I was a bit remiss yesterday about not posting a pic or two of the twinz. Here they are as little kids. Actually I have two versions of this, mirror images. Somebody must have scanned a slide, then turned it over and scanned it again? I dunno.

And the twinz now, or at least not too many years pre-covid.

These boys are 5th and 6th out of a set of 10 siblings. If I have it right, Grandma Sally didn’t know she was having twins until they were born. That story is probably complicated (there was an x-ray that hinted at two babies) and I’m just an out-law so I don’t really know it fluently. The best person to ask is probably their older sister The Lady of Linden. When the twins were born, she had an older brother and two younger ones and was hoping for a baby sister but ended up with two more brothers instead. Six kids under six. I think she got a bike out of the deal? Anyway, three more girls eventually came along plus another boy.

It was their aunt Gale (like the wind, she would always say) who told me “the twins were holy terrors”. That was at our wedding rehearsal dinner. I already had an inkling about that. Put to positive efforts, holy terrors can do a lot of good and these guys are among the good.

The April cFam birthday week continues with today being the Twinz’ of Terrors* bday. I phoned it in for the GG this year. I bought him a bottle of Woodford Reserve (and a couple Just Crack an Eggs🤣). He made a donation to his favorite non-profit and replaced Moooon Yooonit’s veeeendsheeeld. After zee veeeendsheeeld replacement, he took a nap. I dunno what he was doing this afternoon but tools were running and there was a trip to the hardware store involved. There’s a lot that needs to be done around here and it’s mostly stuff I don’t know how to do.

I did make a FinFam Steak Dinner for the three of us who will be together. Others have to work and that is A-OK🧡 One of the perks of telecommuting is that I can pick away at prep and cooking throughout the day and not have to hit the ground running when I get home from work. Or have a bazillion dishes to wash since I clean as I go.

This will be the last cFam birthday we’ll actively celebrate this week although I’m sure he’ll call his sister on hers. And he WON’T demand that she deliver beer!🤣

Oh BTW this pic is what greeted me when I took off on my 0-skunk-30 today. Frost! In the schoolyard. Also on zee veeeendsheelds but not in the neighborhood yards, seemed to need a larger area to form.

Cheers and HB to you if this happens to be your day!

* I have no clue whether that apostrophe is correctly placed. Grammar and syntax mavens, HELP!

My “recurrent” dreams fall into various categories. Not that they are exactly recurrent but they belong to themes.

There are the Processing Dreams. These are where whatever technical thing I’m working on gets into a loop and I can’t break out of it. Until I discovered computers, it was mainly music stuff. I would be going over and over a flute piece or whatever. Sometimes I would be trying to play something with NO MUSICAL NOTATION. Like I would have a sheet of music in front of me that had PICTURES or diagrams or whatever on it. I played a lot of esoteric 20th century stuff in college and some of it had very complex notation but pictures? I still have occasional music processing dreams but most of my processing dreams nowadays are coding dreams. I can’t say that they actually help me with my job but who knows what’s going on in my subconscious?

Then there are the Packing Dreams. I am sitting on the floor (example) with a diaper bag, gathering baby clothing and toys, etc., to put into the bag, packing it for a trip. Just when I think I have everything in the bag, I look around and see a whole bunch more random stuff to pack. My most vivid memory of a packing dream involves a diaper bag (a blue corduroy one that we actually owned) but I have had plenty of these dreams at least throughout my adulthood. As a child, my most frequent container to pack in was the bushel basket us kids were issued when moving to the moomincabin for the summer. Everything I needed fit into that.

Shoreline Dreams. I’ve been dreaming about weird fantastical moominbeach geographical features my entire life. A place on the two-track we walked to Doelle’s on as kids had an UNDERGROUND section and I THINK this dream preceded the “foxholes”. Also canals where there are no canals, little inland lakes back in the swamp on the other side of the cabin road. A big hill right in the moomincabin back yard with a ROPE TOW. And once a good-sized forested island BETWEEN the moominbeach and Round Island.

The island dream was a prescient dream of sorts. The day after I dreamed that was the day I resigned from the young actor’s guild. I loved YAG. I had a great time working for YAG, making the trains run on time. I believe that organization played a major role in shepherding the beach urchins through their teenage years, helping to make them the wonderful adults they are. But making the trains run on time is my forte and too many other responsibilities were falling on my shoulders. Interacting with “problem” people mainly. I am actually not bad at interpersonal relations but when somebody has a problem I can’t easily solve, I sorta fall apart. Conflict management and “crucial conversations” are not my thing. That island dream was somehow a turning point.

