I was in the Water Closet. I was washing my feet, which I do every evening, especially when I’ve been going barefoot. I usually go barefoot here but I’ve been wearing Smartwool socks a lot during this trip. Why? Because it’s C-C-C-COLD!

So I was in the Water Closet and the GG yelled my name! I don’t really like my name (Anne). Among other things, it sounds like a buzzer when someone yells it. But okay. What the heck do you want? I am in the bathroom!

It turned out to be a Sunset Alert. And even though I have taken umpteen bazillion pictures of the sunset here, this one was worth putting on my socks again and heading down to the beach to get a pic.

The moominbeach faces northwest and when we’re near the summer solstice, the sun sets pretty much directly in front of us so here ya go.

When I was a child here, on evenings when the “seas” were calm, the setting sun would make a golden path across our bay and I would imagine walking across the water on that path to, well, I don’t remember where but some kind of fairyland, probably. (Or maybe the Mackinac Bridge, which is in totally the wrong direction.)

It was a bit TMI for The Commander whenever I read “Mummies Made in Egypt” (by Aliki) to my older beach urchin. It was a little “iffy” for me too but the beach urchin ate it up seemingly without any issue.

Imagine my surprise when this very thing was mentioned in a book I just finished. The first in a trilogy of The Durrells in Corfu. I didn’t realize this was a memoir when I started reading it so I had a little trouble processing it. Now that I know there is a series, I think I will add that to my list of things to watch by myself. I’m not sure it would be the GG’s cuppa.

Here on the shores of Gitchee Gumee, the temperature never made its way outta the 50s today. I am feeling for a facebook/childhood friend who lives in Las Vegas where the temps have been 112 for a couple days now. How does anyone cope with that kind of heat? The highest temperature I can remember dealing with is 108. It was summer 2012 on the Planet Ann Arbor and I got into the Ninja to drive home from Cubelandia and she reported that temp. At least her a/c was working. My trusty Landfill Chitchen indoor/outdoor thermometer got STUCK at 108 that day. The next day it was MUCH cooler and I remember squinting at the thermometer wondering why the indoor temp was 77 (which felt accurate) but the outdoor was still 108. We have fancy new thermometers nowadays.

The pic is from yesterday when a storm blew through to the west of the moominbeach. I can’t call it a plassover because plassovers cross farther north across Whitefish Bay into Canananada. But this one missed us. I guess it plassed over in a different direction.

We had Copper River salmon (grilled) and friends tonight. Friends being brown rice, asparagus (purportedly local) with scallions (definitely local), and corn on the cob (very unlikely local but pretty good).

First I headed east to Sault Ste. Siberia. Picked up a few things at Meijer, dropped off the recycle on my way to Penny’s Kitchen where I picked up a take-away lunch. I didn’t take-away because COVID, just it was too early for lunch. A bonus for the lunch errand was that I finally figured out the new Siberian parking app, which was a good thing because I couldn’t see any kind of a device to put quarters in. And I had my laundry quarters with me. Okay. Then back to the moomin to drop off the grocks and pick up the garbage and off (west) to the res for their green bag garbage dumping service.

I cannot say how much I appreciate the green bag service. I remember my parents struggling to get their big garbage can up the hill for weekly pickup. An exercise in Blue Language, at least on my dad’s part. Nowadays I buy a bunch of green garbage bags at the tribal gas station and when I fill one up, I go over to the drop-off facility and drop it off. Easy peasy (although I actually hate that expression).

The big news today was that the lake freighter Michipicoten (689 feet) struck “something” underwater somewhere near Isle Royale. It was taking on water and listing 15 degrees. We see this bote go by the moominbeach ALL THE TIME. News stories are sketchy (as they are these days) but last I knew, they had evacuated half the crew, pumped a bunch of water out and the bote was limping toward Thunder Bay accompanied by the Gott (another freighter) and a bunch of helicopters. I hope everything turns out all right and the bote doesn’t sink. At least Gitchee Gumee was not in a Bad Mood today. The last freighter that sank on Gitchee Gumee was the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Gitchee Gumee was in a Bad Mood that day. Cue up Gordon Lightfoot.

I said Gitchee Gumee was not in a bad mood but I was down on the beach a while ago and big thunderous looking clouds were passing by to the west. That storm did not get to the moominbeach but there was enough thunder that I decamped to the deck.

I have a decent pic of today’s weather but I am posting what I got last night. There was a decent sunset but I didn’t get any good pics. And then. After the sun set, I looked out front and there was the waxing crescent moon! The red light at the bottom is a navigational buoy in the shipping channel, not the sun.

We’ve been rather intermittently watching the most recent Fargo TV series. I couldn’t begin to explain the calculus we use to decide on the TV series we watch together. Some things work better than others. (I think “series” is the same in the singular and plural forms. Where is Mrs. Loye when I need her.)

