That was a text message I received in the middle of just about the slodgiest afternoon ever. I don’t know why we are so slow this week (well, actually I do but y’all would not understand it) but that long-suffering cat-herding person was telling an outhouse story this afternoon. Well. Do you want outhouse stories? *I* have outhouse stories! I didn’t tell any of my outhouse stories. I did not have the right kind of psychological energy to even begin to try to describe the moominbeach and the Old Cabin and two-holers and three-holers and vampires dripping with blood and our own loverly rocking outhouse (and I do NOT mean rock ‘n’ roll, The Commander hates rock ‘n’ roll). I mean, I’ve talked about the moominbeach before and people know I go up there a lot but I don’t think they really understand what it’s like there. You kind of have to experience it. That’s a lot like that long-suffering cat-herding person. He has to be experienced too. I cannot describe him. Oh well. I am not Dooce and this obscure little blahg will never earn even one red cent, so I better not blahg too much about my job.

That text message was from NPJane, whom I think I am going to rename “Hurricane Jane”, after last weekend’s big windstorm, which blew in a few hours after she did. I took that photoooo last Sunday afternoon, she was sitting in the little hollow in front of the Old Cabin drinking a beer. It was beer o’clock, don’tcha know. And I was sitting there with her. Also drinking a beer. And uploading photoooos to the internet, etc. We watched a lot of boats go by: the Joseph P. Cotton in particular kept going up and down. I don’t know a lot about what the weather is like up on the moominbeach today. The weather says high of 65 degrees. That’s not particularly warm, so NPJane is probably sitting in the hollow in front of the Old Cabin again.

Me? I am about to galumph to the downtown Planet Ann Arbor for cocktails and dinner with the GG and the Porters (of the Planet Ann Arbor and about a half mile away from the moominbeach). If I run across anything interesting down there, I’ll prob’ly tweet it and/or throw it out on facebook. If not, seeya all tomorrow. I am putting a pair of polartech socks in my backpack in case I need them on the way home. Yes, I am boring today! How ’bout y’all?

Love,
K-Dub

P.S. I *will* get in trouble with Mouseleen for calling myself “K-Dub”. I know that. I am taking a risk.

That was me. Falling asleep, tumbling out of my chair, and hitting my head on the floor. In my beloved cube at work. Of course, that really didn’t happen (it almost did but I got myself some coffee) but it has been a rather slodgy week here on the loverly old Planet Ann Arbor. After months and months and months of going hucklety-buck on my current work prodject (intentionally misspelled), I have suddenly and rather unexpectedly hit a luuuullllllllll. Yes. I am between prodjects. Sort of. Dev isn’t bothering me about my current prodject (that’s actually a little eerie). And that long-suffering, cat-herding person, the one who occasionally makes a slight steering correction in order to keep me busy, is off hanging around with his family for Rosh Hashanah. Actually, I didn’t even get to have coffee with MMCB today because of the same holiday. Plus she’s packing for her latest globe-trotting expotition. Sydney, I think. Or is it Kuala Lumpur? Or is Kuala Lumpur next month? I cannot keep up with MMCB but she is my long-time coffee buddy and for some reason, she actually continues to hang out with meeeeee. Even though the extent of my travel is mostly up and down the I75 SUV Speedway to the Yooperland and back with an occasional flight to SanFran, where I’ve left my heart. Er, part of it anyway.

Anyway. I am a little bored. And when I get bored, I get restless. And sometimes a bit dangereuse. Either that or I start falling asleep in my chair. This time I’m doing the falling asleep thing. I go to work and I am not sure what to do next and I cannot stand being idle (the long-suffering, cat-herding person knows this) and I keep thinking I should be at home at the Landfill banishing boggarts and shoveling shambling mounds around. Or going off on expotitions to Haberman’s with Mouse. Except that Mouse spends sooooo much time in fabric stores that I would end up futzing with my phone or whatever. (I love you Mouse ;-))

This work boredom will be short-term. I think. Short term to me *may* mean a different thing to me than it does to the long-suffering, cat-herding person. I do know that we have a lot of complicated work ahead of us and I am trying to be proactive and make sense of some of the bits and pieces that are floating out there in that wide sargasso sea. Sooner or later, the long-suffering, cat-herding type person will return and grab the steering wheel and quarter us into the waves of our future work. Or, more likely, dev will drop the other shoe tomorrow and I’ll be busy with re-writes. Either way, I’ll be a happy camper.

Good night,
KW

It was a little after eight on a Saturday night at the moomincabin. The Commander had finished the 5,000-page book she was reading and it wasn’t quiiiiite time for her to trundle off to bed. “I need something to read!” declared that venerable woman. She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular but I was sitting right there and I am a problem solving sort of person so I started thinking about what she could read. Alas, I didn’t really have anything. She had already read the girl-who book that I was reading (and still am). And then I remembered that I had “Green Eggs and Ham” on my phone.

