In other words, just another Friday night on The Planet Ann Arbor. And here is Mr. Roboto at the Oscar Tango. Note to self. Get better at staging these iPad shots…

I can’t exactly remember but I think we were subject to an alien invasion at some point.

We got a little Frampton fix as we were hoofing it back over to the west side courtesy of the Breakers playing at Mark’s Carts. Of course the GG just kind of pooh-poohed this. “Heck, Frampton played over at Woodward and Catalpa all the time.” His neighborhood. Er, this may be a mis-memory as neither of us seem to be able to goggle up any info about Frampton living anywhere near Royal Joke (Gogol was goggle-eyed!). But I was soooo envious of all the big-city kids when I was a kid up there in the god-forsaken yooperland. Or so I thought at the time… I want you-ou-ou to show me the way…

And so goodnight from the GG to you from a big sewer pipe up on Dexter, which is totally torn up at this point and hosing traffic in the whole area. Welcome to summer in the Great Lake State.

That thing looks like it’ll hold a lotta poop.

Actually, it isn’t really a “political” opinion. At least I don’t see it that way. It’s *my* opinion. One that has evolved over time. You might guess that I am talking about “gay marriage” and you are right.

I just don’t see what the big deal is. I have to confess that I didn’t always feel this way. But that’s probably because, when I was growing up, I didn’t have any idea what “gay” meant except something approximating “happy”. I do remember getting in trouble when I was about 10 for using the word “queer” to refer to some neighborhood kid that “me and Laurie” were “fighting with”. I couldn’t figure out why it was a bad word and no one would explain it to me. It was just a kid “me and Laurie” didn’t like for whatever reason and we were pretty scrappy little comrades. But we had to be because the Waisenen boys lived just down the alley from me and they were ROCK THROWERS! But whoever “that kid” was, he may or may not be gay…

As a kid, I was taught that when you got married, you married someone of the opposite sex and it couldn’t be your brother or your father or your cousin. Those kinds of families were pretty much all I knew. My grandparents and my aunts and uncles and most of my friends had those kinds of families. That all fit with my world view. I liked boys from an early age and, when I wasn’t being an insufferable tomboy, I was dreaming of my someday beautiful white wedding. I remember being squicked out at a junior high sleepover when some of the other girls wanted to “make out”. I know that they were just experimenting and probably most of them were pretending they were making out with Paul McCartney or that cute boy in 4th hour or somebody. I just didn’t want to kiss a girl… Of course, to be honest, I am squicked out by most males too. I am picky picky picky…

It wasn’t until MUCH later (like when I was in my 30s (yes really)) that it occurred to me that those two women who lived together that my family knew (and loved) were probably lesbians. My parents *knew* it! But they never told us kids anything about it. That subject was pretty much taboo in the small northern city I grew up in. And then I realized that my first boyfriend Danny (we were six) was probably gay. And he is. I know because his mom was one of The Comm’s BFFs and she has called to check on me quite frequently in the last year and we’ve talked about that. And, you know, I live here on the Planet Ann Arbor, where it has been pretty easy to be openly gay for a long time and I have interacted with gay folks on a fairly regular basis. Yaknow what? They are mostly regular people who are doing the same wide variety of things in their lives that I do with mine. Working. Raising children. Buying grokkeries. Trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage. Hiking, skiing, kayaking. Things that I do.

I don’t believe that people choose their gender identity. I also believe that gender is not a black or white issue. One of the things that is being ignored in all of this controversy is those who are born with ambiguous genitals and/or chromosomal abnormalities and are assigned a gender at birth which maybe does not map to what they will become as they mature. I don’t know what those people do or how they decide how to pick a life partner. Some of them don’t and I think that is sad.

As far as I am concerned, people should be able to marry whoever they want and live their lives the way they want to with all of the protections that a married heterosexual couple has. Trying to legislate biology is just crazy. If you are a heterosexual woman married to a heterosexual man and you both treat each other (and your children) with respect, that is wonderful. But that is not always the case. There are *people* who abuse their partners and/or children. I don’t think it matters whether they are gay or straight. It’s all bad.

PS. The photooo is cropped from one Mouse took in Zion. I didn’t ask her for permission so I hope she’s okay with that.

