So yay. We went out to eat and my nostril continued to stay dry.

And so, to answer a friend’s rather rambling question, I do not blahg on a clockwork schedule. Last night I was “late” because the GG was on a North Country Trail zoom meeting and then we watched an episode of Bad Monkey. Tonight I am “late” because dinner at a restaurant with said friend. But “late” isn’t really applicable because I don’t have a set time to write my blahg. I’ll answer the question about what do I do if I can’t think of anything to blahg about some other day. It’ll be a rambling answer🐽

The GG purchased a digital picture frame for me a few years ago. This was a fine gift but I didn’t really need it because I have about a gazillion photos. But it’s still fun. Mostly because he loads photos onto it…

The Trump party (I’m sorry but it is not your parents’ GOP) is not benign but the GG pretty much is. We totally disagree about politics but we’ve been hanging out together for a long time. I’m not sure we talked too much about politics when we first met but given that he had waist-length hair (before I knew him) and, well, we won’t got down that road too far but given the stuff we did talk about, I thought we were pretty much in line politically. And maybe we were back then.

Things have changed a lot since then in ways I couldn’t have dreamed up if I had tried. The Commander completely disavowed the GOP and became an Obama fan. Other people (old hippies, etc.) have embraced MAGA for reasons I will never understand. (The GG was not a hippie albeit I think he looked like one for a while.)

But bizarrely, I get a kick out of the photos that he loads on to my anti-woke digital picture frame. Hillary Clinton picking her nose. I mean, really? This is a reason to hate Hillary? I think EVERYONE picks their nose. I certainly do. Do you? And there was something today about living in a sexist temperature house? Like the MAN decides what the temperature will be. That doesn’t exactly happen here at the Landfill, although sometimes I quietly let him have his way for a while. The funny thing was that the GG couldn’t even remember what “sexist temperature” meant or even understand the word “sexist” so I was like, “Then why did you put it on my picture frame?” (LOLOLOL)

I know that he’s just trying to harass me. Younger family members have been known to delete objectionable photos off my frame. That’s fine but I don’t really care that they’re on there. I know who I am. And so does the GG.

The term “woke”? Hmmmm. A lot of people have been throwing that term around without providing a comprehensive definition. Y’all, I don’t think it means exactly what y’all think it does. Not that I know exactly what it means either. Just that, like many words and phrases, I think it has a very complicated history and most people are not taking the time to research that.

Love y’all, KW. Cygnus X-1 was covered with our first snow of the season this morning.

It’s xmas time (almost) in the city. And that’s always a good time for things to go wrong. Last year, it was the Friday after turkey day when we realized our furnace wasn’t quiiiiite putting out full heat. We hired somebody to come out. HE WAS REAAAALLLLY GOOD. Got here exactly when he promised and determined that there wasn’t any real problem, except leaves and other detritus were blocking some ducts or whatever. And cleaned it all up. Under the fascinated eye of the GG who was probably figgering how to DIY it the next time…

Today it was clogged plumbing associated with the bathtub. The GG was up to that task, whipping out his snake (*drain* snake, I mean🐽) and the job was done in a jiffy. The culprit? My hair… It needs cutting (long story) but he actually likes my hair long, shaggy, and fugly so I guess he doesn’t mind snaking out the drain every once in a while?

I did not get a pic of today’s operation. This pic of the GG and mouse was taken on XMAS MORNING 2013! We argued about the year a bit. He thought he had snaked the drain in the current (renovated) bathroom. Obviously not. This is the old Blue and Only Bathroom and my brain won. Isn’t this bathroom fugly? Honestly, I could still clean the “porcelain”, etc., but the tile, etc., was beyond cleaning by that time. We limped along with this bathroom for another year and a half and then we gutted it.

