The Jim Fin (as I am calling it) is a nature trail named after my late brother. It is located on land our family used to own and there’s a long story involved that I won’t go into today.

My cousin UKW and I walked the nature trail today. At a certain point on the trail, you take a turn onto a path with straight lines of pine trees on either side. This is my dad’s friend Lewie Read’s pine plantation. I kind of remember the prehistory of this. There was a big barren area along the way down the road to our beach. Lewie planted pine trees and they grew and eventually they became tall like in the pic.

I posted this pic on Instagram and then out of curiosity, I flipped over to the Round Island Nature Preserve location. There are soooo many versions of this picture out there including some snow pics and others that I have taken.

We had flying pig tonight. That means that we grilled a couple dcuk breasts and warmed up a couple pork chops from yesterday. Rice, salad, and gloppy mushrooms. Yeah, I know how to make a roux. Roight. It’s okay. We’ll use it later in the week prob’ly.

This was this morning after I walked the beach and was hanging out on our bench. Eventually I cooked a bunch of bacon and some hash browns and left people to make their own eggs or whatever.

This was a day of leave-taking, which is always difficult. When I used to visit the moomin when I had little kids, The Commander would always get freaked out that I might forget something and would follow me around trying to make sure I didn’t fergit this and that and the other thing. This strategy caused me to totally lose focus such that I DID FERGIT THINGS! I eventually learned to give The Comm a grocery bag that she could put things she thought I might forget into. And that worked.

My strategy is to hang out on the beach or the deck while people pack. Stay outta the fray. And that’s what I did today. I was sorry to see my adult children leave today and I miss them terribly but I’ll see them on the Planet Ann Arbor soon enough.

And then… At the end of the day, my cuz UKW and her son came over and demanded ‘hattans. Of course I was up to that task. We had so much fun talking. He and his SO are flying out at 0-dark-30 tomorrow morning and I will miss them. How did my cousins and I raise such wonderful people?

We visited the Old Cabin after dinner and once again, I am turning into a pumpkin. G’night, KW

With a twist. In my life, a steak dinner is cooking big slabs of meat and each person cuts their own up and eats it. I’m calling this FinFam steak dinner because steak was one of my dad’s fave meals and as far back as I can remember, he grilled steaks on a rudimentary grill on our back deck. We learned to not leave the steaks unattended for even a second after our dog Tigger once grabbed one off the grill.

Anyway, a young cousin and his SO grilled the steaks tonight and while they grilled big slabs of meat, they then sliced them thinly and covered them with mushroom sauce. They were fantastic and they were rare, which is how I like steak and roast beast. And what a great form factor! I don’t actually (usually) eat big slabs of meat these days and this way I could take a smaller amount.

Our contributions were mashed potatoes (me) and blueberry/peach pie (mouse) and we ate at the Old Cabin, where our cousins are staying. Our grandparents built the Old Cabin almost 100 years ago and us cousins spent summers there together until we were six and my parents built the moomincabin. I remember so many times coming in from swimming in a nor’wester and standing in front of that faaaarplace getting warmed up.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t tell a coherent story about anything tonight if I tried. Right now the Black Fly song is playing on somebody’s phone, you know up in North Ontar-i-o-i-o, and I am turning into a pumpkin. So, g’night.

Actually that’s not Benny Branches in the pic, it’s mouse. Benny Branches took over after this so mouse could swim.

Among other things, this was a day of deadheads. I don’t mean Grateful Deadheads. I mean Log Deadheads. Logs that get separated from wherever they are moored and “float” in to our bay and “hide”. These are very dangerous if they hide totally underwater because if you are motoring along all carefree in a Motor Bote and it hits a deadhead, well, you might guess what the outcome could be. Usually a deadhead pokes its head just enough above the surface that it is visible and we pull them outta the lake if we can.

Lately we have had two deadheads and today “we” (WL and BB) pulled BOTH of them out. Deadheads are waterlogged and HEAVIER than all getout so once they got towed to the beach, they used the bote winch to try to get them outta the water. This worked okay but it was slow hot work. And the second deadhead is not outta the water yet as you can see in the second pic.

Other stuff today…

Stuffed my laundry into a triple loader this morning at the laundromat (masked), then hit up Pat’s Groceries (masked) for a few things. The muzak was Aqualung! Yeah, Jethro Tull. I was dancing with my cart and I told the Uscan gal it was good muzak today. Not sure she knew what I said or meant but I love that store and I love Aqualung.