Fargo is what is working for us now. But we haven’t watched it in a few weeks and we couldn’t remember which episode we had last watched 🐽 The GG was outta town with the Softies and then we were up here and we hung out on the beach or the deck or whatever and never got around to watching. I thought we were on season five, episode one (I did not exactly enjoy season four). It turned out we still had two more episodes in season four. I like the characters, etc., I just don’t quiiite understand how it fits in. But we’ll see.

So last night the weather wasn’t conducive to the beach or the deck so we watched an episode after we finally figured out which one was next. Alas, for about the first 20 minutes or so Mr. Golden Sun was making a bright descent directly in front of us. There are three picture windows here and we were getting reflections on the screen from two of them. We closed the drapes but that almost made it worse. In the end, we toughed it out for a bit until Mr. Golden went behind a cloud and we were able to seeeee.

There aren’t a whole lot of series we enjoy watching together. I mean I don’t think he was interested in “The Crown” or “All Creatures Great and Small” but I happily watched those alone. I am currently watching “A Gentleman in Moscow” (which I think he would actually like). I loved the book and the series is fine. I am in the phase of “does this match up to the book?”. Not that it matters if it does or doesn’t (delete complicated thoughts here).

The weather deteriorated throughout the night and at four-something I woke up to visit the Water Closet and it was RAINING! My window was open and it was so beautiful to hear that sound I went blissfully back to sleep. By the time I woke up for the day, a nor’wester had also blown up and it kept up the entire day. It’s fine. It’s typical weather around here. I don’t usually actively miss my parents but I remember so many days being here at the moomincabin as a kid with my parents and brother and there would be a nor’wester and they would have the old wood stove going to beat the band. I would be reading or doing color by number or who knows what.

Thanks to our parents and grandparents for leaving this beautiful place to all of us in the next generations. Love you.

I have always been a terrible history student. I could argue this was due to the dryness of the subject as taught in the public schools I attended. There may be some truth to that but also I think I’m just not very interested maybe? Also, I think I’m unable to translate names and dates and events, etc., into, well, “pictures”. I mean pictures in my head, not some Hollywood guy’s vision (not that there aren’t some good WWII movies).

I had NPR on all day and talk shows were almost exclusively discussing D-Day. And wow! Now, you MAGA guys (I know you’re out there). This was not a whole bunch of “communist radio” crapola. In particular, there were a lot of first-hand accounts from soldiers who stormed the beaches, or stories people heard from long-gone relatives who stormed the beaches. Plus a couple really interesting interviews with a historian who wrote a comprehensive book, “When the Sea Came Alive”. It all sounded like a pretty balanced account of an important piece of history but then my MAGA radar is disabled via my DNA. (I did not learn that from my Ancestry DNA results.)

Prior to listening to this coverage, I had NO CLUE what D-Day was all about except that it liberated Europe. In other words, I knew the short story. For the first time I was able to visualize the massive undertaking this invasion was and how many ships, planes, and whatever were involved. When the sea came alive.

I don’t remember my dad saying a whole lot about the war. That wasn’t because of PTSD because he served in the American southwest teaching other people how to fly. He was slated to get sent to the South Pacific but we dropped the bomb and that was canceled. Most of what I know about his service was from The Commander talking about her train journey out there from Detroit to marry him. (I – first of two children – wasn’t born for another 11 years.)

The Gumper (my beloved father-in-law) would often talk about his service, which was master mechanic on the aircraft carrier Hornet (the second Hornet) in the South Pacific. He saw action but he always said the storms were worse than the action. There were certain things he would sometimes get a little teary-eyed about but I’ll leave those memories with him.

I don’t feel “qualified” to get eloquent about any of this. I grew up with all the freedoms white* people of my age in this country had and I do credit all of those brave (or more likely scared to death) folks for that. Not to mention all the people who lost their lives defending “us” from Nazi dictatorships, et al.

Which brings me to conclude with NOW. We have a presidential candidate who has openly stated he would like to be a dictator “for a day”. For a day? Really? MAGA might say, “Oh that’s just Trump talking”. Sorry but that is *dangerous* talk from anyone. I did not enjoy Trump’s first term and I do NOT want him to get a second term. I believe the world is in dangerous political territory these days. We need a better “leader of the free world”. Trump does NOT care about anyone but himself. DO NOT VOTE FOR HIM!

Water lily photo credit to my country mouse.

*I do believe in the idea of “white privilege” and I have benefited from that (except for the part that I am female) unlike lots of others. Sorry MAGA. Go take a long hike to Antarctica or somewhere.

The GG was off on a Boy’s Trip. He and his ID twin, their younger brother, a nephew and the nephew’s friend. They stayed at Wilderness Park down near Mack City and I dunno what all they did.