I don’t know exactly why I downloaded the Green Eggs and Ham app to my phone. I know the book pretty much by heart. I rarely have any small children to entertain these days. And what about small children and smart phones anyway? When the beach urchins were little, we didn’t even have a cell phone around. We read actual books with paper pages and we read them in the reading chair. Or here or there. Or at the park or on the beach or in the car or with a mouse or in the rain. Or anywhere. At any rate, we read a lot! I think we were instrumental in keeping Border’s in business for all those years and we went to the library too and once I walked into the Blue and Only Bathroom and there was Elizilla standing by the Blue and Only Toilet with a stack of books, using the cord pull on the venetian blind (blinds?) to check them out. Books. We loved books. We read them anywhere and everywhere.

Anyway. I downloaded the Green Eggs and Ham app because it exists, and because I could. I also had this funny little feeling that it might come in handy someday in some weird little way. I didn’t know how. I work with a bunch of old fuddy-duddies just like meeeeeeee and I doubt that grandchildren are anywhere in my near future.

So here was The Commander asking for something to read. I faarrrrred up the Green Eggs and Ham app and handed my phone to her. Now, mind you, The Commander has her own iPhone. She may not use it to upload stupid little videos to Facebook any time soon but she is proficient at making and answering phone calls on it. And she was pretty good at swiping the pages in the Green Eggs and Ham app. I will say that after about 20 minutes of that, she was ready to retire for the evening.

The iPhone seems to be a pretty good choice for the octogenarian set. I’m not quite sure what I think about letting young children play with it. But then again, we had computers when our kids were young and they played little games on those. Elizilla played Sticky Bear ABC on the Apple II+ and Mouse used to stand on a chair and play concentration on our first Mac. Over and over and over and over ad nauseam until I finally got tired of constantly starting a new game for her and showed her to use the menu. She was two.

I think I probably would have downloaded books and games for my beach urchins if I’d had an iPhone back in those days. But I doubt we’d have completely abandoned actual books with paper pages. Because we liked books. Lots of them. Anywhere and everywhere.

P.S. I DO like my own personal Sam-I-Am, just in case there was any kind of confusion over the title. She’s one of my all-time BFFs!

I have never walked the Mackinac Bridge. I have *driven* the Mackinac about a quatrillion times. Someday, I will walk it. Yesterday was not the day. The bridge is only open to walkers once a year and that’s Labor Day. I think there is also a run sometime earlier in the summer but I am not a runner (and I have the knees to prove it). Unlike the Golden Gate (which I have biked but not walked), the Mackinac Bridge does not have pedestrian walkways. They have to close a lane of traffic to provide a place for all the walkers and that’s a big production on a summer holiday in the northern parts of the Great Lake State. Can you say police? Everywhere!

I used to be kind of snooty about the bridge walk. For the life of me, I can’t remember why. Something to do with having to walk with a big mass of other people, some of whom aren’t crazy fanatic walkers like me. Whatever I was thinking was just plain nutty! Yesterday I saw strollers and wheelchairs on the bridge. I was humbled. I should be *encouraging* other folks to get out there and walk (and/or bike and/or kayak and/or swim and/or run — yes, even run, knees and all)! So now I am a baggy old bag and some of y’all may not believe this but I am a leeeeeetle bit less of a <insert-word-that-rhymes-with-glitch>. Except when somebody is tailgating me while putting lipstick on and yapping into their phone. Then watch out. Especially when there are turtles crossing the road. I will stop for turtles. And goslings. and and and…

Last year, a whole crew of Courtois folk walked the bridge. I had been planning on joining them but, as it turned out, I spent the weekend helping Uber Kayak Woman host a memorial celebration of Radical Betty’s life. Even then, we entertained the idea of going down to do the walk on Monday. Until we found out we would have to BE there at 6:00 AM. We are both early risers but that was a little much even for us, on that particular day at least, and I had to run the gauntlet down south to the Planet Ann Arbor later that day, so we elected to have a nice slow morning drinking coffee and surfing the Internet at the Green Guy Cafe.

