Archive for June, 2008

Bedraggled

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Emotionally, not physically, even though it has rained *all* day. Oh, I won’t spend the whole post whining. It isn’t really worth whining about and I *like* the rain. The problem was that this rain came with lucky-shucky and I do not walk in lucky-shucky. So. I didn’t get to walk this morning. And work was sorta boring today. I mean I had stuff to do but without any hot deadlines or anything, there wasn’t any fire under my you-know-what and I am just happier when I’m in the thick of things. And then I got home and I was all set to walk over to the Plum Market to forage for something for dinner. In the rain. And then. KABOOM! Guess I won’t be walking anywhere. So I had to take a vee-hickle over there. Two blocks, fer Kee-reist! And they did the ceiling in Mouse’s room today but things are *still* not done in there and I shouldn’t complain because some people I know are living with zipwalls. But still.

And btw, that is not a black-and-white picture there. I mean it sort of is but it was taken with a color camera. And yes, the last time you saw a version of that scene on this here weblahg, it was in rather vivid color! This picture was taken at 4:45 AM today. Yes, that means the sun wasn’t up yet. Even in the Great White North, when we are near the summer solstice, it is dark at that time. So what was happening was that one of the Houghton Lake webcams was taking a picture every time lightning struck. And there are a lot of those pictures out there. See the water in the yard? That must’ve been one heckuva storm.

I am not there at Houghton Lake this weekend. We are home on The Planet Ann Arbor for various reasons. Number one for me being not wanting to spend the whole weekend dodging funnel clouds. Can’t say that for the GG. He loves tornadoes. And one thing about rainy summer days is that it gives me a good excuse to turn on my Christmas lights! Er, not that I won’t use any old random excuse to turn them on. Hey, they’re LED, so who the heck cares?

Omygod! The GG has just spacified me! I needed that!!!!

Sayonara, KW

Hypergraphia runs in the family?

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Since black skies and the incessant rumble of thunder are keeping me from walking this morning, here’s the latest Fin Family Moominbeach blahg.

Walking around a clean, air-conditioned building in what passes for business casual with a cloud of mosquitos surrounding my shaggy head o’ hair

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

At least that’s what it felt like all day. I also felt like my hair was covered with bug spray. And the whole thing wasn’t even a bad feeling. Mental illness setting in? I do not know. Go figger.

Anyway, I’ve been patiently waiting for bugging Lizard Breath to blahg about her new home for weeks now and she has and she has posted pictures. She recently moved from Berkeley down into San Francisco. No, I’m not gonna post her address! What were you thinking? I loved Berkeley and her shabby little ant-infested apartment there and I will miss Sluggy. Actually, I think Berkeley is the first place I’ve ever been that made me think something like, “if the blasted Great Lake State ever disappears into a giant sinkhole, I could actually live here.” Can’t explain exactly why. It just fit. But she had been looking for a new place for a long time and I am happy that she found one she liked and ecstatic that I was too far away to help her move.

And that’s really all I’m gonna say. I have a really hard time blahgging about my kids. I sometimes think that if the Internet had been a viable medium when they were babies, I’d’ve probably invented the whole “mommy blahgger” thing. But back in those days, my job involved hooking up a Decwriter II terminal into a mainframe on the Merit Network via a 300-baud modem. We used cumbersome text processing applications to write documents and if you wanted somebody else to read what you wrote, you had to either tell them the file name and where it was or print it out. (Veeelhelm, keep me honest here but don’t be too long-winded.)

And photographs? Not. I do remember walking into my boss’s office one day and being astonished at the sight of him sitting next to his printer watching ASCII art nude women coming off of there from somewhere on the ‘net. I’m sure some sort of digital camera existed then but it didn’t in any way, shape, or form resemble my current Canon Powershot whatever-it-is. Or my iPhone camera. Or even that first (wonderful!) Sony Mavica we had that saved photos to a floppy disk. I kid you not! But that thing had a 10x optical zoom!

