Archive for August, 2007

Happy 50th, Old Boy!

Sunday, August 12th, 2007

Today would’ve been my little brother’s 50th birthday if he had made it this far. I was thinking about what to blahg about it and I have already done the baby picture thing et al so I didn’t want to do that again. And then I remembered about the day we knocked down the old outhouse. Er, actually, *he* knocked it down, I just took pictures and generally made a nuisance of myself. To my great surprise, when I found the outhouse pictures, I discovered that there were some little *video* clips too! I had completely forgotten that I had taken those. So I stitched them together with a few still pics and added a little voiceover telling about the project and, voila! Too bad there’s no original sound, that was my old camera, which didn’t have it, but he’s in great character otherwise, so here you go:

P.S. I could hear the GG watching this video a few minutes ago and now I can hear him out there watching every single outhouse video on YouTube.

The Second (or Third) Last Day

Saturday, August 11th, 2007

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I bailed out today. There was a kayak trip on the Lower Tahquamenon River. Nine miles. Would’ve been fun. Except that it was with a big group of people and we would’ve likely had to spend significant time on logistics and possibly waiting for people who are, uh, not, quite as, uh, fast impatient as I am about getting down a river. And there was also a North Country Trail hike, Naomikong overlook to Avery Grade. I like to hike and the NCT folks are fun but I bailed out on that one too. I just wasn’t that interested in schlepping through the woods on a swelteringly hot day. Anyway, Jane was here. It seems somehow that I’ve spent a lot of last days here hanging around down on the beach with Jane. I may not have kayaked nine miles or hiked seven. But I’ll have hiked about five by the end of today just walking the beach watching terns and ducks and seagulls. And Jane and I kayaked over to Birch Point where we hung out in the water watching the baby ospreys for a while. She golfed. That’s her newest sport. Big water and sand traps here! I sponged sand dunes and spiders and things out of kayaks. We swam. And drank Sweaty Betty beer with Radical Betty. It’s not really my last day. I’m going back to The Planet for eight days and then I’ll be back up for one last hurrah. Therefore, there’ll be another last day. And then there’ll probably be a third when I come back up to help close the place up for the winter. Of course, that’ll be October or so and it could well be snowing by then, who knows? Cheers, Bughouse aka Kreacher aka Kayak Woman.

Yooper Vee-hickles Old and New

Friday, August 10th, 2007

We provided bourbon, Commander-made chocolate chip cookies, and Entertainment Crackers. Sam and jcb provided everything else. Thanks for the hostility hospitality you guys! Love!

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Blahgging from the street in front of the Curtis Library looking at South Manistique Whitefish Lake

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

Nothing to say though. 🙂

You guys crack me up! :-)

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

Anyway, we’re heading over to the archaeofacts northern headquarters for an overnight so unless we MacStumble into a wifi, it’ll be quiet here until sometime tomorrow. Sayonara, Kreacher/Kayak Woman.

Elephop and Telephong

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

moo.jpgBrrrrrrinnnnggggg! It was 0-dark-thirty or so, that batscope time of the night. It was my cell phone. I fumbled for it in the dark and tried to answer it but it lost the call. “Out of service.” I had been expecting a call from Lizard Breath saying she’d landed safely in California and, since her phone had the nerve to break yesterday, I expected it to be from an unfamiliar number. But it wasn’t! It was from The Master of The Universe phone, which is attached to the name “Mouse” in my cell phone, even though Mouse hasn’t used that phone since she started college. Still operating in a fog, I reasoned — in that batscope way — that Liz had called Mouse and *Mouse* had tried to call *me* to relay the message. I fumbled for the cordless landline receiver and, using the light from my cell phone screen, managed to dial The Master of The Universe number. No answer. Left a message, “grok grok,” and hung up. Tried again. Maybe she didn’t hear it ring? Still no answer. In a flash of relative brilliance, I thought to look at when that call had actually come in. Duh, *last Wednesday*? Roight. That would have been the GG, calling us at the airport. It was only then that I remembered that the GG is now the primary user of The Master of The Universe phone and realized that it was probably somewhere nearby in the cabin, turned off. In effect, I was trying to call myself. Then I heard the answering machine blaring downstairs and when I got down there, The Commander was scuttling around trying to answer the landline, an impossible feat since I had the cordless receiver with me. It was Liz, who had left a message while I was fumbling around with the phones upstairs. Okay. Glad to hear. Back to sleep. Or maybe not. It had been a scorchingly hot day, so hot that I had walked to Doelle’s and back in chest-deep water. We had left the screens in the doors when we went to bed and every window in the cabin was wide open. The wind had switched around to the northwest and was blowing a pretty good gale by that time. Things were rattling around and wind was blowing through the cabin. The GG shut the windows and I finally dragged myself out of bed and gravy-trained downstairs to put the glass windows back in the doors. I slept fitfully the rest of the night due to a bunch of banging around by something we apparently didn’t manage to batten down properly. Or maybe it was a bear trying to get in. I was too tired to figure it out. Did that all make any sense? I didn’t think so.