He called me around noon or so today on his way back to ask if I needed anything from Meijer… Well. First. I had already been to Meijer today. I could not find a small jar of dill pickle relish to save my life. I could not find a pint of whipping cream, which made me stop and change my whole meal plan right there in the dairy aisle. And then, plan changed, I could not find plain old PITTED kalamata olives.

It was not a wasted trip. Ima gonna guess I can get a small jar of dill pickle relish at the park store a couple miles up the road. I don’t need whipping cream any more. The olives that I DID GET were loverly. They were a mixed bag but were perfect in the coq au vin I made tonight. But we did need to replenish the terlet paper and paper towel supply and they were not out of those.

So I couldn’t think of anything else I needed but then I did think of a couple things, so I called him and left a message and also sent him a text message. Did he see either of those? No he did not. By the time I connected with him, he was on the way home from Meijer. Oh well. None of that was critical but why didn’t you check your messages to see if I might have thought of something else?

So then, he was rummaging around about cooking a bratwurst for lunch. Okay. Cook a bratwurst for lunch. But then he went outside and I wasn’t sure what he was doing and after a while, I realized that Mooon Yooonit was not in the “parking lot”. So okay… But he was gone for a reeeeeaaaly long time. When he finally came back, he came through the back door. Where was he? He had been in the GARAGE the whole time doing something with a trailer or whatever.

Like… I don’t care where you are or what you do but could you at least say something like, “I’m going out to the garage?”

Jeebus… How many years have we been married? Don’t tell me.

We are rustic here but we have lucky-shucky, hot running water, and fiber optic wifi. Oh, we also have an indoor terlet.

When I was a kid, lemme see. We had lucky-shucky. We had cold running water in the kitchen sink from a garden hose that ran from my next door uncle’s well. If you wanted hot water? You heated it on the lucky-shuckial stove in a big teakettle and poured it into the sink or wherever.

In those days, we mostly only used hot water to wash the dishes. If you wanted to wash your BODY, you went down to the lake. When I got into my upper teens and early twenties, I used to sometimes beg showers from relatives who had showers. After all, I was working at Tempo and did not want to be stinkified when I got there, not to mention that I CANNOT STAND being dirty from the getgo. I did still sometimes bathe in Gitchee Gumee before work anyway. People at work including our big boss Mr. Drysdale (yes that was really his name and he was a friend of my dad) knew that I often bathed in Lake Superior and one day when I arrived at work with wet hair, Mr. Drysdale asked me if I had been in the lake that morning. Yes.

My parents put in a septic tank when I was in my late teens but they did not install indoor plumbing at that time so we were still using an outhouse. It was when we obtained an in-law (my brother’s wife) that indoor bathroom plumbing (and a water heater) was installed. The GG wasn’t an in-law yet but he would’ve been okay with an outhouse and whatever water system we had. After all, at the Moldy Old Hoton Lake cabin, in the winter, we had to pump water by hand and heat it up in big teakettles on the stove. Until I sussed out a shower bag, there was no way to take a nice hot shower. I have to say that I was happy for the improvements at the moomincabin, no matter who the impetus was.

I am sorta off the rails here. We have everything we need here nowadays. We don’t have central heat or insulation but we don’t really need that in the summer and we don’t stay here in the winter. I was nutso today because our NPR radio substation was off line for most of the day so they could upgrade some equipment. I am not complaining even though it was awfully quiet around here today except when a bird hit one of the picture windows. It’s okay, it flew off.

Because I have nothing else today, I will talk about ticks. Yesterday I was whining about being trolled because I once commented on a facebook post about ticks. I forget what the original post was exactly (besides ticks) but for some reason, I felt compelled to comment that I grew up in this area (Sault Ste. Siberia and Birch Point Beach) and the first time I *ever* saw a tick was after I was 50 years old.

Uber Kayak Woman and Radical Betty and I went hiking at Naomikong Point and after we returned to the moominbeach, RB encountered a crawly thing somewhere on her body. We did not recognize it and she did not want it on her body so she captured it in a plastic container and I drove us into Sault Ste. Siberia to the Chippewa County Health Department to ask, “What is this creepy crawly critter?” It is a TICK! YICK!

Fast forward a few years and the eastern yooperland (among many other places) crawls with ticks. Naomikong Point is a sure bet and the JimFin Nature Trail (JimFin is my late brother) is another sure bet to find ticks. As are a lot of the places on the North Country Trail where the GG does trail maintenance. I have not really picked any of them up here at the moominbeach but I bet they are around, just not on the beach, where there is no tall grass for them to sneak up on mammals and whatever else ticks prey on. I did see one in the kitchen the other day but I think it came off the GG’s clothing… I killed it and put it in the garbage.