As I kind of expected, our school technology bond passed (resoundingly) yesterday. I am neither happy or unhappy about that. I am absolutely utterly in complete support for our schools to have up-to-date computer stuff. As I think I said the other day, there are probably some computers still around from when the beach urchins were in middle school if not earlier. And then there’s the infrastructure. Somewhere I read a quote from a school administrator that so many students received wifi-capable devices for xmas 2011 that many school wi-fi systems were brought to their knees. Yes, we are an affluent district. Our middle-schoolers (grade-schoolers?) have smart phones. Mine wouldda had ’em too if they’d been available back in the Jurassic Age.

Also, I have long been an advocate for computer/internet technology in the schools. When one of the beach urchins was stuck in a huge, bureaucratic middle school where all the cool kids ruled the school (exaggerating but not by much), I locked horns with the principal* on many occasions because there wasn’t an email list (or group or whatever) that the administration could use to get messages out to parents. You know, things like “report cards were sent home today”. But nooooo. He insisted on using backpack mail. That did not work all that well for me and probably a whole bunch of other parents for reasons I won’t fully disclose on the internet but can be summed up by a classic statement from back in the Jurassic Age: “Moom, you *keep* yourself *out* of my business!”

I think most schools are way beyond that mindset now. I’m sure that they are all sending out mass emails on a regular basis and some of them are requiring teachers to post stuff on the web, etc., etc.

Here’s the thing… The technobond campaign relied heavily on language like “support our kids”. I dunno. The public schools *are* all about the students and maybe that’s what it takes to win a technobond issue. But, at least in our affluent district, I think it’s more about outfitting the *teachers* with up-to-date equipment and the software applications that they need. C’mon, it’s 2012 and you cannot run any kind of organization (non-profit or not) without up-to-date technology. Many of today’s students are surrounded by computing devices of all description and they know how to use them and so I don’t think we need laptops for every kid funded by the taxpayer. Parents are providing those to a lot of kids. We MUST make sure that we provide students who CANNOT afford those devices with access to them. And we certainly do have many students in that category. We need to help level the playing field for them.

I don’t think that (in 2012) bond issues are the right way to fund computers in the schools and all of the infrastructure that surrounds them. This stuff needs to be included in the general operating budget (or whatever you call it). We’re beyond the days where a school could get by on a few computers running Sticky Bear ABC or Oregon Trail. We need to make sure our schools are provided with new technology on a regular basis.

* Dean Mike was a pretty good buddy of mine. I was PTO treasurer under his watch at two schools and he once managed to convince me to actually get up on a stage and hand out “prizes” to kids who had earned the highest points at one of those awful “gift wrap” fundraisers. I went home and took a shower after that.

Doooo you want to dance? Tell me. Tell me!

I was the Number One voter in my precinct. Of course I don’t mean that I am Super Voter or whatever. Actually my voting history has some holes in it. But I took my skunk walk this morning and arrived at my polling place *exactly* when it opened. My phone proclaimed the time just as a poll worker opened up the door to the school and said, “The polls are open!”

I have some of the weirdest voting experiences. You would think that being the first voter to arrive, everything would run smoothly. And it started out that way. First off, people were surprised that *I* was number one. “Where is that guy who always arrives five minutes early?” asked one worker. Another replied, “Maybe he’s dead.” If he is dead, I guess maybe I am now the First Voter, uh, until I die… And then a new generation of poll workers will be wondering where the baggy old kayak woman who always arrives early is. Maybe she died…

Anyway. I was first and the two volunteers who were charged with finding my name and checking it off could *not* remember what they were supposed to do. Opening night jitters or something. Meanwhile… I was standing there… I honestly think it took about five minutes for them to sort it out. “Where do I write the ballot number?” “Where do I put this little sticker?” “Where does her ballot application go?” (If I am number one even one more time, I will be able to tell *them* what to do… ;-)) Even though I knew everything would be all right, I was a little nervous by the end of that.

But what could possibly go wrong? There was only one measly bond issue on the ballot. I couldn’t possibly over-vote, like I supposedly did in a previous election and was humiliated to hear the poll worker announce it to the room. That didn’t happen today. Today, when I finally got my ballot, I headed straight over to the ballot eating musheen. Hmmm, did I fergit a step? The poll worker caught it. “You haven’t VOTED yet.” Er, duh… Earth to KW… I walked over to one of the voting carrels (tail between legs) and VOTED, i.e., filled in one little oval. The ballot-eating musheen ate my ballot without complaint. Because it was the FIRST ballot, I could even hear it softly ker-plunking down to the bottom of the musheen.

