I appreciated the comments I got yesterday. I have been turning myself inside out on the gun control issue ever since that guy laid his illegally purchased rifle across the counter at Tempo umpteen million years ago. If I had been a stronger person, I would have challenged the manager who decided it was okay to sell the gun to his mother. Alas, I was a young naive kid then and, even now, I can be a big chicken about speaking up unless I perceive imminent danger. So, yes, I agree that we have to keep guns out of the hands of those who are mentally unstable. And, as UKW points out, many of these folks are not receiving the services they need. The Tucson shooter certainly was not. Who is to blame there? I have no words.

On the other hand, I have spent my whole life around people who really do use guns responsibly. They are target shooters. They don’t shoot at people or animals. They don’t even try to pretend that they have a gun for self-defense. Target shooting is a hobby for these folks and, when a gun is not in use, it is stored safely. They doggedly pursue grumpy old police personnel to make sure their guns are properly registered and pass safety inspections. Guns are what they are and they are dangerous when used as weapons. It is people who choose how to use them. I don’t know what we need to do to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill but I don’t want us to characterize everyone who owns a gun in this country as an extreme right-wing “crazy” or whatever. Because not everyone is that. Including the democratic congresswoman who was shot in Tucson.

I think that different rules need to apply to semi-automatic guns like Glocks (which I have vaguely heard of but had to Google). From what little I’ve been able to pull together, they *were* more strictly monitored for a while but the law expired. I’m sure that somebody knows more about this than I do…

Finally, yes Jay, I’m sure that The Engineer knew exactly where Grandroobly’s guns were stored. Another person who used guns responsibly for target shooting.

Today? A snowstorm. We haven’t had a lot of snow yet this year on The Planet, so people are still trying to get their snow driving skills under control. I left work a wee bit early today but not as early as I wanted to because my loverly Windows work laptop would not shut down smoothly and I am not gonna say why because it involves a rather gnarly spreadsheet on our network and I’m not sure what the problem is but whatever it is, you do not wanna know. I finally went outside and faaarrrrred up the Ninja, then went back inside to finish the shut-down. And yes, it is safe to leave a running vee-hickle in my work parking lot. The only entity that parks anywhere near me is The Admiral and he parks in the pond and I haven’t seen him in a while, so I’m gonna guess he has flown to Florida.

Good night. Don’t hate me because my political views might seem a bit different than yours. They’re not as different as you might think… -KW

And these guys *are* having fun (and yes, I’ve posted this photoooo before, probably a few times…). That’s Grandroobly on the right. Long before he became Grandroobly or even Dad. His life-long buddy Jim is on the left. They were red-blooded American boys who loved tramping around in the woods and shooting guns. Among other things. Canoeing, skiing, driving, flying, to name a few.

I’m sure that there were guns somewhere in the house I grew up in but I do not know where they were stored and I can count on one hand the number of times my dad actually got one out. He was not a hunter and we were definitely not the stereotypical “redneck” family. No pickup trucks with gun racks in our driveway. My dad was busy with his banking career and he was a very intelligent man who managed to store his firearms in places his kids couldn’t find them.

Not that I ever looked for them. I am really not interested in guns. Actually, they kind of scare me. Except. Back in the mid 1990s, we had a serial killer running loose in our loverly Planet Ann Arbor neighborhood. This nefarious character’s modus operandi was to bludgeon women from behind and run. Usually but not always in one of our many woods. Some lived, some didn’t. Hey, it’s a safe neighborhood until it isn’t. I walk alone. (da-dum da-dum. I prefer to be by myself.) Despite this killer, I still walked alone (I am ACUTELY aware of my surroundings when I walk). I was walking by the Deep Dark Scary Woods one day when a neighbor asked me if I was scared. Well. I was. But I was more ANGRY than scared. I mean, fer kee-reist! I went on to say to her that I thought that every woman on The Planet Ann Arbor should learn to use a gun and take a shift standing outside whatever woods was near their house. Yes, I know that there are MANY problems with that but this wonderful, liberal, peace-loving friend of mine looked a bit startled. Like, yeah. Let’s take back our streets!