Got back to the laundromat a couple minutes before the washer was done so after I put my stuff in the dryers, I went to sit outside and do the xword and spelling bee. During that time, I walked the 10 FEET it takes to get to Cygnus to do a 10 SECOND chore. When I came back from that, two guys were sitting on MY BENCH, SMOKING CIGARETTES! I cannot stand the smell of cigarette smoke so I put my mask back on. They went inside. I dunno if it was because I put my mask on but I didn’t see them again. Were they actual people or zombies? I do not know.

I received another Fedex delivery today and it was the same gal who delivered my last Fedex thing. She has got my crazy moomin address DOWN now and I LOVE her. She is SOOO cheerful even having to deliver stuff down a dirt 2-track. Today it was a laptop and I was soooo happy to get it and then it took me a good amount of time to manage to get logged in. I eventually did and was able to email my co-workers that I am ALIVE. Hope it works out as well when I return to teleBeachLandia on Tuesday.

We were on the beach until forever today, which means we are eating even later than usual but that’s okay because we are at least here now. At the end of a hot afternoon, us gals went swimming and I always love the cool clean no underwear (TMI?) feeling after a late afternoon dip in Gitchee Gumee. Sooner than later we’ll be closing this place for the winter. Love y’all, KW.

We had 11 people over here for lamb burgers tonight. All are descendants of my yooperland grandparents plus some very welcome significant others (including the Grumpy Growler and his identical twin).

It was loads of fun and mouse and raccoon deserve a free day tomorrow after all the work they did today. They arrived late last night and were very tired today and I’m kinda sorry I volunteered mouse to do lamb burgers tonight. It’s more of a production than you might think with special sauces and grilled veggie side dishes. Mouse did get a nap on the beach today and I stood at the ready to wash any dishioshios that came along so others didn’t have to deal with them. It’s one of the things I *do*, after all.

We’ve had some interesting discussions tonight but now that we are talking about the difference between government and online banking industry security, I am kinda done. There is no comparison and guess which is more secure. The younger generation eschewed those conversions to go down to the beach to watch for meteors.

Did I spell that right? Spell-checker sure doesn’t like it and it’s one of my few bug-a-boo words, accommodate and susurrate (see below) being a couple others. Thanks to a couple recent appearances in the NYT Bee, I can now correctly spell titillate.

Anyway, pre-bedtime discussions about menu planning over the next few days and who would get groceries happened. My plan was to do laundry this morning with UKW going grock shopping. Suddenly I realized my laundry plan was a bad one because the GG returns from a backpacking trip tomorrow and will have changed his name to Mr. Stinkum. Meaning I may as well wait until Friday to do the laundry. It’s okay, I myself can last. But I couldn’t notify UKW that I would be available as a tandem shopper because the Old Cabin looked pitch black and I knew those folks were dead tired so didn’t want to wake them.

Also we were dealing with a mini-hatch of benign bugs.

So I went to bed but couldn’t get to sleep right away because my stupid brain kept looping around thinking about laundry and grock trips. Then. I did get to sleep but woke up at that Batscope Hour a wee bit chilly. My sleeping bag was technically warm enough but was mostly unzipped, allowing cold air to get in. I remembered that there was a blanket at the foot of the bed and regained just enough consciousness to dig that up and it did the trick. I did NOT become conscious enough to zip up my bag or SHUT THE WINDOWS!

The next time I surfaced (still pitch black), I became aware of an unusual noise in the distance. There is plenty of noise here at the moomin throughout the night but other than the occasional (comforting) chug of a freighter out in the channel, it is all natural noise. Wind susurrating in the pines or waves lapping (or crashing) onto the shore. This was sort of a mechanical noise. It wasn’t anywhere near and I could NOT figure out what it was. It would occasionally stop and start up again.

So I didn’t sleep through the night but I made my peace with that kind of thing years ago. I woke well rested in Real Morning. I got the windows [mostly] closed and Lizard Breath got the finicky propane stove going (I am not mechanically inclined and also terrified of gas stoves and things). I went next door to offer UKW my services as a tandem shopper and she (politely) refused my offer. And that was fine. Not only was it a relief to me, I understood her need for a solo trip. She has her own guests coming soon and is fantastic at menu planning for crowds. I knew she needed to make her own lists and be able to focus on shopping without any distractions and I would have been a distraction, especially given some lingering perseveration. We have had some great tandem shopping trips in the past. Today was not the day.