So I’m not sure why saying that I saw my first tick (in this area where the original poster and the troll both live or at least grew up) after 50 was troll-worthy. Just that some people are born trolls and that’s why I rarely post or comment on social media. I guess my blahg is social media but I don’t get a lot of comments (which I am *fine* with) and the few troll-ish comments I get are from people I know VERY WELL in real life. And love. And they can just suck it 🤖 if they don’t agree with my opinions. AKA I hate Trump and MAGA!

All good things come to an end and npJane had to leave what seemed like a promising Beach Day this morning. And it was actually a decent beach day for a while. The MOE-skee-TOES weren’t intolerable and it was warm and sunny. Until it wasn’t. Well, it’s still sunny but the wind came up and the temperature dropped mid-afternoon. I guess npJ took our loverly weather south with her.

I have found a political show that I can actually listen to – Left, Right, and Center. I think that’s the name. It’s on NPR. I don’t really know anything about this show like how they select the hosts and contributors or whatever but I have listened to two shows now. It is on the NPR channel I listen to here in the yooperland but not on The Planet Ann Arbor (and yes I know I could stream it).

What do I like about it? People on all sides of our uber-divided political landscape seem to be able to discuss things in a calm, I’m even gonna say friendly manner. There’s no yelling and screaming and I don’t detect any name-calling, Biden, Trump or whoever. There is laughter! I was struck today by how the right- and left-wing people AGREED that paying a lot of attention to political polls so soon after Trump’s convictions was probably not constructive. Let it sit for a bit! Said the right-wing gal and the left-wing guy agreed. And so do I.

I contrast this to the grammar/spelling-mistake-laden memes posted by facebook “friends” of mine like “Mushie”. I don’t actually know Mushie in person but he friended me many years ago. Why did I accept? It was a familiar name and he went to high school with some of my slightly older cousins. We only occasionally interact but these days I don’t often interact even with people I actually know on Facebook.

So a recent Mushie Meme had to do with “kids these days”. You’ve seen stuff like this. The “kids” these days are lazy and don’t want to work and don’t contribute anything to society. I’m not sure where this stuff comes from. Since time began there are *some* “young folks” (and older folks) who do not want to work and don’t contribute anything. But I don’t see that it’s a large percentage and nothing has changed recently that I can point to. The younger generations of my family are certainly successful, thoughtful members of society. As near as I can figure out (from facebook posts) *Mushie’s* kids (and grandkids) are pretty successful too.

Again, I dunno where this stuff comes from. It would be nice if every one of our citizens was a productive member of our society. I also know that for a lot of people there are many barriers and roadblocks to becoming successful. Persistent poverty, lack of access to a good education, generational trauma, mental health issues. I could go on. Some people can rise above this stuff Horatio Alger style. Others cannot. Why not help them if we can?

Back to Mushie just for closure. I think he is actually a really really nice person, whatever his politics are. Every FB interaction I have ever had with him has been friendly, and once when somebody I didn’t know trolled me, he came quickly to my defense. He remembers my family with great fondness and that seems to extend to me even though we have never met. BTW, I was trolled during a thread he posted about TICKS, not polly-ticks. Jeebus.

People are complicated.

For those of you who wait with bated breath (or not) for my daily blahg of blather, no there was no entry yesterday. I started one, then npJane came over for an adult beverage, THEN my DNA test results came in, and when I finally got back around to finishing my entry, the server was down (or something). So y’all got a day off. You’re welcome.

So, the results? Drum roll… 79% Scottish, 7% Irish, 10% some Scandihoovian countries, and 4% England and Wales. Did this surprise me? No it did not. I’ve pretty much always known more or less what I’m made of although Scandinavia was never anything “official”, just a guess. The Commander always said something about German but she also called it “Pennsylvania Dutch”. I’m not sure what Pennsylvania Dutch actually means (no, I haven’t googled it) but Germany was not represented in my results.

Interestingly enough, the results actually pointed out Caithness (northern Scotland) as being where my DNA mainly hails from. Thanks to an amateur genealogist in the family, I have a book documenting my family’s connection to that area including a picture purporting to be the old farmstead. If I have it right, that would be where my dad’s paternal grandfather was born.

I’m not sure what (if anything) to do with this information. Going in to this, I was adamantly a hard NO for making the results “public” (within Ancestry I mean). Now I find myself intensely interested and am “sitting on my hands” so as not to flip the switch without thinking about it some more. I suppose I could always turn it off again.