He did another wee prodject today but that wasn’t to fix a problem unless you count an oven rice spill a problem. I mean, it is a problem but it’s just a cleaning problem. But. I have been noticing for quite a while how dirty the glass in the oven doors is. I can clean an oven. But I do not have the technical chops to take apart the doors in order to clean the glass and other hard to get at parts. So he took the oven doors apart and cleaned everything. BTW: I found an oven cleaner product that is MUCH better than that Easy-Off oven spray we all grew up with, which is NOT easy-off in my experience.

So, are our appliances, plumbing, and HVAC, etc., ready for the holidays? I’m not holding my breath but we’ll manage. If worse comes to worst, we could stay at one of our kids’ houses. “We have our sleeping bags🤪” Just kidding but the sleeping bag quote relates to a LONG AGO story about Radical Betty and Uncle Dcuk that I should write some day. Or not? We’ll see.

That’s what my father-in-law said once back when we were all young and gay. The Twinz of Terror were launching a motor bote at Houghton Lake and they had not put the PLUG in the bote. The Gumper was yelling, “PUT THE PLUG IN” from shore and they were merrily waving good-bye, unable to hear him over the motor noise. Neither of my beach urchins were in the bote (maybe they weren’t even born yet?) or I’d’ve been yelling and SCREAMING. (I don’t EXACTLY remember the details of this story so I am riffing a bit.)

So there was a minor (and I mean MINOR) panic this afternoon when the Twinz of Terror could not figure out what had happened to a fancy bottle of bourbon (Woodford Reserve) that they’d had on their trip to Asheville. Did they leave it in a hotel? At first I was flummoxed too. Then. I remembered a functionally empty bottle of Woodford Reserve that had made its way into the Landfill Chitchen. I poured what little was in there out, washed it out and threw it in the ree-cycle. “Did you drink what was left?” I was asked. Nooooo. There wasn’t enough left to drink!

At that point, I remembered the rest of the story. The Twinz arrived here at the Landfill in the late afternoon the Monday they returned from Asheville. The UU needed to continue on up north to his home but he rested long enough to join the GG for a wee snort of bourbon. And it was weeeeee because there wasn’t even enough for meeeeee.

Did either of them remember any of this? No they did not. Throughout our long relationship, the GG occasionally says something like, “let’s use your brain because it’s more efficient”. Yes. Yes. It usually is. (So are my hyper-sensitive ears and nose.) It didn’t work when he came at me this afternoon with my “Mexican” blue glass pitcher, asking me what the white “deposit” on it was. I’ve been wondering that too. He uses it to water the xmas tree. Did he put something in the water last year that made that happen? I did not know. My brain may be more efficient but I am not INSIDE his brain, at least not usually.

Alas, xmas is coming up way too soon but at least I know all the conic sections if the Gumper is somehow tuned in from wherever he is 🤪

This is not a pit orchestra although I have played in more than a few of those and they are FUN! But this is The Interlochen All State band in concert. I am actually in FIRST SEAT, which a lot of people didn’t expect a yooperlander to ever achieve.

And it was tricky to get to that seat as a yooperlander because usually I did NOT have any kind of a decent teacher. It wasn’t like I could take lessons from Detroit Symphony Orchestra flutists. They were five hours away. In the beginning, I had the band director and a senior in high school. Um, not. But. In 8th grade I hit gold. A professionally trained flutist moved across the schoolyard from me while her husband was at the Kincheloe Air Force Base and she was a WONDERFUL teacher and remembering how sweet she was to me after all these years, I think she realized how much I would be on my own when she moved on. Knowing she wouldn’t be there to mentor me for long, she loaded me up with standard flute repertoire pieces including a lot of virtuoso works. Knowing The Commander, she probably paid more for my lessons than the asking price plus she was more than willing to buy music. (We were not rich…) I am actually tearing up remembering and writing about this little period of my life, and I don’t tear up often.

What brought this on though was that yesterday on facebook, somebody posted a YouTube of a high school friend singing. How to make this short? Because it isn’t really. Mark was a good friend of mine in high school when a bunch of us were auditioning to attend the Interlochen All State program. I got in. I can’t remember if he did or not. I know he did not get into the college I started at (long story). He auditioned on piano, which he was good at. But. He auditioned with a splashy piece that is not part of the standard classical piano repertoire so he was rejected and kind of laughed at.