I never have learned how to shoot a gun, despite the fact that I know more than a few people who could teach me. So. Yet another shooting spree has happened. In Tucson. Where I have cousins! What do we do? Do we outlaw guns? I dunno. I don’t think so. But I think it is a trick to try to keep firearms out of the hands of nutcases. Which is what the Tucson shooter is. Heck, I took community college classes for a while too, and there were a couple of nutcases in my classes too but that would be a whole ‘nother blahg entry. Anyway. My college summer/holiday job was at the Tempo store up in Sault Ste. Siberia. It’s been defunct forever but think KMart. I worked the cash registers and I also worked back in the “office” (think customer service plus accounting/bookkeeping). One day, I was hanging out doing my job in the office and a man walked up to one of the “windows” and laid a rifle across the counter. He wasn’t aiming it at anyone but it was pointing at me! Well. After a moment of panic, somebody in the office asked how we could help him. Well. He told us that when he had bought the rifle, he had answered one of the questions wrong on the application. It was something like, “Have you ever been in a mental institution?” He had brought the gun back to ‘fess up that he had lied on the application. In the end, we sold the gun to his mother… I don’t really think that particular person was a threat but who knows?

A few minutes ago I had some sort of conclusion to all of this worked out and then the GG distracted me and now I’ve lost it. It was the nine-year-old victim and the neighbor who brought her to the event that we were talking about. I have daughters and I remember vividly when they were around nine years old. I’m not sure I could’ve gone on without one of them, not to diminish the tragedy of the other victims. I don’t think we can or should outlaw guns (automatic-type guns, I am not so sure about). But somehow, we have to do a better job of identifying those folks who are a genuine threat. I am pessimistic about this. I think there will always be “crazies” out there.

Happy birthday to The Commander! And to our friend Diane too, even though she is not turning the big Nine-Oh. The Twinz of Terror took The Commander out for dinner last night and she is at her regular Sunday movie date this afternoon. I don’t like the term nonagenarian anywhere near as well as I liked octogenarian, so how are we gonna refer to The Commander now?

P.S. Some people say that The Commander looks like Mouse in this [fuzzy] old photoooo. Or is it the other way ’round?

One of my fave new weekend routines, at least when I’m on The Planet Ann Arbor on the weekend, is walking down to the Farmer’s Market early on Saturday morning. I get a cappuccino at the Kerrytown Sweetwaters and find a seat (not a problem at 7:00 AM). Then I do the xword on my phone handheld computer and post banal little messages and photooos to Twitter and Facebook. And eavesdrop! This morning, the two middle-aged men a couple empty tables away finished up their conversation about U of M football with one of them suggesting he would be happy to coach for a few years for a few million dollars or whatever. At least he laughed. Maybe he knew the baggy old kayak woman was listening?

They were replaced by a couple of business-like younger women discussing what sounded like the administration of a sports camp. Soccer maybe? I couldn’t quite tell. They were kvetching a bit about some of the more clueless parents they’ve had to deal with.

Well, been there, done that. I remember those parents well from my years as the A2 Young Actors Guild (YAG) administrator. YAG runs a very popular two-week day camp every summer and, when I worked for that organization, I was responsible for most of the administrative stuff surrounding the camp. That meant dealing with the camp registration, which meant dealing with the parents. And they ran the gamut, oh boy oh boy. Parents of the oh-so-talented divas who were taking a “break” from their demanding “career” to join our “little” camp. Parents who enthusiastically signed their kids up only to pull them out at the last possible minute and demand a refund. Parents who would panic because they “forgot” that they were _______ on the day of the performances (fill in the blank with: taking their child to horse/music/soccer camp, rafting the Colorado River, flying to Paris, beaming up to Zephron III to visit grandma). Parents who were looking for yet another two weeks of daycare in between horse/music/soccer camp.

