The Grinch seems to be everywhere this year. This is my cousin’s drink last night. Her husband over at Regenaxe has a better pic and lists the ingredients. I didn’t blahg yesterday because we met up with them and npJane a bit on the late side (for us) over on the other side of town. It was really fun but I was kind of done at the end of it all.

The Grinch seems to be everywhere this year. A children’s event at the Cozy Corners in Barbeau and a friend’s doggie daycare and the JKL Bahweting School and I dunno where else. I gather that the dogs were pretty nervous about the Grinch until they realized he was one of their beloved (female) caretakers dressed up in green. Dogs have a keen sense of who people are and what they smell like. I know because my brother’s dogs definitely trusted me. I was “Anne-Mom” and The Commander was “GrrMom”.

We have been calling one of my cousins the Grinch since we were all in high school or thereabouts. We were not all in high school at the same time as there is a 20 year cousin-y age spread but the Grinch and I are three years apart and have always been close. I’m not entirely sure how that nickname got started although there a few theories. But it stuck, at least within the fam. Most people he deals with know him by his first name, which is NOT Mike, which is what I grew up calling him. Go figger.

His mom was my aunt Radical Betty and as an Air Force family they lived all over the place. When Radical Betty and Duke retired to the yooperland, down the beach from us on family land, the Grinch ended up there too. He is a bit eccentric (aren’t we all?) but he turned into a construction worker who has a successful drywall business and employs a lot of folks in the area. I won’t talk about them (these days I don’t know most of them) but if y’all ever need a drywall bucket, I can probably get you one for free. With luck, an empty one.

Skeletor on the couch below the TV is not the problem. I do not get why people like the person on the TV screen. I just do not. I don’t even think Skeletor likes him although he has at times had to endure wearing a f*cking MAGA hat. Skeletor, I feel your pain.

I have wrapping paper “upshairs” but probably have to buy more. I don’t really want to buy more wrapping paper at all but…

We are trying to figger out xmas dinner… I don’t think we are grilling duck this year. And that’s okay. Maybe we’ll do a couple of chickens instead. Well see. I’m gonna let Little Cat Z help me figger out the menu. Maybe we’ll grill some blasted duck breasts for my blasted birthday in January,

Little Cat Z ran into the GG and our friend ValJ at Kerrytown today. I was hoping they met in a No Politics Zone. I dunno if that exactly happened but they did apparently talk for 45 minutes or so, therefore it might’ve been okay. I do NOT agree with the GG when it comes to politics. I am much more aligned with ValJ and his wife, who is a longtime friend of mine. They are the parents of Mouse’s friend Lairi the Rake and own yooperland beach property although theirs is on Lake Michigan, not Superior.

That’s probably how this post will be. Why? Well, because I went to my friend Sari’s funeral today. I got to know her when our kids were in middle/high school. Little Cat Z was pretty good friends with two of her daughters and I think they were in the same alternative middle school advisory. Was it called an advisory? I think so.

Around that time, I was HONORED to be invited to meet up with some of the other middle school moms and Sari was one of them, as well as Marci, for coffee/breakfast at Cafe Zola downtown. As time went on and kids got older, our group eroded as a lot of the moms went back to work. Including me eventually although my bosses the LSCHP and then Amazon Woman always encouraged me (and others) to keep up with non-work friendships and family. Always family. But Sari and Marci and I continued to meet all these years. We did change locations to Barry Bagels and then zoom (because covid).

So this funeral was at a synagogue. Will we know anyone there? I am a Celtic pagan type person but I grew up going to Sunday School so I can navigate mainstream protestant churches and even Catholic churches. Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak anyone? My husband’s childhood church. But I rarely go into religious establishments and haven’t for years. So I had a bit of social anxiety about going to a synagogue, even though I knew people would welcome me and of course they did. The GG was maybe one of the few men that didn’t have a yarmulke on but probably there were others. I don’t think anyone probably wore a Batman yarmulke like the LSCHP used to often wear at work.

Anyway we were walking in deciding where to sit and yo-ho-ho, there was Marci and her husband and their wonderful son and Marci said, “Do you want to sit with us?” Yes yes yes. Of course we do.