I took my “I voted” sticker and walked out and that’s another election done and we’ll see how it turns out. I think there will be a very light turnout today. When we are voting for a new president, I have to get to my polling station at like 5 AM to be the number one voter. That seems topsy-turvy to me. I think that these local elections are extremely important. I think more people need to start paying more attention to the election process at the local level. Who is running for city council or county commissioner or school board or whatever. I know how hard it is to keep up with all of this but often the decisions made at these levels have a more immediate effect on our lives and our pocketbooks than state or national decisions.

If there is an election wherever you are, please vote if you can. There are 22 minutes left to vote here on The Planet Ann Arbor.

Love y’all,
-KW

I will have to do that tomorrow morning. Our school district has a technology bond up for tomorrow. I am totally unsure about whether to vote yes or no on this bond.

Our school district *needs* new computers and “stuff”. I certainly hope that they aren’t still using the old Apple castoffs that were installed (one to a classroom or something like that) back in the 1990s when the beach urchins were in elementary school and the GG was on the district’s technology committee*. Back in those days, we were in the beginnings of outfitting our schools for the online information age. You know, the age that allows me to actually have a career in something that wasn’t even dreamed of back when I graduated from college back in the 1970s. But that would be a whole ‘nother story.

What to do… Do I vote for the bond even though that at this stage of the game, I think that up-to-date computer equipment should be standard in every building in the school district and, therefore a part of the regular budget. I have a lot of things to say about this but probably not tonight. We’ll see how I vote tomorrow. But I am gonna vote. Make no mistake!!!

* I remember when the GG was serving on that technology committee and the district was advertising jobs. Someone asked the GG why he didn’t apply. Answer? You can’t afford me. Hee. But make no mistake, this did not mean that we were in the 1%… Never!!

Honest to kee-reist, I spent the whole blasted day thinking it was Mother’s Day! Don’t get me wrong. I could not care less about the greeting card “holiday” Mother’s Day. (Except that it rings a bell that Mother’s Day is *not* a “holiday” created by the greeting card companies. I’m too lazy to google). Nevertheless, I lived today as if it were a holiday created just for us taaarrred old mooms. First of all, I took a small holiday from flinging! Instead, I dredged out my fake plastic terra cotta pots and headed over to English Gardens, where I bought a couple flats of impatiens and some potting soil. Yeah, I know I can *make* potting soil right in the back yard. I didn’t want to be bothered with that today. It was Mother’s Day, roight? (Roight.)

Around quarter to two, I put my backpack on and headed out the door to walk over to the Water Hill neighborhood for their annual music fest. I didn’t even get past the next door neighbors’ house when the Ninja came wheeling around the corner — the GG returning from his northern boondoggle. What the heck, you are home, do you wanna walk down to Water Hill? And so we unpacked the Ninja and set off.

Waterhill is my style of concert! Various people play (or host groups) in their front yards or on their front porches or in one case, someone was playing the piano *inside* the house. You can walk all over the neighborhood and hang out at any of these little concerts for a minute or five or 60. Popcorn, cookies, and lemonade are everywhere. Everyone was playing, professional bands and amateurs having fun. And kids like this wonderful young girl.

These folks attracted the biggest crowd I saw over there.

There are lemonade stands and popcorn sales and cookie sales. I bought lemonade from one youngster and ended up getting it all over my phone camera… And there are Water Hill Water Closets! People who have opened their bathrooms to folks who have to go. Not sure I would be comfortable with any old Tom, Dick, or Harry coming into the Landfill to use the Blue and Only Bathroom. I would probably be hanging out nearby with a bottle (or two or ten) of Lysol and a dozen rolls of paper towels. (Well except for My Own Dear Uncle Harry who is welcome to use my bathroom whenever he wants, of courserous! I have been known to use his outhouse in the Moominbeach off-season.)

