First things first, to give credit where credit is due, I did not take this pic. It’s Mouse’s and it’s from last weekend when it was still Indian Summer. Today has ended up in the 40s, which is too warm for snow but the clouds this afternoon sure looked like snow clouds to me. Anyway, I love this pic. Mouse, like her moom (aka me), is exclusively an iPhoneographer (I *think*). She has a better eye and more patience than I do to get just the right focus.

So, Thanksgiving during a pandemic? Even though it’ll just be us two for dinner, I’m going to do a version of what we usually cook, more or less with the smallest turkey I can find. I freeze the leftovers.

Turkey? I know it’s easy to order a turkey but I didn’t think it would be easy to order it on a regular Plum curbside grock order (there are other good places to order turkeys but I rejected those for complicated reasons). I was thinking about having my Plum inside connection scout for one but then I got a seductive email about pre-ordering fresh turkeys. I have my eye tentatively on a pre-brined one. The problem is, it’s in-store pickup. But. I could get my connection to pick it up for me or the GG, who is not as much of a COVID Coward as I am, could run over and grab it.

Cranberry sauce? Mine is not fancy but I make it with fresh cranberries. The Plum today had them in their online ordering system but I didn’t quite trust that they were actually in stock. I texted my insider and said, “Next time you are at work, could you take a walk through produce and see if there are fresh cranberries?” She was at work but cranberries weren’t, so she was gonna keep an eye out. Then I looked at Argus and THEY HAVE THEM! If they are gone by the time I put an order in, it turns out that Knight’s Market has them (GG was down there this afternoon).

Chex mix? I make Chex mix twice a year – Thanksgiving and xmas. It’s the only cereal I ever buy any more. I tried Amazon. Rice and Corn Chex? Yes. Wheat Chex? Unavailable and not sure if/when it’ll be in stock. Hmmm… I could get a triple pack of Chex… Maybe… I make mine with mixed nuts, which I’m sure will be easy to get, and sesame sticks, which I can probably get. Usually I buy the last two ingredients in the Plum bulk foods aisle but that was one of the first things they took down back in March. So we’ll see…

An unexpectedly easy thing? Turkey parts for making gravy ahead of time! It isn’t always easy to find turkey legs or whatever at any given store at any given time. I had a hunch I might find some at Argus and sure enough, multiple vendors were selling turkey parts. So I have some thighs in my freezer already! Yay!

All the rest is easy. Potatoes, dressing, and something green, usually.

If I’m feeling extravagant, maybe I’ll order something hors d’oeuvre-y from Luke’s Lobster.

I don’t always do all that well with this whole telecommuting while sharing a house with a pensioner.

He was off on a northern boondoggle for most of last week and today he returned. Along with a whole bunch of cacophony. Specifically, I needed to present at a meeting this afternoon. He picked that particular time to blow leaves RIGHT OUTSIDE THE FRONT DOOR! I COULD NOT HEAR A DERN THING! I put my laptop down and went over to the front door to read him the riot act.

Plus I was twice dropped from the internet earlier in that meeting and had to re-a-start. I was wanting to blame it on the GG’s karma, which has been absent from the Landfill since last Wednesday but in truth, it was very windy here today and a third incident convinced me that we were getting momentary power outages. I did not notice the first two because I was using a laptop and no lights were on. The third one took the radio out, which eventually got my attention. For whatever reason, none of the outages made Gertrude’s clock start blinking.

So, I was sitting outside at lunch time enjoying 70-plus degree weather. The back yard was aswirl with leaves. It wasn’t until I looked at this pic later that I realized we lost most of our leaves today. Those branches were not bare yesterday. Also the street was crazy with landscaping trucks and equipment cleaning up people’s leaves. Oh, not *that* landscaping company 🐽🐽🐽. I am hearing leaf-blowers and lawn mowers going like crazy all around here, even after dark.

Before we had all of our fancy equipment, I remember raking leaves in the dark. That was back when the city scheduled leaf pickups and we put our leaves into the street by whatever means. On scheduled days, they would come around with dump trucks and “loaders” and street cleaners and it was great fun watching it all happen. They stopped doing that a number of years ago and now we either put them out in big compost bins or bags or hire someone to do it. We are DIY about this and use our compost bins. There are folks who say it’s best not to get rid of all those leaves but they have NO CLUE how many leaves we have around here. I think we do use some of them as mulch/compost in our own yard but we cannot use them all.