Some of the things I *can* get at are, hmmm… I’m not sure what word(s) to use but here are some examples. I am an introvert (YES YES YES!). I smell asparagusP (yes). I like individual sports over team sports (yes) but I like to *watch* sports (not really although I did watch Umich win the Rose Bowl this year). I am a night person (NO WAY!!!). I am not a pet owner. No I am not but not because I don’t like aminals. I am a one-dog woman even on a three-dog night and that dog died after I went to college. I play a musical instrument. Yes albeit not so much any more but I spent YEARS of my youth playing the flute and I can manage the “puano” except I am hampered a bit by small hands. Anyway…

The can depicts a barred owl (“who cooks for you”). It was purchased at a brewpub down in O-haaa-o near Hocking Hills by our mouse-ish beach urchin and the GG finally drank it. I don’t think we are eager to get rid of this artifact.

Today’s notable news event isn’t quite as memorable as the day JFK was shot or the day the Trade Centers fell. It was notable enough that I will probably remember it anyway. I was driving home from the lovely little farmers market at the Bay Mills Indian Community on a beautiful sunny afternoon.

First, the caveats. I well know that the Trump guilty guilty guilty guilty to all charges verdict does not mean that Trump will lose the next presidency. It doesn’t mean that he’ll wear an orange jump suit. It’ll no doubt rally his “base” to support him. We’re not done yet and we have a long way to go.

What felt good to me was that somebody *finally* called him out on something. It always seems that no matter what he says or does, he gets a “get out of jail free” card. That’s in quotes because you can’t really put somebody in jail just because they say and do totally idiotic, irresponsible, and often dangerous things. But he has done some outrageously awful things and you interview people in a barber shop, say, and the owner says something like, “Trump has his wild side but I like his policies and he at least tried to help small businesses.” POLICIES? Whut? And who did he ever try to help except himself? But let’s go there some other day.

People sometimes compare Trump to Richard Nixon but I don’t see a comparison. Nixon did some horrible things but in the end, he resigned without whining and crying about how unfair it all was. The big orange toddler has been doing this throughout his whole trial and any other time someone challenges him. DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert on Nixon. I was barely of voting age then and not all that politically aware.

I got home this afternoon and listened to some of the news commentary and analysis and then I put my Smartwool leggings on and headed down to the beach for a bit. The MOE-skee-TOES were oot and aboot but they didn’t really bother me.

P.S. My 🐭 reminded me that today is the 7th anniversary of the night Trump tweeted a partial sentence that ended with “covfefe”.

P.P.S I have decided that I will no longer (usually) refer to Donald J. Trump as “The Orange Baboon” on my blahg. I am thinking about Harry Potter here in which people at Hogwarts called Voldemort “he who cannot be named” (or something like that). Harry decided his enemy needed to be named. Trump is my enemy (not that he knows or cares) and he is the enemy of every US citizen, including his “base”. Do not vote for him.

Yes, this is a fantabulously AWFUL photo. But it illustrates something so rare that I had to break the law to get a pic. And yes, in the Great Lake State, it is now illegal to use your phone to do ANYTHING when you are driving a car. Unless you are using it hands-free, which I am not really good at. But.

So, I wended my way along the backroads into “town” to the grock shop this morning. There are NO traffic lights my whole trip. But there are a few stop signs. Like the one at this level crossing on Five Mile Road. The notable thing about this crossing is that there is nothing but a stop sign to make people stop. No lights or bells or barricade. Dangerous? Yes yes yes.

What I think makes it even more dangerous is that there are almost never any trains. I mean there are probably one or two trains daily but it’s really rare to encounter one. I am baggy and old and I definitely ALWAYS stop and look both ways on the off chance there is a train. I can’t remember the last time I saw one though.

Today I was driving back out to the moominbeach when I saw train cars passing at the crossing. I was hoping there would be more so I could actually STOP and get a decent pic. Alas, it was a very short train and although I stopped ANYWAY (there IS a stop sign, right?), the train was already past and this is all I could get. I did not get a ticket for taking this pic. There were no other cars ANYWHERE, definitely not any cop cars. Turkeys? Yes.

The weather since I’ve been here has alternated wildly between COLD and Umpteen Bazillion MOE-skee-TOES. The first night I slept in my Smartwool leggings. There were no mosquitos. The second night I didn’t need my leggings but “a” mosquito (maybe multiple mosquitos) dogged me most of the night. eeeeeeeee. I won’t bore you with a play-by-play but today is a COLD day with no mosquitos. I ran the propane stove ALL DAY. It’s a good thing a propane refill is on order.

Such is the yooperland. Or not. Two sayings about our state. State motto: Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice. (If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you.) The intertubes separates “circum” and “spice” for what ever reason. I always thought “circumspice” was all one word but it’s been a long time since I took Latin. A quick intertube search is not conclusive (AI maybe? Not impressed. Where is Mrs. Velde when I need her?). But I am not gonna die in that rabbit hole. The second: If you don’t like the weather in Michigan, wait five minutes. I’m guessing we’re not the only state that fits that description. And yet sometimes here it seems like we have to wait forever for a change in weather.