And the rest of it was what it was and after the pallbearers took the casket out (I didn’t even notice the casket and don’t think it was open, thank you very much) the rest of us were allowed to leave. We got in the car and LCZ asked who was hungry. I was. So we went to Casey’s Tavern.

I am not very much inclined to decorate xmas trees in general and this holiday season has not been the easiest one. The GG came home today and he, mouse, and the racc lightly decorated the tree. I am happy that every single blasted ornament is not on the tree. Lightly decorated is good.

I am happy that the angel my great aunt Elizabeth gave me as a small child tops the tree. One of the first xmases in the landfill, the GG accidentally shot her wand off sonehow. I was really pissed off at the time but he has pretty much made sure what is left of her tops the tree ever since. There were a lot of questions about where some of the other ornaments came from. I loved my step grandmother Bolette dearly (mom’s bio mom died way before I was born). Bolette did a lot of wonderful things in her life but making xmas ornaments was not one of them. The Commander made some really cool (and simple) ornaments.

Little Cat Z cooked a wonderful chicken dinner while people were decorating the tree and I was just kind of bumbling around feeling somewhat pitiful. Don’t worry. I’ll get over that. Losing a job at this stage of life is a blip. Losing a friend is not. Losing both is challenging. But onward.

Seva is a veggie restaurant that has been around Ann Arbor forever. It was downtown forever. We went there frequently. We even got my meat eating dad to go there. We also took him to Mountain Jack’s for steaks. When he ate lunch at Seva he would eat an egg salad sandwich with a chocolate frappe.

I have so many memories from that place. One was Little Cat Z sitting in my lap. She was maybe eight months old. Radical Betty was with us and talked about LCZ’s blueberry eyes, a lot like mine. “Mama, I don’t have some sharp eyes, I have some blue ones.” Yes.

Seva moved out to the Westgate shopping center and I just didn’t go there for a long time. I don’t even know why. It just didn’t seem right that it wasn’t downtown any more. And covid. My mouse suggested it yesterday but I thought I wanted a turkey naan at Sessions. We went to Sessions but I didn’t end up getting a turkey naan. But Seva stuck into my head and so today that’s what LCZ and I did. And although I will always miss the downtown Seva, they have done a good job with this and we will be back.

First, I am not sure I should be posting this pic at all. I mean the Uncly Uncle probably doesn’t care if his mug is in the pic but he might not want his grandson in there. It’s a few years ago though so I’m guessing it might be okay now? If it isn’t, I will happily take it down. He’s still a kid in this pic. He is a heartbreaker looking teenager now.

My mouse and the racc took such good care of me today (and the racc became an uncle!}. They collected me in Oriole and took me out to lunch, moved the carts up to the top of the driveway, and cleaned up some crappy iceola in the driveway.

And then there was the news that my blahggy friend Margaret and my cousin Jay met up for lunch! They are both in the PACNW and this was so cool. Jay blogs but not as frequently as Margaret and I. But I loved this!

Okay, I think I am done for tonight.

I guess I can blahg about this since her family has published her obit. A LONG time friend of mine died this week. Yesterday, I think. I am not even sure if I can go on with this. This day has been harder for me than the days my brother, father, aunt Radical Betty, and mother died. All of those times, I was taking care of people. Driving people to and from the yooperland. I did all that without even thinking much about what the hell I was doing.

Today I was watching from the sidelines. A woman with four children and five grandchildren. She has been my friend for something like 25 years. She renovated her house to accommodate her husband’s disabled sister and partner. I wonder who is gonna take care of all those people. I know it will work out but still. Goddamn I will miss this mensch. She called me a mensch first. I didn’t even know what that meant at the time (I am not Jewish) but I have since owned it even though I don’t think I really deserve it.

I am okay with all of this. My mouse came over to have a ‘hattan with me and we are probably meeting for lunch tomorrow. Mouse checked in with me first about my friend, having heard about it from a friend of hers on facebook. I already knew.

But life goes on here on the Ice Road Asteroid and I had to deal with taking my garbage/recycle carts out this afternoon. YakTrax? Yes. This is the mess of ice cement at the end of my driveway. Maybe it’ll melt someday (lol).

