Although I am not counting my “sickens” yet because I think heard the S word somewhere down the road. For today I think it got up into or close to the 70s. Enough that I was able to soak up some rays in the back yard after work this afternoon.

Which. What I was doing today involves the SWIFT network. You may have heard about that in the news a bit lately? Related to blocking Russia from doing business. Normally most people don’t hear about SWIFT at all. We handle a bit of SWIFT stuff at my work (not likely with Russia) and it can be pretty confusing if you aren’t a SWIFT Wizard. We have some SWIFT Wizards but I am not one of them. But I have a knack for understanding file formats and that’s largely what I’m doing. So I am, again, looking through our old internal documentation to figger out what the heck we are doing. But who knows what I’ll be doing tomorrow…

All the while I was doing this the GG was washing windows and other external things. It was fine and it badly needed doing but it was nerve racking to keep wondering when he was gonna pop up on the other side of my teleCubelandia window. He’s now wondering how many square feet of window glass we have. I dunno. Go measure it 🐽

Apparently the Haisley Garden is A Thing again! Yay! This garden was created waaaay after my time as an esteemed officer of the Haisley PTO. I would have begged off helping with it back then because I have a Black Thumb. But I love it and it seems more successful than the bit of “prairie” that was created with great fanfare back when I was on the PTO. I dunno if we really HAVE prairies in the Great Lake State. Seems to me like our biome, left alone, would revert to deep forests.

Anyway, the garden was a going concern for a few years. And then 2020 hit. No garden at all that year. I mean, we were all washing our groceries and taping off playground equipment. Don’t touch ANYTHING. Anything but wearing masks, which might’ve helped slow the spread. Um, noooooo, now we know it’s an aerosolized virus. Maybe we’d’ve figgered that out sooner if The Former Guy had not been our “dear leader”. I don’t remember what happened with the garden in 2021. I think probably nothing. In-person school didn’t happen until spring and I’m sure EVERYONE was too stressed out to think about the garden, at least not in an organized way.

So this is a good thing and I will be checking the garden out regularly. Cheers!

And yes, it was. In weird little ways. And don’t continue reading unless you don’t mind watching paint dry.

First, I got to do TWO NYT spelling bees today! I did the spelling bee and eventually got to Queen Bee after nailing down a couple of stragglers.

When I texted 👸🐝 to the beach urchins, they replied that they had a NEW BEE! I knew what was going on. After I get to Queen Bee, I allow myself to look at the COMMENTS. I don’t look at them earlier because some people post SPOILERS, usually unintentionally but still. Turns out that when some folks (not us) opened the bee this morning, it was already completed. So they posted a NEW bee.

At least one of the beach urchins hadn’t gotten the first pangram by the time the new bee was posted so I told them it was “lavatory”, which wasn’t a spoiler any more. I won’t say what the pangram for the second bee was.

Not to outdo myself, I MADE THE SMOKE ALARM AT THE TOP OF THE DUNGEON STAIRS GO OFF TODAY! Yes. I was broiling breaded eggplant slices for eggplant parm and after I flipped them, I set my phone timer for five minutes. BUT I FORGOT TO HIT START. I know that they weren’t in there more than about a minute too long but as I was realizing I needed to take them out NOW and started scurrying to the kitchen, the smoke alarm went off.

At least we know it works. I don’t think it’s connected to the shit show of four alarms within 10 feet or so. This battery had been dead for I dunno how long and the GG replaced it a couple weeks ago. He has told me a couple times now that the alarm at the top of the dungeon stairs is probably the most important one. Non-scientist that I am, I KNEW THAT. I am always happy when a smoke alarm goes off when it actually detects SMOKE (and there was barely any of that) and not randomly in the middle of the night. Bah humbug.

If you look closely. It’s above the She Shed between two sizeable branches sticking out to the right.

Much better weather today although it started out cold. I eyeballed Cygnus in the driveway at 0-skunk-30 and saw that her veeeensheeeld was frosted. Oh well. I didn’t need to do any Egregious Idling because I didn’t go out until 10AM because that’s when Old Jazz starts up on WEMU. By that time, it was clear.

