No, the letter is not addressed to me. I am not the *Squire* of anything! More like the Duchess of Dungeon, the Landfill Dungeon, that is.

I have had some interesting experiences since I’ve been receiving The Commander’s mail here at the Landfill. My goal is to snag anything financial and re-jigger it so that it comes to my address permanently and/or gets paid automatically online. Easier said than done and, yes there have been a couple snafus and I won’t go into the gory details of those except to say that I doubt that The Comm has *ever* missed paying a bill or even been five minutes late *ever* before and believe me, she is *still* well aware of what needs to be paid and when. Fortunately people have been very understanding when I ‘splain things and apologize for my klutzi-ness.

Some of this stuff is easy to switch. I can just log in to a website *as* The Commander and re-jigger things. Sometimes I have to make a phone call. Sometimes that’s easy and sometimes I am apparently taken to be a denizen of the planet Zephron III and I get some inscrutable form in the mail that has to be signed by five witnesses and notarized about a dozen times. With this or that document attached in quadruplicate. Noooooo, I just want the *bill* to come to my house. That is all I want to change. For now.

And then there was the letter I got today. Dear Squire Finlayson… My dad actually owns a piece of land down there in Tennessee. Lynchburg to be exact. So, this letter comes to my house with a request from some unknown “squire” with land adjacent to my dad’s land. It seems that this squire’s wife grows watermelons but raccoons and deer and pigs and whatever have been eating her melons and depositing the seeds on my dad’s land as they make their escape. So now, there are watermelons growing on my dad’s land and this guy wants permission to pick those watermelons…

Yes. My dad owns(ed) one square inch of land in Lynchburg, Tennessee. There is a certificate of ownership mounted on the wall upstairs in the moomincabin. Y’all know what comes outta Lynchburg Tennessee, don’tcha? Well, okay, fer you teetotalers out there, it is good old Jack Daniel’s Whiskey. (The GG and I just had a lot of discussion and some googling about whether it was Jim Beam or Jack Daniel’s. I never knew that bourbon was only made in Kentucky. Right?) Anyway, this is a really weird letter and I don’t really know what to do with it, although I think it’s some kind of a joke. Maybe The Old Coot gets it better than I do… Maybe he and The Engineer are hee-hawing somewhere out there.

I guess The Commander owns the Lynchburg property now. I think she’s going to live until 110 but in the event that she does join all of those on the other side some day in the distant future, I can just envision us who are left all scrambling to own this loverly watermelon, raccoon, deer, and pig-infested piece of property.

I’m pretty sure that Canuck might offend some Canadians. I am hoping I will be excused for using it since I have a few Canuckian roots. The Fins came over from Scotland back in the 1800s and made their way to the Toronto area and then further points west and north. There were a lot of boyz in that generation if I have it right and they went off make their way trapping fur and hanging out with the Mounties and I dunno what else.

It’s all a long story (like everyone’s story) but both of my paternal grandparents were born in Canada and landed in the Michigan version of Sault Ste. Siberia as small children. They became American citizens and so am I but, when I was young and still trying to figger out who the heck I was, I used to love telling people that I was half Canadian (or whatever). I haven’t done that for a very long time. I’m not sure who the heck I thought I was or why anyone would’ve been interested in that boring little piece of information.

Anyway, because we lived on the border (and *not* because we were “half” Canadian), we traveled in Canada quite a lot when I was a kid. When I was three years old, we took the Long Trip and we stayed in a motel in North Bay over on Lake Nippissing (google it). I was interested in the beeyootyful pink toilet, sink, and bathtub et al. Pink! There was a spider in the tub and The Commander was in full freakout tilt spider eradication boogie. I was an only child on that trip. Sort of. The Engineer was on the way.

I noticed toilet, sink, and bathtub colors that whole trip. I was THREE fer kee-reist! The Commander remembers singing me songs out of the Golden Song Book over and over and over again the whole time. Actually, I vaguely remember that too. (And I have the book now. I found it in the Squatter’s Paradise.) I have a very vague memory of visiting some spinster-type ladies over in Toronto (I think). The Hallidays. We had tea and there was a fancy lace tablecloth and they doted on me (I think). (Hey, I was three!)

We also crossed over into the states on that trip. To visit the Shermans in upstate New York. The Commander tells me that when I saw the Sherman kids playing in the Sherman back yard, I got all excited and yelled, “KIDS!” and took off. That doesn’t really sound a whole lot like something yer fav-o-rite blahgger would do but I must’ve done it. I even have a picture somewhere.