We’ll talk about prescient dreams some other day. Or not. I have had them. They are rare and they are never about anyone I’m close to. At least not the worst ones. Spooky? Yeah, it can be.

For this [once] little one.

This little person was always interested in clothing and I had no trouble indulging her creative tastes. Well, not when she drew all over herself with marker or glitter glue or whatever. “It’s okay mama, it’s all dried out now.”

In this case, this was not the outfit she started out the day in. My parents were there and my brother and his fam came down for Sunday brunch (a much better time to celebrate a young child’s birthday than dinnertime in my humble opinion). My brother handed her a gift bag containing this cute little outfit and she IMMEDIATELY stripped down to her undies in front of god and everyone and changed into her new clothes. The hand-knitted hat was a gift from The Commander. The high heeled shoes were “borrowed” from her older sister and the puffalump mouse is, well, Mouse (aka Speedy Water Janet Pop Mousey Mushroom Ears). And lives on even today.

Missing those days and feeling a bit old and baggy🐽

For what felt like 10 minutes but was probably more like two, this old admiral strutted (embiggen a couple times) slowly back and forth across the road trailing various hens behind him. I didn’t care. I was not in a hurry. I was in pocketa pocketa mode out on the back roads. I mean, you can’t go fast even if you want to because it is pothole city at this time of year.

In other news, the GG has been outta town for a large portion of April and he has again returned, just in time for the late-April cFam birthday week. Today is FlaMan’s bday (and my long gone grandma Margaret’s). The GG stopped off on his southward journey to spend time with FlaMan today. A lunch at Red Slobster was offered but FlaMan preferred pizza and a movie (A League of Their Own) at his home instead.

The GG has been gone for a long enough time that one afternoon when I encountered LukeOfPNet in the woods, he broached the question, “Where is the GG?” Hiking the Appalachian North Country Trail of course. I sort of chortle to myself any time I answer a question about his whereabouts with “hiking the NCT” because I always remember the politician who tried to cover up an affair by claiming he was taking a hike. But that’s a politician kind of thing to do and the GG is NOT a politician and doesn’t have any kind of dangereuse liaisons to cover up.

P.S. I sure missed the boat on this entry’s title. I should have called it “Why did the chicken cross the road?” 🤣🤣🤣

I’m riffing off what a blahggy friend wrote in a recent entry about her almost 3-year-old grandchild having a meltdown that to many adults would be inscrutable. Why is he so upset? Well. Because. (I’m not gonna link because the child’s family does not want them to have an internet presence in any way shape or form and I totally respect that.)

My friend related his outburst to her own emotional states and that made me explore my own, now and throughout my life. This is something I do regularly anyway. Don’t we all?

I was a “spirited” child. Unfortunately I was also very SHY, which is what we called introverts back then. I grew into an angsty teenager. In fact I can remember being at the moomincabin at 12 and CRYING to The Commander that I reeeeaallly wanted to be a teenager. I mean, reeeaaaly?

Being a kid was relatively easy because I was good at a lot of things, academics, music, and sports (of the kickball in the street sort anyway). And I had some good friends. Being a teenager was soooo hard. I was still good at academics and music and although I abandoned most sports, I was a decent amateur downhill skier. And I still had friends but the coveted “in-crowd” was elusive to me. And I was terrified to do things like speak up in class (although I rocked any flute solo that came my way, go figger).

Anyway, I sort of gained a certain reputation and that reputation still dogs me a bit with people who knew me back then. It isn’t that simple. Inside my psyche, a spirited 3-year-old still lives. And a very angsty teenager. But layered on top of those is the baggy old bag I’ve become and all of the roles I’ve played throughout my life. Mother of two. Last living member of a nuclear family of four. A person of multiple careers. A “successful failure” (my dad’s phrase). I do occasionally get red-hot angry nowadays (who doesn’t?) but I am much more able to “go with the flow” at this stage of the game.