My spy mission of the day was to drive down to Cubelandia and take a look. I dunno why. I knew nobody would be there. Our end of the building is totally empty and there would be no reason for anyone to be there. The landlord told Amazon Woman he didn’t expect it to rent any time soon. It’s odd that despite a number of existing empty buildings, a fancy-looking new building has been built over the last couple years. This is not just since the pandemic. It’s been going on for years. All that said, our building was nothing fancy, just a sorta shabby cube farm, except for the ponds and nature areas. Maybe other folks need more specialized facilities.

I remember when I went there to interview for my job. I walked in and wondered if I could work there. I’d had a cube of sorts in my childhood career but that was nothing like this cube farm. Going on 15 years later from that interview, obviously the answer turned out to be Yes.

After that I took Textile west from South State until it ended, then angled up and around to Swan Corners and eventually up through Dexter and home. Lotsa dirt roads, which Cygnus handles very well as long as her driver stays away from potholes but the details are boring so you don’t really want to know them.

Mr. Golden Sun was out all day in a cloudless sky no less. This afternoon we got up to the upper 50s and that meant I could hang out in the back yard soaking up some rays. It was HOT for a while until it wasn’t and at that point I decamped to the the Landfill interior.

And now the GG is home again with all of his detritus. He came home with various food items including a bag of salad, which I avoid buying but it’s been opened and he doesn’t seem sick so I’ll give it a go. At least he took a shower before attempting to get anywhere near me. I think it’s been a couple days 🐽🐽🐽

I hate this kind of weather. It’s not really all that cold (39 or so) but it feels bone-chilling. Gray and windy. It’s April and even though I know better than to wish for it, I do wish for just a little warmer air. 50s maybe? That would be okay. Maybe tomorrow? Not getting my hopes up.

I finished the book Mecca. I liked it although I dunno if it would be everyone’s cuppa. I wanted an epilogue for one thing. Anyway, this Mecca is in California, not Saudi Arabia. There was a lot of talk about the heat there and I don’t wish for triple digit temps. EVER. I did like that the author incorporated the coronavirus into the story in what I thought was a realistic way. It rang true to my experiences and didn’t take over the story.

I had to laugh yesterday when my two Indian-American colleagues asked if I was in the yooperland. I explained that the moomincabin is a rustic structure that is not winterized (no central heat or insulation). We have to close it for the winter. They wondered about the pipes so I explained that we drain them in the fall and pour antifreeze down the terlet, etc. Then I explained about the MOUNTAIN of snow in the driveway/parking area. They’ve both been living in the northern USA for many years so are very familiar with snow but I don’t think they can imagine the amount of snow the yooperland gets. I’ll have to send them a mini-slideshow.

Off-topic and not politically correct but this reminded me of a kindergarten friend of one of the beach urchins. Her dad is from India and once when she was over here, she told us about her heritage. She made sure to inform us that he was from the Indian subcontinent and not a Native American by saying, “He’s *east* Indian, not *wild* Indian.”

I grew up in an area with a lot of Native Americans and NO people from India. I *talk* to people IN India every day now. I don’t need to tell you that there are “wild” folks with every possible DNA combination. But it was funny.

P.S. The pic is from the GG and is the lower Tahquamenon Falls.

That’s what you get for buying a car during a pandemic I guess.

I shoulda remembered she has a moon roof. She has everything else under the sun including a whole lotta stuff I routinely turn off if “someone” has turned it on. I love Cygnus. She’s beautiful. But, like all late model cars, she is a nanny. I don’t need to be told when it is cold enough for snow and ice. I don’t need to be told when I am out of my lane. if I AM out of my lane, there is a darn good reason for it. Like I’m giving a bi-cyclist some space or avoiding a dead deer or a BIG pothole. Gah.

BTW, the pic is not Cygnus, it’s Mooon Yooonit and the Lyme Lounge and they are up at Tahq where it is apparently snowing as it does in the yooperland nine or 10 months of the year. Mooon Yooonit has a moon roof for sure. I remember that though I had even less to do with her purchase than I did with Cygnus.