Anyway, I got the message, so thanks! And today, for about the first time all summer, I don’t have anything on my agenda. I don’t have three triple-loaders worth of laundry to do or ten people to help engineer food for or dogs to walk. No ropes to push. Not that I mind the people or the dogs or even the laundry but today I seem to be just sitting. And so be it.

This entry’s title is from a children’s poem by Laura Richards that I remember from grade school.

Flocked!

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

Happy birthday, Harry! Click on the pics (taken by Jay) to enlarge:

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“Oh! Sewer pipes!”

Monday, August 6th, 2007

Said my own personal civil engineer when she saw the pictures. They’re from the Courtois Cabin Group Home at Houghton Lake. I haven’t been at Houghton Lake since the beginning of the summer. I wanted to go a couple of weekends ago but when push came to shove, I was totally utterly absolutely positively too exhausted to travel. So we bailed out. I’ll get back there eventually. At least there aren’t any forest fires around Houghton Lake so those folks aren’t waking up to woodsmoke every morning. That’s The Uncliest Uncle and his loverly dog Chloe Belle and a couple pieces of pipe. That’s about all I have for today. Click on the pics to enlarge them.

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Fin Family Moominbeachwarts

Sunday, August 5th, 2007

harrypotterfrog.jpgThe Commander = Albus Dumblecrup Crackerdumblecrumb Dumbledore
Lizard Breath = Ginny Weasley with aspirations of Tonks
Grinch = Hagrid, who else?
Karen = Hermione
Mouse = Aragog (ouch!)
Valdemort = Voldemort, of course
The GG = Fred, er, George, er Fred, er, oh heck, either one’ll do
Teri = McGonagle McGonagall
Anastasia = Moanin’ Myrtle
Jan = Madame Pomfrey
Jim = Peeves the Poltergeist
Jack = Nearly Headless Nick
Pengo Janetto = Fleur
Grok grok! Don’t fergit yer pore li’l ol’ Froggy! I’m ‘arry Potter! grokGROK!

Sincerely yours,
Kreacher (aka Kayak Woman)

In our onion goggles

Saturday, August 4th, 2007

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Forest Fire?

Friday, August 3rd, 2007

Not here (I don’t think) but it’s awfully smoky around the beach. It’s a clear, coolish morning with a lightweight northwest wind (now increasing a bit). Except for the haze out over the water. I didn’t notice it until we (me, Ernie, and Alfred) walked to the Doelle end of the beach. The smell of wood smoke hit me in the face and I could feel little heat waves. I knew that the owners hadn’t built a bonfire the night before because I had walked down there quite late in the evening but I kept looking for one anyway. Then I noticed that it was hazy out in the channel. Radical Betty said she could smell it as soon as she walked outside her house. Canada? Or further up the Michigan coast? Can’t find anything on the news so it’s a mystery. Other than that, it’s a busy morning. Some of the kids went swimming at around 7:15 or so and the dogs and I saw four deer come down to take a drink leaving footprints that were of great sniffing interest to Alfred. And now the pilot boat is heading up to meet the salty Federal Maas.

UPDATE: Apparently there is a forest fire somewhere to the southwest of here. The GG, Liz, Ana and Hannah drove out to Raco today. They saw lots of smoke in the Strongs vicinity and said there were places in the woods where breathing was interesting. The Soo Snooze reported on the local cheerleading team going to the national championships. Forest fire? Say what? There is one somewhere. Go figure.

Whaaaaat? Whaaaaat?

Thursday, August 2nd, 2007

sunsettrees.jpg“What’s that on your shirt?” asked The Commander, squinting at me. Well, what *is* that on my shirt? I had been slogging around all morning, walking the beach with Ernie and Alfred, cooking breakfast stuff, sorting out the refrigerator, making a grocery list, going to Glen’s, chopping vegetables up for later, washing dishes and more dishes and more dishes, sweeping, taking out the garbage, sweeping, taking things off the clothesline and putting them back on again (in the intermittent little piddly bit of rain we were getting).

I looked at my shirt. It was comet. I remembered that it had splashed there when I was cleaning the sink. I grabbed a dishrag and scrubbed at the comet with soapy dish water.

“What’s that on the floor? How did it get wet?” asked The Commander. I said, “No Mom, it isn’t dog pee.” It was from the dishpan, which I had washed and put upside down in the dish drainer. The Commander came along and moved it underneath the sink and all the water that was stuck under the rim of the pan splashed all over the floor.

Then the “kids” started getting up and somebody said they couldn’t remember which bath towel was theirs. Okay. It was hot and humid and it smelled a little funky in the cabin and I really think it was the garbage that smelled that way, not the towels but I made an executive decision to do some emergency towel washing over at Radical Betty’s.