I am kinda done for tonight. I’ve been listening to an NPR thing about how the goddamn electoral college got started. I am not a historian or a political analyst but I’m starting to think we need to abolish that institution. Some people (they know who they are) think I get my opinions from NPR. Actually it’s more that NPR AGREES with my opinions. At least the NPR folks don’t rant and rave like maniacs.

The pic is from a few days ago when a marine layer made its way in.

Since covid started and I became a full-time forever telecommuter, the GG has taken on a new persona, that of Coffee Boy. In the early, scary days, he started making me coffee every morning. Prior to that, I schlepped over to Cubelandia without coffee. I occasionally grabbed a cup from the office kitchen but usually not.

This Coffee Boy thing got to be such a habit that I don’t usually make my own coffee when the GG is not around. Here we are at the moominbeach and he makes coffee every morning. And he chooses a mug for me.

Imagine my surprise Saturday morning (our first morning here together) when he approached me with a *black* mug. I was like, “Where the heck is Big Ass?” Because that’s usually the mug he hands me and it is white.

My dad began collecting mugs in his retirement when the parents traveled around the American/Canadian west so he got this one from the Columbia Icefield and named it “Big Ass”, which I think was a kind of a dig at The Commander kinda like “you peckerwood” was. I *own* that mug now and all it entails, even though I don’t really have a very big ass.

So the other day the GG was handing me my coffee and I was like, “what the heck is this black mug coming at me? Where is Big Ass?” Oh, it is a QOFE mug. I guess I can accept that. We’ll have to alternate the QOFE with Big Ass though.

The mug collection kinda drove The Commander a little nuts and we weeded some of them out after she died. But I will always keep Big Ass and some other ones.

Here is the GG sporting the latest fashion here on the “third coast”, which could also be called the Mosquito Coast, at least this year.

Foliage is advanced this year. The last umpteen years when we have arrived for Memorial Day weekend, the trees were just beginning to sprout leaves and mosquitos were pretty much non-existent. Not this year, oh boy oh boy! Plus there is lots of standing water in the swamp. So mosquitos are everywhere. They are getting into the moomincabin and swarming the screen in the moominkitchen window. I find myself “praying” for another nor’wester so I can bundle up and hang out on the beach undisturbed.

The GG is in mosquito heaven right now. He is sitting on the deck, drinking a ‘hattan, smoking a ceegar (and spitting, TMI?), and zapping mosquitos with his lucky-shuckial zapper. I don’t generally like to kill insects/arachnids as long as they are not in a place they shouldn’t be (like my shower) and/or are minding their own business. I have no problem killing mosquitos.

The “third coast” is the great lakes shoreline, American side if I have it right (and I may not, it was a rabbit hole I didn’t wanna go down today). I’m not sure how the distance compares to the east and/or west coasts but there is quite a lot of shoreline on the great lakes.

Mosquito Coast is a book and TV series I read/watched. I liked the book better than the series although the series was fine. The book author is an acclaimed travel writer and I think this might be his only novel. The mosquito coast in the book/series is NOT anywhere near the great lakes.

G’night and zap zap zappity zap, KW

Four years ago, we traversed the I75 SUV Speedway to the yooperland for Memorial Day weekend. When we got here, I posted on facebook something like, “We are here, hope we *don’t* see you.” (That was intended for the moominbeach community.) Of course the GG was mixing it up ANYWAY, with a couple of my cousins (first cousins, once and twice removed). They were on the beach but back in the day when we still didn’t understand covid’s rules, I was nervous about transmission.

This year. I got here two days ago. Yesterday, while I was still solo here (the GG arrived in the afternoon), I took a ride around town after my Meijer grock run. Everywhere I went, I saw my old fave restaurants. And something inside me sort of woke up. My first thought was, “I wanna have lunch at the Palace Saloon!” (And Wicked Sister and Kenny’s Pitchen and Bird’s Eye and and and.) And so when the GG got here yesterday, I proposed an early lunch at the Palace today. And that is what we did.

It’s not that I haven’t ever eaten out during covid. I have quite a few times and even attended a Big Fat (loverly) Greek Wedding and the crowded Quiet Adventure Symposium and that weekend included THREE restaurant meals. Today was somehow the first time I came up with the idea myself and felt pretty dern comfortable with it. (Knock on wood.)

Why the Palace? Partly because we haven’t been there in forever. Also… When The Commander was in her last year of life, it was one of our main go-to places to eat being a couple blocks from the hospital. The staff kind of got to know us to the point that once when I appeared there with npJane instead of the GG, they looked at me like “who is that and where is the GG?” I explained that my husband had gone home for a bit and np was my cousin. She had come up to keep me company for a bit and I am forever thankful!