So a sorta slodgy Friday work day interrupted by crazy little events. Like in the late morning, I heard this big KABLAM noise somewhere outside the front door. What the…? We have a lot of trees around here and twice we have had one fall on our house. I was here the first time and this big bang wasn’t anywhere near as loud as that but still. I nervously opened the front door and… Kerflufflyfluffle whoosh! I had flushed two BIG birds (hawks maybe, I couldn’t tell) and they were madly circling around the driveway. I was freaked out enough that I quickly went back inside. A bit later my recycle cart got picked up and when I went out to get that, I flushed them again from a spot where they were nestled next to my garbage cart. This time they flew away and didn’t come back. I dunno. Did they hit the wall or something? Cygnus seems okay although she is DIRTY from a wee spy mission I went on yesterday.

And then. We had hail. Henrietta (rabbit) was scrambling around under the bushes just on the other side of the window from teleCubelandia. It was bitsy little hail and she was okay and I was entertained.

We are doing virtual Oscar Tango tonight, which surprised me because the GG is at Tahq, where there has NEVER been internet access EVER before. We always had to drive to Paradise to check in with folks or post pics or whatever. Apparently there is wifi at Tahq now? What is up with that?

P.S. COVID cases are again rising in Washtenaw County. Mask up, avoid crowded places (especially indoor ones), and get vaxxed. I knew this would happen and I am sooooo tired of it. Sigh.

I am not here to harangue about peace tonight. As much as I wish for world peace I have been around long enough to know that it’s probably impossible. Not that those of us who care can’t continue to work toward it in whatever ways we can.

I took this photoooo five years ago at Fool Moon, an April Planet Ann Arbor event that I can’t really describe well so hope the link helps. It involves puppets and fancy luminaries held aloft on sticks. Costumes and glow-sticks and all kinds of stuff. Pre-covid, when we used to eat at the Oscar Tango (or wherever) on Friday nights, we would walk through the Fool Moon festivities after dinner. Unless it was raining (or snowing).

This photo was taken on a beautiful night and we left on a road trip to Crazy Old Florida the next morning. We had a beautiful spot on Long Boat Key (gulf side) in a nicely modernized retro motor hotel. Our sister The Beautiful Suzie (TBS) gave us a beach care package when we got in to town, sunscreen and a kite and I fergit what else. We also visited Snooty the Manatee at his Bradenton museum aquarium home.

TBS and Snooty are both dead now. The GG has been to Fla a few times since then to deal with “stuff”. I only went on one of those trips, to help rescue our brother FlaMan from his impossible living situation. We did not stay out at the beach that time but we had wonderful lodgings at a brand new Best Western in the city of Bradenton from where I telecommuted a lot of the time. When we landed in Bradenton, we landed at a Home Depot with a broken down vee-hickle (a whole ‘nother story) and I got a red tide alert on my phone. I do not EVER get red tide alerts on my phone. I could write a BOOK about that trip but I won’t. You’re welcome.

All of this was a bummer but I’m not trying to make this post a bummer. Life goes on and we have continued on with it. FlaMan is safe near family now. I miss TBS and Snooty but by that time, I had already lost my entire childhood nuclear family (parents and brother, only sibling) and I was kind of accustomed to visits by the grim reaper.

But hey! Ketanji was confirmed! I know a lot of folks are gonna say she was only confirmed because she’s Black. Um, did y’all listen to her responses to the grilling she got? I for one was impressed, especially when some people grilled her about totally irrelevant topics. Also, why can’t we hire people because of their qualifications and not because of their skin color or gender or whatever?

Oh well. Done done done.

The GG is chompin’ at the bit to hike in the yooperland and the northern lower. The problem is weather although that may mitigate a bit soon. For the life of me I cannot figger the weather forecasts this week. For today he was in Gaylord and it was raining like crazy. Given that he’s in Gaylord, it could be snowing eight (or twelve) inches. A few years ago I was driving the Ninja from the yooperland down to the Planet Ann Arbor in the middle of MAY and Old Man Winter threw a snowball at me in Gaylord. The freeway was so crappy (whiteout) that I took the northern exit and drove through town knowing it would clear up on the south side, which it did.

The pic was taken eight years ago. It was 2014, the Polar Vortex winter. People seem to forget about that winter. I don’t know how they can. I had a glacier in my southeast Michigan back yard until the middle of April. We get snow here in April but not snowbanks.

