I just had one of those moments. You know, *those* moments. The ones that people always tell you you’ll have after your dad dies. Or your brother. The moments when you think something like, “I will have to remember to tell dad that.” Or whatever. The thing is that both my dad and my brother are dead and until today I have NEVER had one of those moments. I’ve had moments when I was convinced that one or the other or both at once were trying to contact me from the other side. Like when the great lakes freighter Ryerson went by and blew a salute while I was on the observation platform adjacent to my brother’s namesake nature trail.

Plenty of times, I have wondered if one or both of them have had a hand in shaping my life back into some kind of direction. As much direction as I will ever have, which is not much because I am a vagabond. After the Old Coot died, there were some sparse moments of, well, I’m not sure what but my one class of the semester ended and all my coffee buddies were busy or out of the country and I did too many random river rides, etc. Let’s waste some more petroleum. But then I got myself focused again and threw myself into school full force again and one thing led to another and somehow here I am, a career girl again. Who’da thunk it?

But throughout all that, I was always just head down plummeting into the future and I never had one of those little moments of, “I should tell my dad that.” Until today. And it was a *weird* moment. There is a local German restaurant named Metzgers. Metzgers was downtown for about a billion years and then it closed. And then it opened again. On Zeeb Road of all places. The night that I heard about Grandroobly’s fall, we ate out there. German food is good but it’s not my favorite (weiner schnitzel?) and I wouldda been skeptical but really all I was doing that night was waiting for a cell phone call telling me where The Commander and Grandroobly were in their journey by air ambulance to the Henry Ford Hoosegow. I remember I got a nice salmon filet that night and I was happy. With the food. Not with the situation. I finally got the call that they were in the HFHoosegow at about 3:30 AM. Wonderful place to be at that time of the night. Downtown Daytwa? Gunshot dropoffs? Yeah.

So. The weird moment? Today, in the A2 Snooze, was an interview with whatever Metzger currently owns that restaurant. And I thought, “Oh, I’ll have to take Grandroobly there the next time he comes down here.” Folks, *once*, back in the Jurassic Age when I was just a 20-something and my dad visited me here on the planet, we walked downtown from my crappy/wonderful little apartment to The Old German (not even the same restaurant as Metzger’s) and he bought me food and beer and we both had fun.

Who’da thunk my first such moment would be about a blasted German restaurant!!!

I woke up this morning, saw snow on the ground and noted that the temperature was in the lower 30s. Dressed appropriately for walking: turtleneck, polartech vest, outer shell of crappy old ski jacket (no, I didn’t go to REI this weekend); holey old cotton spandex leggings (the ones the kids hate); Chaco sandals with polartech socks. I took my walk. Everything was all right. The usual walkers/runners/dog-walkers. No encounters of the skunk kind. No ice anywhere. Nothing slippery. No big deal. A little snow dusting the grass leaves. So what? It’s November and this is Michigan. I got home and turned on NPR and they were babbling about black ice and closed freeways in the Daytwa area. Hello? It is *that* slippery? They didn’t say anything about Planet Ann Arbor area freeways but Daytwa is close enough to home that I opted to take the slow route to work via the “back” roads today. Probably unnecessary but why tempt fate?

It wasn’t until after I had arrived at work that I remembered that today is a holiday! Today? Y’all are thinking, “You are a crazy old bag. Tomorrow is the holiday. November 11th. Veteran’s Day.” And you are right and no one knows that better than me, since I am married to one o’ them thar slackers over at the EPA. Mad scientists all of them. (Just kidding, Big Brother. [insert cheesy grin here]). But he does work there and he gets to have tomorrow off and go gallivanting around while I slave away. Nevertheless, I will go to my grave remembering the date that the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, 17 miles from the relative safety of Whitefish Bay. November 10, 1975.

I’m not sure the Fitz was one of The Engineer’s favorite boats but he was there listening to his multi-band radio the night it sank. Listening to the Arthur Anderson calling over and over for the Fitz to answer. Silence. And yet, the Fitz is certainly not the only freighter ever to sink in the Great Lakes. There were many and The Engineer was frequently the first to point that out. But this was a big one and it happened in our lifetime. Not too many miles away from Fin Family Moominbeach.