Disclaimer: When I talk about my struggles as a child and teenager, I was NEVER in any kind of desperation (like considering suicide). My parents were wonderful even if they didn’t always understand me but what parent ever does totally understand their children? I did have friends (and even boyfriends). I had all of the moominbeach folk and the moominbeach itself. I had the proverbial “village” and I had a bit of personal oomph too, shy as I was. Not everyone has all of that.

My eye is drawn to contrasting textures in nature and these just-beginning-to-leaf trees and the dissipating vapor trail fit the bill. This is from my back yard last evening.

A childhood/moomincabin friend mis-heard “vapor trails” once and called them “paper jails”. Some of us teased her unmercifully for that “mistake”. Mainly me. She was a couple years younger than me and a little bit naive as a child. I mean, she didn’t have a pair of older male cousins or a scamp like UKW for a cousin. Family legend has it that UKW taught me and our other same-age female cousin how to climb out of our cribs at a very early age. I don’t think our moms were too happy about that.

Anyway I played with my paper jails friend when my cousins weren’t around (it’s okay, she played with some of my cousins too) but wasn’t always all that nice to my her (not to mention some of my younger cousins). I did learn as I grew into a teenager that teasing was NOT a good thing and we had some good times when she and I were in high school together and were friendly as adults.

Alas, she died way too young. She was involved in a car accident that killed the driver of the other car and put her in the hospital and rehab for I forget how long. It was ugly and I don’t think she ever walked again. I know her husband rigged up an elevator sort of thing to get her up to the main floor of her parents’ house on the moominbeach. She died rather suddenly while being transported by her caretakers to a medical appointment.

Okay, got that outta my system. Porterzoomation happened tonight and I am about to start up GOT. G’night!

After a grueling work week of the brain-draining sort I had a minor bit of triumph today! I didn’t triumph over people. I triumphed over my own stumbling brain, trying to understand a certain bit of functionality. I am not gonna crow over this too much. 1) I’m sure I don’t understand it all yet. 2) Pride goeth before a fall.

I went to take the compost out this afternoon and there was a huge commotion in the “garden”. Henry (or Henrietta?) had found his/her way into the garden and could not get out. Hopping around like crazy jumping up against the wire fencing. I opened the DOOR to the garden and tried to coax Henry out. Of COURSE, Henry was terrified of me ANYWAY. It was warm enough to sit outside so I did that. It was supposed to be 80 today but I don’t think we ever broke 70 but that was okay.

The beach urchins and one of the SOs were scheduled for dinner tonight and by the time the first beach urchin arrived and dumped her compost, Henry had apparently figgered a way out.

So, eggplant parm, noodles with pesto and garlic bread tonight. We were able to sit out in the back yard until it got a little chilly, then ate inside.

Leftovers are put away and dishes are in the dishioshio washer or soaking in the sink and I am on to GOT. G’night.

I was walking past the front door this afternoon when my peripheral vision glimpsed a brown “lump” on the front porch. I knew I hadn’t had a package delivery because when I am working, I see every blasted package delivery vee-hickle that comes by. It had to be an aminal.

And so it was. Henry or Henrietta, I have no way of knowing. I was lucky to get close enough to the glass door to get this pic. After this I tried to creep a bit closer but I scared H/H and he/she hopped away.

This afternoon I saw TWO rabbits skulking around in the bushes outside my window at TeleCubelandia. I don’t know exactly when rabbits mate or how long their gestational period is and I could in no way shape or form tell if either of these rabbits was pregnant. I’m guessing Henrietta is pregnant but hasn’t delivered yet. How do I know this? Actually I don’t but a few years ago, we were having a family dinner here at The Landfill. People were doing laundry and a particularly tall person was in the Landfill Dungeon switching laundry and that person saw baby rabbit ears under Sugar the sled. I am not tall enough to see something like that out that window unless I’m actively looking for it. It was May 5th, 2019 so I’m thinking they have a nest somewhere. But maybe no babies quiiiite yet because mama would need to be close to the nest until her babies are old enough to be on their own. Softball sized.

I got permission to post the second pic then from the photographer and I’m guessing that’s still good. I had a REALLY HARD TIME finding this picture until I looked it up in my wordpress blahg database that I downloaded a couple months ago. After a couple of search terms failed, I tried “baby rabbit” and that did the trick.

Oh not Mr. Drysdale from the Beverly Hillbillies. *My* Mr. Drysdale, the manager of “your Tempo store”, the Sault Ste. Siberia “department” store where I worked as a cashier summers during my college years.