For whatever reason, I have been thinking about the term Water Closet a lot lately… After our hike over to Water Hill, I had a loverly little “Mother’s Day” glass of whine, shown here on the loverly little table I bought today when I ran out of potting soil and decided to hit up Ace Hardware for more instead of English Gardens. It is a double-decker (you can’t see the bottom deck) and it was on sale. It is a backwards step in flinging in a way but a forward step (I hope) in making our back yard more comfortable.

It was while I was sitting out there sipping my whine that I googled around and found out that Mother’s Day is actually NEXT Sunday. Duh! That is okay. I celebrated it today. All by myself (except for the walk to Water Hill). And I had fun! So nobody needs to feel obligated to do anything for me next weekend! Don’t I just take the cake? <cheesy-grin>

Except I can’t figger out *how* to turn him on… Other than that, not a bad day albeit not without some moments of angst and/or frustration. Dumped a few old computers and things off at the annual Pi-High eWaste event — easy as pie, just sat there in the Frog Hopper while a small army of folks emptied the trunk. There’s another one of those giraffe-style iMacs that didn’t make the cut. It’s Its disk drive needs to be cleared of porn I guess. [Oh, I’m just kidding, y’all.] That black printer is almost brand new. What a piece of crap. Won’t copy or scan any more and not worth fixing. No laptops. We seem to be able to repurpose laptops.

Later on, Mouse served me brunch on her loverly balcony. With coffee in an owly mug. Lots of wildlife around and about Mouse’s otherwise rather typical apartment complex.

And where I am not? The GG’s purpose in heading up to the yooperland was not to open up the moomincabin but that’s what he ended up doing.

Today was a beach day and I am missing out on that but I managed to get quite a bit of flinging and some paper-sorting done (I could spend 40 hours a week sorting out papers) and running my cute little Rooooomba through her paces and even managed a few cupboard cleaning activities. And walked to the Plum Market where I realized — before I got inside the door, thank you very much — that I did not have my debit card with me. So I walked back home and *back* to the Plum Market. And back home again. It’s okay. I needed the walk.

Now I am sitting back here in the raggedy looking Landfill back yard thinking about stuff. About all the times I sat out here watching my cute tow-headed little beach urchins play on the swingset or splash in one of those little KMart pools. And wondering whether or not I have the gumption to attempt some teensy tinesy little gardening prodjects. Will I overcome the inertia that almost always overtakes me? If I do, will my black thumb cooperate with me? Stay tuned…

Oh yeah, are we getting new neighbors? Twice today (that I saw) a couple of white vee-hickles pulled into Hans’s driveway and people (including children) got out of them. But the real estate sign is still up. A mystery. Stay tuned…

Today I got to put on my archaeologist hat! I bet you didn’t know I even *had* an archaeologist hat. I do! And what does an archaeologist hat look like? Well. My fav-o-rite archaeologist hat is a white baseball type of hat with sun wings sewn on to it. By hand with red thread. (If I’m remembering accurately. I’m pretty sure I at least have the sun wings right.)

Actually my archaeologist hat does not resemble the Sun Wings Hat at all. My archaeologist hat is just a regular knit hat with a pair of big caribou antlers attached to it. A double-shovel, I believe they call it. I don’t have to put my archaeologist hat on very often but when I do, look out world!

So today I was trundling along doing my regular job, coding html pages, unsnarling old javascript, and s-l-o-w-l-y writing requirements. Tink tink tink. All the while, in the back of my mind, collecting issues that will have to be discussed and planning for how we will incorporate the next bit of new and different functionality into our product. A low-pressure multi-tasking kind of day working on one prodject while occasionally answering questions about others via email or I/M or simply yelling over the wall.

And then I clicked a link to a page way over in an obscure corner of the “demo”, our product’s very high fidelity prototype and, well hello. What is that? I won’t try to describe what was wrong other than to say there were no borders where I expected to see borders. Don’t ask. You do not want to know. This launched me into an entirely different direction. Something like, “Hey, KW, we are re-directing your space capsule from the planet Mars to the planet Pluto.” Roight.

So I put on my archaeologist hat. Note that when I am not wearing it, it hangs on my cube wall, so beware when you are entering my cube. And I dug into the way-back machine. When did this obscure little page get designed? What kind of conversations led up to this design decision? Or maybe it just got overlooked and the dev team did their own thing. That would be unusual but it does happen.