Oh, not pollyticks for once. It’s my laptop. I mean my personal MacBook Pro laptop. There’s nothing wrong with it per se. It’s just that somehow I managed to hit some combination of keys that made the top toolbar go away until I make it come back. And when I switch apps, they “slide” in and out in a disconcerting way. I do not like this. I cannot figger how to fix it. I used to be able to. I want the top toolbar to be visible at all times, i.e., to “stick”. So I can see the time, etc. I can’t even find the words to google it! Grrrrr…

Pollyticks! Amazon Woman and I always meet on Mondays, a half hour check-in to keep up with what I’m doing/need to do and so we can review anything I might have questions about. We didn’t even GET to that stuff for AT LEAST a half hour because we were talking about guess what? The election, of course. I get the idea that most of the folks I work with were happy with the results of this election but there are some who are not and we bend over backwards to keep political stuff out of our meetings because we LOVE these people. These are good people and valuable employees. We kept pretty quiet this morning but it wasn’t easy and there was a wee bit of I dunno, “something” around the edges of the conversation.

There are a lot of people in the losing party that I will not miss. The Trump family? It goes without saying although Barron is just a kid and I kinda wonder how he will turn out. Kelly McInanity? Somebody please pull her battery out. *I* am out of battery on this train of thought but I’ll make a speshul mention of Michigan’s own Bet$y DeVo$, who among other things is largely anti public education. I don’t have the chops to go there tonight.

I could talk about the Esper “termination”. I don’t know what Esper is all about. I do know that he decided that participating in that Bible walk back in June was not a good thing. This “termination” feels something like, “He (Biden) took my ball and I can’t play now so I’ll yell and cry and swing a big club around”. Sad.

But whatever. I’m cooking a fish dinner and I think I might sit outside to eat it. On November 9! In the dark!

This photooo doesn’t even begin to capture the huge flock of black birds I saw out on Jerusalem Road this morning. I stopped and backed up to point and shoot an iPhone photo out my window. I love that my urban/suburban neighborhood is only minutes away from a big network of country roads. I mean dirt and gravel roads where you can drive slow as she goes for miles without any tailgaters or even other vee-hickles aside from the occasional tractor.

Country roads are one of the things that have kept me sane during the last vestiges of the Trumpian Bombasty. I am actually optimistic that his “reign” is over. I know that others are not and, as tRump often says, “We’ll just have to see what happens”. Indeed. Will he try a repeat in 2024? I don’t think so. I do think he’ll still be tweeting about his presidency in 2024. The greatest president ever. Some people say. Roight.

Whine exchange this afternoon. Mouse got off work mid-afternoon and had an early evening backyard faaaaarpit party in my neighborhood, so instead of driving all the way over to the woods and back, she hung out with her long-suffering moom in the Landfill backyard. She brought me a few bottles of cab, which is hard to order online for reasons too complicated to get into. I served her a glass of whine from one of the bottles she brought over the last time she visited.

We’ve been having a wonderful Indian Summer here in the Great Lake State. Is there a god and does he care enough to make the weather nice enough to allow us to hang out in our back yards during a pandemic? I don’t know if there is a god or not and if there is one, I don’t think he cares. But. We (me and Mouse) hung out in the Landfill back yard in 70 degree temps and our nextdoor neighbors hosted an outdoor gathering on Burke’s Erection. The Burkes were our original *eccentric* neighbors and I miss them although the new neighbors are wonderful too. I wonder if they even know about the erection sign or if one of the Burke descendants removed it before anyone bought the Burke house.

It’s been a rough few days for those of us who haven’t ever supported a Trump presidency.

This photoooo started my day. After my walk I did some chores, picked up curbside grocks at Plum and put gasoline in Mooon Yooonit. I am not afraid to pump gas any more (I mean since COVID) but I had a fun time figgering out where Mooon Yooonit’s gas-cap release lever was. Even though I have actually used it a few times before. Jeebus.

I didn’t go straight home after that. Of all things, I drove down by Cubelandia. I guess I was missing the notorious State-Ellsworth roundabout? From there I headed down to Textile Road, which I followed to where it sorta ends at Parker. And home.

During the various times I was home this morning, on two occasions I heard the kind of emergency sirens and horns that tell you that something SERIOUS is going on, like get outta my way. NOW! And yes. About a billion faaaar engines and other emergency vee-hickles were blocking Miller west of N. Maple. What? Nextdoor neighbor answered the question. Big house fire. Fortunately no casualties.

11:41 AM. I was putzing around the Landfill when my mouse sent me a text: Joe Biden wins. It was a link from the BBC, which is good for news but still. It’s a news source, not an official communication from the Pennsylvania secretary of state. But yes, Biden has won.

Am I happy about this? Yes yes yes I am. But I know that others, including some of those I love, are not. Like I was not four years ago (or Wednesday morning). I don’t know what the answer is here. “We” always say that now that there’s a new president, we all have to pull together and support him (always him but that’s a whole ‘nother topic). I do not think that’s what’s going to happen. I don’t know what’s next but I never supported Trump and I think there are going to be people who will not support a Biden presidency.

I dunno where we’re going from here. For today, my team won and I was able to breathe again.