The photos? No, the Mackinac Bridge has not been bombed by a terrorist. These photos are from 1957 or thereabouts, when it was still being built. I scanned them from slides taken by Grandroobly, who was flying with his friend Sandy Sanderson in Sandy’s airplane. The fuzzily handsome guy in the third pic is none other than Grandberry, aka Donald McKenzie Finlayson, aka my grandfather. Purchaser (with friends) of Fin Family Moominbeach. He was born in 1888, before there were airplanes. But his son (Grandroobly, my dad) flew them. I remember flying with my dad with my grandaddy in the plane with us. Sigh.

I am outta words now. And here I didn’t think I *had* any words today. Naaaawww. Anyway, these pics are not that great but if you click and click again, they will enlarge to their full size.

Edmund Fitzgerald and other lost Great Lakes sailors, rest in peace,
Kayak Woman

Do you guys think I have raked enough leaves? Hmmm? I raked the whole blasted yard yesterday. Most of the leaves are actually down now. Our second leaf pickup is this coming Thursday. This time, we will actually have some leaves out in the street to be picked up. As you can see.

It actually only took me a couple of hours to rake all those leaves. I am a vigorous raker. I thought I would finish it off today. Do a little more raking and then get the leaf blower and its monstrously long lucky-shuckial cord out and blow out the corners and all the other little nitty-gritty stuff. I did do a bit more raking today but. Hello. Rain, sleet, and snow set in. Not to mention laziness. My excuse was that I did not want to be blowing leaves with a lucky-shuckially powered leaf-blower. What if I got electrocuted? As the GG reminded me, we have grounded plugs and I guess I’d’ve been okay. But, ya know what? I don’t care any more. The bulk of our leaves are in the street. It’s actually illegal to put ’em out there like I did but if anybody challenges me on that, they are gonna get a big, ugly piece of my mind. YOU BUY A HOUSE NEXT TO A WOODS, Mr. Mayor or City Council member. I know I’m in the wrong but I will bet they won’t bother me about it.

Okay. Any leaves that are left we can rake (or not) at our leisure and compost in our back yard. Or put them in the handy-dandy Planet Ann Arbor compost pick-up bin that I have not even used yet. Our choice.

But I’m done for the Thursday pickup. If the GG wants to do more, he can knock himself out.

Click here or on the pic for evidence of my effort plus proof that life is still beautiful when the gales of November come early.

This is Kayak Woman here: Er Froog, I’ll let you slide this time but at least give credit to the developer of the iPhone Sketches application. And grok grok to you too! I saw you sucking down that Maker’s Mark last night.

I think this has been the longest week in history. Everybody I work with seems to feel the same way. Let’s just get it over with already. I was a day ahead all week. I was really ticked off when I woke up this morning and had to make myself realize that it was Friday! It’s Friday? Friday? Not Saturday? I haven’t worked a whole week yet? Of course I had to go to work. I dunno. Is this because of the switch to Standard time (Eastern here in the Great Lake State)? Or is it an election hangover symptom? Having slodged through this horribly long campaign and having it be over? Er, not that I had a whole lot of slodging to do personally. At least not about the election. I did do a lot of slodging this week through some horrendously nit-picky wordsmithing but that’s one of the things that us analyst-type folk do. For me, it was not particularly tedious. And I actually get paid pretty well to do it. Sorry, *still* pinching myself after all those fun vagabond years of volunteer and non-profit work. They were fun, do not get me wrong. But…

So, I took the freeway home, like I usually do unless it is snowing cats and dogs or there is an ice storm. And there isn’t, at least not yet. The roads were dry and planes were landing and taking off left and right at the Planet A2 airport and the sunset was gorgeous and so were the clouds it lit up. I stopped off at Staples in Westgate for a new and bigger (8G) memory card for a little prodject I am embarking on. I can afford it (the memory card) so shaddup. You know who you are. l won’t even try to describe the traffic patterns surrounding the Westgate Kroger shopping center. You do not wanna know. After Staples, I actually snaked around *through* the parking lot and out a route that I would never consider taking from Staples if it weren’t the Friday afternoon rush hour. As I was pulling up northbound to the mega-light at Jackson/N. Maple, I had this moment of deja vu about being at that exact place at that intersection in my old blue POC with various middle-school children with me in that crappy yet wonderful old vee-hickle. On a Friday afternoon in November no less. We were heading back to the Landfill for a sleepover or whatever and boy do I miss those days sometimes.