My assigned piano teacher actually TOLD ME why he wasn’t accepted. That was not the only reason I didn’t give in to my piano teacher’s “advances”. Can you say “old and ugly”? I learned pretty early how to deflect that kind of shitola. Beginning with him.

The thing is, I remembered my friend as a good pianist but I didn’t remember him acting/singing in Hello Dolly, the musical my school produced when I was a senior. Until I was almost finished with a long boring comment and then a LIGHT BULB lit up. He was a wonderful actor and singer.

He died last year after a long musical career out in the LA area, sounds like mostly teaching/coaching but with some performance. He was very clearly a talented musician. Godspeed Butch.

After the 2020 elections, a cartoon image was floating around of Lady Liberty launching Trump in a slingshot. He was wearing a face mask on his ass, diaper style. I sooooo want to post that pic but I did not create it so it isn’t mine to post and I’m not sure how to go about searching for the original source so you get these beautiful autumn leaves instead. Anyway, he’s baaaaack. The Orange Baboon, I mean.

We (Trump haters and yes I do kinda hate Trump) were so jubilant when Biden finally won in 2020. It was the Saturday after the election when it was finally called for Biden. The Thursday in between, the GG left for a North Country Trail boondoggle. As we were saying our goodbyes, he opined that Biden would not become the next president. (Some sort of conspiracy theory was involved here, I don’t remember what.) I said something like, “I love you and I want to know when you arrive safely at your destination. But I do not want to talk to you. So when you get there, please just text me.” I told this story to my then boss Amazon Woman when we next talked and she (a single divorced mom)… GASPED. But that is what works for the GG and I after 40 years or so. We don’t agree so we agree to disagree and we don’t talk politics. That said, if anyone throws an audible F-bomb at the radio, it is more likely to be me than the GG. But I’m right, roight?😵‍💫

It was a pretty slow weekend for me. Until I put leftovers into Gertrude’s top oven this evening and realized that there was still a mess of spilled rice in there and it was smoking. I knew about the spill but hadn’t remembered to clean it up. Okay, I will turn off the top oven and put the leftovers into the bottom oven. Problem. Some of the rice somehow made it into the bottom oven too. But it didn’t burn because I hadn’t used the bottom oven. So I grabbed my purple Dyson vac (get one!) and sucked up the rice in the bottom oven and moved the leftovers down there. Problem solved at least for the moment. With Tday coming up, I *will* need to clean the oven(s).

Go Li-ons. And “Boofalo” won after an attempt at a Hail Mary (even I know what that is) apparently failed. I waited to end this blahg entry until the final score was decisive.

I thought I would get some things done today but not a whole lot of stuff happened except I went to the grocery store for dinner ingredients (beef stroganoff). And to see my mouse.

I checked in with my mouse to make sure that my response to one of her co-workers last week was appropriate. I was u-scanning and her co-worker asked how I was doing. My answer was the usual quick, “I’m fine”. But I also caught a look in her eye that made me wonder if she was thinking about the election. I doubled back, looked her in the eye and said in a more serious tone, “Yes, I am okay.” And I am… But I had to double-check with my mouse if this woman was in political alignment with me. Yes, she was. I know that people who serve the public are not supposed to display their political views in any way, which is appropriate and is why her question and my response were subtle.

I’m sure people at my place of employment have differing opinions but we don’t serve the public in a direct way. But we still don’t talk about politics. I’m pretty sure I know what the people I have actually worked with in person think. I’m not sure about everyone though and India may or may not care. I could talk to Amazon Woman about politics. We were definitely in alignment but we only talked about that stuff when we were in a conference room or (after covid) on a private Teams call.

The GG installed a new outdoor light today. I’m not sure exactly when he did it because it seemed like he was hanging out on his computer all day. As it turned out, he was watching the Vendee Globe race, which is A-okay with me. Somehow he installed a new LED spotlight for the back yard when I wasn’t looking. See the lit up leaves, etc. on the left. I’m liking it so far.