Anyway, the Internet had been invented by the time the beach urchins were babies, but it wasn’t a viable mechanism for the average moom to publish stuff about her life and kids. So only people that I talked to face-to-face or by phone (email wasn’t even viable in those days) were lucky enough to hear anything about the sleepless nights, hissy fits, and bodily fluids that drove our lives in those days. Of course, they were also the only people who heard about any of the good stuff.

Now? Well, blahgging about my kids just kind of falls flat. I love how they’ve turned out *despite* whatever I tried to beat into their brains. I think they may have learned more about how to conduct their lives from Anne of Green Gables than from me. But they are young adults engaged in building their adult lives. They have highs and lows, good days and bad days, just like the rest of us. It isn’t up to me to tell their stories and, on a good day, I don’t ask too many questions about their lives. And I *try* not to give advice… Anyway, click here or on the pic to see a few more from Lizard Breath’s colorful new neighborhood. Love you, baby girl.

Any job that doesn’t make you beat your head against the wall incessantly for the first year or so is not a job worth having.

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

I’m not sure what the last day of school is for The Planet Ann Arbor (although I think it is Friday) or any of its satellite communities (last week, I think) but today was the last final exam of the junior year (of college) for the small aminal known as Mouse. That means she is a senior as of now. Assuming she passed her classes, that is. (Of *course* she passed. What did you think?) But don’t talk to her about it. Because senior year is next and, well, we just won’t go there. Okay? Okay.

Me, I’m thinking back to all of the last days of school throughout elementary school. The beach urchins’ for sure but mostly my own. I don’t really remember too much about what we actually did in *school* on the last day. Hello, PTO moms! The kids don’t remember all your carefully planned parties! They just wanna GET OUTTA DODGE! So throw candy and cupcakes at ’em and then go have a Bloody Mary (or two or three) somewhere. I do remember that The Commander always gave me a big paper grocery bag and I would put all the junk from my desk into the bag to take home with me. I would get home and I would be FREEEEEEEE!!!!! Er, and then I don’t really remember what I did once I got home either, except bug The Commander to move us out to Fin Family Moominbeach for the summer. It didn’t matter if was still 40 degrees and raining. Gimme my bushel basket and let’s go!

I dunno why but the year I remember the best, I was staying at my Grandma’s house on the last day of school because Grandroobly and The Commander were off at a bank meeting or something. My grandparents lived maybe about 10 blocks away from us. Superior Street to John Street, 1300 block to 1000 block. Across Kimball and Minneapolis and Augusta and Young and Bingham and down a few avenues and, finally, whew, John Street. Now that I think about it, I don’t really remember much about *that* last day of school either. I took my paper bag full of papers and stuff upstairs to the room we stayed in there and looked down at the street. And then I think I just took off, to play with the friends that I knew in school but didn’t usually play with outside of school unless I was at my Grandma’s house. We didn’t really have scheduled playdates back in those days, don’tcha know.

I probably confused a whole bunch of people in several cities today and I am fried and you are NOT seeing Mouse’s underpants in the picture, my girls *always* wore shorts underneath their dresses so they could hang upside-down on the monkey bars and do whatever else they wanted and still wear cute little dresses and things. So, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-naaaaaaah. You go girls. G’night.

Please Mom, can I have a kitten?

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

“Jimmy’s cat had kittens! Can I have one?” Jimmy being a kid in my 1st grade class that I don’t remember at all. I do remember Miss Cox and the big paper mache horse we made in that classroom and got to take turns climbing on and I remember how terrified I was when one of the classroom lights started to smoke.