We were hiking in the yooperland in this pic. Some people were wearing snowshoes. We were not. It didn’t make much of a difference. Those of us who did NOT have snowshoes were “post-holing” down into deep snow. Snowshoes sunk down below the soft, deep snow so people had to lift up their WET snow-laden snowshoes. Take your choice, I guess.

…I must be crazy. Because I keep thinking it’s Thursday. Which is trash day. As I moved Cygnus into the driveway this afternoon, I kept thinking I had to park her strategically so I could roll the carts down to the street without running them into her mirrors.

But no, it’s not Thursday. Anyway, I have a weekly reminder at 4:00 PM set on my phone to put the SMELLY stuff in the garbage. That’s because I freeze things like chicken bones and shrimp shells until garbage day. That way I (usually) only have to put out one kitchen bag of actual garbage each week. Hey, it’s a game! The Garbage Game.

I know of other people besides me who do/did this. Radical Betty froze garbage because back in the day when the beach community had to take their garbage to the dump. They took turns driving it there and she didn’t want other people to have to smell her garbage. A few years ago I learned that my NCT friend Greg (alive and kicking) also froze his garbage. I fergit his reasons but they were similar to mine.

We won’t talk about how many times I have had to ‘splain to the GG why I am putting a baggy of shrimp shells in the freezer.

Does the fact that I am using a ziploc bag to freeze things balance out the kitchen bags I am NOT using? That’s not part of the game yet.

If you were wondering, yes, the Garbage Game is kind of an anal retentive game 💩💩💩

From Old Man Winter. I took this photo when I figgered the snow clumps were about at their biggest. Not too long after this the snow turned into rain and there is no white in sight this evening. That’s April here in the Great Lake State.

The book I couldn’t put down over the weekend was “Water For Elephants”. It’s been around for a while but I hadn’t read it before and apparently there is also a movie that I haven’t seen. The few reviews I saw on Goodreads were not that good. People were complaining about the romantic entanglement of a couple of “star-crossed” lovers and a lack of character development in general.

I dunno if I can put this in words. First. Yeah, the main romantic entanglement may not have been described in totally eloquent terms and the female love interest was probably not fleshed out very well. Or was she? To me, this was an “action” story. That relationship was important but how many other kinds of relationships did this novel describe? Person-to-person. Person-to-aminal! Not to mention some inter-generational human relationships. And the coming of age story of the protagonist.

I also love circus novels. This is a relatively tame one compared to “Geek Love” where the mad scientist circus owner did his best to beget circus freaks (yes really). “Geek Love” may not be for everyone and I would do some serious googling before reading it.

But circus life in general, at least back in the 1920s is interesting and I think this author did a good job of researching that and incorporating it into this story.

I don’t mean EVER. I mean that if you are in the Westgate Kroger (you know who you are) and you find yourself reaching for zesty Italian dressing, you better call KW. She will do a quick inventory and tell you exactly how many bottles of zesty Italian dressing are already at the Landfill. Not to mention whatever might be in the Lyme Lounge but I am not gonna bother to look out there.

I cleaned the refrigerator today. Oh don’t worry, there really weren’t any science experiments in there today. I was remorseful about throwing out a small container of goat cheese (looked fine but two months past the date) and some packaged fresh herbs that I bought a few weeks ago that were looking pretty wilted. I do keep up with the fridge these days and except around holidays and our end-of-summer return from the moomin there isn’t usually a whole lot in there because we don’t eat huge amounts of food and the GG is often outta town. I eat leftovers then and when I get low on those, I get prepared or semi-prepared stuff from Plum.

But still. Today I found FOUR bottles of zesty Italian. I can’t quiiiite combine even two of those bottles. I don’t really buy store-bought salad dressing very often. Usually I make balsamic or sometimes red wine viniagrette from “scratch”. I could make those ZESTY but I usually don’t.

I AM NOT COMPLAINING that the GG buys bottled salad dressing. I KNOW why he does it. If you are rattling around camping in a 13-foot trailer, you are trying to conserve space and a bottle of prepared dressing takes up less space than bottles of oil and vinegar and whatever herbs you might need. I would be doing the same thing. Also he uses zesty Italian to marinate things and it’s a great marinade.

All I am saying is we need to get more organized about camping vs. household grocks.