The Sherman family had roots in the Sault Ste. Siberia area (Michigan side, the grandparents were American). When I was older, they would drive from upstate New York to the Yooperland with their VW Bus and popup camper and their five children and park in one of our “parking places”. Esther Sherman was the mom and she is one of The Commander’s best friends in life. Esther’s children were almost like cousins to me. And I owe Esther a call because she has called me so many times during the last six months. I love Esther. She is like a mother to me.

Good night,
–KW

So, my best friend in life is on a Canadian journey right now and she passed through Sudbury and I remember Sudbury as being kind of a wasteland but Wikipee says something different.

When I walked down to the moominbeach this morning and turned my head to the right, this is what I saw…

Those clouds are not indicative of incoming rain. They are reflecting the sun coming up over the swamp wetlands. An[other] absolutely gorgeous day ensued in the Great Not-so-white North. This is the weekend we’re closing up the moomincabin for the winter and Pete called as we were schlepping one of the kayaks up to the garage. He needed the GG’s help for a fun prodject. Which was taking Pete’s motorboat out near the island (not sure exactly where they went so hopefully someone will correct me) to retrieve a buoy that the locks boat tour folks use for their Iroquois Lighthouse tours. Pete is a long time pleasure boat captain and, in his retirement, he works summers as a locks tour boat captain. I’m sure he would not let somebody like yer fav-o-rite blahgger take the wheel of a tour boat as casually as Chloe Belle handed me the wheel of a gargantuan pontoon boat a couple weeks ago.

Anyway… I left the moominbeach in the late morning and this is what I was leaving…

Soooo hard to leave. Plus I was leaving the GG with the brunt of the close-up duties. I cleaned some stuff up in the kitchen and I schlepped what laundry I could find. I didn’t sweep floors or whatever. I honked a master salute from the blue Frog Hopper (1 long, 2 short) and sadly made my way down the cabin road. Said my farewells to The Commander at FV, then hit the road. And… Yeesh. When I got on the freeway, my GPS estimated my arrival time at the Landfill to be 4:40. But then there was…

This was not the only slowdown but it was probably the worst. And it was right next to (dun dun dun) the Tornado Rest Area. No tornados today but kee-reist. I got home at 5:30.

I think it might take me the whole week to unpack. I walked over to the Plum Market and I bought: 1) almond milk boxes [chocolate] to take to work 2) orange juice because I will die tomorrow morning without it and 3) salmon filets to grill tomorrow night in the Landfill Backyard. Be there or be square!

The GG has been left to do the brunt of the Moomincabin close-up. Do I feel guilty about that? Yes. But I am so lucky to have a good job (that I like!!!) with a decent salary. This has been a rather higgledy-piggledy year at the moomincabin. Hoping that things will be more organized next year.

Love you all,
Kayak Woman

Man oh man, it was a long day. Lots of chores and errands here in the Great Not-so-white-actually-rather sweltering North. I was envious of the GG, who got to drive up to Tahquamenon and hike with the North Country Trail Association. I mean I really *was* envious. I love the NCT folks and I love to hike but I have so many balls in the air that, for the most part, I am happiest when I can hike according to my own schedule with a minimal amount of cat-herding on either end. Group activities are all about cat-herding. I wish, I wish, I wish I had more time for that.

Anyway, I made my way into Sault Ste. Siberia after an interesting little adventure with her loverly vee-hickle in which I put it into what I thought was Drive and then I was freaking out because the transmission was not changing gears. It turned out that I had it in *first*! Yes! I pulled the gear shift all the way back like I do in both the Mean Green and Mean Blue Frog Hoppers because that’s where Drive *is* in those. The Comm’s Taurus? Not so much. Duh. I told The Commander and her FV lunch buddies this story and I am sure The Comm is wondering why she would entrust her bee-yoo-ty-ful Taurus to such a freaking idiot. Where did you get your driver’s licence, KW? Crackerjack box?

So, I did a bunch of errands for The Comm today. She was chomping at the bit to go *with* me but as she is still recovering from a NASTY respiratory virus, I would not let her. Sorry Mom. We did go outside and *sit* in the beautiful HOT sunshine for quite a while and then she napped while I took a little powerwalk down to the Valley Camp and back.