I made a quick recycle run instead because we HAVE to keep up with that stuff, then settled in to my “office” in the Lyme Lounge, where my work laptop still won’t boot up and my support ticket is still awaiting review. Fun.

This is my daughter talking to me after, well… My work laptop crashed and burned this morning. Again. It did this earlier this summer. I had to call tech support because I couldn’t “chat” with them because my laptop was dead, right? This was not a satisfactory experience. It took forever to get to an actual person and when I did that person couldn’t help me but said someone would CALL me back. They didn’t.

That time my laptop revived itself after the weekend although I have had a funny feeling ever since that it was not “right”. I did everything I could think of today but no cigar. I knew I had to call tech support. Again. So… I listened to the whole long COVID spiel and selected things from the menu and set myself to W-A-I-T for the 10 (I think, it was hard to hear) people ahead of me. There was cheesy, jangly music but it was occasionally interrupted by a mumbly female voice recording. I couldn’t always understand what it said (because mumbly) but it kept talking about the online support portal and I had an epiphany that MAYBE I could access it via my phone.

I never did catch the url but hey, Amazon Woman, can you send me a link? She did and I grabbed my phone and after maybe 10 minutes of fumbling, I had a ticket. I can even go back and check on that ticket.

One remaining problem I didn’t get solved. I wanted to upload a couple of pics of the errors I was getting. It wouldn’t accept them. Why not, they’re just jpgs? Except they weren’t just jpgs because the iPhone now makes heics. I airdropped them over to my MacBook Pro and converted them to jpgs and airdropped them back. Alas, clicking on the attach link didn’t do anything. Okay. I tried. At least this time around I can go out to the support site and check on my ticket and its progress or lack thereof in this case. I was able to join a meeting by phone this afternoon. Other than that I finished my book, Corrag, this afternoon. I loved this book. The main character reminds me a lot of my mouse with her affinity for nature.

And now it’s cousin-y here again. npJane late Sunday night. Lizard Breath yesterday afternoon. Road Warrior UKW this afternoon.

I’ve been alone except for a brief drive-by from the GG for quite a while here. It’s okay. There are plenty of neighbors around and a cousin-neighbor next door. Late last night npJane arrived at the Old Cabin. And this afternoon a beach urchin arrived at the moomincabin. I worked a full day today but will rachet back for the rest of the week.

I love how we share at this place. I hit up Pat’s grocery store this morning. Soy sauce was on the list sent to me by my beach urchin but I didn’t buy any because I thought I had it. I did but not very much. But npJane ducked her head into my office to ask if I needed anything from Ace Hardware. Well, not but Pat’s Groceries is two doors down and soy sauce? She checked the Old Cabin’s copious supply of stuff but didn’t find soy sauce so she got me (as instructed) the smallest bottle available.

That’s how this beach works. We share supplies with each other if we need to and are welcome to snag things from other people’s pantries if we need them, whether or not they are home. It all evens out in the end. Way back when I remember The Commander needing tuna fish in a pinch and going next door to The White Tornado’s cabin to steal some when The White Tornado was not even there.

The rice wasn’t really okay. It was boiling over and its owner was making a quick trip to the beach to catch the sunset. KW managed to turn the WRONG burner down. It all worked out in the end and it was a WONDERFUL tofu dish. And I WILL clean the burner pan, which is no doubt filthy as all getout. And the rice pan is soaking over night. So nice to have adult children cook for you and let you do the dishioshios.

More folks to arrive throughout the week. And some of them also to leave. Lots of people in and out. Love them all!

It wasn’t a spectacular sunset (last night) but that was okay because it was FINALLY cool enough to slug around down on the beach.

Today was a totally different kind of day weather-wise. Hot and sunny again but more air moving around. Then. What time was it? I’ll just check my Dark Sky weather app… It was between noon and two. A huge storm rolled through. There was so much water coming down outta the sky that I had to decamp to INSIDE the moomincabin. I did not get an alert for that but boy oh boy, did we need it! It only cooled us off for a short time though and we were back to relentless heat and sun. Until… A nor’wester kicked up and as I write this another smaller storm is making its way through.