In the end, I did not find the answer, despite the best efforts of a yelling-over-the-wall convo with my new cube neighbor FZ. That is, FZ has been with the company many many years longer than I have but moved to a cube kitty-corner from me today. I have decided that this issue is not a major issue although I will probably bring it up when we get serious about my next prodject. For now, I’m gonna hang my archaeologist hat back up in my cube and plod along into the typical future of my loverly IT job.

I do okay with info technology “archaeology”. I would not make a good archaeologist. I would probably get bored with some of the digging and cleaning and classifying and I do not know what else. If I were an on-site type archaeologist, I would be uncomfortable if I didn’t have regular access to a shower (that means at LEAST once a day). Yeah I know. I live in the god-forsaken Great Lakes State. We have a lot of problems but we have fresh water pretty much everywhere.

But yay for archaeologists! We need them and we need to value their knowledge and skills more than we do. Just like we need musicians and artists and those very valuable folks who can’t quite quantify their skills but have a way of making the trains run on time. And TEACHERS! Fer kee-reist, how did I fergit to include those often thankless, underpaid professionals! All of those professionals are just as important as engineers and doctors et al but that would be a whole ‘nother post and I am about done for today.

Baggy the Washerwoman wanted nothing more in life than a Beauteous Titanium Tiara. It would make her look so young and bee-yoo-ty-ful perched atop her scraggly old dishwater-blonde/gray hair. Grok grok. The ol’ bag is off her rocker! Baggy the Washerwoman heard that there was just such a tiara available but it seemed that she needed to go through Quacky the Duck to get it.

So Baggy the Washerwoman trudged over to Quacky the Duck’s cluttered office in the back of the neighborhood pet frog accoutrement store and asked how to get the Beauteous Titanium Tiara. Quacky the Duck said to Baggy the Washerwoman, “Go and get that battered old yellow plastic sippy cup out of your cupboard and take it down to the Great Gray-green Greasy Urinius River. Hungry the Heron will exchange it for a beauteous titanium tiara.”

Baggy the Washerwoman trudged back to the Landfill, grabbed the battered old yellow plastic sippy cup and trudged wearily down to the Great Gray-green Urinius River. She timidly approached Hungry the Heron. “Quacky the Duck said that if I gave you this battered old yellow plastic sippy cup, you would give me a beauteous titanium tiara. It would go so well with my crappy old washerwoman hair and clothes.” “Harumph!” said Hungry the Heron, “Where’s my five-tier birthday cake with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue layers and purple frosting? I can’t give you your stoopid old tiara without my birthday cake.” Baggy the Washerwoman lowered her eyes in shame and dismay and replied, “But I didn’t *know* that you required a five-tier birthday cake with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue layers and purple frosting. Quacky the Duck didn’t tell me that.” “No birthday cake, no tiara,” said Hungry the Heron.

Meanwhile, back at the Landfill, Froggy was getting hungry and Baggy the Washerwoman was not around to catch fleas and flies for him. So he reached into the refrigerator, snagged a slimy five-week-old cucumber and shoved it into his gullet with a chaser of laundry detergent. Grok grok frogksg burp.

Baggy the Washerwoman trudged wearily over to Quick Green Lizard’s bakery. “I want to buy a five-tier birthday cake with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue layers and purple frosting. It’s for Hungry the Heron so I can get my beauteous titanium tiara. “Sneedly-deedly-dee tinkly-winkly argly-bargly blippity-bloop,” said the always accommodating Quick Green Lizard, as fast as lightning. Now Baggy the Washerwoman could not understand most of that lizard talk but since Quick Green Lizard swung into action and, quick as a wink, produced a beeeeeauteous five-tier birthday cake with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue layers and purple frosting, Baggy the Washerwoman figured that Hungry the Heron would be ecstatic, so she paid for the cake and trudged off back over to the Great Gray-green Urinius River.

Meeeeeeanwhiiiile, back at the Landfill, Froggy was still hungry. Baggy the Washerwoman was stiill not around to catch fleas and flies for him, so he reached into the refrigerator, snagged a whole hunk of the GG’s stinky 12-year-old cheese and shoved it into his gullet with a chaser of Listerine. Grooooook grlbok glubrok buuuurp.