I love FV. The Comm, although she loves the staff and her room, has more complicated feelings about it. I won’t go into that, it’s her business. I love the staff too and her room is a very comfortable place to hang around. It’s as close to home as it gets. The Commander’s furniture is there and there’s a wifi internet connection are there. And the lake freighters that lock through at the Soo are so close that you could stand outside her front window and hit one with a stone. Don’t worry, Homeland Security, The Commander would never do that. (Speaking of Homeland Security, I was able to actually walk into the Soo Locks Park both yesterday and today through an unsecured entrance. For a minute or two yesterday, I was kind of wondering when black helicopters were going to snatch me up. But nothing happened. This is a goooooooood development, in my opinion.)

I had a train of thought going but it is wandering around in the woods now. Me and the GG and the Grinch are sitting out here on the back deck finishing up dinner and having a wee leetle cocktail. Dark and beautiful.

Thank you so much Chloe Belle for letting us crash in your pad last night. It was so much fun watching the Yigers win against the Yankees with you. Hope you have fun in Indiana this weekend. Love.

We lifted off from Chloe Belle’s pad in Gaylord (Grandma Gay lives in Gaylord, hee haw hee haw, git it?) at about 7:30 AM. Our drive from there to Sault Ste. Siberia was gorgeous and the sun was over the horizon when we crossed the Mackinac Bridge.

And so, we got to Siberia early and spent most of the day with The Commander doing chores and running errands. The Squatter’s Paradise, Waste Management, the bank, Amerigas, Penny’s Kitchen (for lunch), Barish Brothers. And the Comm had various visitors, including the Beautiful Jan and a nursing student who interviewed The Comm for an hour. I didn’t want to get in the way of the interview, so I left for a walk and I saw lots of lake freighters going up and down, including the Ojibway.

When I got back from my walk, The Comm was holding court with her [wonderful] visiting student and the GG was monkeying around with hanging up the Comm’s medium-ass flat screen TV. The visiting student left aaaannndddd… one of the Commander’s grandchildren initiated a facebook chat with her.

Just about broke my neck getting outta work this afternoon. Don’t even ask me about the chair races. Just about broke my neck getting home this afternoon. I do not know what is with the left turn signal from Jackson and N. Maple but about every two weeks, it randomly decides it’s only going to let three or four vee-hickles through at a time. That totally hoses traffic in the entire Westgate area. Just about broke my neck getting out the door. I’m not going to even count how many times I locked the door and then had to go back in for something. Finally, we were in the Mean *Blue* Frog-hoppin’ Musheen and pulling out the driveway. Yes, I said “blue”. No, we didn’t manage to have another little boat-pulling incident. This Frog Hopper has manufacturer’s plates. Subaru is testing our Green Musheen for a couple weeks and we have a loaner.

Much easier trip up than the last one if you discount the usual cracker-jack drivers that frequent the I75 SUV Speedway. You know the kind. Passing on the right, weaving in and out of traffic. Passing on the left when the passing lane is about to peter out. And then there were some scary moments after we got off the I75 SUV Speedway. The cat that crossed right smack in front of me in the dark on old 27. No, I didn’t hit it! Eventually, after a bit of fumbling around on unfamiliar dark roads and *quite* a bit of argument about whether we were on the right road or not (and yes we did have my GPS), this loverly jack-o-lantern shone out of the window in the house on Northstar. We had arrived. We are crashing at Chloe Belle’s rental house tonight. This is our last chance to crash here. Chloe Belle is moving to a real house up here in the Great No-So-White North in a few weeks.

Can you tell I’m totally on the edge here? Yes, I am. On to the Yooperland tomorrow. Be there or be square. Over and out!

We have a security guard at work now. He has a uniform but I don’t think he has a gun. I don’t think he needs one. I’m not sure that he has a lot to do. I would get pretty darn bored walking around our small one-story cube farm all day, watching baggy old systems analysts and developers et al hang out at their computers. We have had a couple of cracked windows in the last month or so and, although aggressive lawn-mowing is suspected, our company is not taking any chances.

Back when I worked over at That Darn EPA (see disclaimer below), there was an actual lobby with security guards on duty 24-7. There was a need for security guards over at that facility because just about anybody and his alien friend from Zephron III could walk in the front door. There is plenty of sensitive data stored over at the EPA, not to mention all of the dangerous fuels and gases and other things that blow up in the night or whenever.