So this isn’t what’s going on tonight although we are having a ‘hattan.

I went to the farmers market this morning for the first time since sometime in the fall. I was enticed by a Sparrow Market facebook “story” about blueberry maple sausages more than anything and I got those plus a whole chicken. The farmers market is not anywhere near Full Swing but I did manage to snag some good looking potatoes. There was a lot of other good stuff but that’s all I needed today.

It’s been forever since I have had to pay a parking meter down there. The meters don’t accept money until 8:00 AM, which is when the winter market opens. So of course I had to set up my ePark payment information *again* so it was probably five minutes before I could actually get outta Cygnus, parking paid for without fishing around for quarters, which I only use at the Up North Laundromat in the summer.

The GG got on a deep cleaning roll today and Pine Sol is his preferred cleaner so you know what the Landfill smells like now. I hate the smell of Pine Sol but I am glad he did this today even though it drove me a bit nuts. I am okay at day to day cleaning but not so much at deep cleaning, although the chitchen needed that. In particular, the glass items on top of the cabinets needed to be taken down and cleaned and the shelf they occupy vacuumed and washed. I *thought* I was helping by cleaning all of those glass items but later on, I caught him rubbing them down with Pine Sol. Okay. Nothing I do is right or something like that. Still glad it’s done and I’m trying to resolve my feelings of inadequacy for not being more help. But when the GG and/or his twin get going on something, sometimes it’s better to stay outta the fray.

It’s difficult these days to navigate everyone’s ideas about what is covid safe. We are vaxxed and have had the frickin’ scourge here. On one hand I feel kind of immune. On the other hand, the last thing I want to do is hang out in a downtown restaurant on a Friday night with a whole bunch of people who may or may not be vaxxed, etc. etc. etc. People may be done with covid but I don’t think it’s done with us.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle yesterday when it came to light that the GG thought that I would be ready to go to a RESTAURANT DOWNTOWN on a FRIDAY NIGHT on April Fools Day. Um, no? I NEVER said I would do that. It is April Fools Day. It is Fool Moon. Downtown will be slammed. Not going there. I finally said that he was welcome to go down there if he wanted to but I would not accompany him.

He backed off and we porterized ourselves in person over here at the Landfill instead. We had a loverly faaaar (except when it was spitting sparks all over the carpet). I wasn’t really prepared to cook for company today so we ordered Chinese and that was really good. Yes, we got General Tso.

That’s about all I have to say for now. Earlier in the evening, a beach urchin texted wondering where my blahg was. So for whatever it’s worth, here it is.

G’night. KW

I randomly looked at GooMaps last night to see if my loverly old Ninja was still visible in the Cubelandia parking lot. Yes. Yes it is. See the red arrow.

I parked in that spot for most of my tenure at that place, which was going on 13 years. I am going on 15 years as an employee, a fact that astounds me and astounded my boss when we veered off on a tangent during a meeting yesterday. When people ask me how I ended up at this job I always say something like “totally by accident”. That’s not exactly true but a series of sorta random decisions on my part plus some serendipity and a bit of hard work led to it.

The beginning was one day when me and UKW got done with one more swim and kayak ride at the moomincabin, had tea with our mooms, and drove down to the Planet Ann Arbor where she and the GG went out to eat and I went to my first class of the current semester at the community college I had been attending for a couple years. In the Internet Professional program.

It was a “capstone” class and somewhat to my dismay, we were told that we would be assigned to various area companies as interns. I wasn’t sure I wanted that. At the end of the class, the prof gave me the dreaded “see me” thing. The deal was, he had assigned me (alone) to a company that wanted to PAY its interns. It was like $12/hour and I had to interview and I was TERRIFIED but I sucked it up and the LSCHP hired me.

Toward the end of the three month term of my internship… You guessed it. They approached me with a full-time job offer. Oh man. Do I want this? We could certainly use the money but we weren’t poor and I loved my lifestyle of gallivanting up to the moomincabin, etc., whenever I wanted to. Plus, The Commander was not getting any younger and my dad and brother were dead. Could I handle her declining years from a five hour drive away working a full-time job?