I soooo hated that old moniker. The Brain of Lincoln School has a new bike! Yes I did! I needed one. A bike that fit my long legs, which had nothing to do with my brain. And my small town banker dad could afford to buy me a new bike if just barely.

I grew into my brain eventually, meaning I decided it was okay for a GIRL to be smart. For a while I tried to hide my natural intelligence. Eventually I learned to ROCK being smart. Except when I am not. Because we are all stoopid sometimes.

My brain hurt today. People wanted to go out to eat. I did too but… It is Friday night and we are on the Planet Ann Arbor and even though it is a football bye week, there is a basketball game and so it will be crowded EVERYWHERE and WE DO NOT HAVE A RESERVATION ANYWHERE. I did GooMaps and Artificial Intelligence (or whatever) told me it would be a half hour wait time for just about any restaurant anywhere. No thanks. Why do y’all think it would be fun to go out to a restaurant on a Friday night without a reservation?

In the end we did VOT (meaning we zoomed with our friends of porterization). We agreed to make a reservation at a restaurant for next Friday. Somebody else can pick which one. I don’t really frickin’ care at this point.

The pic is of me riding my big black tricycle. I was five? and that’s my little brother there. I don’t remember that basket. I HATED those rubber boots.

P.S. Lincoln School is out of frame to the right. I Red Queened over there to kindergarten every morning.

With blahggy friend Pam’s admission that she freezes stinky garbage, I now know four people (including me) who freeze (or have frozen) garbage. There must be more. [Looking up past tense and past participle, etc. here. I had that stuff down cold in in GRADE SCHOOL. Sigh.]

I was a young-ish gal when Radical Betty was freezing her garbage. At the time, the moominbeach community took turns picking up everyone’s garbage to schlep it up to the dump. Radical did not want people to ride with her stinky garbage when it was their turn. She could not keep a can or cart or whatever outside because bears. And she owned a garage that could be locked but I will not describe why she couldn’t access it to put garbage in it. That is un-blahggable. I used “frozen” because Radical Betty has been dead since 2009. I so miss her.

My friend Greg? I can’t remember exactly why he freezes garbage but I think it was something about being a landlord and not wanting to stink out his tenants. I love Greg.

Me? Here at the Landfill, I almost never put out a garbage cart with more than one kitchen bag full of garbage. Unless there’s something like a holiday going on or we are dumping whatever was leftover from the moomincabin or wherever we have been.

It wasn’t always like that. Once upon a time, we were at Hoton Lake and the UU tried to foist some Hoton Lake garbage on me to take home. At that time, there were more people living at the Landfill and we didn’t always have room in the Landfill Garbage Cart for Hoton Lake garbage. Nevertheless, I think I did take the garbage home that time.

Later that night, I got an email from my then sister-in-law that my brother (who had health issues) was having trouble breathing. He was transported to the hospital that night. I drove up there the next morning and he died in my arms that afternoon.

That is a whole long story but I long ago decided that I would never argue about garbage with anyone ever again.

When MMCB and I zoomed on Tuesday, we were all mostly out of words about the election but one question we tackled was “How did we get HERE?” MMCB₂ suggested that our educational system is failing to teach children to do critical thinking. I don’t disagree with that but before I go any further…

MMCB have BOTH worked in the schools. One as a teacher, the other as an aide (she has a scientific degree).

We ALL have always been strong public school supporters and volunteers, holding important positions or just field trip chaperones, etc. I was (among many other volunteer jobs), parent teacher org treasurer for MULTIPLE schools and I was on the short list with a lot of people for treasury jobs. I think this was because I had an HONEST reputation to transparently provide information. I’m not bragging. Just that if I could hold down a volunteer position that involved spreadsheets instead of field trips or Room Mother (arrrgh), we’d all be happier. Not that I didn’t do those other things. I did I wasn’t very good at it.