I’m sure nobody on the Palace staff today was here back then (12 years ago) so no one remembered us. But they were wonderful servers anyway and I tipped well like I always do.

After that little idyllic restaurant interlude, immediately after we got into Cygnus, the GG was scrambling with his clothing or whatever. Why? He had found a TICK! I should say ANOTHER TICK! That tick went unceremoniously out the window. When we got back to the moomincabin, he systematically sifted through all of his clothing and other belongings and took a shower, I think to eliminate any other ticks. Yick.

P.S. A beach urchin set up a Spotify playlist for me to hook up to Cygnus’s radio. Today I finally figured out how to hook it up. We were driving up (down) Ashmun (the main Sault Ste. Siberia street) and the radio was talking about the Orange Baboon. I dunno what was even being said but since the GG and I disagree about MAGA crapola, I decided it was time to change the station. So I pulled into an empty parking place, put Cygnus in park, and opened Spotify on my phone, which was connected to Cygnus. After maybe 30 seconds, voila, I had some loverly 1990s music playing. So thanks kiddo and what’s the frequency, Kenneth?

So, the fuse on the lower left was the one I had to SLAM in with my RIGHT hand when I got here yesterday. The big boxy one. It turns on the water heater.

I am not crazy about this arrangement of fuses from the getgo. Knowing that I would have to slam the big boxy fuse in (with my right hand) when I got up here added more stress to my week than I am willing to admit. “But when I get there, I have to deal with that damn fuse!”

After a couple of tries, I did in fact get it in correctly. Why did I have to use my right hand? I was perplexed about that rather adamant instruction. A beach urchin suggested something involving an electrical current traveling up the left arm to the heart. Yikes? Nope. It was just that the way the fuse box is situated relative to the other objects (and walls) in the room, the path of least resistance was to use my right hand. And I am also right-handed… And this operation does not result in an electrical shock. I have actually done it before. I just don’t like doing it.

So I got the damn fuse slammed in and I heard the water heater make little noises so I figured all was good. But. Much later, I was only getting lukewarm water out of the taps. Oh dear, that will not do for washing the dishes or my morning shower. I couldda done the dishes by heating water on the stove like we used to do in the Jurassic Age but the shower was another story. It is toooo cold to swim in Gitchee Gumee at this time of the year. Unless you are five years old.

A phone call or two later, it turned out that both of the faucets *under* the moomincabin deck needed to be turned off and were *not*. I’m not sure why they weren’t and I don’t really understand the issue, but once I turned them off, voila! I had hot running water and a loverly shower this morning.

I want to replace this arrangement of fuses with a modern circuit breaker box. When I am on the Planet Ann Arbor and there is a brownout and Gertrude (my stove) has a seizure (i.e. starts making all kinds of crazy noises), I can just run down to the basement and flip a circuit breaker with one finger. It doesn’t even matter which hand the finger is on but usually it’s on my right because I am right-handed.

This all reminds me of The Gumper, my beloved father-in-law, and his “Every Housewife Should Know” lessons. The Moldy Old cFam cabin probably had a similar arrangement of fuses and he made sure to instruct every new person using that kitchen as to which appliances could or couldn’t be plugged in at the same time. Having grown up in a shabby little bungalow and the moomincabin, I already had a pretty good idea not to plug in every single blasted appliance at once. But I loved him and appreciated his guidance.

The freeways that surround The Planet Ann Arbor hail from the WWII era (if I have it right). There are some areas where the “design” was never intended to be permanent. Unfortunately, those “designs” have never been updated. Enter a bazillion more automotive vee-hickles than existed in the 1940s.

In particular, if I am going north, the first couple of miles of freeway involve merging with cars entering from very short ramps, even including an entrance ramp that ends with a STOP SIGN! Yes, really. And then a left exit to leave the eastbound freeway to the northbound freeway, with a left merge onto the northbound freeway. Does any of this make sense? No, I’m sure it doesn’t. Don’t worry. All you need to know is that it’s a tangled MESS, one I have hated FOREVER, every single dad-blasted time I have to drive it, both north and south. AND NOW THERE IS CONSTRUCTION! But not to correct the terrible design. That’ll probably never change.

But hey! I can easily avoid all of this crapola. Because… I know the back roads around here like the back of my hand. So I took N. Maple up to the Huron River and across it. I continued up to Stein Rd., over to Whitmore Lake Rd., up to North Territorial Rd., and on to the freeway at a MUCH MORE SANE entrance (even after navigating two roundabouts to get there). I was on dirt roads for a bit there and the whole thing was probably slower than taking the freeway from the beginning. EXCEPT. That the freeway is almost always RED on Google Maps these days. Traveling slowly along beautiful dirt roads with very little traffic is much more pleasant than sitting in a traffic jam on a freeway. (This is all within about 10 miles or less.)