In the end money talks pretty loud and here I am… It wasn’t easy the last year of The Comm’s life but my boss greatly valued family and understood my difficult situation and gave me a LOT of leeway, knowing by then that I would do what I could throughout and pick up where I left off after it was all over. (I also had a LOT of help from the GG and some of my cousins.)

This is what our parking lot looked like on a day when most people were working in person so you can probably tell a couple of things. 1) Why I could park in the same place every day. 2) Why our company switched our entire local work force to permanent telecommuters and closed the building a bit after covid hit. Back in the day, a coveted perk at the headquarters (in another state) was a parking spot close to the building. Once, one of our local folks won that perk. And laughed about it since we never had a problem finding parking spaces.

So that’s my loverly old vee-hickle there and there are likely no vee-hickles in that lot nowadays because our end of the building is empty.

I was talking online with MMCB today and I was talking about my childhood dog Tigger a bit. She was a fantastic dog. When I was a kid, we would drive to the moomincabin (the Cabin, as we called it then) and when we got to Birch Point Road, which was gravel at that time, my dad would take Tigger’s collar off, let her outta the car and let her GOOOOO! And she did. She knew we were close to the cabin and she ran like a bat outta hell all the way down the road to our two-track road to the moomincabin and the beach and wherever. The cabin was heaven to her and she didn’t wear her collar again until we returned to town.

We never leashed her at the cabin and nobody else leashed their doggos either. Tigger was a friendly dog except she didn’t like the milkman or our friend Kevin very much. She did protect our cat Twinkle and her litter of kittens like crazy. She got more and more socialized as she grew up and in her later years, she would approach strangers on the beach slowly with her tail wagging and a friendly face. I like you, will you pet me?

Life with pets is different now and beach people leash their pets. This is not a bad thing. I remember a time when our beloved friend Barb’s unleashed golden retriever snagged Velvet, a mouse puppet, from my Mouse. I tackled the dog and pried its jaws apart to retrieve Velvet. Was that a smart thing to do? Maybe not…

Anyway, Tigger was my one and only dog. She was a stray we adopted when I was six and terrified of dogs. After a few hours with Tigger, I completely lost that fear forever. When I was 19, I was taking off for my sophomore year at college with my grandma’s old car (Ford Fairlane and I only got to keep it for Labor Day weekend). I was in the moomincabin driveway when my parents told me to say goodbye to my dog. I did.

I have never had a dog since. It’s okay. I am not upset about that. I have occasionally borrowed my brother’s and the Uncly Uncle’s dogs. That’s always been enough for me.

The GG camped in O-haaa-o this winter, including during a bomb cyclone. So he got a little cocky and figgered he could camp in the yooperland. In the moomincabin DRIVEWAY/PARKING LOT. He could plug the Lyme Lounge into the moomincabin lucky-shucky. Hmmm… In early April? Um… I was beyond skeptical.

Today my cousin sent this photo. It is taken from our front deck looking over at the Old Cabin. Camping? At the moomincabin? This weekend? This photo was a coincidence. We had been planning to ask our cousins how the snow conditions were up there but hadn’t yet gotten around to it. This did not surprise me one iota. This big snowdrift is typical for this time of year. Occasionally we get a year when enough snow has melted that we can drive in at this time of year. I didn’t think this was one of those years and I was right.

The year-round relatives on our two-track hire someone to plow the road and their driveways. Our place is not winterized so we don’t bother. If we need to make a short stop there, we can usually park behind the garage, which is right next to the road and sheltered. But we can’t get through those huge driveway drifts and I’m gonna bet the snowplow service might look askance at it too. A special prodject maybe?

So there are plenty of places the GG probably CAN camp in the yooperland and he can also stay at motels if he can’t camp.

Photo credit to my cousin Judd, who lives next door to the moomincabin. He’s a wonderful, fun guy (I remember when he was born) and we are thankful that he and his parents and others keep at least a loose eye on the moomin when we’re not there. Like if it isn’t on faaaar, it’s probably okay. That’s all we really need/expect. Close to 100 years for our fam to own this property and we all still get along! 🧡🧡🧡

I could count up all of our great nieces and nephews if I wanted to bother but I’m not gonna do that tonight. We have a lot of them. We love them all, as we love their parents. Another great niece was born today. I won’t tell you the details. I don’t KNOW the details. The details aren’t any of my business.