Ernie and I took the laundry over to Radical Betty’s and put a load in and we walked around the corner of the house along the path to the beach and suddenly there was a frantic buzzing around my right shoulder and a stinging sensation! I looked up and there was a big *wasp* nest! I kept on going to the beach and Radical Betty was down there talking to Sharon and they asked, “What’s that on your shirt?” I was about to say, “comet,” but then I looked down and it wasn’t comet. At least not mostly. There was still a little bit of comet but there was also a big wet spot where I had sloshed soapy dishwater. Okay, you guys, I’ve been slogging around all morning and I don’t give a rat’s patoot whether there is comet or a wet spot or mucus or whatever on my shirt and I don’t really care if there’s a little water on the floor in the kitchen. Dog pee I do not want but I know that’s not what it is.

So, finally I got the laundry done. Not that any of this wasn’t any fun, dontcha know. In all of my travels back and forth, I managed to fit a lot of socializing in. I got to talk to Radical Betty and Sharon and then walk the beach with Radical Betty, Alfred, Ernie, Bugs, and Horsey. Sandy and Mac had a toilet out on Don’s deck and they were fixing that and sorting out cosmic debris in general. And then there was a big consultation about the wasp nest. We think Ernie was also stung but both Ernie and I are doing fine.

So then, I was thinking it was about time to take a kayak ride but I decided to walk the boyz first and we encountered Brigid and Pat digging out what I thought were some big old rocks that belong to the old crib in front of the McNaughton cabins. Lo and behold, they were not digging out some random rocks. They were digging out The Cheerio!!! I have been wondering where The Cheerio went for probably 30 years now. It used to be in front of the Old Cabin and when I was a kid we played on it whenever we went swimming. I didn’t think we’d ever see it again. When I exclaimed, “You found The Cheerio, we used to play with that when we were kids!” Brigid replied with her typical response to anything a bit hard to believe, “Get out!”

I never did get to do much kayaking. Ominous clouds rolled in and the wind started coming out of the northwest and kicking up the water. I was about to get into the kayak anyway, thinking I’d just play around in the waves close enough to shore to swim in if I ditched. I got the kayak down into the water and I was about to get into it when I saw a sand spider scuttling around in there. I didn’t really want to share my ride with him, so I fiddly-diddled around for a while catching him and getting him out without squishing him. I got my boat into the water again and, *again* I was just about to get into it and this time, there was a little toady in it. Hoppity hop. Took a while to catch him too and once he hippity hopped down into the front end of the boat and I had to tip it up to about shoulder height to get him back down to the seat where I could catch him. By the time I got him out, the waves were big enough that I really needed a spray skirt, which I didn’t have, and after almost getting swamped a few times, I gave up and swam instead.

Just another day on the beach and, you guys, if I am slogging around in my kayak clothes, I probably don’t care if I have comet or soapy dishwater or mucus on my shirt. Blood or seagull poop I might want to know about. And between the dial-up and the mysterious beach wifi, I have struggled to no end to get this posted. Any typos or run-on sentences or sentence fragments, I probably do not want to know about. I’ll find ’em and fix ’em eventually.

Where have all the cow pies gone?

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007

3:00 AM: Power comes back on.
4:00 AM: Time to get up.
5-something AM: Metro airport. Missed passenger on the first go-round (and then missed the turn and had to go all the way out to Eureka Road and back) but thankfully no run-ins with nasty security guards.
6:00 AM: Marc’s Midtown on Plymouth Road.
7:00 AM: US23/I75 SUV Speedway.
10:00 AM: 86 degrees in Gaylord.
10:20 AM (or so): Gas at Indian River.
11:45 AM: Beach beach beach.
Ding ding ding ding. That’s all. Oh. Except.
5:00 PM: that it’s the 90-millionth anniversary! Actually it’s the 64th. And yes, Grandroobly is here too. Whatever made you think he wasn’t? So pop that champagne. Have a manhattan on us! Quail eggs? Yeah.
9:00 PM: Swim in Lake Superior.
Ding ding ding. Bladladladl. Yes, I am incoherent!

Tuesday’s Post

Wednesday, August 1st, 2007

It was a long hot day and I finally turned the air conditioning on and I was sitting here last night getting ready to write a whiny blahg post about how much I hate air conditioning in my house and then all the lights went to half mast. Except the blue LED xmas lights in my living room that I turned on because I hate having all the doors and windows shut. The whole neighborhood was on brownout or whatever until about 3 AM. Makes it real fun to try to pack and load your vee-hickle up in the dark. I had to use the light from my cell phone to get the laundry out of the dungeon. Thank the gods it was actually dry. So I didn’t get much packing done and now it’s 4-something in the morning and I am scrambling. Or not, I guess, because I’m sitting here blahgging. My guess is that everyone in the neighborhood has replaced their 1950s vintage furnaces in the last couple years, adding air conditioning and that we all turned on the a/c at once. And now if I can just get my vee-hickle packed without running into any skunks because yesterday morning at around this time, it was so skunky around here I couldn’t even sleep.

Sayonara for now,

Kayak Woman