Our security guards were a part of the family. They knew who worked there and who didn’t and they once clued in a prescription drug addled co-worker of mine that she had arrived at 7:30 at *night*, not 7:30 in the morning. And then there was the time that the guards had to chase a mentally impaired employee out the door and across the parking lot. He bolted (with sensitive documents) when he encountered a secretary (yes, there were still some secretaries then) who had told him not to come back until he had bathed. It had been a month or whatever and it was time. I didn’t see this happen but I remember hearing that the guards were laughing so hard they couldn’t run. Disclaimer: I hesitated to tell this story. I have not worked over at the EPA for many years but the GG still does. But everyone mentioned in this story is either dead or doesn’t work there any more and that was a whole ‘nother era. Nowadays (post 2001), there is a car-eater over there…

At my work, we are all a bit flummoxed that there is an actual security guard. He seems like a nice enough young man and I am happy that we’re employing him. But I have had my job for four years now and I have *never* felt threatened by anyone or anything that whole time. Well, maybe except for the red-winged blackbirds that poop on my car. I have to swipe an ID card and enter a security code to get into the building. I *always* leave my purse and iPhone and whatever other valuables I have with me at my desk. I walk around our beautiful business park every day without fear.

P. S. RIP Steve Jobs.

I have been the beneficiary of “Employee Appreciation Week” at my work this week. Bagels and all the trimmings yesterday morning. Root beer floats this afternoon. And some kind of “golf” tournament that went on all day. I am too much of a party pooper to participate in something like that but I have to admit that when it got over to my stodgy old team members’ cubicles, we were interested enough to watch. W1.5 actually vacated his cube for the duration. I think he feared for his life.

Meeeaaanwhile… I was waaaiiitttting with bated breath (or not) for the newest iPhone! Would it be an iPhone 5? Or an iPhone 4-something. We were all on edge. It turned out to be an iPhone 4-something (4S). I don’t know all of the specs but the 8 megapixel camera is enough to make me lust after it. I will be buying one soon but it will not be for me.

Hmmm, I just heard the GG say he had a sore throat today. I think I will sleep on the Green Couch tonight because I do NOT want whatever the heck he has!!!!

On that thread, I was trying to call the Commander on her landline for *hours* today. Busy signal. I figgered that her landline phone was off the hook. I texted her iPhone: I think your phone is off the hook! Eventually, about one minute before I was going to call FV to get her to fix her phone, she called me back. The Grinch was there visiting her [he brought her chocolate] so I told her to call me back after he left. And she did. And… We will see her this weekend!

I wish I could’ve been on Mouse’s balcony today!

Yeah. My doorbell rang. At least it didn’t ring when I was in the middle of changing out of bizcaz into raggedy old KW clothes because, unlike a long-time friend of mine, I do not answer the door in my underwear. If you know me well, you can probably guess how happy I was about hearing the doorbell. I had the big wooden door open because I like having light come through the glass outer door. So whoever was out there knew someone was home. Although I suppose I could’ve been out in the back yard moving my 10 rocks a day. Or not… I steeled myself to deal with a solicitor.

It was neither. Well, actually it *was* a solicitor of sorts. But since I had to look waaaayyyy down to see one of the solicitors, an uber-cute two-year-old girl, I softened just a bit. But still, were they Jehovah’s Witnesses or something? Not. This young mom and her baby girl were looking for Isabelle, who has been missing since yesterday afternoon. She’s an indoor-outdoor cat but she has never been missing overnight before.

I wish I knew where Isabelle was. I have been seeing a cat that looks a bit like her around for the last couple weeks. But maybe not quite… When I was a kid, we lost my dog Tigger for a few days once. She was just barely beyond puppyhood and she managed to escape her chain and… Vamoose.

I was six at the time and I remember feeling absolutely sick thinking about how I might not ever see my dog again. But Sault Ste. Siberia was a small town and apparently a lot of people knew that our dog was lost and so we got all kinds of calls about Tigger sightings. The Commander and Grandroobly checked out the dog pound and we even investigated one call about a lost dog on the north side of the Fort Street bridge. It looked a lot like Tigger, but it was not *our* dog.

I cannot for the life of me remember who found Tigger or how we got her back. But we did. And we never lost her again. She was a smart dog and she eventually figured out how to rule the world. She learned that jumping up on people and barking was not a good strategy for getting petted and being told things like “good dog”. Except when she detected a real threat like the milkman.