Love y’all, KW

I knew there would be slow days coming and I am working to deal with them. Not always easy though.

The GG and I set up the xmas tree yesterday. My job is to stabilize it while he screws in the stuff in the stand at the bottom. I always put a little pair of glubs on and stand there until it is stable.

So the tree is set up and actually there are now lights on it. I think he wants me to put ornaments on it. I’ve never been crazy about that job so we’ll see what I get done while he is outta town. It’s too much randomness for meeeeeee to figger out where to put ornaments.

I have grokkery and xmas errands to run tomorrow and this weekend so I am hoping there isn’t too much goddamn ice. Umpteen bazillion trucks came up and down the street today plowing and salting and whatever. This is not the usual thing so we’ll see how it works.

A facebook friend posted a video of driving down “my” road at the moomincabin the other day taking pics of turkeys. I was like, THAT’S *MY* ROAD! As you might be able to see from the screenshot, he even identified the area.

I have been facebook friends with this person (we’ll just call him Mushy) for years. I don’t think I have ever met him in person but he went to my high school five years ahead of me. I recognized his name when he friend-requested me and in accordance with my loose rules about accepting facebook friend requests I accepted his. I figured he knew some of my older cousins and my uncle probably delivered him.

And yes, my uncle did deliver him (and about a billion other babies) and not only that, after a bit of facebook interaction last night, he ‘fessed up to walking my cousin Susie home “up Prospect Street” from junior high or high school or whatever to home. Did he have a crush on her? I will never really know. Susie was very popular (unlike me) but also very particular about who she hung around with and that’s about all I know about that. I was just a little kid in those days although I had big crushes on boys and I mean local boys, not The Beatles. Like Paul McCartney would ever wanna hook up with me? Not a chance so why bother.

I am not at all freaked out about “Mushy” driving down our moominbeach road. He and I do not agree about politics at all so I don’t interact with his political posts. But then I don’t agree with my husband about politics either. What I have encountered about Mushy is that even though he doesn’t know me personally, he remembers my family with much love and on the off-chance I have responded to stuff he has posted and have been trolled, he ALWAYS shuts the trolls down. Fast. No. This woman’s family is wonderful. And we pretty much are.

So if he wants to drive down the moominbeach road, I am fine with it. Just don’t hit the turkeys, which he is not doing.

Today did not start out very auspiciously. Why? Moooon Yoooonit would not start. Why not? Because “someone” did not successfully close the back gate all the way and the battery discharged. Thankfully Cygnus handily jumped her and all was well. I did not have to deal with any of this except to watch it out the window and chuckle a bit.

This is not the first care package I’ve ever received from one of my sisters-in-law. This one is from The Lady of Linden (and the Lord) and it marks my “retirement”. Of course, y’all know I didn’t get a chance to officially retire. I was laid off. I lied about that on facebook but I won’t lie about it on my boring blahg of blather. It was okay. It was time and I was gonna retire in the next six months anyway. My status is such that I could even get re-hired at the company if there was a job that was a good fit. Some people have taken that route over the years but I won’t be one of them. I am done and happily so.

For a while I was wondering if I would “beat out” The Lady of Linden, like who would retire first? But she has beaten me (i.e., she still has a job) and I am very happy for her. Totally different job situation, not Corporate America like me, more like family business. In Corporate America, layoffs happen and as I think I have said before, I knew that going in. In fact, when I was permanently hired, I’m pretty sure the laptop I was assigned belonged to someone who was laid off. Even though I don’t think I exactly replaced him, I have always felt a bit bad about it and hope he has done well in life. I KNOW who is replacing me and I am HAPPY for him. We were fast friends from the moment we met (he is a kayaker for one thing) and probably needs the job more than I do although I think he is totally afloat and nowhere near destitute. If only some of the old fossils in the damn government would give up their jobs to younger generations. It’s time.

So once the GG got Mooon Yooonit going this morning, he drove up to FlaMan’s place and the Lady of Linden got him to meet her in the area so she could pass off this loverly care package for meeeee. I got lucky in terms of sisters-in-law, the GG’s sisters (four) and his brothers’ wives (two). I miss The Beautiful Suzie. She was extra special to me and died waaaay too young.