Goodnight and love y’all,
Kayak Woman

Too bad I didn’t have that figgered out in junior high ’cause these guys are all old and married just like me but that’s not what this entry is about anyway.

I will probably be persona non grata with this entry. No, I am not gonna try to blahg about politics today. I’ll spare you. And I am not gonna post another one of, ahem, *those* slide shows. You know the one. What I am gonna blahg about is weather! Specifically, November-type weather and the time switch that goes along with it. Because? I *love* November weather! I love the switch back to Eastern Standard time. I love when it gets dark early. I love when it rains cats and dogs and my umbrella is flapping around in the wind. I love when I have to slodge around through the mud in my Chacos and polartech socks. And my ancient Columbia ski jacket with all the broken zippers. Yes, Mrs. Commander and Mouse, I *could* fix them but life is too short and I think I’ll just buy a new one. Note to self: REI this weekend?

I love the other end of this whole weather/time change spectrum too. I love when it starts getting light again in the morning when I’m taking my walk and I can get photos of all the budding plants. I love when I am standing on Fin Family Moominbeach in June at 11 PM and I can still see the sunset.

I love change. I love the change of seasons. We sure get that here in the Great Lake State. I love watching the sun move up and down the sky with the seasons. And watching things grow and die again. I get bored when things don’t change. November is November. We are at the western end of the Eastern time zone here. Some of the western Yooper counties are even on Central time, I think. I love the extreme swings of sunrise/sunset that we get here. Right now, I can see the stars when I start my morning walk. When it isn’t pouring rain and my umbrella isn’t flapping around in the wind, that is.

I like to deal with bad weather by facing it front on. Cold and dark energize me. When I am walking alone in the dark, I am almost invisible and I can think clearly about things.

I have lost my blahgging steam. G’night and, if y’all can, try to embrace the changing seasons.

Love,
Kayak Woman

Well? Are you? A little partying last night? Or maybe not. I will admit here that I did vote for Obama. I will also say that he is the first presidential candidate I have voted for in many years that didn’t represent a vote *against* someone else. I did once vote for a Planet Ann Arbor school board candidate that I believed in but it was my beloved friend Sari. We fought side-by-side in the streets here when the school board killed MYA, our beloved alternative middle school. A successful alternative school of choice. We lost. Sari ran for office and I helped support her victory. We had coffee together every week back in the day. It’s 10 years later and she left the school board long ago and we both have real jobs now but we still keep in touch and meet when we can.

I am cautiously optimistic about Obama. delete long uneducated rant about the war and “credit default swaps”, whatever the heck they are. I am sorry that I don’t share the fever for change that many others do. I want to believe that change will happen and I will do my own tiny little part (whatever that is) to help. But there is a lot to do and a lot of people will have to work together to accomplish anything. Obama is one person and I do not think he is a superhero. And don’t forget that there are still lots of folks out there, some of them our own friends and relatives, who did not vote for Obama. We all have to get along.

So, onward. Slow if need be. Steady as she goes. Tolerance please toward people who don’t share your opinion. Whatever it is.

Meantime, to make up for my dead aminal photos on Monday, today I have posted a slide show of my own little woods. The school district owns the woods but it is behind my own little house. *Little* is the operative word here. It takes me less than five minutes to walk the loop. But it has its own beauty. Click here or on the pic. I promise there are no dead aminals.

And my driver’s license and my “I voted” sticker. No free coffee at Starbuck’s for me. It’s okay, I had to work anyway.