The Commander, in a *very* weak moment, decided it was okay. We already had a dog and I don’t think she is much of a cat person. Although she used to delight in letting Muksaslooie into the cabin early in the morning when I was 20 or so because he would walk on my head and wake me up. But she adopted the kitten I named Twinkle Star Finlayson. Twinkle is up on the refrigerator in this picture and you can’t really tell but she was a beautiful tortoise shell cat. And she actually got along with the dog, Tigger Blondie Finlayson (I didn’t get to pick Tigger’s first name but I definitely picked her middle name). They would play-fight and Tigger would get Twinkle’s head totally into her mouth and shake it around on a funny little rock that was in our back yard next to our garage.

Twinkle grew up and, for I don’t know what reason, we didn’t get her neutered and one morning, in our horrible Michigan basement, she became Mooma Cat. She had four in her first litter. Puff and Spot lived (yes, I named those too, not totally sure about Spot’s name though). A little calico kitty was born sickly and died shortly after birth. And, if I remember accurately, there was a fourth “monster” that was born dead. I remember seeing the calico kitten but the “monster” wasn’t shown to us kids.

She had her second litter in a big wooden box at the cabin. Five healthy kittens this time. Butterball appeared first. We knew Twinkle was pregnant and close to delivery but we were still surprised to find a little orange tiger kitten in the box with her. We ran like heck down to the Mullin cabin to alert our friends Kevin and Kathie and they came home with us to watch the rest of the kittens be born. I forget exactly what the rest of the names were but I got to name all of those too. Tigger the dog was involved too. Her role was to bark, growl, and nip ferociously at anything that got anywhere near the kittens and she did it well. Butterball got adopted by Bugs and Horsey and was renamed Butterscotch. My cousins Terri and Sally took *two* other kittens. And by then The Commander had had just about enough so Twinkle Star Finlayson and her two remaining kittens became barn cats somewhere over on old US2 or wherever.

The End. Hey, mom, keep me honest with the details here!

Having a wonderful time! Wish you were here!

Monday, June 9th, 2008

“Hello from Ho Chi Minh City!” It was an email from my globe-trotting Monday Morning Coffee Buddy1 and it was a long time ago. She wasn’t in Ho Chi Minh City. At least not that time. MMCB has been to Ho Chi Minh City but she went during the month of December and that email arrived during fish fly season at Houghton Lake. Not December. So I don’t remember what city it was but it was someplace exotic and I gleefully replied, “You may be in <insert-exotic-city> but *I* am here in Fish Fly City!” And I put a picture of fish flies all over the Little Princess trailer on my website and sent her a link. That was a long time ago, even before I was rolling my own blahg2, not to mention dragging it onto WordPress.

This weekend the fish flies were out in full force at Houghton Lake. Their carcasses went crunch, crunch, crunch under my Chacos. Their carcasses got up underneath my toes and turned them black. [Gay, I scrubbed the tub after that.] They fell out of the trees and entangled themselves into my hair. As we were driving home, a wayward fish fly was flapping around above the dash in the front of the Dogha. I debated whether or not to eject him and finally decided he wasn’t bothering me and I’d let him live out whatever little time remained to him in my vee-hickle. He attached himself upside down to my visor and it wasn’t until much later that I noticed that he had molted, leaving an exoskeleton or whatever it is behind.

On a good year, I get to experience two fish fly hatches! I get to the hatch at Houghton Lake and then they hatch a few weeks later up on Fin Family Moominbeach. We call them Canadian Soldiers up there (via my long-dead Canadian-born grandfather) and sometimes a fish fly Canadian Soldier-encrusted yellow kayak will show up on the Flickr widget over on the right. I’ll miss the Canadian Soldier season this year but I didn’t miss the fish fly season. It’s a short one, they only live a day or so in their adult stage. Here’s what wikipedia has to say. And Click here or on the pic for more unless you are squeamish about up close and personal bug pictures.

1) Yes, we’re still wondering why the globe-trotting MMCB hangs around with the likes of a baggy old Kayak Woman whose main method of travel is an old Honda sedan that only traverses Great Lake State freeways (yay for Hondas, by the way).