All of those stereotypical parents drove me equally nuts (we did have lots of wonderful parents too!) but the last kind also makes me sad. Because I can empathize with those folks. There are so many people who really do need to make arrangements for their children to be cared for while they both work all summer and, for school-age children, that can often mean a patchwork of camps of various description. There are kids who thrive on spending every minute of the summer going to camp. And that’s okay! We need those extroverts. And there are kids who are more tentative about summer camp. I was one of the latter and I think my kids were too. And I think that all kids need some free time. Time to run/bike the neighborhood, play *unsupervised* games with other kids, make cigar box troll houses, dam up streams, read books, watch TV (yes, really), fight with their siblings/cousins/friends/neighborhood bullies, play video games (yes, really). Swim and sunbathe a bit. Be bored (mooooooom, I don’t have anything to dooooooo)! And dreeeeeaaaammmmm…

Why do we all have to work so hard all the time? The GG and I were/are not rich by any stretch of the imagination but we have been just barely affluent enough that we managed to get through all of our child-raising years on less than two full-time salaries. That allowed our kids to be able to attend summer camps if they wanted to. Or not. It also allowed me to take my children to Fin Family Moominbeach for several weeks every summer, to run around on the beach and swim and play with their cousins and second cousins and grandparents, etc., etc. In other words, live within the “village” that the public schools are always trying to shove down our throats (but that would be a whole ‘nother blahg entry…).

Anyway. I wish it was easier for people to be able to provide for their children and also have time to enjoy them as they grow up. And that’s not even to mention that the process of having to patch a series of summer camps together is a first-world problem and, even in our so-called first-world country, many folks don’t have that luxury.

I have scratched the surface of several topics here but I haven’t even told you about what the YAG Summer Academy is all about and how much I love it and what it means to me. I zoned out on listening to the women with the sports camp. It sounded like one was handing a torch over to the other. The last conversation I eavesdropped on was at a different table with folks quite a bit older than yer favo-rite blahgger and it started with something like, “I sat behind my wife in high school and her dad owned the Washtenaw Dairy and I married her and now they won’t let me in there.” It was all in jest, of course. He also talked about a little room he had in the basement. Apparently, he can go down there and his wife won’t bother him. That is what the GG would call a “freak-out chamber”. Anyway, I walked back home and spent a relatively productive Saturday getting rid of a *few* things. More to go…

Good night, KW

P.S. Yes, I am playing with photography apps and stuff on my iPhone. It may be cheesy photography but it is FUN! And it is January in the Great COLD White North and I am gonna have fun!!! Darn it all!

The theme for the day was taking care of unpleasant, nerve-wracking little tasks, so I began the day by getting my driver’s license renewed. It has to be done every four years here in the Great Lake State but every *other* four years, you can do it on the Internet. I did the Internet thing four years ago so my number was up for a trip to the Secretary of State. Not my favorite place to go, mostly because it is always mobbed. Today, I resolved to get the dastardly deed done on the way to work and I did although I came close to bagging it (see the bad, below).

Okay. The good. Very cheerful folks working there. Polite, friendly, competent, and did I say FAST? Because yes, they are QUICK! So, once I got in there and they called my number (see the bad, below) the whole thing got taken care of in under about three minutes. Really! Also good? They do not apparently require you to take that obnoxious multiple choice test any more. What Every Driver Should Know. Despite the fact that I always used to ace that test, having to take it always made me nervous. There was always a trick question about driving a truck and I do not drive a truck, so I did not know it. Today? Sign on the line, read the top line of letters in the eye thingy, pay, stand in front of the blue photo backdrop and you are done and outta there. Wham bam, thank you ma’am!

The bad? The dern place STILL opens only 9-5 on weekdays. Well. I WORK during those hours. Yeah, there’s the 5-7 PM extended hours on Wednesday. I’m sure the place is mobbed then and I turn into a pumpkin somewhere about halfway home from work. How’s about opening a little EARLIER in the morning some other day? Or some Saturday hours? Customer *service*, don’tcha know. I got there at 10 minutes to nine this morning and there were already 10 people ahead of me. And we couldn’t get in. The staff was all in there having a wonderful time. I don’t mind that they don’t open the doors until the stated opening time. That’s business! The Plum Market does the same thing. It’s okay. I would do that if I worked there too. The problem was that when nine o’clock rolled around, they didn’t open the doors. Why not? I don’t really know but I’m gonna guess it was because the old wall clock behind the counter was five minutes behind. It read five minutes to nine. I think whatever my iPhone is hooked up to is more accurate and all the other smart phone owners did too. Get with the program, folks. Oh, and they take plastic but they ONLY take Mastercard and Discover. I of course have two VISA credit cards and a VISA debit card. Fortunately, I managed to cough up $18 in crumpled old cash. But what’s wrong with VISA?