The baby was born in our local hospital and when the GG finally found about the birth, I felt like I had to hold him back from going downtown to visit. Um. The hoosegow will have covid protocols in place and will NOT let a great uncle in. Poor poor GG. He LOVES babies. It was announced on facebook and the GG only sporadically looks at facebook so he didn’t see it until I pointed it out.

We didn’t call our nephew to congratulate him. Here in the social media days, our nephew has 400 facebooks likes/comments and counting. He is going to be busy for a few days, mostly with his lovely significant other and their baby. He does not need to deal with a bunch of folks calling him up.

This is different from back in the day when we welcomed our own children into the world. After Lizard Breath was born, the GG high-tailed it over to Bubs and Harry’s house to tell them. My Dear Uncle Harry (who loves babies) pointed out that the GG was still wearing the slipper thingies he was issued at the hoosegow.

Mouse came a little earlier than we expected, like “I wanna get outta here”. She was three weeks early but VERY healthy. The grandparents got down in time to help take care of both my kids and (with npJane) we planned a surprise for Bubs and Harry and Radical Betty who had just returned from a European trip or whatever. We arrived at Chez Harry with our newborn Mouse in arms. My Dear Uncle Harry (who loves babies) whispered, “Boy or girl?” I answered, “Girl”. Radical Betty told me later, “I loved her as soon as I saw her.”

We haven’t met our new great niece yet but we already love her.

Oh gawd, another frigid blustery day. What did I get done today. Not much.

I cleaned my Office. My office is a basket. It contains:

— pens (that I rarely use)
— envelopes (a few)
— postage stamps (frogs! grok grok grok 🐸🐸🐸)
— scotch tape
— styluses for using my phone in ice-cold weather without taking my glubs off
— a book of checks for the 2-3 times a year I have to write a check (hey, if they’re not at hand, I’ll forget where they are)
— make-up (don’t ask) and a couple other things like antibiotic cream and After Bite (even though it’s not bug season)
— scissors (sewing, utility, and nail)
— my covid vax card
— a bunch of sewing tools for when I finally FORCE myself to do some mending prodjects
— I fergit what else

A sewing pin disaster was what prompted me to clean my office. I had a spill so there were pins all over the basket. Then the cheapo plastic pin box BROKE so I managed to gather all the pins, schlepped them to the dungeon, grabbed that blue magnetic thingy and put some of the pins on it.

Then there was the UNFO (unidentified NON-flying object) that maybe I’ll blahg about if and when we figger out how the heck it ended up at the Landfill. I swear, it’s hard enough to fling your own stuff that you at least sorta know is around. When things randomly show up that you have no clue where they came from?

After I found the UNFO, I found a cloth LL Bean travel bag with various pairs of tights in it plus a doubled-up set of glubs. I JUST ORDERED eight pairs of new tights. This is stuff I HAVEN’T UNPACKED FROM SUMMER! I was disorganized last summer. It wasn’t covid brain fog (I hadn’t had covid yet) and it wasn’t early-onset dementia. Just. I do not have words.

I dunno if the tights are clean or dirty but they’re in the laundry now along with the Bean bag.

You’re in the laundry now
You’re not behind the plow.
You’ll never get rich you son-of-a-bitch.
You’re in the laundry now.

Sorry. (Grok grok squee-grok! I want some londry detergent! Yer friend, Froooggy 🐸🐸🐸)

It’s beef, not lamb, mainly because Plum doesn’t ALWAYS have lamb (no complaints!) and I haven’t been down to Sparrow lately. Need to get there!

Anyway, I schlepped over to the plum in Cygnus this morning. It was snowing to beat the band but at 35 degrees, the roads were not slippery. In any case, it’s only a few blocks. I got all the way up to the door WITHOUT my mask AGAIN (this is the second time), so I scurried back to Cygnus to snag it. When I got BACK up to the door, my fave cashier J was sneaking outside to catch a pic of the snowfall. She (cheerfully) blamed it on me and I couldn’t deny that I may have caused it, yooper that I am.