2) That means I was writing my own html — every day — and not using WordPress or other blahgging software, in case you aren’t right up to snuff with the terminology. And I wasn’t. Until last week. So.

Quick update. Or maybe not. Quick, that is.

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

For anyone who cares, we are home here on The Planet Ann Arbor. Flirted with severe storms and tornado warnings all the way down. Lots of storm spotters out and about as well as people on motorcycles (?) and bicycles (???). Rain and high winds caught up with us briefly in Stockbridge. We drove out of it again and managed to get home and get the dirty old green Honda Accord unpacked just before the skies opened up again. We’re on the edge of the severe stuff here, just lots of rain and thunder, etc. Apparently we pretty narrowly missed a tornado near Lansing. Rocky weekend weatherwise.

Also want to apologize for the last entry, which started out to be a humorous piece about what it’s like to geek around with us cranky old empty nesters and our frog and all of our loopy technological devices. Somehow it turned into ridicule of Houghton Lake area residents and businesses. Don’t know where it went wrong but it fell far short of the original goal. I *love* the Houghton Lake area and one of the reasons is because it *doesn’t* have Borders et al at every major interchange. And I often miss our moldy old cabin that was slowly sinking into the ground. I’m not gonna remove the post. It can serve as a reminder to me to engage my brain before writing and not hit the Publish button too soon.

Pooh, that old library had lions too, which I think I remember climbing on. And I guess I’ll have to read Horatio Hornblower one of these days. After all, it was my grandfather’s book. Maybe on the beach? Oh yeah. I don’t get to spend more than a few measly days at the beach this summer. Onward!

Don’t people read around here?

Sunday, June 8th, 2008

We’ve been through this before. Looking for a bookstore in the Houghton Lake area I mean. It was back when the older beach urchin had become an independent reader. This was a kid who couldn’t even endure the one-and-a-half mile ride from the Landfill to the Westgate Kroger [no uscan then] without dragging along a stack of books.

We were up here at Houghton Lake one weekend and she had totally run out of reading material. No books? A crisis! We set off on a bookstore reconnaissance mission and we were in luck! There was a little bookstore, Lighthouse Books or something like that, in the brand-new Glen’s strip mall. It wasn’t Border’s but we did find a few books. I think we bought, among other things, one of the American Girls series books. It was one of her first chapter books and I actually remember wondering if it would be too hard for her. What was I thinking? If my memory is accurate, she devoured it in a matter of hours.

Alas, that little store only lasted a year or two and here we are again, in the 21st century, looking for a bookstore at Houghton Lake. The GG googled bookstores in the area and an unlikely sounding result placed one in “the heights”. Roight. Houghton Lake Heights has the run-down old Turtle Soup Bar (and a couple others) and a post office and something called “Jane’s”. Could that be it? He couldn’t remember the name The Google had dredged up but this place didn’t look likely. It looked more like a typical run-down sinking-into-the-ground lakeside dwelling than a storefront. There was a “closed” sign in the window and a guy who was probably not “Jane” was sitting out in front smoking a cigarette. No, probably not a bookstore.

Well, maybe he had the location wrong, he thought. Maybe it’s over on 55. Just past Federal. We hung a left onto 55 and slowly moseyed along for a couple of miles looking for possibilities. Seedy looking bars. Abandoned antique stores. Go-kart tracks. Bart’s Fruit Market. A Shell station where we paid $4.09 to fill ‘er up. Bookstore? Not.

Now, we have Kmart and Walmart here and they both probably have a book rack where you can get the latest paperback bestseller or romance novel or maybe a nice self-help book. Or a book with a numeral in the title. And the GG has been known to read a few books with numerals in the titles. But he wanted something specific today. I’m not sure what. He’s *been* reading Horatio Hornblower all weekend, for the second or third time. Anyway, whatever he was looking for was probably not available at Walmart and after hiking in the woods at Beaver Creek all morning, we didn’t have the psychic stamina to join the rest of middle-America there on a Saturday afternoon. Sorry but I don’t need any dog Halloween costumes today.