One of the many things that has frustrated me throughout the Trumpian Bombasty is the continual stories about rampant ballot fraud. I am no expert here but this has been debunked over and over and over again. Trump’s own voting integrity commission was disbanded in 2018 after evidence of widespread fraud was not found (google it-you’ll find multiple sources). Does he ever talk about that in his incoherent Twitter rants? No, he does not.

This feels like a set of conspiracy theories to me and if I were an election official, I would be highly insulted that people apparently do not trust the system. A popular blogger who I have followed for a long time worked a Detroit precinct on Tuesday and here is what she has to say on the subject. A great read. My cousin the Grand Poohbah is a long time poll worker in another state. She doesn’t blog but I bet she has plenty of first-hand observations about voter fraud or lack thereof.

These folks are trained to follow detailed rules and procedures for all aspects of working the polls. And they are not doing it just for fun, although I’m sure it can be a lot of fun. They care deeply about making sure our elections are fair and our votes are counted accurately.

I do have a little election fraud story of my own. Back in the dark ages when I had my “childhood” career, I worked with a woman whose father owned a small apartment building in Ann Arbor. His legal residence was in one of our little satellite villages. Dexter maybe? Anyway, he felt so strongly about a certain proposal on the Ann Arbor ballot (I totally forget what, likely something to do with real estate or taxes) that he voted in both Ann Arbor and Dexter. Or tried to. Guess what? He got caught.

Our dedicated, hard-working election officials deserve our utmost respect, especially when working during a pandemic.

Which I am doing the best I can. After a flurry of work activity at the beginning of the week, things have [temporarily] slowed down a lot. I always have things to do but I was struggling to focus most of today and nothing on my list is urgent.

When Amazon Woman sent an email out that she was taking tomorrow off, I decided to follow suit. I have a fair amount of PTO in use-or-lose status and we are in the midst of an Indian Summer so what the heck. I will put ‘lectric Jack and the skeletorrrrrs away and work on my Saturday Plum grock pickup order. I also have an Argus Farm Stop delivery coming tomorrow. And chores. And I will nervously await election news if we don’t know anything more by tomorrow. I dread waking up and checking Twitter but I suppose the alternative is worse.

Indian Summer has allowed me to hang out in the back yard in the late afternoon, until after the sun sets, which was at 5:25 PM EST today. I took this pic of Pekak. He is named after a story character that one of the beach urchins created in kindergarten. My kids were both morning kindergartners and since the school is basically in our back yard, I was okay with her walking home by herself. One day she didn’t show up and she didn’t show up and she didn’t show up and… I wasn’t really in a panic but there is the Deep Dark Scary Woods between us and the school, so I finally walked over there and in the back door and up to the kindergarten room. She was sitting outside of the room diligently writing a story about a pekak. I could tell that her teacher had been torn between trying to encourage her to leave but also to finish her story. I know the teacher was happy when I arrived and pulled her out of there. Nowadays, I guess the teacher would text me and say “come getchyer kid and encourage her to finish her [damn] pekak story at home.” No cell phones then.

Alas, I am suddenly listening (sorta) to a news story about how Trump could actually win if this and that and the other thing happened. I have always thought that he could win but I was sorta hopeful that he wouldn’t and this news story made me very nervous. Hail Hail Michigan. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I didn’t expect to “wake up happy” today and I definitely did not. Talking to MMCB on our weekly virtual Barry Bagels chat usually helps but not today. Not her fault. We generally agree about politics. I just needed to be in a space by myself for a while. But I love my longtime friend so I stuck it out. I met her at the Forsythe Middle School registration when my mouse child and her son were entering sixth grade. Sometimes I can’t believe how long we’ve been meeting for coffee. I didn’t think she was friend material at the time. I mean, there was nothing wrong with *her*! It’s meeee who can be a reluctant friend. She did not give up on me and here we are.

Then my work standup drove me absolutely crazy as everyone was throwing election statistics every which way. They are all in line with my political views but it almost physically hurt to listen to all of that. Well, except for India and they have their own political system and issues.

I tried to avoid Twitter, etc., but it only partially worked.

When the GG left for a North Country Trail boondoggle today, he looked at me and asked if I was all right. NO! I was not. I cannot live in an orange world for another four years. He called me FROM the NCT and asked again. I told him I didn’t really want to talk. Same reason. We talked a short bit anyway and he said something that made me even more upset. (Oh hey, we are not gonna get divorced over this, don’t worry kiddos.) But I am very annoyed that my views do not seem to be taken seriously by him and some of the people in his family. I mean, I was called stupid — TO MY FACE — a while back because I expressed horror at Trump’s blanket application of an Obama immigration policy to separate children from their parents. Stupid? Me? (Or anyone?) Is it because I disagree with you? This relative is normally a good friend of mine and the only thing that saved that conversation was the arrival of another in-law, one who agrees with me politically but also caused the subject to be changed. I moved on but I have not forgotten that conversation.