After the Big Storm, I headed down to the beach to take a look and I heard the freighter distress signal coming from… Where? No freighters were in sight and I couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. Marine Traffic told me the Oberstar was upbound entering Whitefish Bay and The H. Lee White was downbound in the St. Marys River between here and the locks. I looked at Marine Traffic again a few minutes later and the H. Lee white was SIDEWAYS in the river. Then stopped. Finally it was downbound again and is now making its way through the rock cut toward DeTour and wherever. I do not know what was going on and hope no one was hurt. I mean the Cuyahoga recently went viral in a video of its near miss with a sailboat in the St. Clair River. If you are in a small bote and a FREIGHTER is coming along GET OUTTA THE WAY! JEEBUS! Follow @asailoratnight or other Great Lakes cap’ns on instagram for a view of what they see from the bridge on those huge botes.

Thinking of that, somebody posted on FB about attending a funeral recently where there wasn’t a dry eye. Turns out it was a young man (25) who had died in a boating accident in Brimley. I didn’t recognize his name but eventually an obit was posted and I clicked over and… His aunt was my best friend throughout grade school, even though she went to the Catholic school and I went to Stinkin’ Linkin’, a few blocks away. His mom was my friend’s younger sister and I have to admit we were not always (ahem) very nice to her. We were sorta holy terrors in general but in our defense, we had to deal with the neighborhood BOYZ, including dodging the rock throwers (four, yeah FOUR, brothers) along my alley. I haven’t seen any of these folks in umpteen gazillion years and didn’t know of his existence but very sorry about his death. It sounded like he was a good person with a promising future and all I can say is water accidents can happen fast even if you are following all the rules. I don’t know what happened, just saying.

The only time I could tolerate the beach today was this morning. By noon it was waaaay too hot, even though somewhat overcast. I hung around OUTSIDE for the day because it was actually cooler INSIDE for most of the day. I got my chores done this morning figuring me moving around inside would just make it hotter.

At the end of the day, I came inside to “cook” dinner aka heat up leftovers for myself and I knew I needed to put the screen in the back door. Problem. All the rain yesterday made the window sticky as all getout. The first time I tried to remove it I actually GAVE UP. Meaning I couldn’t budge it out of the frame. 10 minutes later after opening a bunch of windows and turning the fan on, I decided to try again. This time, well, nevertheless, she persisted and s-l-o-w-l-y and carefully got the glass out. It’s still hot inside but I do have a bit of a cross breeze now.

I was reading this afternoon (Corrag, Scottish stuff). I couldn’t really hear the radio that well but I could hear MULTIPLE storm warnings. Not for here. For mid-Michigan (our NPR here is out of Central Michigan U.). One of the beach urchins is rustic camping in a rec area in mid-Michigan this weekend. I’m sure she’s okay but she does attract storms and has survived (intact) two direct tornado hits as a kid (tent and mini-van). She was scheduled to camp on South Manitou Island this weekend (“girl” weekend) but the ferry was canceled yesterday because of wind.

Welp. Another severe weather alert just now. Gratiot County. Nowhere near here. My first college roommate had been the Gratiot County Bean Queen. Wonder if she’s still around.

Aaaaannnnnd… I just got another weather alert. I think this is at least the 10th. Again, nowhere near here.

Oh! The pic is from a couple nights ago.

Rain, which we needed. And chilly, which was welcome. I was actually kind of shivering for a while, working from the Lyme Lounge this morning. There is a heater in there but I didn’t really want it on. So I basked in my slightly shivery state. It’s not really all that cold out, 50s instead of 80s and by afternoon my shivering stopped although I never took off my polartech jacket.

I did put on some socks today. It rained fairly hard throughout the afternoon and that last trip from the Lyme Lounge into the moomincabin at the end of my work day took me sloshing through some puddles so yes, my socks got soaked. Fortunately I had another pair. Nice and dry.

<COVID-rant-sorry>School? Why are we going back to in-person school? Before we switched to 60s on Sirius XM this afternoon (which we do because other radio often makes us argue 🐽), the GG was hibernating and I was listening to a woman blithely listing “rules” for parents to calm their children’s fears about going to school, like don’t let your own anxieties show. This was all very good and I agreed with it. I never really had serious anxieties about this, just wanted them IN school. One year our district went on strike the first two weeks. I THOUGHT I WOULD GO INSANE! My kids cooked a can of spaghettios by themselves without me noticing but that would be a whole ‘nother story or at least a tangential one.