So what is it with this area? Doesn’t anybody around here read?

At least we didn’t walk.

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

This picture doesn’t really need any of my blather surrounding it but I’m writing it anyway. Yes, it’s true. Ron’s Restaurant is no more. Beloved breakfast joint of three Courtois clan generations.

The odd thing about this is that there are really no other greasy little family-run breakfast joints in our vicinity any more. Maybe I’m mis-remembering, but it seems like there were more of those things around back in 1980 when I started hanging around up here. The GG was insistent upon a restaurant breakfast today and for a moment we were hard-pressed to come up with an alternate idea. The closest breakfast place was probably that restaurant by the Cut River and I will never eat there again. Don’t even ask.

We ended up at Coyle’s. It’s a little farther away but it’s good and clean and quick and very friendly. We’ll go there again. But it isn’t Ron’s.

P.S. Ron himself is still around as far as we know. And the “lunch Ron’s” survives.

Apocalypse Now

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Er, actually not. It was just that armageddon was forecast pretty much all over the Great Lake State this afternoon. Severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings everywhere. And we were scheduled to drive north. Right smack through it all. I felt unsettled all day, my Celtic sixth sense was just kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, my Celtic sixth sense works best in hindsight, so I usually don’t plan my life around it. But I was full of angst all day. It was hot and sticky this morning and it just felt like it did back on July 2, 1997, when we were heading north and a tornado hit our van. With us in it. At least I *think* it was 1997. [Ahem, we can’t seem to find any Houghton Lake log books earlier than about 2002. Anybody got any idea where they’re stashed?]

<flashback>Anyway, we left The Planet Ann Arbor that July 2 for the Great White North. The plan was to drive up to Houghton Lake on the 2nd and continue on to Fin Family Moominbeach the next morning. It was a day kind of like today and there were all kinds of weather warnings but I didn’t take them seriously because the media in SE Michigan is forever threatening us with monster storms of one sort or another that never materialize. Mouse’s baseball coach called to cancel her practice that day and we were both kind of laughing about how ridiculous it was.

Or not. Just to be on the safe side, the GG looked at the weather map and made a calculated decision that it would be better to take the I75 SUV Speedway up, rather than the Lansing route. It’s the eastern route and I guess we figgered that state-wide severe weather would take a while to come *across* the state. Don’tcha know. We were soooo smart. And indeed, until we got up near Flint, the weather was hot, sunny, and windy, just like it had been all day. Fine and dandy, I thought. We’re home free.

Or not. Because. Then. Suddenly. The sky turned greenish-black. Big bolts of lightning were everywhere. I remember the tornado warning crackling onto the radio at the same time I noticed a fire truck sitting on top of a freeway overpass. Waiting. For casualties. We had the old blue POC. Actually, it was new then. My beautiful new, Island Teal minivan with the automatic locks and windows and the [crappy] CD player. I was driving. The GG was riding shotgun. Mouse was in the middle seat, directly behind me. Lizard Breath was in the third seat on the right.

I was scared out of my wits! Suddenly there was a rest area. I pulled in. I wanted to get out and go hide under a toilet or something. If you know how I feel about public toilets, you know how desperate I was. The GG said, “NO! Drive over there.” “Over there” was the entrance back onto the freeway. There was NO WAY I was gonna get back onto the freeway in that stuff. But, like a robot, I drove s-l-o-w-l-y toward the entrance ramp. When we got there, I protested again. He said, “pull over there.” I parked on the side and when I looked up, a big whirling thing was coming directly toward us! I wanted to get out of the van and into the ditch like they always tell you to do. The GG said, “no!” Stay inside. I looked back. My babies were as terrified as I was! I could reach my hand around to grab Mouse’s hand. There was no way I could get to Lizard Breath. I can still remember her sitting back there with Orange Baby snuggled up to her neck. This was her second tornado. She had been in a tent during her first one. No wonder she lives in California now!