Sam came over wearing a party skirt so I had to put one on too. The GG drove us over to Sessions in Cygnus X-1 for a loverly lunch and after that, dropped us off at the Plum Market to get a few things for dinner.

First of all, Kathy was in the entry way when we arrived. We only had a couple of things on our list and I usually do the uScan but I saw that Joyce was running a cash register so I went through her lane and introduced her to my BFF Sam. Sam and I were both wearing party skirts and it turned out that Joyce was also wearing a party skirt. The pic is only Sam and me but I kinda wish I had been together enough to make a pic with all three of us in party skirts. Somehow somebody alerted mouse that her moom was in the store so she met us in the checkout line.

I have been going through Joyce’s line since long before my mouse worked at that plum. Joyce “bullied” me into making my Plum app work on my phone, which turned out to be a life-saver when the pandemic hit. When my mouse started working there, Joyce figured out she was my daughter. She had noticed that my mouse seemed to know what she was doing right off the bat. She made the guess that it was because mouse used to work at the Plum on the other side of town, which was correct.

Anyway, we put lamb stew and garlic bread and salad together tonight and both of my local beach urchins came over for dinner. They hung out with Sam in the chitchen (gabbling about umbellifers among other things) while me and the GG and jcb hung out in the back room. I am so happy that my adult daughters love Sam so much that they come over to meet and gabble with her. I wish Hotlanta wasn’t so far away but we did make it work this weekend.

It arrived today. It’s the box that I sent my work laptop off in to the great wide open or wherever. I was okay with that but I am not an engineer so I let my own personal engineer pack it up and take it over to a Fedex dropoff while I kinda looked the other way.

Actually, he packed TWO laptops (and three power cables) into the box. A couple years ago, I had a previous laptop die and it could not be resurrected so they sent me a “new” one. It wasn’t actually brand new and I never actually got along with the “jumpy” keyboard/touchpad interactions but I managed. But they told me to just get rid of the old one. I was not really comfortable with that instruction so I kept it around. Hopefully they are happy to get it back even though it’s basically been a brick the last couple years. I certainly didn’t want it around any more. I am a MacBook Pro kinda gal anyway and knock on wood my MacBook Pro is much older than those crappy laptops and still going strong. But I certainly did not want to be accused of stealing anything.

My Sam engineered a loverly chili and salad dinner tonight. Little Cat Z enhanced the salad with some stuff from her house and I provided some garlic bread I had made and stashed in the freezer. Dinner for eight and lots of fun talk. I have such a good life.

First of all, this pic was taken by my forever BFF Sam. It is the courthouse in Napoleon Ohio. The GG and I drove past it a few years ago and I wanted to get a pic but I didn’t quite manage it. She and her hubby jcb (aka the Guru who hosts my website) were driving the back roads through Ohio today and when she texted to say they were in Napoleon for lunch, I begged for a pic of the courthouse. And she obliged. So photo credit to Sam.

They took us out for dinner at Dexter’s Pub and we made sure to drive them past the cider mill. It’s closed at this time of year but she remembers visiting it as a child, when her family drove from south of Lansing to Dexter on day trips. She has a beautiful pic of it on her blahg.

I met my Sam on Radical Betty’s back deck a million years ago. At that time she was my cousin’s Jay’s friend and when I first met her, I thought she was wonderful but I didn’t realize she would become my best friend in life. We were both going to college at MooU and our families both owned property in the yooperland and I guess she came to a party at my apartment in East Lansing and I don’t remember the exact party but apparently things went from there and here we are.

I’m thinkin’ the first time the GG met Sam was at a party at Pooh and Mark’s apartment on Seventh Street on The Planet Ann Arbor. I don’t remember much about that except that the GG said something like it was a good thing finding that Sam. Yes it was.

The moon is full tonight and the sky is crystal clear but I am not in a place to get a good picture of it because of the woods behind the Landfill back yard and it’s at a weird angle. I like this old pic taken about this time of year but I have always been annoyed at how the moon is kinda sliced off on the right. My eye didn’t see it but my iPhone sure did. Point and shoot.