Alas, when Baggy the Washerwoman arrived back at the Great Gray-green Urinius River and presented Hungry the Heron with his loverly birthday cake, he roared, “What is that sparkly stuff on top of my cake? This cake does not meet the requirements for the beauteous titanium tiara and you can’t have it! Anyway, why do you think an ugly old bag like you should have a tiara?”

Tail between her legs, Baggy the Washerwoman trudged wearily back to Quacky the Duck and said (meekly), “I didn’t know I needed to give Hungry the Heron a five-tier birthday cake with red, orange, yellow, green, and blue layers and purple frosting to get my tiara.” Quacky the Duck said, “What? You went to Hungry the Heron for that stoopid tiara? You were supposed to go and talk to Larry the Lion. But you have to be careful about approaching Larry the Lion because he will EAT you if you don’t present all of the correct requirements.”

Baggy the Washerwoman was too tired to even think about approaching Larry the Lion by that time. She decided to put off that encounter for a while, like maybe a lightyear into the future. So she trudged wearily back to the Landfill…

…where she found that Froggy had shoved a whole chicken (the one Baggy had been defrosting for dinner) down his gullet. She wasn’t sure if he had chased it with anything. grokka grokka grokka BUUURRRRRPPPPP!

My favorite book. Well, maybe not my favorite book *ever*. That would probably be Parsley. I think I checked Parsley out of the Sault Ste. Siberia Carnegie Library every week. Our Carnegie Library had lions and if you click this link and then click the picture, you will get a slideshow with the lions and some other random photos of stuff in Sault Ste. Siberia from one early May morning in 2009.

When I was small, we went to the library every Saturday for a story hour with our beloved children’s librarian Bobby Krieger (not sure about spelling). I’m sure Mrs. Krieger is long dead but I still remember her voice from 50 years ago or so. I loved story hour and she must have loved her job.

I looked and looked and looked for Parsley when the beach urchins were young. Ludwig Bemelmans is (was?) a very popular children’s author (think Madeline) but I wondered if Parsley was not politically correct enough for 1980s-born children. After all, a hunter tries to *shoot* Parsley and ends up falling off a cliff to his death, if I’m remembering accurately. His last words were (I think), “My luck, she is running out!” I am too lazy to go get the book and check. Because, although I did not find the book, The Commander was a bit more tenacious about the search for Parsley than I was so yes, I own a copy. (Thank you Moom.) And that was before them thar intertubes were worth anything to the average consumer, so she did her search mostly by phone.

I don’t remember exactly when my Microbe book came into my life. Maybe I was seven or eight. I do remember reading it many many many many times in my bedroom on Superior Street. (Note to self: look up and post photos of that long-gone bedroom. It was pretty cool for a small bedroom in a little bungalow.) I loved to read about science back then. I loved the pictures in my Microbes book and I think I probably had the text memorized. I still love it now, although I remember the pictures better than the words.

And so I was kind of freaking out during the last year when I could NOT find the book at The Commander’s house. Where the heck could it be? I knew she hadn’t gotten rid of it. She got rid of a lot of children’s books many many years ago before I had my own children (and I was okay with that) but there were some books that she kept and I knew that was one of them because I had seen it there. She must have known it was a fave. Last weekend, I was mucking about moving books around the Landfill and getting rid of some of *my* children’s books and right there, on a shelf in my house, was my Microbe book! Apparently I snagged it a while ago.

Does anybody else have favorite books from childhood that they still care about and wish they have or maybe have saved from their parents’ house or whatever?

Speaking of that, I think that I left Pockets up there! How could I have done that? I will have to rescue it on the next trip…

Yes. This is it. We have adopted the “Small House” philosophy, where people live in houses that have less than, oh, I dunno, maybe 200 square feet. So this is our new house. Except that there’s a problem and that is that this house is in Bird Hills Park. Which is a public park and we would have to park our vee-hickles outside the park. Somewhere. I do not think that the parking lot allows long-term parking.

I am not sure who built this dwelling. Was it homeless folks in the park? Was it neighborhood children? I don’t think so. I am gonna guess it is adult males living in the neighborhood of Bird Hills Park. Adult males who may or may not have children. I may be wrong but I do not think too many folks try to actually *live* in Bird Hills Park. I suppose one could live there but it is a long hike to get from there to any kind of a grokkery store. Like I already said.

I am taaarrred tonight and I am wishing I knew exactly where the heck I need to put my foot next.

Love y’all
KW