The ugly? There was a nasty, draconian-style note on my renewal application that said they couldn’t “reconcile” my social security number and needed proof that it existed. Really? Say what? Well. Because:

Social Security numbers are used for child support collection and to assist in establishing identity.

Roight. I don’t really want to get into a rant about that but here’s a link. I mean, me? I have been driving for 40 years (yikes!) and I have had ONE accident (knock wood) in all those years. It was my first winter of driving and there was glare ice everywhere and somebody else came left of center. Wasn’t my fault and no injuries. Aaaaannnnddd… Then. 16 years ago I ran a red light. I am still mortified about that! Heck, we have elected officials that have accidents, speeding tickets, and DUIs up the wazoo! I am not some scofflaw. So, this initially sent me into a panic. I can rattle off my SSN plus the GG’s from memory but do you think I can find the blasted card? No. Because I have stashed it in a very safe place somewhere in the Landfill. [Long boring story] I was thinking I would have to take time off work to go downtown to the social security office and apply for a replacement card. And I was procrastinating about that and then I was panicking because it was getting late and I would never be able to get a new social security card in time to get my driver’s license renewed on time. And THEN! I READ the darn renewal application!!! Good idea, KW. Because, of course, I didn’t need the actual card. I could use a paystub, or a 1099 or a W-2. So, I dredged up a W-2 from last year’s taxes and took it in there and, wouldn’t you know, the clerk didn’t even ask about it until *I* brought it up! So WTF?

The eerie? Well, beam me up! How do you think I passed my time waiting to be called up to the counter? By using my phone handheld computer to: 1) pick at the NYT xword puzzle (Friday, therefore hard but I *almost* finished without any googling!), 2) play a few games of solitaire, 3) reply to an email from Sam the Archaeologist, 4) check twitter, fb, news, and the SOS’s own website to double-check that I had the right blasted documents. At any rate, the last time I had to sit around waiting to renew my driver’s license, I was twiddling my thumbs, not communicating with a friend in Hotlanta.

In the end, I thanked the woman who processed my renewal very warmly. I told her she was very fast and efficient and how much I appreciated that. The folks who work there have nothing to do with the byzantine bureaucracy surrounding the Secretary of State’s office. Except that I suppose they *could* reset that stupid clock…

So, that odious task completed successfully, I forged on to work and embarked on the next odious task of the day, which was to do my annual performance evaluation. I won’t talk about that except to say that it was the last possible day to submit it and I was not the only person who procrastinated until the last minute as evidenced by the groans coming from my cube neighbors and the crashes and general slodginess of the tool we use for those things.

Gooooood night, KW!

Lemme seeeeeee…. How do I start this entry? Hmmm…. It’s Thursday and I [often but not always] have a difficult time with Thursdays. I can’t explain it exactly. It’s somehow more difficult to focus than on other days. I’m not sure exactly why. Thursdays seem to be like that whether I am gainfully employed or not. Like last Thursday when I did not go to work but sat around surfing the Internet on my MacBook, iPhone, and iPad (!), most of the day. Blaaahhhhh. In contrast, actually, I was VERY focused at work today. But that left me outta steam for my blahg. So, you get what you get.

This weekend? The GG is on a boondoggle to the Great White North. At least it is whiter than it was last weekend. He has arrived at Houghton Lake (text message) and is enjoying a pasty at the Spikehorn Barrooooom. At some point, he will hook up with his twin brother, the Uncly Uncle (get it?), and they will head north to Sault Ste. Siberia. They will hike with the Hiawatha Shore-to-shore chapter of the North Country Trail Association on Saturday. And they will hang out with The Commander for the weekend.

I did not go with them. I love to hike and x-c ski and The Commander is my moom but I have to work tomorrow. My latest prodject (intentionally misspelled) is huuuuuge and I cannot take time off right now. I will be lucky if I don’t have to put in overtime hours (that I do not get paid for and that is okay because I don’t usually have to work overtime) to get this prodject done. I enjoy Moom Alone time. I will work tomorrow and tink around with The Landfill this weekend and maybe walk down to the Farmer’s Market early on Saturday. And I won’t really be alone, because Mouse will be around when she isn’t working.