This year? Again the question came up. I could blame the “hurricane” (Hurricane Jane?) that blew through over the weekend. But really, we didn’t spend all *that* much time searching for missing boats or chairs or shovels or rollers. Or dredging them out of sand and water. We know that, to an extent, Gitchee Gumee will eventually cough that stuff up. Or not. We spent the early part of Monday getting the moomincabin ready to close up in a few weeks. Taking Green Guy home to his owner at long last. Helping The Commander deal with low taaarrrrrs. Again. I didn’t have the psychological energy to drive down to the Mack, park somewhere, get bused to the bridge, walk five miles, get bused back over the bridge to the Ninja, cross the bridge in the Ninja, and THEN run the gauntlet down the I75 SUV Speedway to the Planet Ann Arbor. Was I up for all that? Not this time. I will do it someday when we can drive down to the bridge at 0-skunk-30 and *return* to the moominbeach after the walk. Some day…

And that looovvvverly picture is my latest experiment with yet another iPhone camera app. (It’s PictureShow @agategal, in case you don’t already have it.) I know. The iPhone is not a “real” camera. I don’t care. I am a point and shooter and I am travelin’ light these days and I still pack my beloved but aging Canon Powershot but I haven’t used it all summer. The iPhone camera apps are fun and girls just wanna have fun, don’tcha know? Roight? All you wonderful kayak/chair/shovel recovery women? 8)

By The Beautiful Lizard (my sister-in-law, not Elizilla, although I’m sure she is also interested). It is, after all, a Courtois motorboat. I remember when The Gumper bought it. I think he was approaching “50 feet of boat” with this one. So the Courtois clan is interested in its well-being. You can’t really hear the GG over the surf but he’s saying that if he shovels the sand out of the back of the boat, he can pull the plug and the water will all drain out. And you will see it doing that. The boat is okay. We haven’t tried to run the motor that I know of. I hope it’s okay too… That’s all for toady today. Looooonnnnngggg, sloddddggggggyyyyy day on the road. Labor Day. Some of y’all would be proud of how caaaalllllmmmm yer favo-rite blahgger was driving throughout all of that. And heck, this is my *second* bunch o’ blather fer the day! Roight, Froggy?

Update: The Red Kayak was found by NPJane (in her my purple kayak), in waist deep water off of our northern correspondent Paulette’s beach! Ray, Jan, and Jane assisted Paulette with dredging it out of the sand in that waist-deep water. Wish I couldda been there to help. Or video… Love you guys so much. And miss you… KW! 🙂

Today’s take = two beach chairs, neither of them ours. I couldn’t get the second one out without a shovel, so I left it, with one leg sticking up out of the water. A little later, Jan was out there dredging it out with her shovel. Her remaining shovel, that is. She lost one in the storm, along with the boat rollers. Still missing, along with Paulette’s RED kayak. We’re on the southbound I75 SUV Speedway now. Wish I could join NPJane in kayak reconnaissance expotitions. Seeya in the next episode!

I am dead tired tonight. That is just about all. Jan found another of our beach chairs today. Gitchee Gumee seems to be coughing them up one at a time. The chairs seem to be stuffed with sand. They are heavy but they are sittable. I sat with NPJane all afternoon in the hollow in front of the Old Cabin. It was sunny and beeyootyful and we drank a beer (or two) and watched a bunch of lake freighters and an eagle.

Jeep and Pan are still missing a set of boat rollers. Our northern correspondent Paulette is still missing a whole kayak!!! I have no more words tonight. Home tomorrow and butt in cube on Tuesday. Gooooood niiiiiight!

The little video below gives a taste of what greeted me when I walked down to the moominbeach at 0-skunk-30 this morning.

A huge wind came up just when we went to bed last night and continued all night and, this morning, our kayaks and the Courtois motor boat were missing and that orange kayak was there half submerged in sand and water. I located our kayaks pretty quickly and then I spotted the motorboat down the beach a way. I texted the GG that the motorboat was full of water, flung the kayaks up onto the bank, then headed down toward Paulette’s end of the beach. When I saw our wooden kayak paddle underneath a big piece of cosmic debris, I realized that I had totally forgotten about the paddles. Up a crick without a paddle? Yeah, KW you are a great kayaker. Or not. The wooden paddle was unscathed but where was the blue paddle? Nowhere to be seen. I kept walking, past more scattered kayaks (boy do we have a lot of those on this beach) and submerged boats of various description. Including Paulette’s green kayak. I took a picture of it and twittered. I didn’t see my blue paddle anywhere, so I turned around and went the other way. Waaaayyyyy down past Dennis’s house, I spotted something blue. It was my paddle! Bent and broken.

We left the motorboat for the time being, since it certainly wasn’t going anywhere. The Twinz of Terror went up to hike at Whitefish and The Commander and I took some stuff into town. Halfway in, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen any of our beach chairs anywhere.

Several reconnaissance missions later, the chairs remain missing. And Paulette’s red kayak. I’m not sure about the kayak but I think the chairs are submerged somewhere. I think the water dragged them out and covered them with sand. If it ever calms down again, maybe we’ll find them…

And so ends another loooovvverly day on the shores of Gitchee Gumee. The wind is still blowing a gale and the upbound lake freighters are lying low in Whitefish Bay.