Today. Today. I forced my social anxiety into a corner (where it belongs) and went to meet (eight? nine?) former co-workers for lunch (and the GG, who was in heavy-duty North Country Trail recruitment mode). Two of these folks recently retired and a few others didn’t show up because cold symptoms (missed you but thank you very much). This luncheon was not to honor me or anyone else, it was just a pay-your-own-way holiday get-together. The retired folks have already had parties and I don’t really need or want one although I was offered one.

I was the oldest person there and the shortest timer at 18 years. We had so much fun! I told them (and this is true) that I was more upset when I was 16 and Bad Boyfriend dumped me than I was about the layoff. That got a deserved laugh. I told them that Amazon Woman was the best boss I have ever had. I have never had a bad boss but she really was the best. Fun fact: Amazon Woman is an electrical engineer by education and she and the GG both like to take things apart and fix them so they gabbled about that. Taking things apart and fixing them is not a skill I possess. I told old outhouse stories from the moominbeach when I was a kid and I don’t remember what else. People were wondering why I wasn’t in the yooperland right now. Because the moomincabin is closed for the season.

Exit stories came up and I came to know that being laid off is not necessarily the worst way to go although everyone is happy with their retirement. That is all I will say about that. Except that I felt sooooo loved by these old friends.

Most of today is pretty much unblahggable. Not in a bad way though. It was a good day.

On facebook, a friend of my little brother announced his retirement from an esteemed career as a conductor of bands and orchestras, mainly in Florida. I should say he was a wonderful friend of mine too, although he and my brother were both three years younger than me. We were all talented musicians. Me a flutist, my brother a trombonist, and our friend, a percussionist. My brother and I didn’t pursue music as careers but our percussionist friend ended up with a PHD and a career as an acclaimed and beloved teacher and conductor.

We all got our start in music in Sault Ste. Siberia, a place where decent music teachers were few and far between. I had ONE decent flute teacher throughout my childhood there. I was in eighth grade and my flute teacher was married to an Air Force officer who spent a year at Kincheloe AFB (now defunct). They rented a small house across the Lincoln school yard from my family’s little bungalow. When The Commander found out about her, she immediately signed me up for lessons. Jan (the teacher) got what I was all about immediately and showered me with the kind of virtuoso music I craved and more. My family was not rich but The Commander willingly ordered whatever music Jan suggested for me and knowing The Comm, she probably paid Jan more than what she asked for. Among other things, Jan taught me how to flutter tongue. (Google it.) She was a kind, beautiful young woman and I LOVED her.

A few years later, my brother drove a VW Bug he took over from the family car collection when he went to college. I will never forget one night when he and our percussionist friend and a trumpet friend and meeeee, were driving up Ashmun Street across the bridge over the canal and playing Zoom Schwartz Profigliano. I don’t remember how to play that old game and not sure I could even play it competently then.

That’s meeee and my little brother on top of a big snowbank down by my grandparents’ house, eight blocks or so away from our house.

Years and years ago I tried to nudge the GG away from brown colors into blue. I thought he would look good in blue and it is one of my fave colors.

He wasn’t quiiiite ready for blue in those days. It wasn’t until he fell off a log bridge (three times) in the yooperland on the North Country Trail that he began to embrace blue, even though it is the color of the paint that blazes his beloved North Country Trail.

After that incident, he walked quickly a couple miles to where a person with a warmed up vee-hickle met him with warm, dry clothing from a thrift shop. Thanks for cell service there. It was the yooperland so that is not always guaranteed. A photo of him in his thrift shop attire was posted and meeeee and the beach urchins saw it and we were like, he’s wearing blue?

Since then, he often wears blue. He has finally adopted the color of the North Country Trail blazes. So here he is in blue getting a certain holiday item off the top of Cygnus. No, it isn’t in the house yet. I’m not quiiiite ready for it to be in the house.

…is over. We made an airport run to drop our bonus daughter off at metro at 0-skunk-30 this morning to continue her holiday adventures. After we dropped her off and got onto I275, I could see the first rays of today’s sunrise.