Good night,
Kayak Woman

One of my fave bloggers, Nancy Nall, linked to this rather hilarious article about kids who refuse to wear what their parents consider proper winter clothing, you know, when it is cold and snowy outside. I was reading it from a parent’s perspective and nodding my head in sympatico.

I mean, been there done that, don’tcha know? The year one of my children (I won’t say which one) began middle school, she did not OWN a winter jacket. It was not because we couldn’t afford one. It was because we couldn’t find one that she liked. Ordering one from L. L. Bean just didn’t cut it any more. I gave up trying. It was a particularly warm winter and she managed with layers of sweaters and things and looked quite fashionable, to me anyway. When we finally got some truly cold, winter-like weather (during spring break, of course), and she was invited on a ski expotition, I coerced her into taking the inner half of my veddy veddy fashionable (or not) Columbia ski jacket.

This particular kid has always been a furnace. She would drive the GG crazy when, as an infant, he would so very carefully cover her up with blankets and she would immediately kick them off. And there was that first grade winter field trip to Kensington Metropark when she was wearing a ski band and Mr. Browning shamed me into going home and getting her a real hat. She did not change to the hat, despite the near-zero degree temperatures. And there was the time that Marsha of Perrynet came over to tell me about how my 5-year-old child and her friend had taken their shoes off and were running around barefoot in front of the Landfill in 45 degree weather. Kayak Woman is such a good attentive moom, don’tcha know.

But what do you do when you have a spirited child? You pick your battles. That’s what you do. And when they approach the teenage years, you are picking very carefully. It’s like rock-walking. What will happen if I step on that rock? There’s a little water on it. Will I slip? Is it teetery? Am I judging the distance correctly? Teenagers are trying out new values on for size. Who am I and how will I make my way through the world… It’s hard. I am still figuring it out myself. I am not a perfect mother. Sometimes I am a TERRIBLE mother!! Ask my kids. But, in the grand scheme of things, arguing about the little stuff is not productive. Teenage sex and drugs? That is a whole ‘nother topic. And, thank you god or who/whatever (kids, I guess), not one I ever had to deal with.

Anyway. I was reading this article as a parent when a vision of the Young Kayak Woman came into my head. The Young KW was 15 or 16. She was walking across the “tundra” to her high school. The sun was nowhere near up yet. The venue? Sault Ste. Siberia. The temperature? Minus 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes. YKW’s outfit? Mini-skirt, a nice gold wool one that she made herself. Nylons!!! A beauteous faux leopard-skin coat without a whole lot of lining. Not warm. YKW *probably* had boots on. She had some sort of hat on but I’m sure she was worried that the hat would screw up whatever beauteous (or not) hair-do she had managed to concoct with her totally un-ruly hair.

Okay, the YKW got to school safely that day. Her knees were very very cold indeed. And probably her ears and nose and other body parts. But she wasn’t outside for very long, really, and nothing was frostbitten. I’m sure that The Commander was probably holding her tongue, thinking YKW was nuts. In full disclosure, The Commander taught at my high school, so I could’ve probably cadged a ride with her. I can’t remember why I didn’t. Not cool, maybe?

These days, I do not mess with cold weather. I can layer up and down to handle temperatures anywhere from 95 F to 20 below. I bag outdoor activity at about 95. I sometimes bag it at temps under zero just, well, just because. I think that outdoor clothing is better now than it was when I wore that cute little faux leopard coat. And [arguably] more fashionable. At any rate, people are always telling me that they love my black bomber hat with the hologram sequins. If I had just had that thing back in 1970 or whenever…

Stay warm. Love Y’all. The Old Kayak Woman 😉

First of all, I dunno why but this octopus stuff just cracks me up. I’m not the best word nerd on earth but I am just geeky enough. Er, well, and, er, yesterday ol’ JCB (aka My Webguy + Sam the Archaeologist’s husband) got on to BoingBoing, so I guess it’s just a bouncy kind of day. Boing. Boing. Boing.