At least one car on the freeway flipped over and others were left in various states of disarray. I watched as the tornado moved the cars parked in front of us toward the ditch. It was our turn. Miraculously, all it did to us was rock us around a bit. It was over. The GG said, “Don’t drive.” I thought (or maybe I screamed), “There is NO WAY I am going to DRIVE anywhere!” But after a few minutes, I took the POC out of park and we started slowly off. My beautiful new minivan was sandblasted and the windshield wipers were a bit cockeyed until the GG straightened them out but other than that we were unscathed.</flashback>

Back to today, for those who are confused. I listened to predictions of armageddon all the way home from work today. I was really jumpy. The traffic was crazy and there were police and ambulance sirens everywhere. I heard that there was a tornado warning for Kalamazoo and I’m sure Mouse thought I was crazy when I texted “tornado warning”. She was apparently in a basement somewhere on campus, working on a project, not hiding from a non-existent tornado. Oblivious to the weather reports.

I wanted to bail out from our trip. The GG wouldn’t have anything to do with that. I don’t think he is afraid of anything. I wanted to go up the I75 SUV Speedway. This time it seemed *clear* that the severe stuff wouldn’t get to the Flint area until later. The Lansing route looked scary but the GG insisted on it and, in truth, there’s so much construction on the I75 SUV Speedway that we may have gotten stuck in traffic long enough to hit the storms that we eventually heard were heading to the Flint area. Anyway, by the time we got to Stockbridge, the Lansing area was already under attack. By the time we got up to Holt Road (hi Sam!), things were looking awful and there were definite tornado warnings for the area we would soon drive through. The GG turned onto Holt Road and by doing so, we skirted around to the south and west of the storm. Gradually I got a little calmer and by the time we got to Lansing, the storm had moved just a bit to the east.

So, we just kept going. And life got almost normal for a drive to Houghton Lake. The water was a little rough up here and the yard is wet but we got everything in and poured a ‘hattan and started futzing around with various electronical beasties and then, I looked up and out and everything was orange. Not Photoshopped.

The GG says he can’t read this. It’s too long. I don’t care. It’s my blahg. G’night.

Morning, that is all

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Ark-ark! Ark-ark!

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

I love you guys but I may have slightly over-stated my case yesterday. I really do *not* think that Knight’s Steakhouse is at the risk of demise at the hands of a brownfield developer. I guess I inserted a little unnecessary hyperbole into that post. I am trying to figure out whether I will really miss all of the raggle-taggle little businesses on that corner. The ones that I don’t patronize. And whether I will like what comes in. And the traffic that it brings. With the new Spaceship High coming in to the north of us, we are all wondering how our relatively sleepy little neighborhood will change. Will I still be able to make a left turn out of my neighborhood onto a major four-lane street in a matter of minutes without (usually) risking life and limb? And maybe Aldi’s will come in and be successful but what about the spec shops that the developer is proposing to put in front of it? I just do not know. I don’t have the energy to be an activist this time. In any case, I’ve never been a successful one. I don’t have the right personality. And I’m not even sure what I think about this particular development. It doesn’t equal the Ganzhorn Grab in any way, shape, or form. Don’t ask me about all the high-rise apartments they keep building (and talking about building) downtown here. Foreclosure crisis? Build MORE? I just don’t get it.

It looks like I will be on The Planet for 4th of July weekend and the 4th is Friday so I have it off. So, I hereby declare that any Regenstreifs and/or GB Fins are welcome to come downover here for some sort of barbecue. We have a wedding on Saturday and others are doing other things. But the 4th is open. Whaddy’all say?