Nevertheless, I have been called “stupid” a few times in the last four years. To my face. I ain’t the smartest aminal on earth but stupid? Hmmm… That hurts A LOT! Every damn time.

I can’t report my own voting experience. I mean, I already have, since it happened a few weeks ago. So I’ll report some other ones.

The GG dragged himself outta the rack at 0-skunk-30 and was the FIRST voter of the day at our backyard polling place! Another person actually got in to the building ahead of him but that person wanted to spoil their absentee ballot and so was shunted off into whatever byzantine procedures are involved with that. So the GG was first. I have to wonder where Mr. Mxyzptlk was this morning and whether he was the ballot spoiler.

I jumped into the shower as soon as the GG got out and was walking past the school/polling place around 6:15 or whatever. I saw VERY few people! There were a few cars in the parking lot but where was the long line out the door and down the sidewalk? I didn’t see the GG anywhere. He was already inside. I wore a mask even though social distancing was not an issue in any way, shape, or form. Solidarity and etiquette.

A relative who also voted at Haisley got there, hmmm, I’m not sure when, maybe 9-9:30-ish? Voter #92 and NO LINE!

These stories and my 0-skunk-30 observations tell me that most Planet Ann Arbor-ites voted absentee and/or early.

A friend who voted “out in the county” [read: semi-Trump country] was accused – by a “confused” person in line, not a poll worker – of trying to vote twice.

And now we wait… May your candidate win but mostly may MY candidate win because I’m not sure our country can stand four more orange years.

Oh, yeah, in other news? Blood Trail in the Landfill driveway this morning 👀👀👀

2004 election day. I wrote this:

I am sitting in the college library at 8:40 AM wearing my “I voted” button. Left the house at 5:37 AM, walked 3 miles in wind and rain and arrived at our polling place, Haisley School, by 6:15 AM. I think there were about 8 people already lined up, including the GG. By the time the polls opened at 7, there were at least 150 and counting.

2004 was a morning HORRIBILIS! I remember actually cutting my walk short that day because I knew the voting line would be long (and it was raining, etc.). Believe it or not, I just had to look up the 2004 candidates. I knew Bush ran (and won). I couldn’t quiiiiite pull Kerry out of my database brain. (And yes, I was in college. College being our EXCELLENT Washtenaw Community College. I took classes there to put some formal training around the web skills I had already cobbled together.) I wasn’t all that happy with the election results but I wasn’t exactly devastated either. Life would go on and I wouldn’t have to spend too much time and energy listening to what the president said.

2008. Our country was in a deep recession. I had a new job and figgered I’d be the first to go if there were layoffs on our team. There weren’t but we are NEVER safe from layoffs so knock on wood all these years later. Anyway, that year I went over to vote at a similar time in the morning and what a difference four years made. There was a longer line but it was fun because it was warm beautiful weather and some of my friends from the old Haisley Mafia were in the line and we were gossiping as much as you can do in a big long line of people (NOT socially distanced. Who knew…)

When I exited the building after voting (for “Obummer” and you Orangeys can just blasted BITE ME!), it was light out and the trees in the woods looked about like the ones in this pic from this morning but there was no waning gibbous moon. Or maybe by the time I got out, the moon had already set. I suppose I could look that up on my moon app but I probably won’t. But wouldn’t you know, my candidate won.

This year I have hope but also much trepidation. I don’t think our country can stand another four years of this person at the helm.

On the radio this weekend I heard a republican strategist (and comedian) say he looks at it as RENTING Biden. He is going to stay Republican but wants to get the Orange Baboon (he didn’t use that label) out. And maybe during four years of Biden, Republicans can re-group and decide on a future course that doesn’t exclude just about everyone who doesn’t want to wear a MAGA hat, spread COVID at unmasked rallies and chant things like “LOCK HER UP” and “FIRE FAUCI”.

I do not get this. We need to get the coronavirus under control and follow the advice of EPIDEMIOLOGISTS when dealing with a pandemic. Our governor Gretchen Whitmer (#bigGretch) has tried to keep people in The Great Lake State from getting COVID and Anthony Fauci has tried to steer the Trump administration toward policies that could reduce cases. These people are trying to HELP people. They may not always be totally right but they are earnestly trying. And the Orange Baboon eggs on those who want to kidnap Gretchen and fire Fauci? What?

VOTE BIDEN.

VOTE BIDEN.

VOTE BIDEN. I ALREADY HAVE. FORTUNATELY I LIVE IN MICHIGAN. I WAS ABLE TO DROP MY BALLOT INTO A BOX IN A DESERTED PARKING LOT ON A BEAUTIFUL MORNING A COUPLE WEEKS AGO AND IT HAS BEEN ACCEPTED.