BUT!!! WE ARE STILL DEALING WITH A DEADLY DISEASE! This smooth woman made no mention of COVID (that I heard) and what kind of VALID anxieties that variable might throw into the usual mix. Fortunately, our school district is at least requiring masks. But any anxiety parents may have about regular go to school issues have to be GREATLY exacerbated. No they still probably shouldn’t show their anxieties but MAYBE WE SHOULDN’T BE OPENING SCHOOLS TO IN-PERSON LEARNING! I know how this is gonna go. COVID cases will occur and all kinds of kids and their families (and teachers) will have to quarantine. Schools may even have to shut down. Again. Guess what? Someone on next door today called their kid’s high school to ask about educational contingency plans if their kid has to quarantine. NO ONLINE OPTIONS! Disclaimer: I dunno if this is actually true.

At any rate, I think starting up in-person learning with no one under 12 vaccinated and the delta variant running rampant is NUTSO! I KNOW the “zoom” learning thing is hard on kids. I think it’s better than being sick or dead or losing family members. Maybe our country needs to step it up to take better care of our disadvantaged kids and their families COVID or not. Sorry if you disagree. I can afford higher taxes if that’s what it takes. Not all of their parents are freeloaders.</COVID-rant-sorry>

P.S. Kudos to that judge in Fla who stood up to DeSantis (or is it DeSatan?) and his stupid ban on mask mandates. As someone else said, when you come up to a red traffic light, do you exercise your personal freedumb and run it or do you stop? I could exercise my personal freedumb and run the stop sign at the railroad tracks on Five Mile but I ALWAYS STOP because every once in a while there IS A TRAIN!

I think this BB gun would be totally ineffective against a bear except for maybe irritating the heck out of it.

But this activity routinely takes place off the moomincabin back deck. It doesn’t usually involve a big backpack or safari hat but it did today because the Twins of Terror are mobilizing for a Pictured Rocks backpacking tour beginning this weekend. If I get it right they were lucky to be able to reserve camping spots with all the pandemic outdoor craziness. To be clear, they will not be hunting ANYTHING.

So a puzz clue today was “hippie happening” and for the longest time I was trying to put “peein” in there, as in “pee in”. I KNEW that wasn’t the correct answer. Although I’m sure plenty of hippies had peeins if they had to goooo, it doesn’t in any way shape or form pass the NYT xword Breakfast Test. I myself have participated in plenty of peeins because sometimes when you are in the yooperland there are no places to, uh, pee. Also, some people had two and three seat outhouses here on the beach back in the day. Not us, of course, we didn’t even have a door. Or a light. Light? Who needs a light? Take a flashlight. A flashlight? How is that gonna keep the werewolves and vampires at bay?

The correct answer was “be in” but it was a part of the Thursday “trick” I missed at first but eventually got.

And then I got to Genius with spelling bee via “dunno” which I did NOT think it would accept.

Word has it that UKW is in Idaho at the end of the first day of her road trip across North America from the San Juan Islands to Gitchee Gumee. She has made this trip many times by road and air.

Returning to the moomincabin from the beach this morning, I heard a whole bunch of banging up there. For a split second I wondered if my cousin-neighbor was doing something next door but the bangs were too irregular and they were definitely coming from our cabin. I never did figure out EXACTLY what was going on but I think squirrels were throwing things outta the trees and they were hitting the roof and bouncing off.

I was online with MMCB for our weekly coffee and MMCB₁ was asking about aminals. She HATES any aminals that are not safely viewable from far away (think African safari). I started listing the aminals I’ve been seeing most frequently this summer and she stopped me with, “What about deer?” Well certainly we have deer but we don’t see them frequently. They are a “problem” in the city because they come into people’s yards (her yard) and strip vegetation. I told her they aren’t really in our yard because they spend most of their time farther into the forest. But what about your lawn? Lawn? What lawn? I was out on the deck and I faced my phone camera out toward the yard and slowly panned it along. We’re at the shore edge of a good-sized forest and our lot and the others along the beach are forested.

I guess if you grew up in NYC, even if you have lived on the Planet Ann Arbor forever and have traveled all over the world, it might be hard to completely grasp the concept of “forest”. And that’s okay. I love MMCB and I think I learned something today.

Disclaimer: Deer are not a problem in our yard but I can’t speak for people who have gardens.