Anyway. Octopus. Octopi, octopuses, octopodes, octopolis, octopussy. I took this photoooo of an ice shanty the other day at Houghton Lake here in the Great Lake State. Googlemap it if you want. It is *not* the Houghton up in Da Yoop where engineers go to school (my bro’ and DogMomster went there). It is a beautiful vacation spot three hours north of Megalopolis where the cFam has owned a cabin since the 1960s and I took the photo from a lake access point about a quarter mile down the road from the cFam cabin.

There are no octopodes in Houghton Lake. Mostly it’s the usual northern Meecheegan type of fish. Walleye, pike, bass, bluegill. Once there was a piranha though! It was a number of years ago and I read about it in the Houghton Lake Resorter. I can’t exactly remember the details, but it was summer and a fisherman apparently got a bite and then the fish kind of flew out of the water with its teeth hanging out. He took the [dead] fish to the Michigan DNR, who confirmed that it was a piranha. Not a native fish. A fish that someone had been keeping as a pet. And, for whatever reason, that person let it go in Houghton Lake. A northern lake that freezes in the winter. Not a good environment for a piranha. I hate when irresponsible people obtain pets that they can’t take care of and I feel sorry for that piranha but that would be a whole nother rant that I don’t want to do tonight.

Back at work full time today. The sun rose as I was on my way to work and set as I was on my way home. I am always conflicted at this time of year. In a way, like most people, I want more light and I look forward to spring, or what passes for spring here in the Great Not-so-white North. On the other hand, I sort of love the dark time of year. I think that a lot of the holidays we celebrate started out because people tried to introduce light and warmth (and fun) into a dark, cold time of year.

Ihadadayoff! I. Had. A. Day. Off. Yes. I had a day off. I was grumbling a couple weeks ago because my (large corporate) employer had designated January 3rd as our holiday for New Year’s Day, which [of course] fell on Saturday this year. Why not Friday, I wondered? We’ll all be sick of the holidays and all the partying and we’ll be ready and raring to get back to some serious work on Monday, yada yada yada. Of course, it is because New Year’s Day is a 2011 holiday, not a 2010 holiday. Friday, December 31st is in 2010. Monday, January 3rd, is in 2011.

As it turned out, it was a gift! For whatever reason, the Feds got Friday off instead of Monday, which means that the GG went to work today. Because of that, yer favo-rite blahgger was home ALONE today and was able to get all kinds of constructive things done unencumbered by anyone! What did I do? Well. Lemme see…

• I took two big garbage bags of old clothing over to one of the drop boxes that seem to be proliferating over here on the west side.
• I returned 44 42 empty beer bottles. More than the usual number of 20-somethings were around here over the holidays and a few other beer drinkers to boot. The Jackson Rd. Meijer bottle machine wouldn’t accept two of my bottles, probably because some people around here have exotic taste. They are now in my ree-cycle bin. P.S. Tried to find Moose Drool at Meijer but no such luck.
• Packed and mailed two packages. One containing various things Elizilla couldn’t fit into her carry-on baggage. The other some old dead CDs to recycle. The Stadium post office? OMG! I almost bagged it. It was so crowded there was NO PLACE TO PARK! I *inched* along until I found an arguably illegal space. I mean, I think it *is* illegal but I also think that the post office kind of looks the other way when it’s busy and people park there. And then. As I was parking, an angel appeared! She pointed at a vee-hickle in a *legal* space and said, “I’m leaving.” Big smile on her face to boot. I must’ve still been under her spell when I approached the u-mail-it thingie because there was NO ONE there. By the time I was finished processing my two packages, there were five people behind me and a postal worker was helping the next guy, who was rather tentatively admitting that “this thing intimidates me”. Well, not yers trooly. As I was walking out, I couldn’t help wondering if “someone” had intervened, because this experience couldda been a lot worse. Radical Betty, maybe, disguised as a beautiful young black woman with a Purple Heart license plate on her SUV. Oh, of course I don’t really think all that but ya nevah know… 😉
• And then, I reactivated an old yahoo email account so that I could use the Freecycle membership that I created a loooonnnnnggg time ago. Aaaannnndddd….. [drrrrrrum rrrrrrrroll] I posted an offering out there. A couple grocery bags full of washed and neatly folded quilt-type cotton of various colors and patterns. I have had three people ask for it and I put it on my porch and told the first person she could have it. So far, it is still there. Well, except for when the GG came home, saw a kitchen-type garbage bag on the porch, and threw it in the handy-dandy A2 garbage cart. I was in the Back Room and I could hear the thunk!
• Finally. Took almost all of the decorations off of our most beauteous Christmas tree. Except for a couple I couldn’t safely reach at the top. And the lights. Not quite yet.