I was anticipating today’s voting experience with a healthy sense of dread. My polling place aka the Beach Urchins’ elementary school, always has long lines for big elections. I hate to wait. And then there was my horrible experience at the 2006 mid-term election. I honestly can’t remember if I actually voted or not. I’m afraid to click that link myself. The 2004 election is a murky memory of wind, rain, darkness, and people cutting in line. I’m pretty sure I blahgged about it but that was back when I was rolling my own blahg and it isn’t easy to link to a single entry and I just don’t wanna think about it all.

At any rate, last night I was wishing that a regular, under-60, able-bodied bag lady like me could vote by mail in the Great Lake State without lying about her whereabouts on election day. And then, I didn’t manage to get out quite as early as I had wanted to this morning. So. When I got over to Haisley at 6:30, there were approximately 50 people in line* and I reluctantly took my place. Not having a book or knitting or anything, I settled in with my iPhone, trying to download messages from Lizard Breath with umpteen million large bumblebee photos in them. My iPhone was not equal to the task. Just then, somebody said, “Kayak Woman!” Lo and behold, my long-lost buddy Jane, from back in the halcyon days of the Haisley Mafia! My mood totally turned upside down! The weather was beautiful (it’s November and this is Michigan, it could’ve been a blizzard or a tornado or torrential rain or all of the above). People were in good spirits. I was catching up with a friend from the Jurassic Age.

The line got longer and by the time the doors opened at seven, it was all the way down the Haisley driveway and around the corner up Duncan and people in line were speculating that the line would snake all the way up to Miller and around into the Circle Streets. I felt fortunate to have gotten there when I did.

The best news was that I didn’t have any problems voting at all! Well, except that I didn’t manage to snag an “I voted” sticker but that was a minor detail. Froog did NOT eat my ballot. The machine sucked it in and did not spit it back out. I was done. It was 7:40. Yay! I skipped down the same hall I traversed about a billion times back in the day, past a display of “dia de los muertos” artwork, and out the back door, stopping to talk to a teacher along the way. One that wasn’t there when the beach urchins were.

I’ve commented on a smattering of other blahgs with a truncated version of my voting experience today. How was YOUR voting experience? Lines? No lines? Problems? Or not? Early voting?

*Contrary to what one of my “tweets” seemed to imply today, I was *not* the first voter. I was around 55 or whatever (blarg, that’s my upcoming age, sigh). Anyway, I “tweeted” from the hallway when the actual first voter came out. She had arrived at the school at 5:45 AM.

WARNING! DO NOT click on the picture!!!! There is a slide show. It might be disturbing to some people. I am not kidding. Read the entry and make an informed decision. To click or not to click. Y’all’ve been warned. Dun dun dun.

A few weeks ago the Twinz of Terror were spending the weekend at Houghton Lake with some other members of the gigantic Courtois family. It was a beautiful, warm Sunday morning and our teenaged niece got up, grabbed a book and headed down by the seawall. As she was about to settle in for a nice, lazy read in a comfortable hammock, something floating a few feet out in the water caught her eye. A dead deer!!!

Nobody knows when or how the deer died or when or how it ended up in the water. But life is never dull and the Twinz of Terror and various other siblings, in-laws, nieces, seventh cousins five times removed, and visitors from the planet Zephron III swung into action. Or discussion, at least. What do you do when you find a large, dead aminal on your property. Now, up on Fin Family Moominbeach, things float up on the beach with quite some regularity. Mostly seagulls and fish but once when I was a kid a dead dog floated in. It was there for a good portion of the summer. I’m not sure why nobody removed it. But our beach is pretty sparsely populated even at the height of summer and I guess it wasn’t really bothering anyone. So there it stayed. Houghton Lake, on the other hand, is chock-a-block with homes and cabins and it seemed as though “something” ought to be done to remove the deer. And figuring out “what” would provide quite a bit of entertainment.

The brilliant idea that the Twinz of Terror came up with was to write “Greetings from the North Shore. Vote for Obama” on a float, attach it to the deer and tow the deer out to sea. Or into the middle of Houghton Lake. I don’t totally understand the “Vote for Obama” part. I don’t know for sure, but I have a suspicion that members of the esteemed Courtois family will not all vote for the same candidate. So I’m not sure what the message exactly meant and only the Twinz know for sure but I know it was a joke and, in the end, the plan failed. Why did it fail? Because the deer floated back into shore, a few cabins down the point. ba-da-bump.