An afternoon on the beach. A whole afternoon. It wasn’t particularly hot but it was mostly sunny. And windy. It rained for about three minutes here. Just a little catspaw. But I watched rainstorm after rainstorm after rainstorm cross Whitefish Bay. Michigan over into Ontario. It was beautiful. It was almost like watching a moooooooovie! It got to be 0-beer-30 and I got myself a beer, which I promptly spilled. And then the wind came up out of the west. It was sand-blasting me, so I decided that a change in coordinates was in order.

And some people may complain about the ubiquitousness (is that a word?) of the Internet and being plugged in all the time and yada yada blah blah blah. Well! Today, I was walking the beach and I was doodle-ooped by Elizilla, all the way from the left coast! “Moom, if you go to the Dancing Crane, will you get me some sweet grass soap?” Yes yes yes! In fact, I was there this morning and I am planning to go back. Not only do they have sweet grass soap, they have prints of some of Annie Hubbard’s work. Yes, I’ll get back out there. And I love being able to connect with my grown-up kids from wherever I am. Not that they tell me everything that’s going on or *should* tell me. Just communication without all the small talk and fol de rol involved in a phone call.

Last and least, I have posted a couple of stoopid little beach-type videos on facebook, so if you are on fb, go take a look.

Good night,
KW from the moomincabin (That Device on the loverly Edge network)

It’s been a year since Radical Betty died. I hadn’t totally connected with that anniversary until I received an email from Uber Kayak Woman today. The Twinz of Terror and The Commander and I toasted her at the Cozy Inn tonight. And I’m going to leave you with a little audio clip of Uber Kayak Woman (aka RBetty’s daughter Aimée) singing a traditional Canadian lullabye to RBetty in a kayak off Round Island, last September. Our northern correspondent Paulette is in the other kayak wielding a video cam.

And that is all. I have blahgged from cars and boats and the large suspension bridges and stolen internet connections. I think this is the first time I have blahgged beneath an umbrella. Yes, in the rain. At the Green Guy Cafe.

Sayonara,
Kayak Woman, from the moominbeach

Love you UKW, Grinchie, and Robyn!

So said the nice young Whole Foods cashier after I hurriedly paid for my grokkeries and rushed out the door.

Oh dear. I WAS in a hurry. I am often in a hurry and even when I am NOT in a hurry, I exude an aura of “I am in a hurry”. I move fast. Sometimes too fast. I think fast. Sometimes too fast. On a good day, I would like to think that I exude an aura of being in a cheerful sort of hurry where I bustle around and don’t look like I am going to run over people with my shopping cart. Alas, today I was just a wee bit beyond the cheerful sort of hurriedness verging over into the impatient, foot-tapping sort of hurriedness. I had managed to escape work just a wee bit early in order to run a few errands on the way home, where I would finish packing for yet another trip up to the Great Not-so-white North. By definition, I hate leaving for these trips after work. And stopping at the Whole Foods that’s on my way home from work is like running a gauntlet even on a good day. Today, the traffic everywhere on the Planet Ann Arbor was just horrendous! It was move-in day at the U but I live way out on the west side and travel around the city to the south side every day so I dunno why the traffic was so terrible on my little route today. But it was. I kept thinking, “Oh yeah, there’s a feetsball game tomorrow in the big house.” But there isn’t. Because (duh) it is Wednesday. So go figger.

And so. I stopped for a nano-second. I knew I’d been found out. My young cashier must’ve seen me switch checkout lanes from the one where I was behind the fussy Planet Ann Arbor-type woman yada-yada-ing about the carbon footprint behind the exotic produce in her cart or whatever. He really was a nice kid, my cashier. He even liked my necklace (I like it too: Tweak, rockstar line*). I said, “Y’know, even when I’m not in a hurry, I exude hurriedness but, today, I *am* in a hurry. Guilty as charged.” And I galumphed out the door back into the fray of traffic.

P.S. That guy was prescient about the driving. I did NOT get into an accident. But I drove for MILES in one of those huge deluges where you can barely see the taillights of the vee-hickle in front of you and once I had to downshift into 5th gear because there was so much water on the I75 SUV Speedway that I could feel the Ninja start to hydroplane. Seems like all summer I have been watching the weather radar, just like Moosonee and Softy Beanbag are doing in that file photoooo. Today? Well, we did have the iPad but all that thing told us was that we were right in the middle of it all and would be for a while. No tornadoes today, thank you very much.

Sayonara,
Boomerang Woman, from Houghton Lake

* Nobody from Tweak paid me to plug their jewelry (nobody will ever pay me to shill something on my website). I bought my necklace with my own hard-earned money. Also a pair of owly earrings for mouse (from the Hoot line).