I am trying my darnedest to be chill these last couple days before the election. People who have known me since I was three or 16 or 25 or whatever need to remember that that kid is still inside me but it is under many many layers of adulthood and marriage and parenthood. I was what we sometimes call a “spirited” kid and having birthed one of those myself, I have an inside view into what it’s like to raise that kind of beautiful person.

Anyway, we are two days from the 2020 election and I am freaked out that we may have to endure another four years of the Orange Baboon. And yet I was pretty calm today. I finished reading my latest book and did mini-chores in between chapters. How many empty paper bags can one have in one’s living room. There were bags from curbside pickup and bags from Rodent Delivery Service grock drops and I dunno what else. I carefully folded them all up and stashed them into yet another Plum bag for eventual delivery to the Scrap Box. I am working on my third bag of bags now.

We thought we might take ‘hattans over to the Woods House this afternoon but the weather was frickin’ AWFUL all day (high winds and snow showers) and we kind of hunkered down instead. Which was okay with the Woods House residents so all is good.

Instead, we took a ride down “south”, exploring South Lima Center Road. It’s an intermittent road so we had to jog a few times to the west and south to pick it up again. It ends for sure at Bethel Church Road and from there we zigged and zagged a bit and ended up on Bemis Road. GooMaps showed that as closed but we drove it ANYWAY. It was NOT closed and it was a beautiful drive through glacial-type terrain. Do we pronounce it Leema or Lima like lima bean? I do not know. I am guessing we pronounce like the bean here.

Two more days (or whatever). Whatever ism we end up with, I hope it isn’t four more years of Trumpism.

We did have some trick-or-treaters tonight. Not a lot and not sure if we’re done. We put wrapped chocolates in a big bowl in the driveway with a paper bag luminary in front of it to show people that we had treats.

I managed to get rid of my huge extra bag of candy via next door neighbor. I posted it this morning and put it on my porch. With some trepidation, I posted my address. Sometime around midday I was hanging out and saw an unfamiliar vee-hickle in the street. Being meeeee, I sensed that this vee-hickle was gonna pick up my extra candy. I dived into the back of the house and yes, these folks took my candy. So happy! I edited my post to say that the candy had been taken and removed my address.

Reading stuff on Nextdoor Neighbor, I was a bit nervous about putting candy out at all. I am VERY NERVOUS about COVID but I am not sure it makes a difference if you shoot candy down a chute or hand it to people with tongs or package it up in ziplock bags. YOU have handled it. Seems to me like however you dispense your candy, the best thing for the recipients to do is WASH THEIR HANDS. But this is the Planet Ann Arbor and people tend to overthink things a bit. Sigh.

My mouse has been using my Ninja vee-hickle for a week or so and because I’ve been without a car for a few days (GG was outta town), she has done various grock drops for me. Today she dropped my car off at 0-skunk-30 and walked to work while I was out pitch black walking and I was able to use it to do a Plum market pickup and then take a wee river drive. Mouse/Racoon visited our back yard this afternoon for a pre-5:00 PM ‘hattan. 🧡🧡🧡

First… I have TWO (count ’em) BIG BAGS of Halloween chocolate! I ordered candy from Amazon. I don’t know how I ended up with two! A redux of the double coffee grinder episode from last April? It is the kind of national brand candy that you get at the grocery store, Kit Kat and Reese’s, etc., and yes, some of it has nuts. It is WAAAAY more than we would ever give out to the usually paltry number of trick-or-treaters we get and this year… And we don’t eat all that much candy. I always overbuy for Halloween but this is ridiculous.

Also… Bubble wrap? Anybody else have a huge bubble wrap stash? It isn’t recyclable, at least not around here. In normal times, we can drop it off down on Ellsworth Road but not sure if it’s open. Also, since I don’t know what they do with it, it would be nice to find someone who might actually USE it.

I’m thinking of sucking it up and offering the candy and bubble wrap out on Next Door Neighbor. This makes me nervous for some reason. You are wondering why a person who does a higgledy-piggledy brain dump on the internet every day would be nervous about posting freebies on Next Door Neighbor? I dunno why exactly. We’ll see what I do. We will NOT eat all that candy or use all that bubble wrap.

Re my cousin’s comment yesterday asking about The Comm’s costume. It involved a witch hat and some spooky fabric that I had/have hanging around. But now I’m trying to remember if she was actually able to participate in Halloween festivities or if she MISSED them by landing in the hoosegow. After a looooong life of good health, she became a frequent flyer that fall. I won’t go into the details. It was a horrific time for her and a very chaotic period for me as her only living child residing a five-hour drive away. Multiple emergency rocket trips to the UP and eventually I became stranded there for quite a while, “luxury” camping in her house. We put umpteen gazillion miles on our then-new Frog Hopper (Outback) and spent thousands and thousands of dollars that last year of her life, which FORTUNATELY we (me and the GG) could afford. The spending was for our expenses, traveling to deal with Mom, etc. Mom could afford (thank you Zeus) to pay her own bills.