Meanwhile…. I forget whether it was the Beautiful Gay or the Beautiful Becky but one of my beloved sisters-in-law had done the *responsible* thing and called the DNR and a DNR person showed up and removed the deer from the lake. They were gonna cut off its head (there is NO picture of that in the slideshow, y’all) and send it in for testing. Apparently one of the diseases that deer are contracting here in the Great Lake State causes them to get feverish and then throw themselves into the nearest body of water to try to cool down. And then they die or drown, whichever comes first. Not fun and to date, we have not heard anything about “our” deer.

And, no, this is not a political post. Please vote tomorrow. I won’t try to influence who you vote for, although I have my preference. But that’s not what my blahg is about. Usually. I am guessing I will be doing some sort of ranting about the voting process tomorrow. I plan on arriving at the polls before they open. I have to work and there has got to be a better way.

Okay. If you dare, you can click here or on the picture to see today’s slide show. Love y’all and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

100 miles is a perfect distance to travel to visit a college student. It can be done as a day trip and this particular 100 miles is a nice straight shot along the I94 18-wheel Clogway, which is actually (knock on wood) not too clogged a lot of the time. Knock on wood again.

The plan was to get up early and arrive at the Kalamazoo Nature Center for an early bit of hiking. Hiking (or skiing or kayaking) is a good thing to do early on a Sunday morning and since we were going to Kalamazoo today, it seemed like a good idea to find a place to hike over there. So, good old KW googled for trails in the kzoo area and found the nature center, which seemed do-able given the schedule for the rest of the day, not far from town, etc. She printed out directions and trail maps and they even managed to actually get into the Ninja Vee-hickle. We were all set. Problem. KW did not manage to look at the hours the place was open, which was right on the front page of the website in plain sight. Not open until one on Sundays. Oops. Plan B turned out to be a wee bit of walking in a nearby county park, one that didn’t look too promising at first with its RV camping area and trenormous play structures and fake beach, etc. But no one else was there this morning and it was beautiful in the still early light and my mood of disappointment in myself lifted after a little bit. I think we do have to make accommodations in some of our parks for folks with more urban tastes and this place did a pretty good job of balancing that with areas of untamed natural beauty. We’ll try the nature center again one of these days and next time we’ll call ahead to make sure it’s open.

Our real reason for the trip was because performances of the play that Mouse directed for her senior project, The Gloaming, Oh My Darling by Megan Terry, were this weekend. It was parent weekend too but I didn’t know that until I got over there. This is my seventh year as a college moom and I have never been to a parent weekend. I do try hard to keep my blades from flapping. Er, whatever helicopter blades do, that is. Anyway, the rest of the day was taken up by breakfast with Mouse at the Crow’s Nest, filling up the CLBHC’s tank with gas, walking around the campus, meeting up with Valdemort and Pengo Janetto (who were there for the play). Odd being at Mouse’s college on parent weekend with my nieces, who attend a different college. And then the play and back along the Clogway toward home, arriving before sunset on this first day of Eastern Standard. Click here or on the pic (Mouse, that’s a *good* picture!) for photos of our walk in the park and “our” college campus.

Venue: Landfill neighborhood bagel joint

Characters: Very Dear Friend (who grew up in NYC and prefers to encounter animals [even domesticated animals] from a safe distance), Kayak Woman, and a cute li’l MacBook with about a gatrillion photos on it.

Scene: Cute li’l MacBook is chugging away showing photos from KW’s recent hikes in da Yoop.

VDF/NYC: Are there animals?

KW [brightly, after recovering from a moment of total discombobulation]: Yes, everything up to bear!

THE END.

Epilogue: VDF/NYC jets off to Thailand or someplace, leaving KW behind here to fend for herself on the Planet Ann Arbor with only Lucky-shucky Man for companionship.

Er, are there animals in Thailand?