MMCB₂ served a term on the school board. It was long ago but she was recently pulled (a bit) out of retirement to work with an organization trying to replace some really awful current school board members with new ones. This effort was largely successful. Will the new school board rise to the occasion? We shall see. As MMCB₂ well knows, it is a crap shoot.

I sort of agree that the schools are not effectively teaching students critical thinking skills although I know plenty of young people who ARE capable of that. What I jumped in with was “I think social media has a role to play.” Memes of misinformation, disinformation, and whatever. Who ever reads past the “headline”? Who digs into the details? Who is this person running for office and what is he/she actually about?

I’m kinda done so let’s do the garbage dance. Yesterday I cooked salmon. I put the wrappings in the garbage container in the Landfill Chitchen. It stinks to high heaven today, like I knew it would. Tomorrow is when I have to take out the garbage for the Friday pickup day. Can we last another day with the stinky garbage? Yes, I think we can. Man oh man, garbage and recycling never ends.

G’night, Garbage Woman

The Commander once referred to the clothing I was wearing as my “uniform”. It was the first time I had heard that term but it worked, aka “you wear the same thing every day”! I don’t exactly remember which “uniform” I was wearing that particular time but it almost definitely featured a skirt.

I have worn various styles of uniforms over the years. Except for a couple of casual “pant suits” when I first started working at Cubelandia, a skirt is ALWAYS part of my uniform. And no dresses. As the Great Lake State weather can be wildly changeable, I need a separate top and bottom so I can easily change out the top and leave the bottom. And when I say “pant suit”, don’t think Hillary or Kamala. I think they look GREAT in their pant suits but I have a totally different style.

In the winter months at both Cubelandia and teleCubelandia, my choice of top has been a turtleneck sweater, black or jewel tones, Chico’s, Sundance, sometimes J.Jill or others. Problem? They are really nice sweaters but I seem to constantly blow out the left elbow. Yes, I could learn to darn. But. Oh darn it. And then they aren’t easy to replace because the colors I like aren’t always available.

I was looking at the Smartwool website recently and realized that their merino “base layer” tops would work just as well as the turtlenecks so I bought a couple. Technically I think “base layer” is what we used to call long underwear but these tops look nothing like the underwear of our youth. They’re comfortable and work well and this way I can keep the elbows on my turtlenecks intact for “special” occasions. I wish Smartwool sold a few more colors (like jewel tones) but I have black and a dark teal and I’m pretty much living in them now that it’s a little too cool for t-shirts. I have long owned base layer leggings and adore them.

The (crappy) pic shows my new fave skirt. I got it on Etsy from a seller that is actually selling HER OWN work (boy has Etsy changed since its origins). I love tie-dye and have SEVERAL rainbow dyed skirts. Why do I have multiple rainbow tie-dyed skirts? Because availability can vary and when I see one I like, I snap it up. This unusual green and brown one spoke to me even though it isn’t my usual colors. And the GG even complimented me on it today! I wasn’t sure he ever even noticed my clothing. Of course my summer uniform resembles a scarecrow😵‍💫

Except he isn’t as orange as he used to be, judging by recent photos. He is still as bad as he used to be, judging by his recent rhetoric.

The Twinz of Terror landed on The Planet Ann Arbor late this afternoon after their chainsaw massacre in Asheville. The UU stopped long enough to have a wee snort before continuing on to his home in Gaylord, three or four hours north of here. There was a bit of political-economic discussion but they kept the tone down, thank you very much. They know I disagree with them and (they may even have an inkling that I might be right but not holding my breath)

I am still processing the election results so don’t have very much to say about anything right now. I abhor Trump but that predates his successful 2016 run. Maybe tomorrow morning’s zoom meeting with MMCB will help me focus a bit? We’ll see.

I will never be a social butterfly but I am starting to get restless and wanting to get back to a version of my old social life, minimal as it was. So Lizard Breath and npJane and I met up downtown at the Griz for an early-ish lunch today and boy oh boy did I need that.