So… Aminals this summer? Raven flyovers for about an hour every morning. Whump whump whump through the air over the treetops, grokking away and making some other very weird noises that I couldn’t spell if I tried. Squirrels everywhere. Heinrichs (snowshoe hares) and Henrys (regular rabbits). Hummingbirds going after our impatiens. Various other birds including blue jays which might mean migration. Bears do live in the forest but I’ve never seen one except via scat or someone else’s photo. The Great Lake State bird, the *moe*-skee-*toe*, but not in intolerable numbers.

I don’t remember ravens here from my childhood. I do remember B52 jets screaming overhead on their way out over our beach to Gitchee Gumee from Kincheloe AFB, 15 miles or so south of here. Yes they were scary but my old coot and uncle Dcuk who had been WWII pilots would get all excited and run out to watch them. Something about those ravens is mindful of those jets. Except they fly a different direction.

This is one thing I *did* get a photoooo of except it was last evening. This little squoil is apparently drinking whatever residual water is at the end of our deck hose. I put the hose away properly after this so the squoil can’t get at it. There was quite some discussion after I called this a “baby” squoil. It is smaller than an adult but is probably old enough to be on its own. I read somewhere that when baby rabbits are softball sized, they are on their own. True or not, I dunno.

I did NOT get a photooo of the vulture (?) that was strutting down the railroad tracks that cross Five Mile on my way back from the laundromat this morning. I think it was a vulture with its funky looking bald head but I don’t really know birds all that well. I *hate* that railroad crossing because it just has stop signs. I think that’s dangerous but I think they do it because trains are rare there, although I saw one last week. But I also think it’s dangerous because the fact that very few trains roll through might make some people be a bit cavalier about maybe ignoring the stop signs? I NEVER DO.

I did not get a photoooo of the flock of wild turkeys that were skittering into the bush along the side of White Side Road. I am more certain of their species. My favorite road-sighting of wild turkeys is once when I was driving along a busy secondary highway in the northern lower. A flock of turkeys was crossing the road in front of me. I and the driver coming the other way were thankfully able to stop in time to let them cross. I blahgged about it that day and wouldn’t you know a cousin was COINCIDENTALLY a few vee-hickles behind me at the time. Small world.

Oh relax! 1) I was busted by my daughter, not the police, and 2) I was texting by voice. A third thing is that I was driving on Six Mile Road, which was empty. Six Mile is regarded as dangerous because people speed like bats outta hell but in the early morning hours (I mean Real Morning, not bar closing time), it’s usually mostly empty and people are sane. There are two big dips along the way where the Waishkey River winds across the road and back in the day there were one-lane bridges at the bottom of each of them. Talk about dangerous? Thankfully those were replaced years ago with nice smooth two-lane pavement over culverts.

Mooon Yooonit has the technology to allow texting but I don’t drive MY very often and rarely have my phone connected to it when I do. So I was driving Cygnus this morning and my phone was plugged in and I got an incoming text. I pushed a green button, whatever-you-call-her read the text to me, I voiced a reply and pushed send. Something like that. I will not get into the habit of extensive voice texting from the car but this was manageable. I did say I was driving, which is why I was busted.

What were we texting about? The puzz of course. This time it was Spelling Bee. The Monday xword is always easy.

I got back out to the beach after an unsuccessful run to drop recycling (closed on a Monday?) and then spent the rest of the day immersed in various work conundrums. So often what I/we think is something simple ends up dumping us into brain-twisting rabbit holes. That happened over and over today with the last conundrum left to continue tomorrow.

I had a Fedex delivery today, always a little dicey because of our one-lane gravel road down into here, not to mention our confusing addresses. I was well into adulthood until we had addresses here at all. People with year-round homes “in town” (like us) just picked up the mail there. Others got PO boxes and I even remember the Piedys picking their mail up in Brimley via general delivery.

My delivery gal was extremely friendly and not phased fazed at all, just wanted to make sure she was in the right place. Yes. Yes you are. She asked – out of politeness – if there was a preferred way for her to turn around to get back out. I said, however you can figure it out is fine because I knew she could. Fortunately Cygnus is the only vee-hickle here for the moment and is easy to avoid. Oh, and she liked my skirt. My friend, this is what permanent telecommuting looks like.

Photo credit to lizard. Seiche.