So I had a nice little zen start to my trip and it continued to be smooth. Until. The Mackinac Bridge. Construction has it down to two lanes, one in each direction, no passing (of course). The contractor had “promised” that they would have the first phase of this construction done to the point that all lanes would be open by today. That did not happen. So for all of the holiday weekend, the only way in and out of the yooperland without traveling around Lake Michigan or Lake Huron (loooooong way around in either case) is one lane on the bridge. Think that one through a bit. The only alternate routes involve going through either Chicago or Canananada. My trip across the bridge was a steady 20 mph slog. It was fine (I knew about the issue beforehand) but it will only get worse. I am so glad my beach urchins aren’t trying to travel here this weekend and I wish for patience (and a safe passage) for those who are.

So, I am here, “home”, again. It was 54 degrees when I got here but at least it was not SLEETING! like it was two years ago (also 54 degrees). This arrival featured a strong northwest wind. A facebook/high school friend asked how the skeeters were. Well, non-existent due to the wind. But I’m sure they are hunkering down lying in wait.

Love y’all, KW.

The next door neighbors are building a garage and the last two days have been NOISY here! And hot but that isn’t related to the garage.

Tuesday they were breaking up whatever concrete was at the top of the existing driveway. Today a cement mixer drove up. Twice. Once in the morning and again in the afternoon. So it was almost too noisy for even someone like me to concentrate. Not to mention hot. I was thinking I could turn on the whole house fan but that would be just about as noisy as the cement truck. Or the central A/C but that would mean I would have to close the doors and windows… In the end I bagged off work a bit early and headed out to the back yard where there it was cooler and I was sheltered from the noise. There were insects though. Not nasty biting ones, just minuscule little buggies that I would find crawling on my skin.

I am not in ANY WAY complaining about the noise. Our neighborhood was built in the late 50s/early 60s and I think most of the garages were probably built after the houses were. I imagine the developers of that day and age were thinking “those people don’t need no stinkin’ garage”. Today their counterparts seem to think people in need of affordable housing would enjoy living on the 14th floor of some behemoth. I don’t have the answers to conundrums like this. Only opinions. One of them being that I don’t think real estate developers are necessarily the appropriate people to come up with plans for affordable housing. Not without a LOT of requirements and oversight. And input from prospective buyers.

But I am NOT complaining about the noise. Our neighbors are very nice folks and if they want a garage, I’m glad they are able to afford to build one, not to mention get around whatever city building codes apply. I’m guessing the GG is a bit envious of this new garage. We don’t have one. When we bought the house I don’t think we felt “rich” enough to build one. Besides which, it would end up (I think) taking up part of our back yard. Which I don’t want.

He has the run of the moomincabin garage, in which he often holds court with anyone coming along the road.

Ramble ramble. Takeouts from El Harissa tonight, with the beach urchins, in the back yard.

You get another pic of Ireland today. About the only pic yer fav-o-rite blahgger thought about taking today was of a Subie key fob at the bottom of a recycle cart 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

I was ready to schlep to Meijer for a few grocks at 0-skunk-30 this morning but when I went to grab my favorite key fob, it wasn’t in the basket. I panicked for a split-second but since the *other* fob was there, it wasn’t an emergency. All the way to the store and back, I ruminated on what I could have done with the fob. I went to Plum yesterday morning. The fob was zipped securely into my polartech vest pocket. I remember walking into the Landfill, unzipping my pocket, and dropping the fob, well, where? In the basket? That was the intent.

As I continued to process this situation, I remembered being in a flurry about putting groceries away and then LATER ON, putting the bag of recycle that I collect *inside* before taking it out to the big cart that gets rolled out to the street. By the time I got home from the grockery store, I had this pretty much figured out and a quick peek into the cart spotted my fob waaaaaay down at the bottom. I couldn’t reach it so I tipped the cart over and dumped everything out (there wasn’t a lot, which is why I could see the fob). The recycle bag (*inside* the house) is next to and below the Key Basket so I must’ve *missed* the basket.

That set the tone for my day. I am in “travel” mode and I feel like a walking train wreck about packing. Yes I am making lists. At least I don’t have to take a plane. And no, it won’t be a catastrophe if Cygnus and I land in the yooperland *without* something. The moomincabin looks like it’s out in the boonies somewhere but there are stores including a nice cushy Meijer super-grock-store a 15 minute drive away and there is almost *no* traffic ever. You just have to watch out for deer, bear, and turkeys and once I think I saw a sandhill crane crossing the road but maybe that was a REM dream.

P.S. I prefer my “fave” key fob because the GG has attached looooong leather “strings” to the other one.