Today I was over at plum at the crack of dawn to pick up a few necessaries (or not) and hug my (masked) grock worker. Something seemed a little different today. There was a tall guy hanging around the checkout area being uber-friendly and “helping” people. Like me, when I confused my u-scan musheen by looking up heirloom tomatoes by picture and not choosing the right ones. I hadn’t picked up one with a product number tag on it or I’d’ve entered the *number*. I had actually corrected it but the musheen didn’t clear so the “help” light was flashing.

I texted my grock worker asking about the guy and it turns out it *was* Mr. Drysdale’s 21st century west-side Planet Ann Arbor counterpart. Mr. Drysdale had the same approach to customers, especially when there was a big sale and there *is* a big sale at the plum this week. I don’t think he treated shoplifters with the same demeanor. On the other hand, I can still remember him cheerfully announcing that it was a good day to go collecting! I don’t think the plum probably does much collecting as people don’t (that I know of) buy food via time payments. You pay for it on the way out or you don’t and if you don’t, you don’t take it home. Unless the Mom behind you in line pays for your grocks but that would be a whole ‘nother story.

I totally loved working as a cashier. I didn’t love that I made $1.75 an hour but that was pretty much the going rate for service workers in those days. We got paid in cash in little envelopes and the first time I got paid, the first thing my little brother did was ask me for a “loan”. Jeebus 🤣 I ALWAYS treat cashiers well but when u-scans were first installed in the big grock stores around here, I was ecstatic. Plum didn’t have them until the pandemic but their u-scans are fantabulous and I am a u-scan Ninja. In a way, I’m reliving my earliest childhood career.

I always got along with Mr. Drysdale. I was a good cashier but he was also very friendly with my dad. They were local “businessmen”, a term that used to mean something but we’ll go there some other day (or not). Are either of them watching from beyond as the once young checkout gal swiftly and agilely Ninjas today’s u-scans? Probably not. I love them anyway. And miss them.

My job has been a little slow for the past few weeks. It sometimes is. I remember when I first worked there it bothered me terribly. I have a work ethic that regularly knocks me upside the head. I NEEEEEED to be busy. In a PRODUCTIVE way.

One day I was kvetching about it a bit and W1.5, who worked over the wall from me then said, “Don’t worry about these slow times.” He had worked for the company(ies) for umpteen bazillion years and I learned to heed his advice. Nowadays I can always find something to do but I was antsy this time.

Today work came back with a vengeance and I spent HOURS watching a recording of a meeting the development team and I had last week, then another couple hours in a LIVE meeting with dev. What was funny was that 1) I felt like I had been IN meetings all day and 2) Whenever I heard my name, I jumped to attention like I might have to actually interact but noooo, I was watching a recording.

I love these guys but English is their second language and when they get going off on a tangent (and they do), I cannot keep up. I bet the mix of my (American) northern city vowel shift, yooperland, and canuckian accents drives them nuts too. And when I listen to our meeting recordings, I talk FAST. But I don’t talk a LOT. I mostly LISTEN. That’s the best way to accomplish my job. Let them all talk, then come back in with a recap and any questions I have.

I think my mouse took this trout lily pic back in 2020. Trout lilies are blanketing the woods behind my house now but they are not opened up when I walk at 0-skunk-30 so I have not gotten a good pic. Anyway, my mouse is much better at nature photography and this looks like her work.

I’m not sure why every time the GG calls me (and he doesn’t call me everyday, which is fine), he gives me a weather report. I LOOK AT THE WEATHER ALL THE TIME!!! Anyway, the weather in the great white north has been similar to the weather on the Planet Ann Arbor. A string of hot DRY days, rain (more in the north than here) turning to snow. Although snow at this time of year on the Planet Ann Arbor is a joke and may not happen at all. We will see. It might be more of a significant event in the Great White North.

The tick report is much more interesting. Fortunately he only had two of them today. Our friend Joan found one and I do not know what the Uncly Uncle had.

Other than that there was not a lot to discuss. I am off the hook for driving four hours to dog-sit a sweet elderly dog for multiple days. Whew! I LIKE dogs but at this point in my life, I am not all that interested in hanging around with them and don’t know enough about them to be an adequate care-taker. I am a one dog woman (even on a three dog night) and that dog was my childhood Tigger-dog, long gone.