The GG and The Commander were great friends. As her life grew closer to ending, I was gearing my life up to a new career. We talked about this before I signed on to my job and we both knew it would be hard, at least for a while. The GG had a ton of government paid time off at that point and could drive up to help her with the cabin and whatever or just hang out with her pretty much whenever. I can’t find the words to express how lucky I was to marry this guy, as nuts as he can sometimes drive me…

P.S. Being stranded at The Commander’s house was not all that bad because I had COUSINS to help me out. Some visiting from afar, others emailing in, another in town and available for dinner at restaurants. Back when we went to restaurants. Love y’all.

Where am I today? I do not know. I was so antsy this morning that for a while I was thinking I might take a day off tomorrow. I dunno why. I was a little antsy with work and VERY antsy with the election. I have quite a bit of vacay to use up because I can’t carry it over into 2021. Vacay doesn’t mean quite what it used to because I can work from wherever now. Of course I could do that before, I just needed to check it out with my boss, who ALWAYS said OKAY! I can’t take tomorrow off though, too much to do.

But I am still sorting out my new life. Yes, I could go up north and work there for a while (Hoton Lake, not the moomincabin, which is CLOSED for the season). But I would still have to organize grocks. The Planet Ann Arbor is a curbside pickup/delivery cornucopia. I’m not sure how well that works at Hoton Lake and I am happy with the arrangements I have cobbled together here. COVID cases are going up and we will not be done with this crapola for a long time.

So here is The Commander’s Electric Jack-o-lantern and a couple of friends. Back in the day (2011) when I had to move my mom to an assisted living facility, we were coming up on Halloween and she was looking to decorate and get a costume together. “I want my Electric Jack-o-Lantern!” I was like “whut?” I consulted Connie, her sweet cleaning lady, and Connie knew EXACTLY what I was talking about. I schlepped it down to mom’s apartment at Freighter View and between my cuz The Beautiful Jan and I, we got The Comm dressed up for Halloween.

I took the ‘lectric Jack home with me and here it is with a couple of friends.

If I can find this artifact, I may or may not wear it on Halloween, although it would be appropriate for that “holiday”. I will definitely wear it on Election Day, which isn’t a holiday but arguably should be.

So when you live with a creative-type pensioner, you never know what you might find when you come home from a long day of slaving away at rent-paying activities. We’ll talk about some of those some other day and of course I don’t “come home” from work any more because I work FROM HOME. On THIS particular day in late August 2016, I did go to Cubelandia and I came home to this.

Where is it now? I do not know. If the GG does not know, I bet I can get him to make me a new one. It is based on a “pressman’s” hat that he learned to make out of newspaper when he was a kid with a paper route. He made this hat out of newspaper and covered it with tin foil. Er, actually it’s aluminum foil. Of course, he is also using my onion glasses.

We will not be handing out Halloween candy up close and personal from our front door like we usually do. I do NOT think the traditional trick-or-treat (or “shoe on”) format is a good thing this year. I know people are planning creative things like “chutes”. We’re not doing that. Our tentative idea is to set out a table with a bowl of candy for kids/families to take at their own risk, which should be low given that “we” have figgered out (maybe) that the virus is not easily transmitted via surfaces. Plus *we* (in our household) have been isolating for MONTHS! If it’s warm enough, we may sit outside at a safe distance, if not, we’ll stay inside. We usually don’t get a ton of trick-or-treaters anyway but we love the ones we do get.

I so miss the old days when our kids went trick-or-treating. Especially the year that our mouse baby had *finally* glommed on to shoes and at every house where we knew the folks well enough that we went inside the door, our mouse looked at the shoe pile by the door (we ALL had a shoe pile) and yelled, “Shoe on!”

I am freaked out that the Orange Baboon could win again. I see the polls and a lot of them favor Biden but still. We saw that with Hillary too, right? One more week and if I did not have a job to keep my brain busy, I would be standing in the back yard howling at the moon or screaming into Eco Terlet or whatever.

Mr. Bear both made me insane and kept me sane today. It kinda all balanced out. We were reviewing proposed designs and I got to one point in my document where HE and I had CAREFULLY walked through some complicated functionality over a year ago (you don’t want to know the details, believe me). Today he was incredulous that we were doing the project at all. He didn’t remember that we hashed this stuff out way pre-COVID. It’s okay and I was laughing my ass off in my head. He is who he is and we all know what he’s all about AND he’s GOOD at what he does. He’s a good guy underneath it all and he was actually on his best behavior today. I’ll take it.