And Valdemort, we’ll have to get everyone downover here for Knight’s sometime soon. Or maybe *you* could just visit. But I will *not* let you drive afterwards! So bring your sleeping bag or your dogsled or whatever 😉

It is hot. I am not ready for the heat. Did I mention humid? And yes, we have central air. Installed it a couple years ago. But we have hardly even been able to open the doors and windows yet this year and I want those *open* now, not closed. So there. And, oh yeah. I have two more poison ivy pustules or whatever they are. But that seems to be all. Knock on wood. G’night! KW

Five Rabbits

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

To much fanfare, our long-awaited neighborhood grokkery store, The Plum Market, opened in February and it is so nice to be able to finagle my way around the construction to get home from work, park my car, grab a grokkery bag and *walk* over there. I just love walking by all the backed-up traffic on N. Maple.

But I’m not sure I like the latest in grokkery store developments here in my little neighborhood on the Planet Ann Arbor. A developer has plans to replace a whole bunch of little brownfield-type businesses with an Aldi store and some as yet unknown other shops. I have nothing against Aldi exactly (beware, their image and Flash heavy site loaded ultra-slowly on my broadband connection). But I’m an old stick-in-the-mud who doesn’t like real estate developers in general (exception being Plum Market) and I’m not sure I want all of the crappy old businesses that inhabit the brownfield on the NE corner of the Dexter/N. Maple intersection to go away. Lemme think. TV repair outfit. Chop shop/used vee-hickle outfits. I’ve never been able to figger out how many of those there are or whether or not they are somehow interrelated. Vacuum cleaner outfit. And those vacuum cleaners are *always* out there on the gravel in front of the store. They were out there when it was raining cats and dogs yesterday. They have *got* to be dysfunctional. Maybe the store knows the writing is on the wall? I dunno.

We have never been customers of any of those businesses. Maybe the TV place once back in the Jurassic Age when lightning apparently struck one of our TV sets while we were up in the Great White North one summer. But still. I kind of like that our corner is cluttered up with a bunch of rag-tag old buildings and used jalopies and drenched vacuum cleaners.

And it isn’t clear from the postcard we received from the developer whether the whole thing will involve demolishing Knight’s or not. I don’t *think* it does. It better not! Otherwise, I dunno. Would you guys rather live next to a quiet little brownfield or a new grokkery store with some other new businesses in front of it? Click here or on the pic for a short slideshow.

Grok grok. Ol’ Baggy has obvyussly flipped ‘er lid now. Grokgrok. That’s not five rabbits! It’s *four* *Vackyoom cleen’rs*! grok grok grok.

No, I will *not* let you in. Wait in line like the rest of us peons.

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

The last half-mile or so of my little commute home today was not fun. I think it took about 20 minutes. As I approached the Jackson /N. Maple intersection, it *looked* like traffic was moving pretty well onto N. Maple. Even though it was raining cats and dogs, meaning traffic was difficult everywhere, I decided to chance a left turn onto the N. Maple construction zone. Knowing that the left lane would eventually disappear, I dutifully got into the right lane and resolved to wait it out through the next two traffic lights into the big construction zone.

And every single blasted last perfectly coiffed Lincoln Navigator-type soccer mom with a cellphone plastered against her ear seemed to want to come flying up the empty left lane and CUT IN FRONT OF ME in my Cute Little Blue *Fuel-efficient* Honda Civic with the Yellow Flower in the Blower! Sorry. I do not know why that particular demographic drives me so crazy. But it does. If your kid (I’m talking grade-school kids here) *wants* to play soccer because they are *passionate* about soccer or maybe they just want to spend time with their friends, GO FOR IT! Spend all that time (practices and games umpteen million days a week including weekends ALL YEAR) and money (uniforms, equipment, snacks, you name it) and HAVE FUN! If *you* are putting your kid into soccer because *you* don’t think she is *assertive* enough and you think soccer will help, I’ve got news for you. There’s a good chance that soccer (in the absence of a perceptive coach) will make your kid AGGRESSIVE, *not* assertive. There is a difference.