My day began at 2:00 AM when a decent-sized northwest wind kicked up. I went right back to sleep because WHAT A RELIEF! That’ll cool us off! And yes it did. It had dropped a bit by Real Morning but kicked up again and persisted throughout the day. It was such good sleeping weather that I allowed myself to bask in my sleeping bag a bit longer than usual.

This afternoon I dragged what I am now openly calling my Friendly Introvert Self down the beach to the tower house for my first book club meeting EVER. I have known these women my whole life but I still walked in proclaiming my friendly introvert status and then guess what? I didn’t shut up for quite a while… Part of this is because we don’t usually interact a lot and they were genuinely interested in my career, which is mysterious to most beach folk and difficult to describe in general. In the end, one of the women (power company CFO) kind of “got it” and thinks her daughter has a similar career. Yes. Probably. And yes, it is very creative in its own way.

This was sooooo much fun. We had read the book “Where the Forest Meets the Stars”. We all liked the book (I gave it 4 stars on GoodReads) but pronounced it probably not great literature. Other than that, what an interesting discussion! The CFO hosted and provided well thought out questions, which we discussed in a very informal way. I loved hearing other people’s opinions and wasn’t afraid to add my own. We all riffed off each other! A lot of us read the book a month ago so there was a lot of “What?” going on. I kind of wished I’d RE-READ the book last week. One member did re-read it and it was interesting to hear her take on how some of her thoughts changed upon the second read, knowing the ending.

More than anything I LOVED being in a living room venue with these lovely women. It was perfect for my introverted self. It was great to reconnect with those I grew up with and get to know better the two who are in the generation below me (in that family).

Tower house? I wish I had taken a pic. Our host moved permanently from South America (I think) to the yooperland a few years ago and built a house with a two story tower atop. This kind of style is not popular with some of us here on the beach who prefer a more rustic profile. The moomincabin is about as rustic as you can get besides lucky-shucky, indoor plumbing with hot running water, and wifi and isn’t likely to change. I softened my opinion considerably after finally visiting the tower house and reconnecting with its owner, who I don’t think I’ve known since she was a child. And yes, I climbed the tower!

And trying to stay cool. The only time the beach was comfortable was early this morning. Once the sun went over the yardarm, it was intolerable. Well, the sun doesn’t go over the yardarm until 5:00 PM but it goes over the trees at about 1-2 PM and today when I got back from dropping off my green bag garbage it wasn’t even noon and I could tell it was ALREADY INTOLERABLE.

So dropped off a couple of green bags up on the res this morning. There was no attendant? Usually somebody comes out, pops my hatch, and dumps them for me. No problem. I got out and did it myself. Home to clean out the garbage receptacles, the one under the kitchen sink and the big one in the garachkey where we safely store garbage in a bear-proof way until it’s time to make a trip.

Among other things too boring to write about, I seem to be doing the puzz again. The NYT xword. I did it for YEARS and got pretty good at it and then for reasons too complicated to describe (a broken phone was a main character), I sorta took a hiatus. Meanwhile my lizardy beach urchin has been doing it and SHE IS BETTER AT IT THAN ME! That cannot be! So I am back in to doing it again. We are also doing another NYT puzz called Spelling Bee. This is a jazzed up version of the old wedding shower game we used to play when I was a kid where you had to make words out of the letters in the first names of the couples. I HATE wedding shower games but that was one I almost always “won”.

I finished RE-reading my last book True North (Jim Harrison) earlier in the week. I liked it better than I did the first time but it didn’t get five stars from me. Of all things, I can’t stand most of the female characters’ names. Vernice? Riva? Carla (for a DOG)? Vera is kinda okay. I don’t know why I dislike Cynthia but somehow I do. Then again, I dislike my own name Anne. It hasn’t ever seemed to fit what I view as my personality. I have “gone there” before and won’t go there again, at least not today. But those are picky things and who am I to judge?

It took me a while to pick a new book but I ended up with Luster. There’s a bit more sex than is usually to my taste but it seems to be integral to the story, not gratuitous, so I’m rolling with it. The author is a young black woman and I LOVE her writing so far so we’ll see where this goes.

This is not the first time I’ve posted a version of this pic. I sent it off to reply to a text from Pengo Janetto, who is in New York for a ceremony involving her fiance. I took it via the Roswell Hipstamatic filter pack. I downloaded this pack because if I have it right, my parents spent time near Roswell during or after WWII. Can’t ask them for confirmation, alas.