We met at noon or thereabouts and since the Griz doesn’t do a brunch, that meant it was practically empty when we got there. I’m still not ready for crowds although I have tolerated a couple of crowded restaurants lately and managed okay. But the Griz has nice big booths that make you feel like you have some privacy.

I got STUCK in the parking lot! I have been parking in that parking lot FOREVER. It has always been FREE on Sunday. Most downtown parking is free on Sunday. At some point a new owner took that lot over and it is no longer free on Sunday. When I got down there I read the signs and got in the lane where you stick your credit card in the reader. Then I noticed that the EXIT lane adjacent to me was not barricaded and people were just driving right on in. Okay. Hmmm, maybe it IS free on Sunday? So I backed up and followed the others in through the exit.

When I got back to Cygnus X-1, that lane was blocked and I had to use an actual exit, which would want my credit card, which I KNEW the musheen wouldn’t find because I hadn’t inserted my card on the way in. I actually knew about this and have done it successfully before but I was magical thinking that parking was free on Sunday. Fortunately, there was a big red HELP button and a woman came on a little screen and kindly instructed me to put my card back in and I did and I was outta there.

Hmmm? Did I pay for 24 hours? No. It was $6, which I can’t believe was 24 hours. Also the woman asked me when I had arrived so pretty sure I was just charged for the two hours I was there. People complain all the time about how much parking costs. If I had to park downtown every day, I’d probably be in that boat. But I can easily afford $6 for the occasional lunch so I was embarrassed to think that I had actually tried to get free parking, even though I was really just following the sheeple.

If you couldn’t follow this DO NOT WORRY. The short story is that during covid, they changed the operation of the parking lot AND the surrounding streets (one-way streets became two-way and dedicated bike lanes with curbs were added) and some of us are still figuring out how it all works. For many years when I didn’t work early in the day, I would be downtown just about every other day collecting artifacts for eventual donation to the Kiwanis rummage sale🤣🤣🤣 I would just swing down there without even thinking. 10 minute drive at most.

Anyway it was good to meet up and talk (or not talk) about the election with like-minded relatives. And I am now intimately familiar with that parking lot and the surrounding streets.

P.S. The UU says CHEERS from Asheville.

Okay, I know we aren’t quiiiite at the winter holidays yet and I hear Tday is “late” this year but haven’t really looked at the calendar. Anyway, it’ll come up fast. It always does. After Halloween, it’s all downhill.

So I have already purchased a few holiday food items. Chex cereal(s) at Meijer this morning. They already have them out in both major food aisles throughout the store. They know what us mooms want. And yesterday I ordered mixed nuts and sesame sticks from nuts.com. Yes, I could get those locally but I discovered nuts.com early in the pandemic and for a while sesame sticks were somewhat scarce locally and I want to continue to support nuts.com.

And then I “reset” the refrigerator, but not the freezer, alas, it is an overloaded mess. But we’ll get there. Maybe we’ll eat the remaining stromboli soon. That’ll help. Note that “fixing” the refrigerator is different than “resetting” it. A few readers may know what “fixing” the fridge means here at the Landfill.

I was too late to get homemade turkey broth (for gravy) from Sparrow Market this year but that’s okay. You have to be following them on facebook and QUICK to get it. Chicken broth will be fine or maybe I’ll be able to source some turkey broth somewhere else. We’ll see what I can come up with.

And turkey broth reminded me to put turkey parts on my grock list and make sure my make-ahead gravy recipe was in Plan-to-Eat.

A shill for Plan-to-Eat. It is an uber-cool tool for keeping track of recipes. It can suck up recipes from anywhere on the web or you can enter your own ingredients or… And you can access your recipes from your laptop or a phone app. I remember the days when I first had a viable computer and spent quite a lot of time and energy typing recipes into it. In Microsoft Word! It worked but the process was cumbersome. But not as cumbersome as hand writing recipes onto index cards. Fast forward a bit. Plan-to-Eat is not free but it isn’t very expensive either ($49 a year or $5.95 a month). I can’t say it has totally organized my massive collection of recipes. That’s on me. But I use it ALL THE TIME and it does make things easier.