I was kind of a nervous wreck. I could not believe how much traffic there was on that run. I knoooooow it’s just after Thanksgiving. I wish I had taken a picture but I was sitting in the back seat of Cygnus just trying to keep myself calm and collected. It helped that bonus daughter was very calm, chatting with the GG in the front. She flies all over the place all the time so this was just another day in the air and she sent a pic of her and a friend meeting at Metro because they were both there at the same time. I mean, they planned to make that happen, it wasn’t random.

Bonus daughter didn’t actually stay with us. She bunked with Little Cat Z. Much more fun and they even co-worked a bit. Despite a four-year age difference, they have always been close and some of my fave memories are of LCZ singing to BD upstairs at the moomincabin when BD was fussing a bit, as young babies do. BD grew up (as young babies do) and ROCKS the world. I had a hard time dropping her off and am missing her. If the stars align correctly, we hope to see her in the summer.

The pic is of the GG playing with one of his boy toys, a big yooperland sized snowblower. We didn’t really get a lot of snow but it was kind of fugly snow and from what I’m told the roads weren’t great Sunday morning when this was taken. Thankfully everything was dry for our airport run this morning.

But then, the GG came home and spent ALL DAY working on the jigsaw puzz (and finished it) and THEN! He started rummaging. I was dealing with another (somewhat stressful) issue and I was NOT a happy camper. Oh don’t worry, it’s technical crapola and it’ll get sorted out eventually, which I am okay with. For now. Ticket successfully filed. Onward.

We didn’t have a dinner plan for the fam tonight, at least not a home made one. I’ve been craving Chinese takeout for a while so I suggested that and it was a go. Little Cat Z collected everyone’s preferences and made a LIST!

Besides being an uber-organized person in general, she has a lot of experience making lists of what people want at restaurants. When the beach urchins were small (my kids and their first and/or second cousins) and we were at the moomincabin, I would often pack them into the Exxon Tanker Valdez (Chrysler mini-van) and take them over the back roads to Clyde’s Drive-In on the St. Marys River, where we could watch freighters go by while eating. Or we could get to-go food and take it over to “Goose Poop Park” (aka Rotary Park) where there was playground equipment.

We always took cafeteria trays with us and clean wet washcloths. Clyde’s is loverly but quite greasy. When Little Cat Z got old enough to write a coherent, easily readable list, her task became taking orders from everyone in the van and making a list on our way there. So when we got to Clyde’s, we could just read off the list or even hand it to the waitress.

Here’s the 2011 Mean Green Frog Hoppin’ Musheen at Clyde’s back in the day. The St. Marys River and Sugar Island Ferry are out of view behind me. And by this time there were no beach urchins in the car. They were all graduated from college and off on their own adventures in their own vee-hickles.

I have kind of a long weird history with this Planet Ann Arbor theatre. My first memory of it was when I was I dunno like 10 or 12. We traveled from the yooperland to visit our FinFam Ann Arbor cousins and we went to see HMS Pinafore. Was I entranced? I dunno. I have never been all that entranced by musicals but I certainly didn’t have a bad time. But I NOTICED THE LIGHTS in the lobby.

Years and years later, living in Ann Arbor, as I do, I was a mother of young children and I was sometimes recruited to play the flute in pit orchestras for musicals in the Lydia Mendelssohn. I REMEMBERED THE LIGHTS! In the lobby. From when I was a child.

My children grew older and I stopped doing pit orchestra gigs but then. My children became actors with YAG. And guess where they played a couple times a year? The Lydia Mendelssohn. I REMEMBERED THE LIGHTS. In the lobby.

I spent many years working to support YAG and my children in plays at the Mendelssohn. I loved ALL of it. I especially loved hanging around with Madame Producer in the green room. We would laugh uproariously (but silently) when things kinda went sideways. As they do. I loved helping the uber costume women in the bowels of the theatre and running front of house.

I will never forget when I got my first Apple laptop (2003 and The Commander helped buy it, thanks moom) and I figured out that I had wifi access at the Mendelssohn. That was a game changer. No more big binders full of papers to haul around.

We had a FinFam steak dinner here tonight and it is snowing but everyone in our family has made it home safely.