Okay, why I needed to get that off my chest, I’m not sure. To be fair and truthful, I didn’t see one Lincoln Navigator on the road today, at least not one that I noticed. I did see a few minivans. And yes, I have owned a couple of minivans in my time. But the vee-hickles that were cutting in were generally random with random drivers. It’s raining cats and dogs. Did I mention that? I love it. We need it.

And on a random tangent, the Planet Ann Arbor city council, in its infinite wisdom (this time I’m not being sarcastic), seems to have voted to ALLOW PEOPLE TO KEEP CHICKENS IN THEIR BACKYARDS! Hens only and there’s a limit (four, maybe?). I will not have chickens myself (been there, done that) but I sure hope we end up with some neighbors who do. Not betting on it though!

My momma comes back, she always comes back, she always comes back to get me

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

My momma comes back, she always comes back, she never would forget me.

This little creature was near the sidewalk when I came out of the woods. Absolutely terrified! Almost too terrified to cry. Just one little squeak. I got as close as I dared, took a quick picture and vamoosed. I’m sure mooma raccoon was nearby. And, sure enough when I peeked back a few minutes later, the baby had vanished.

And I’ve updated Say bird and house since The Commander has corrected me on some recklessly erroneous information. Off to coffee and work. Seeya later.

 

How hard can it be to buy a blasted watering can?

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

Honestly. I just wanted a nice metal watering can. A couple gallon capacity or so. I wanted to be able to walk around the yard and water things. Unencumbered by a long, stubborn, obstinate tangled up hose. Unencumbered by a leaky hose nozzle that sprays as much water on me as it does on whatever I’m trying to water. A $25 watering can. Yeah, I know. All you miserly scrimpers and savers out there (you know who you are) are hollering, “$25!!!!! For a watering can?!??!!” A few grandparents are turning in their graves. My own personal miserly scrimper and saver dredged an old metal watering can out of the Houghton Lake garage and brought it home, just to save the $25. It was broken. What did you think? Is it fixed? What do you think? I finally said something like, “Yaknow? I am earning enough money to be able to buy a blasted $25 watering can!” For once, he couldn’t think of anything else to say. I mean, it’s not like I was threatening to buy a new vee-hickle (actually I am but that’s a whole nother story). But why are we sparring about this? Anyway, I am now happily carrying water around the yard and sprinkling it on stuff with my new watering can. The $25 one, don’tcha know?

And, in so doing, I found… Drum roll… Poison ivy! You’re surprised? I do not go near that stuff. I think it is the one thing in the universe that I am allergic too to. And boy, am I allergic!! You do not wanna know. So the watering can purchase initiated our 2nd Annual Urushiol Oil Eradication day. The process involves Kayak Woman screeching, “No, that one’s okay, that’s got four leaves. Here’s a three-leafer! Get this one!” And the GG pulls them up, roots and all. He does not seem to be allergic. And since poison ivy grows rampantly in the woods adjacent to my house, he spent most of his time over behind the chain-link fence. Despite the fact that I stayed as far away from the PI as I could, I do have one little pustule or whatever it is. Just one. Knock on wood. And a mosquito bite. I know it’s a mosquito bite because I slapped the blasted mosquito as it bit me. So there.

It wasn’t all bad. I made us take an urban hike this morning. We went to Gallup Park, not my first choice. It’s across town and we have to drive across town to get there. It’s got a wide paved path and lots of carefully groomed lawn and most of the wild stuff is within three to six feet of the river. On a hot day the sun would be relentless. But it was early and still cool and not a whole lot of the exercise crowd was out yet. I got some decent pictures and saw a good swan fight up close and personal (but didn’t get a pic or video) and ran into an old friend. And!! Combined with my morning and afternoon walks, I got 8-10 miles in today and therefore feel, well, I dunno if euphoric is exactly the right word but I *do* seem to need a lot of exercise. And today I got it! Yay! So click here or on the pic for more.