Next there was an upcoming Birthday Week, one of several such weeks in our families. Do we have any plans? Not yet and they won’t be big ones in any case. FinFam Steak Dinner maybe? We’ll see…And then there was the whole GOT thing where I tried to explain the books vs. the TV series. He has not watched the series or read the books. But he did opine that I seem to be approaching both in a “literary” way. Which I am, although I didn’t start my GOT journey in that way. It has sure turned into a prodject and I am STILL behind on my 2023 Goodreads challenge albeit only by seven books.

Spring has sprung? But snow is in the forecast. I’m watching GOT and there’s a big battle that I cannot follow and my streaming service keeps stalling. So. G’night.

Here it is! Mouse happened to be driving behind it. You can’t miss it with those yooperland stickers on the rear end.

So it’s still going. A young family bought it from us (Mouse actually) TWO years ago! It had close to 200,000 miles on it and was nickel and diming “us” to death. But this young man was good at keeping vee-hickles going forever and he had just said goodbye to an ancient Toyota or whatever. I will tell you Japanese cars can last a LONG time. We had kept up with maintenance on the Frog Hopper and the GG was able to hand over a complete record of every bit of maintenance/repair ever done to it. A thick file since it was part of the family for 10 years.

The Great Lake State is melting. The Planet Ann Arbor melted quite a while ago (it was 84 today) and is pretty much all dried out. Back in the woods of the Great White North, snow persists.

April 10, 2011 was a Sunday and we were driving south from the yooperland after a weekend of visiting The Commander and a woods hike in deep snow. It was unseasonably warm although here in the Great Lake State we have weird weather ALL THE TIME. Re-reading that blahg entry, I apparently remember less about that day than I thought I did (click here if you want to read it). Apparently when we left the yooperland that morning it was in the 30s but at some point we had to turn on the Ninja’s A/C and the temperature read 81 degrees. Not unheard of in April but neither is 10 degrees.

Alas, the ensuing week turned out to be hellacious. We did not call The Commander for a few days. We BOUGHT A CAR the day after we returned (a Monday). It was the Mean Green Frog Hoppin’ Musheen. Bad thing. Not the new vee-hickle, that was fine. It was not calling my mom EVERY day. By the time I did call her, she was sorta slurring words. Turned out to be a minor stroke and I drove north to deal with everything that ensued.

She easily recovered from that and we were optimistic that she would live a few more good years (she was 90). Alas, that event marked the beginning of the last year of her life. I won’t go into the details of my guilt for maybe not helping her make the right decisions but this stuff is always SO hard. Assisted living? Yooperland (where she had friends) or Planet Ann Arbor. I didn’t think she wanted to move to The Planet. She said she didn’t want to move down here but who knows if that was true or if she didn’t want to burden me.

Not to get into this too much. These are the questions all of us ask ourselves when a parent dies and we wonder if we did enough to support them. But I started this entry thinking of the GG and our friend Joan hiking in the northern lower peninsula where Michigan IS MELTING!

I wanted to find a certain pic of my brother playing the trombone in a Mexican style poncho but for the life of me I couldn’t find it. Photos (on my Macbook) will find pictures of trombones but the only thing that shows up is video of a trombonist in the Detroit Party Marching Band (google it if you want) at the Planet Ann Arbor Festifools parade a few years ago. Pre-COVID and not my brother. So you get this pretzel-shaped flute player instead. Uh, meeeee.

So I wonder if I can write a coherent entry about my family’s (both sides) musical talent. Most people in my fam have at least some talent. Some also have the interest and the guzzinto. Others maybe not so much. Me? I was gonna write that I was the only person in either fam to get an actual music degree. But then I remembered my favorite MacMu Aunt Charlotte (The Comm’s sister), who was an accomplished singer. A soprano. She actually USED her music degree although she also taught a third grade classroom for many years.

When she died, The Comm was really pissed off that Charlotte’s sendoff included a church ceremony with a bunch of choral music sung by the choir she had directed for many years. The Comm preferred a more subtle, “elegant” style of funeral. I actually thought it was a fitting sendoff given how much time she had spent with that choir. I think they missed Charlotte and it was a way of paying tribute.