P.S. I have a whole big shoe box sized container with tons of recipes that The Commander and my grandmother and various others wrote onto index cards and I am NOT getting rid of that.

Maybe. Maybe? Are we done with the “immigrants are flooding our borders so they can vote for Democrats” trope.

I KNOW that we aren’t done with the “immigrants are flooding our borders” trope but at least they aren’t trying to vote now? Like they never really were. Except for the Umich Chinese student who has been charged with serious crimes. But since Trump won decisively, I guess we can’t blame the vote count on voter fraud any more.

I will (again) repeat a true story about a local voter who (umpteen bazillion years ago) double-voted. I never met the man but I worked with his daughter in my childhood tech job. The story was that he owned an apartment building on The Planet Ann Arbor but he lived in the satellite village of Dexter. He got mad at something the Planet city council did so he voted in both Ann Arbor and Dexter. GUESS WHAT? HE GOT CAUGHT! His daughter was rolling her eyes in mortification as she told us about that.

So voter fraud happens but it is rare and is never enough votes to sway an election. Which anyone who knows any poll workers in any state KNOWS! [Delete long unintelligible thoughts about elections.]

And immigration? Yes there are issues with it. But I agree with Kamala whose opinion was that our country needs to deal with these challenges while treating the HUMAN BEINGS who are trying to move to our country with compassion. After all MOST OF US HAVE IMMIGRANT ANCESTORS! If you are here because your immigrant ancestors needed or wanted to leave their home country, and Trump’s ancestors were immigrants, as are a couple of his wives, you are obligated to treat those who are trying to move to our country with compassion. My opinion but jeebus.

I cannot figger why a man running for “leader of the free world” would yell and scream about immigrants eating domestic pets in a debate with his opponent. Oh, he saw it on TV. Roight. If you are so frickin’ super-smart, could you not have FACT-CHECKED that? It was pretty easy to debunk. I’m only writing about this because to me it was a pretty egregious display of Trump’s idiocy and I LOVED Kamala’s expression when he said it.

But okay. Done. Here is a well-trained sawyer cleaning up Hurricane Helene debris in an Asheville neighborhood. (He isn’t eating anyone’s pets🤪)

After a slow day at work yesterday, mainly “processing” the election returns, iDeep dragged me out of my stupor today. iDeep lives and works on the Indian subcontinent and while I can guess he is well aware of American polly-tickle crapola I don’t think it affects his life much. Anyway, as I have said before, India is gonna take over the world.

“Can you try to sort out all of the enhancements to this enhancement?” That isn’t exactly what he said but it’s close because this whole thing was a tangled up mess, a lot of which wasn’t on my radar screen. But okay. It took me a while to bash my head against our issue tracking system in this case but by the end of the day, I had accumulated some data and made a preliminary spreadsheet and planned a strategy to accomplish the task.

At 5:45, my mouse and the racc picked me up in Oriole and we headed over to Sessions for dinner, where we commiserated about the election and otherwise had great conversation. All day the news has told me that I am one of those white college-educated “suburban” women who “hate” Trump. Well, I do kinda hate Trump but I’m not sure if “they” understand why I do. I’m not sure if I can articulate that tonight so I’m not gonna try. It may take a few blahg entries to get there.

And The Planet Ann Arbor is NOT a suburb. It’s a small but sizeable city 45-60 minutes away from Detroit and its massive collection of suburbs. It is also a quick drive (at least from my house) away from farm fields and woods. The country, some of it Trump Country. But there are a fair number of “suburban” women here, along with the “old hippies”. I fit somewhere in between with a big dose of “yooperlander” thrown in.

The pic is from 14 years ago or so and I think we were rambling around the woods near Gaylord. The UU had just obtained a new job there and was looking for permanent decent housing for himself and The Beautiful Gay. And they did find a beautiful home in the area but not that day.