When I first worked at Cubelandia, I thought Mr. Bear was a misogynist. I came to understand that his way of interacting with people applies to everyone regardless of gender, etc. He can still be a difficult person for me but I think he has figured out that I am not TOTALLY stupid because he does work with me respectfully.

One of my favorite stories about him (from way back when) was one day when a coffee mug labeled “Professional Smart Ass” appeared on his desk when he got to work. He could not figure out who left it there so he was thinking the worst. He wandered around asking people if they knew anything about it including my then cube neighbor. Cube neighbor knew nothing about it.

Eventually he located the culprit. Another colleague *had* a Professional Smart Ass mug and *he* had admired it. She said, “I’ll get you one.” And she did.

P.S. We were so much older then, we’re younger than that now. I don’t know who Mr. Bear votes for and that’s his business. The important thing is that he CAN vote in this country because he became a citizen here a few years ago.

Alarming COVID rates in this state. I follow the Chippewa County Health Department on facebook and every weekday(?) they report the number of new confirmed cases. I have been watching this since June. Every day the number of confirmed cases has been zero or one. Zero for days on end. Today? An ALARMING 13!!!

Chippewa County is where we have one of our vacation homes, if you can call a rustic 60-year-old seasonal cabin a home. It is MY home at least, although I spent nine months of each of my childhood years in a shabby little bungalow on Superior Street in Sault Ste. Siberia. Right across from the back end of Lincoln School to which I Red Queened every morning.

After some initial thoughts that we wouldn’t be able to go to the moomincabin this summer, we did. Very carefully. We didn’t interact closely with our neighbor-cousins except for a wee bit of a “pod” with The Grand Poohbah and her fam down on the bank. We all had been isolating forever and we were outside. Interactions inside our cabins were limited.

We hauled huge numbers of grocks up to the cabin and it was hugely stressful organizing all of that stuff. I bought something like $400 of grocks from Plum and Sparrow and Argus and the Whine Castle and Amazon Prime for our 2-week stay up there in July. We (aka the GG) limited visits to the small hardware stores up there that make it possible to keep such a place up as much as possible. We MASKED UP everywhere people were anywhere near.

I don’t know why the numbers have spiked all of a sudden. I hear that it’s happening in isolated areas like the yooperland all over the country. Places where people like to say, “We’ve always been socially distanced.” Well, yes and no because there are bustling little cities in the yooperland but we won’t go there today.

I am not surprised about the spike in numbers but I am very discouraged. We have a “president” who does not seem to care. I do not blame him for the coronavirus. I blame him for his lack of leadership in response to the coronavirus CRISIS. It IS a crisis. We need a leader who will WORK with our governors et al. We need a leader who will NOT incite crowds to cheer “Lock her up” like he did for our own governor #thatWomanInMichigan, this after a failed plot to KIDNAP her. Jeeesh!

P.S. You think 13 cases from 0 or so in one county is not alarming? How about Michigan in June getting 200 cases a day and now well over 3000? MASK UP for your sake and for all of the essential workers, one of them being my daughter. I am sorry but I am so pissed off about our country’s lack of response to this crisis. I’ve already voted and y’all know who I voted for.

I awoke today about as depressed as I ever get. It was a bit of a rough night for sleeping here at the Landfill, which didn’t help. Of course I fell into a Shoreline Dream something like 20 minutes before I wanted to wake up. I won’t go into too much detail but this one featured the ramshackle old Doelle house turned into some kind of a “rock shop”. I was in there with my cousin UKW who morphed into one of the Piedy gals (Bee, if you happen to read this, girl). Then as I was walking back down the beach, part of the bank morphed into a 20-foot sand cliff covered with blueberry plants. I wanted to go back and walk the old road through the woods but couldn’t figure out how to scale the cliff. AND THEN! Built into the side of the cliff at each end were modern rest rooms with big wooden swinging doors and everything. At that I woke myself up. Jeebus!

My 0-skunk-30 walk usually shakes off a bad dream (not that this was all that bad, just weird but shoreline dreams always are). That didn’t help today and the usual tRump/COVID hangover hung around well into the morning. It doesn’t help that I am living in a house divided. Arguing does not help. I am usually talked over and sometimes dismissed as, well, once or twice during this 4-year ordeal, “stupid.” Um, why? Because I disagree with you?

Anyway, it is what it is and we got out in Mooon Yooonit this afternoon and explored some back roads, listening to Jeannie Seeley’s Sunday satty-lite radio show. This is the kind of thing we do well together and today was no exception. We headed over to check out the old Stone School Co-op nursery, then down past the Ellsworth drop-off center. Since we were on Platt Road, we kept going south until it ended, then we jogged west and further south, turning back north before we hit the Ohio border.