All the cashiers at Plum are great but I use the UScan whenever J is not there because I am a UScan Ninja. But J and I are kindred spirits and when the woman who was bagging suggested I could relax for a bit and let her bag, J said something like, “No she doesn’t really relax. She’s a lot like me.” We both bagged.

So morning was good for me but in general it was a crappy day, at least weather-wise. The snow settled down but it was one of those fugly blustery cold days that we get in the spring season (well, any season really). The GG was haaaaannggging around until he wasn’t. He did NOT make any trips to the hardware store today (alas) but he did decamp to the Lyme Lounge to listen to a couple of podcasts. I got some chores done and I am reading a goooood boooook. More on that later…

Spring has arrived in the eastern yooperland in the form of the Soo Locks opening up for the season. The locks close January 15 (I think) and open at mignight on March 25th. In between that time, the locks workers make repairs. Some of the locks have to be de-watered for that to happen. This bote was the first bote through the locks some years ago. I can’t remember what it was. The Speer was the first one through today. Upbound.

Years ago when The Commander was still around, we were staying at her house, as we always did. I got up early and walked down to the locks on the first day it was open. It was after 911 but the locks park seemed to be open at 7:30 or whenever. So I walked up to the entrance and when I was met by a security person, I said, “Hello, I am your first tourist!” He looked at me like I was nuts but since I didn’t have anything in my mini-purse besides my iPhone and some credit cards, he had how choice but to let me in.

Of course I was not a tourist. I was born in Sault Ste. Siberia. In War Memorial Hospital where (according to The Commander) they apparently packaged me in a “dirty” paper bag… … ??? I was a robustly healthy baby and I know more about my little brother’s quite traumatic birth than mine but we’ll do that another time. So although I was not a tourist, I knew the folks who worked at the locks would not know that nor would they have a clue who cute little newborn meeeee once was. Or care.

Congratulations to the Edgar Speer for being the first great lake freighter through the Soo Locks for the season. Looking forward to seeing it from the moominbeach this summer.

When you can’t think of anything to blaaaaaahhhhhgggg about, sometimes it helps to go back through old photoooos. In this case, VERY old photos, as in taken via our first digital camera, the Sony Mavica. It saved photos on FLOPPY DISKS so I was forever schlepping around extra disks plus batteries, double As I think.

So, this photo is of a couple young yaggots in a production of “The Revenge of the Space Pandas or Binky Rudich and the Two-Speed Clock”. I don’t normally post pics of people without their permission but one of them is my kiddo and I know the other kiddo but this is sooooo old, both of these people are successful adults now. Hahahaha! I DOOO remember this particular kid once when my mouse had her learner’s permit and was driving us to a rehearsal. His mom was passing us on Stadium and he was in the front passenger seat of her car and I will never forget his face when he realized that MOUSE IS DRIVING! Anyway, after she got her legal license*, he and other kids rode with her many times to and from rehearsals and cast parties usually in The Indefatigable (1992 basic Jeep Wrangler) but sometimes the POC (1996 Island Teal Chrysler minivan).

Anyway, did we perform this play at the “verushky” house (formerly the UU Church until it went mega) or did we perform it at the Ann Arbor Academy? I can’t remember but it was a small, improvised venue in any case. I don’t really remember much about the plot but I remember we had soooo much fun doing this play. I think the panda kids had a lot to say about their costumes and eventually those with long enough hair made panda-like pigtails but I couldn’t find a pic of that tonight.

I was never into drama as a child but when it was offered to one of my kids, she glommed onto it big time and then the rest of us got into it too. My “role” was never much to do with what was going on on-stage although I spent a lot of time running around backstage. For one play I was a one-person orchestra, riffing off some virtuoso French flute music alone in the orchestra pit at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre.

Mostly I kept track of data and money, etc. Rehearsal dates/times, cast lists, tickets, programs, you name it. If I could do it on or with my computer, I owned it. Miss those days sometimes. Oddly enough my beach urchins never seemed freaked out about having their moom around at their preferred extra-curricular activity. I did try to stay out of their business though.

*The GG taught our kids (and our nieces and friends and cousins of all degrees) to drive WELL before legal driving age on an abandoned airbase in the yooperland. My kids also took drivers ed as SOON AS THEY WERE ELIGIBLE. The more supervised experience the better before driving solo.