The rest of it was all the usual stuff. Laundry and more laundry, cleaning the Blue and Only Bathroom, changing sheets in the Bunk Room, where The Commander and her granddaughter Elizilla bunked together over the holidays, cleaning the oven, tinking away at the refrigerator, and leisurely (for once) shopping for and assembling eggplant and friends for dinner.

I made so much progress today that I almost feel like I shouldda done some resolving. It helped that it was an absolutely gorgeous sunny day and all the roads were totally dry so I could drive anywhere I wanted to without thinking about whether the neanderthal in the big fracking SUV next to me was gonna sideswipe me. But. Yaknow, I am gonna hit my cube bright and early tomorrow morning and the project I have going right now is probably going to require some extra hours. So, who knows when I’ll get back to all of this stuff.

We dragged ourselves down outta Da Yoop yesterday like we always have to do eventually. We were only traveling to the Group Home at Houghton Lake yesterday. I haven’t been to the Group Home in a while and I needed some chill-out time there and the Uncly Uncle was also scheduled to be there last night. As we headed south, we alternated between the I75 SUV Speedway and the old highway. The highway we used to drive down to Megalopolis on back when I was very small, when we used to take the car ferry across the Straits of Mackinac. Before there was a bridge.

So, the Dogha is an oldie but it is a goodie. It is a 2001 model Honda Accord that we bought from my favo-rite car salesman, Kevin Liu, over at Howard Cooper. We have bought a couple other Hondas from Kevin since then. This one was our first and it is going on 150K right now. We recently put new shoes on it and replaced the bearings, so it was good to go for a northern odyssey. The Dogha was a top dolla Honda back in 2001. It was the fanciest vee-hickle we had ever purchased. I’ll even tell you that the price was $26K. That was a lot for us. Well, we paid that much for the POC but, well, that thing… Love-hate relationship and too many little problems, yada yada. The Dogha? Leather seats with lucky-shuckial seat adjusters and a HUGE trunk and a 6-CD changer (that worked, unlike the POC’s) and I dunno what else. It did NOT come with an outdoor temperature sensor or a GPS or an iPod jack. That stuff did not exist in 2001. We didn’t even have a viable laptop computer in 2001. I *think* I had a reasonable cell phone by then but can’t exactly remember.

But NO PROBLEMS! Ever! Roight? Roight.

I loved yesterday. I love driving down the old road and through all the old northern towns. Cheboygan, Topinabee (yes, really), Indian River, Wolverine, Vanderbilt, Gaylord, Waters, Frederic, Grayling and finally on to our family’s loverly cabin at Houghton Lake.

Anyway, it is 2011 now and a lot of new vee-hickles have a lot of this stuff built in or at least extra plugs for things. Not the Dogha, but that’s okay. The GG and I zigzagged our way from Sault Ste. Siberia to Houghton Lake yesterday in this beloved old vee-hickle, with all of these dee-vices going. We didn’t really need the GPS that I bought on a whim in August. We know our way around the Great Lake State pretty much by the back of our hands. We use it for fun more than anything. But the GPS did get us to the house that the Uncly Uncle and The Beautiful Gay are going to rent soon. The Uncly Uncle is the GG’s identical twin and Gay is his beautiful wife and that is her name, not her sexual orientation, in case anyone is confused. 😉

That bottle of blue death that’s sticking out in the photo is something that the GG bought. When he is left to his own devices to buy food, he buys some interesting stuff.

I kind of wish I could have stayed there at the Group Home tonight too but it just didn’t work out that way and so we drove home today. And goodnight from your favo-right blahgger, Kayak Woman.

I was surprised when I walked down to the Soo Locks this morning at 0-skunk-30 to find that there were actually other people around that looked alive and awake rather than death warmed over. A very friendly security guard just getting off the midnight shift at the locks. A group of older men having breakfast at Frank’s Restaurant. Which I was really happy to find open because we were planning to head down there for our own breakfast this morning. A runner. A dog-walker. I don’t know why this surprised me. I am not a big New Year’s Eve partier. I know that there are a lot of folks like me. I would rather ring the old year out quietly and greet the new year bright and early.