Others? My trombonist brother was VERY talented, especially at jazz. He became an auto engineer but never stopped playing the trombone and even borrowed a tuba from his daughters’ high school to fool around with. Both my uncles Don were good amateur singers and I can remember the Sault Ste. Siberia uncle singing “Oh Holy Night” solo every xmas eve service. Maybe not Pavarotti but pretty darned good! Mom played the “puano” as a reasonable amateur. My old coot? Lemme see… Piano? He once played a short bit of a chromatic scale. Trombone? He once played taps. That’s about it unless you count his singing renditions of “You’re in the army now”. (You’re not behind the plow. You’ll never get rich, you son of a bitch. You’re in the army now.) Aaaaand… When I was really small he often did “scat” singing. Not bad at it if my baby memory is accurate.

That’s my brain dump for today. On to a couple GOT episodes. Cheers!

The GG is reading The Firekeeper’s Daughter. He’s a bit late to the game. I read it… When did I read it? March 2021 says goodreads. Fair enough.

He has mixed feelings about it. I did too but it was a good enough read that I gave it five stars. One of the best things about it was that it was set in my home town. I love reading books that have familiar landmarks. The young female protagonist ran along the escarpment shown in the pic and that was one of my walking routes when my parents were still alive and we stayed at their house when we traveled there in seasons when the moomincabin was closed. The sun is about to come up in the pic.

I was a bit sad that the South Side was never mentioned but it’s the authors story, not mine. The South Side is where I grew up and it is a big grid of streets and avenues. My grandparents lived there and the Boults and the Pingatores and the McInnesis and the Obermans and countless other people. And Aunt Marion’s grocery, owned by relatives of the Pingatores. Candy and popsicles and don’t go there when Uncle Angie is working because he’s a big grump. My grandparents had a pretty grand house on the south side but a lot of us lived in shabby little bungalows and the like.

We ran around like crazy, running and jumping and playing kickball and riding our bikes and doing crazy tricks on them. In the winter the basketball court across the street from my house was turned into an ice rink and for a while, we had a next door neighbor who made a big ice rink between our houses.

We had a bunch of elementary schools in Sault Ste. Siberia. I went to Stinkin’ Linkin’ across the street. There was also Washington, Garfield, McKinley, Jefferson and, a couple that honored local folks, Malcolm and, uh, Finlayson, named after my grandfather. I think the only ones left these days are Lincoln and Washington. McKinley was replaced by a fancy assisted living facility. Garfield is constantly targeted by developers to be morphed into apartments and stores, etc. but seems like nothing ever happens. Jefferson was torn down. Not sure about Malcolm but Finlayson is now a charter school owned by the tribe. My grandfather would probably have approved.

I have vague memories of attending the festivities surrounding the Finlayson School grand opening. I was in third grade. The Washington School sixth grade band played and my cousin Mac was in that band. The band was terrible according to The Commander. The story goes that it was so bad my dad was totally cracking up in silent laughter. The always proper (in those days) Comm was mortified until she noticed that my aunt Katie, a pillar of the family and community, was ALSO silently cracking up. Okay then…

I have been married to the GG for more years than I am strong enough to count but he doesn’t know enough about Sault Ste. Siberia geography to know where the South Side is. Oh well.

The weekend before last, it came to my attention that my ancient Roomba was running out of battery a little earlier than usual.

I went online to order a new battery but Oops… Dun dun dun… I got seduced by the NEW Roombas. So. I. Ordered. A. New. One. Just like that! Wow, is this one different than my old one!

For one thing, it doesn’t have roller brushes like the old ones did. Those things had to be cleaned EVERY damn time I used it (for best performance). My long fugly hair and any threads or whatever would get wrapped tightly around the brushes and I had to use a pair of scissors to cut it all out. Don’t ask but it was pretty gross albeit not vomit-inducing gross. But I would always “birthday wash” my hands after a cleaning session. This one? The brushes have been replaced by, well, I’m not sure what they are made of, silicon or something maybe. I don’t know because I haven’t even opened the “brush cage” yet. Why? Because she CLEANS HERSELF! That tower there holds a vacuum bag and when Roooomba senses that she is full, she returns to her charging station and WHOOSH! Everything gets sucked up the tower and into the bag. If she hasn’t finished her route, she continues until she is finished.