Our conversations mainly involved meeee following our route on GooMaps, pointing out all of the little rivers, streams, drains, and ditches we crossed as well as other points of interest on the flatlands in southeast Michigan not far from the Ohio border. Pheasant farms and huge (apparently) unharvested cabbage fields were a highlight and no, it doesn’t take much. It’s a beautiful area albeit not in a flashy way.

On our way back north, a wee bit of excitement as we entered the village of Britton! What is that NOISE? Is it the car? Is it on the radio? I thought it sounded like a tornado siren so I opened my window and yes, that’s what it was. For a minute I looked around for a tornado even though it was way too cold for one. I figured volunteer fire department. We continued north and sure enough 10 minutes later the flashing lights of a faaaarr engine appeared in the distance behind us.

More Trump signs than Biden today but we were in Trump country. That said, I saw more signs for local politicians than either presidential candidate. If you can refer to Trump as “presidential.” Sorry but I had to say that.

I was pretty incensed this morning when I checked facebook out only to see that friends with MAGA-infested ideas continue to recklessly use words like “socialism” without (I believe) understanding its definition. And then there’s the trope that Kamala supports killing full-term babies. I don’t believe Kamala supports that. I don’t believe 99.9999999% of the people in our country support that. Charles Manson and some other psychos maybe? Let’s call this “baby killing” thing what it almost always is: late-term abortion. Late term abortion is almost never used as a means of birth control. Instead it provides a LEGAL way for women (and their partners if they have one) to be free to make excruciating life and death decisions when a pregnancy goes horrifically wrong and threatens the life of the mother and/or the baby. C’mon people. Those who are forced to make these decisions deserve COMPASSION! They should NOT be labeled “baby-killers”.

Okay, I downloaded that crapola outta my head. The rest of the day? Up and down but nothing serious.

I have been obsessed with “visible mending” since the pandemic began (randomly, not because of the pandemic). Darning and patching and whatever (look it up if you care). I FINALLY dipped my toe into visible mending today, fixing a hole in one of my fave Toad & Co. boyfriend knit skirts. I did such an extremely clumsy job on this that I haven’t posted any pics of it except to text a few to my fiber artist (among other things) mouse-child. I am not happy with today’s results but I am also not discouraged. I need to make some needle and thread adjustments and get more practice.

And then there were the enchiladas… I ordered some beautiful flour tortillas from Plum a while back. I thought I was gonna use them right away but then I didn’t so I put them in the freezer. I shouldda tooken them out and put them on the counter to thaw yesterday. But. I didn’t. They were out thawing for hours today but they are kind of thick and they were still more or less fused together by the time I wanted to use them. The good news is that we ARE having enchiladas tonight and they will be fine. The bad news is that it took me FOREVER to separate these things using a tortuous process involving the microwave (that I didn’t want to buy when we gutted the Landfill Chitchen) and a flat spatula.

At least I made sure to specify FLOUR tortillas. Because gluten free tortillas do not ROLL without disintegrating. I know this because of a waaaay pre-COVID shopping misadventure. Read labels, KW! That is all.

P.S. Ugh. Our fave neighborhood pub/steakhouse is temporarily closed because several employees are positive. I may be preaching to the choir here but PEOPLE, WEAR YOUR DAMN MASKS! And don’t dine in. Because you cannot eat through your mask!

It’s not my birthday. My birthday is smack in the middle of winter. If I have it right, I was born on a particularly frigid yooperland day and my old coot managed to lock himself out of the house and had to pry a basement window open to get in. I wish I knew that story better. There’s no one left to ask about it.

When I first started this bunch of useless blather, back when I was rolling my own (i.e. writing ALL of my own html/CSS), I used to call out people’s birthdays. Eventually it got to be too much. For one thing, take this week. It’s a Big Birthday Week. Tuesday: a niece. Wednesday: a cousin. Thursday: a niece. Today: a daughter. Monday: The Beautiful Suzie (the GG’s sister and my beloved friend who died waaaay too young). And so it goes. April is another month with a Big Birthday Week but they pretty much happen all year. We both have big close families in our own ways (him: lots of siblings, me: cousins galore).

So it got to be too much but also, as them thar intertubes aged a bit, I realized that people didn’t necessarily WANT their birthdays called out on the internet. I know I don’t like it when people broadcast mine although I will sometimes mention it myself.

I was a bit grumpy today though that we really couldn’t, you know, meet up with our daughter IN PERSON. Because you know why. It’s not that we meet EVERY year. We certainly didn’t get together when she was doing study abroad or living in California or even college in Kzoo although that was close enough to drive some gifts over on the I94 18-wheel Slogway. I certainly didn’t frequently drive up to the yooperland as an adult to spend my birthday with my parents. If I did, there was probably another reason for being there. But one of the perks of living less than an hour away from your kid is that you CAN in fact do lunch or dinner or whatever together on your birthday or theirs.

Not this year. Thank you COVID and I will not get polly-tickle here. Today. I always post these photooos on this date.