After my walk and breakfast at Frank’s and a little drive down to the Sugar Island ferry dock (where we watched the Sugar Island ferry scurry across the river between two downbound freighters: the American Mariner and the Indiana Harbor), the GG futzed around with some of The Commander’s hoard of stuff and I drove out to check out the Moominbeach. I made a cheep little 30-second video and posted it on facebook, so if you are friends with me on facebook, you can check it out if you want. But here is a photoooo too. It was 40 degrees out there this morning!!! I’m sure it is not 40 degrees there now. We are now at Houghton Lake and it is 20 or less here with the wind blowing a gale. I bet it is pretty dern cold in the Yoop by now too.

Anyway, I don’t know what this year will bring but I am praying in my own godless kind of way that it’ll be a good one. I do know that walking the moominbeach was a fantabulous way to start it out. Resolutions? Not exactly. I am always, always, always trying to improve my life. Incrementally though. My big thing for the last five or 10 or 15 years has been to DE-ACQUISITION STUFF!!!! Downsize, downsize, downsize. Have I made progress? Well… Sometimes it seems like I have and then, oh I dunno, somebody dies and we acquire a bunch of stuff. Or somebody graduates from college and we acquire (and re-acquire) a bunch of stuff. Kiddos, do not take this personally. This is life.

After the Christmas holiday, I ALWAYS feel like re-a-starting. Cleaning up. Whatever. And this was one of the busier holiday seasons we have had. The Commander was with us for a 10-day visit and I think we connected with every relative within a 50-mile radius. Fin and Mac and a few of the Courtoises to boot. It was WONDERFUL! I know that The Commander had a great time. She got to see her California granddaughter every day for over a week and many other relatives that she rarely sees any more. I am very happy that we could make this happen and I am especially grateful to Our Northern Correspondent Paulette for driving The Commander down.

I am also exhausted! 🙂 I am an introvert! I love the 21st century definition of being an introvert. “We” are now saying that introverts are people who are not necessarily unfriendly or antisocial. It’s just that they build their strength and energy by alone, inwardly focused time. Crowds and constant social interaction is tiring for an introvert. Sooooo, as much as I enjoyed the holidays and seeing ALL of you (!!!) I am looking forward to a little quiet time to try and regain some control over my overcrowded house. Not to mention my job, which has been a bit neglected lately. But I really don’t have any resolutions. It’s just one step at a time…

Hem hem. I also have a wee bit of a rant. We are at the Houghton Lake Group Home here and there is a feetsball game on TV. I am not a feetsball fan but, for some odd reason, I enjoy the ambience of feetsball on TV on New Year’s Day. As long as none of the armchair spectators have a hissy if the U of M does something really stupid. Or maybe watching people have hissies is *why* I enjoy it. Anyway. I dunno what bowl game is on right now. It probably isn’t the U of M because, well, we won’t go there. But from my little blahgging perch at the back of the kitchen here, I actually heard somebody talk about the “Tostitos Fiesta Bowl”! Really? REALLY!!??!! Tostitos??? Say WHAT!!! I mean, I know that all of the colleges need money, yada yada yada. Roight? But. This kind of stuff makes my brain explode. On the one hand, “we” are [supposedly] promoting sports and physical activity to prevent childhood obesity. Right? But “we” are allowing bowl games to team up with JUNK FOOD companies and rename all the blasted bowl games? Of course, my brain is also dredging up images of couch potato type folks sitting in front of televised feetsball games shoveling snacks into their mouths. But then again, the GG procured some “Snyder’s of Hanover Honey Mustard & Pretzel Pieces” this afternoon and he is sitting on the couch watching a game and I am not sitting on the couch or watching a game but I have eaten more of those pretzel pieces than I would like to admit. They should be illegal. But. The Tostitos Fiesta Bowl? What the heck?

Happy New Year and what are y’all are resolving to do? Or are you just revolving? If you don’t wanna tell, I’m cool with that too. Love you anyway. KW.