One of my favorite stories about Tigger was once when Grandroobly drove out to the moomincabin with her in the winter. They started to walk back to “town” (Sault Ste. Siberia) on the ice and Tigger was rocketing all over the place but at some point didn’t return. Grandroobly continued down the river into town to find that Tigger was already home. Apparently, she hadn’t been able to find Grandroobly after one of her expotitions but she did manage to get to Doc Read’s house. He put her in his car and drove her home.

I hope this mom and her little daughter find their cat. That is all.

There is a big flap going on here on The Planet Ann Arbor about earmarking (or whatever) a small percentage of the tax receipts for “public” art. I am not 100% against spending public money on art but I have to say that I am in with those who say our loverly elected officials do not have their priorities straight.

To date, our loverly planet has two official installations of public art (that I know of). It is Sunday so we needed some kind of a hiking or kayaking trip. I decided that we would walk downtown and search out these two new public art installations and maybe any other art we encountered.

I had a grandiose idea about comparing public works of art to various fungi (and this was *well* before the sun got anywhere near the yardarm, so go figger). Enh… I am sorry but by the time I had put nine miles on my iPhone pedometer, I was outta steam for any kind of coherent political rant. And so you are getting fungus. Doesn’t this fungi-encrusted branch look like a shower head?

I dredged some more stuff outta the Landfill Dungeon, ran Roooooomba, walked nine miles (I know I already said that), moved about I dunno maybe 70 rocks in the back yard. I made a rockpile. I am taarrred. My face feels hot and a few of my muscles are on the verge of aching. It’s okay, I think I’m a bit sunburned and those muscles are telling me, “thank you for using me!” I feel good!

Is this crappy old jalopy public art or fungus? You decide. I personally think there is probably some fungus in there somewhere.

After I hauled all those rocks around, I called The Commander (and woke her up from a nap, darn it!) and took a second shower. The GG had to head off to work for a couple hours and so we are just now getting ready to cook our loverly salmon and probably the last Michigan corn on the cob we will get.

Love y’all,
KW

Yaknow, for once, I can look back at the day and feel like I accomplished something! And it was even a Saturday. Do you have any idea how many Saturdays I have approached with high hopes for getting stuff done only to fall into a day of slodging around on them thar tubes — the ones that Al Gore invented. Today? I dragged the GG out early and we walked in the dark to get to the Planet Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market just after it opened. We got coffee at Roos Roast and a Danish at I fergit which booth but it’s the same one that has the apple fritters. We went inside to eat our pastries and I took this photoooo and a facebook friend thought I was inside a Mickey D’s playscape! That totally cracked me up!

I love squash stacks!

The GG considers some fancy blood orange bitters in the Sparrow Market @ Kerrytown but ultimately decides that the sun is not over the yardarm.

We got home before 9:00 AM and I morphed into tornado mode! Laundry and grokkeries and food prep and Rooooomba. A second trip to the Plum Market to get a few buckets of mums for the back yard (I couldn’t fit them in my backpack on the first trip so I had to snag the Ninja). I may not be much of a gardener but I am an expert at buying pots of flowers to set out.

Then, I draaaaagggged myself down into the Landfill Dungeon and I started flinging. I put a couple of big bags of junk in the trash and a bunch of broken up boxes and things in the recycle and more stuff into donation or eventual garbage garage sale containers. I didn’t make a big dent but I made a dent. And then… The next photooo is significant because I dragged three mynah bird cages plastic storage units out to the lawn extension, attached a FREEEEEEE sign to them aaaaannnnnnddddd…. Somebody picked them up!!! The GG happened to witness the pickup and he said the recipients seemed really happy. I’m happy too. Happy they took them and I’m happy they’re happy! So, this photo is of the spot where the mynah bird cages plastic storage units *were* (sneak shot of the Ninja in the driveway in case the Engineer is tuning in from whatever black hole he is hanging out in).

I am proud of myself but I am also superstitious enough to be knocking on wood big-time right now. This was one good day during which I was able to concentrate on some of my own little personal first-world problems and make a bit of progress solving them. Not every day is this good and I am counting my blessings.

I hope y’all (all five of you) had a good day too. If you didn’t, I hope tomorrow is better. Love you.

P.S. The GG also did a lot of work today. He worked in the yard. I was kind of feeling guilty about not helping with that but I forced myself to focus on de-hoarding the Landfill Dungeon.