Yes I need to water the impatiens🐽

I don’t have a pic or even much of a post today. It has been hot hot hot here at the moomincabin on the shores of Gitchee Gumee. It was okay until about four o’clock and then the sun started to head to the yardarm and it started to get hot. I dunno if this is climate change or just weather. I joined a zoom porterization call and I am now ready to crash out.

She was gone when I got up today. That’s a long time. And no Tufty is not one of our stuffed aminals although it’s the kind of name one of those would’ve been named back in the day. Tufty is a salty with a Cyprus flag. An ocean-going freighter. Salties often require a pilot to guide them through the St. Marys River system and they often park in the bote parking lot by Bay Mills to wait for a pilot. I don’t think Tufty was waiting for a pilot because she had been there such a long time. When I checked Marine Traffic this morning, she was parked at Algoma Steel and last I looked, she still was.

It’s been a slow week at beachCublandia so I spent the afternoon doing training sessions about ADA requirements (making websites accessible to people with disabilities). I kind of knew most of this stuff already. I think about my original college education and the wonderful huge state institution I attended. It wasn’t a bad education. Ultimately the college that helped me the most was a community college. I can’t exactly explain what was different. I took my education seriously at both places. I studied totally different subjects at them (flute as a kid and internet stuff as an adult).

I fell into my adult career via a community college professor who assigned me to an internship that I didn’t really want at the time. The rest is history. I will say that a lot of the training stuff I did today was stuff I learned back when I was taking community college classes. Community colleges are great for a lot of people but you do have to work hard to be successful, like anywhere else.

Here is a pic from the deck on teleBeachLandia. It is too frickin’ hot to hang out on the beach although I may do it later. Here’s my deck view with Cygnus there where Ninja used to park. Vaccine mandates, mask mandates? Yes, I am so glad I am not a teacher.

I am horrified about most of the COVID news.

We don’t use Zoom, we use FaceTime. I dunno why. That’s what we started out using and just haven’t changed. I’m talking about my weekly chat with MMCB₁ and MMCB₂. My old Monday Thursday Wednesday Morning Coffee group at Zola Barry Bagels.

Today was extra fun because MMCB₂ joined us. One of her other names is Bubbe and for the last five years she has been an active care-giver to her two local grandchildren. The older one is now headed off to in-person (yikes!) kindergarten and the younger is, well I fergit what he’s doing but she has a little bit more freedom to meet with adult friends nowadays so hopefully she’ll be able to join us more often going forward. She long ago taught me the word mensch and she epitomizes mensch-ness (probably not a word 🐽). Those kids are lucky to have spent so much time with their Bubbe and Zayde during their early years.

She has occasionally been able to join us but I think the last time was maybe six months ago so we all had a lot of gabbling to do.

Good work day and even a little chilly this morning with fog horns sounding in the channel but HOT HOT HOT now. Mr. Bear nipped in at the end of the day with something he seemed to take as a personal affront. He often does that (or sounds like it anyway). This wasn’t something I CAUSED but I “penned” a carefully worded response, then LOGGED OFF! Here I had thought he was on vacay this week.

Will The Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchie show up tonight or not? That is the question. I saw his behemoth work van roll past on the 2-track road along the back of the cabins Monday night. I tried to call. I left messages. He did not return my calls. I RAN over there. Well, actually I didn’t really run because MAJOR TRAIL MAINTENANCE needs to be done between my [late] uncle Don’s cabin/house and my [late] aunt Radical Betty’s house, which is where the Grinch lives. I’m talking big tree branches down everywhere among other crapola. I yelled for him from outside the house. No response. I did not walk up to knock on the door. The reason why is not internet-able but no it doesn’t involve weapons. I’m pretty sure. I dunno how he’d find weapons if he had them 🤣

Anyway, he called me back this morning (two days later) to say he had just received my call(s). I had FORGOTTEN that he doesn’t get phone calls on his phone at that location. (I don’t think he texts, that would maybe be easier? Or not?) He said he would stop by this evening. We’ll see if he does. Whether he does or not, I love him ANYWAY!

If he does, I will try to post a discrete, tasteful pic so check back if you want. If he doesn’t show up, I’ll post a pic of his Spirit Aminal, who has lived with us on The Planet Ann Arbor for years but usually travels up here with us. Actually I just posted his Spirit Aminal. That’s Frogette on the right.