And how do I know when I need new bags (or a battery or whatever). There is an app. Of COURSE there is an APP. Nowadays there is an app for everything and then some. It keeps a history of Rooomba’s runs and will notify me when she needs new parts or maintenance. Kinda like Cygnus does.

A Teal Couch bonus? I was hanging out on my teal yesterday and Rooomba was running and I realized that she was running BEHIND ME! That meant she was UNDER THE COUCH. NOTHING could get under the Green Couch.

I did order a new battery for my old Roomba and some other replacement parts (brushes, filter, etc.). I thought I would offer her to the beach urchins (if either of them wanted her). Alas, I cannot get her to work properly. I am NOT mechanically inclined at all so maybe the GG will eventually spend some time troubleshooting and figure out if she can be fixed.

Disclaimers: 1) She doesn’t have anything to do with the terlet. I just think she and her charging base make a sorta terlet shape when they are connected. 2) This is not an official product review and I do not get any compensation from iRobot. This is my third Roomba and I happen to love them. Why drag a big heavy Hoover around if you don’t have to. And I do own a Hoover. I own at least five vacuum cleaners but that would be a whole ‘nother story.

The Easter Grinch was covid and we had a bit of a scare that threatened our Easter celebration. In the end it was a false alarm and the weather was so gorgeous that we sat in the back yard around a little faaar until Mr. Golden Sun dipped low enough toward the horizon that we started getting chilly.

I am over my intense fear of getting covid. I’ve had it and I don’t think it will kill me (knock on wood). But people do still die from it, not to mention that grocery and other service workers have to deal with the reality that if they test positive, they cannot go to work even if they are asymptomatic. Some of them get paid time off, others do not. I wish everyone would still take covid seriously and try not to pass it around. Same with other cold-like viruses.

We observe Easter in a secular way. My facebook feed on Easter is always filled with pictures of Jesus with “He has risen” captions. This is balderdash to me. I didn’t even believe it when I was a Sunday School child. I know there are probably symbolic aspects to this story but I didn’t understand them then and I don’t understand them now. I totally support others who believe in Jesus’s resurrection. Freedom to believe in whatever religion one wants to is part of our country’s foundation. And I mean ANY religion, even those that are not popular with white Christian conservatives. And yes I know “white Christian conservatives” is a stereotype.

The flowers are Siberian squill (I think) and they are the first wildflowers I have seen in “my” woods this spring. I’ll be looking for trout lily next. Stay tuned.

This is the Green Couch’s final resting place. Recycle Ann Arbor’s drop-off station. They do also recycle things here but alas the Green Couch was destined for the landfill. I mean the city landfill, not my own personal landfill, aka my house.

The GG says this couch is 100 years old. I’m not sure if that’s true or if he’s joking but if I have it right, it wasn’t new when the cFam parents (aka *his* parents) adopted it. They raised 10 children in their house in Royal Joke and when they moved to Fla (and didn’t take it with them), the GG was a bit bereft. I did not want the couch. I HATE that color for one thing and yeah I know it couldda been reupholstered. In fact his mom and grandma (her mom) did reupholster it once. I am not that handy with large-scale sewing and at the time, we couldn’t afford a professional job. I think we did have the main seat cushion fixed at some point.

One of his “selling points” for me accepting the Green Couch was, “Every person in my family has been sick on it.” Despite that, I did accept it into our home and eventually made my peace with it. Heck, I’ve even been sick on it a few times, including one HORRIBLE vomiting virus during which I was sucking ice slivers to stay hydrated. (I didn’t vomit on the couch.)

From time to time I have (jokingly) asked the cFam at large if anyone wanted to adopt it. A niece adopted a bunch of other old cFam furniture (end tables and such, that stuff drives me NUTS) but no one wanted the Green Couch.

Last week MMCB asked me if it was worth donating to someone who would actually USE it. I hemmed and hawed. It is definitely functional but it would need a LOT of cleaning and fixing up for someone to take it into their home. I have seen crappy old couches advertised (for free) on next door neighbor as dog couches to keep out in the garage. I suppose we could have tried that but in the end the path of least resistance was to U-Haul it off to the “drop-off center”. You pay your money and they take if off your hands no questions asked and minimal interpersonal interaction.

So. The end of an era or two or three. I love the new Teal Couch but I am getting accustomed to a different form factor. It’s okay, I’ll manage 🤣