I was looking forward to being home aloooone this weekend. I needed to rattle around the Landfill by myself for a bit picking away at this or that flinging / cleaning prodject. Somehow I found myself feeling a wee bit down, at least intermittently. Oh, nothing serious, the worst of it was that it was TBG’s birthday yesterday and she’s my s-i-l and a wonderful kindred spirit and the Twinz of Terror were up there in the Great White North whooping it up with her at Benethum’s and I love TBG and Benethum’s and I wished I was there… HB TBG! And thanks for the pineapple upside down cake.

But, like I said, *intermittent*! Because I got some good stuff done this weekend, although it often felt like I was pulling my hair out! I got “Christmas” taken down and *reorganized*, except for The Commander’s glass ornaments, which are hanging in the front window. I think I’ll keep those there for a while longer. They are really not all that Christmasy. After that, I took a good hard look at the room I sleep in aaaannnnd… proceeded to tackle all of the huge shambling mounds that have formed on my “side” of the room in the last, oh I dunno, year [or… more… yikes]. And then I set Roooomba free (on my “side” of the room). And then I did some DUSTING! Man oh man. [I did dust a couple months ago…]

There was fun stuff this weekend too! Like when I decided to drive out to the Jackson Road Meijer this morning. I was thinking that the last time I went to that place on a Sunday, my co-worker W1.5 caught me red-handed hanging out in the u-scan checkout line reading the tabloids! Today? I was behind W1.5 all the way out to Meijer and ALL THE WAY BACK! I did not see him anywhere in the dern store. How does this kind of thing happen in a city with a population of 100K plus?

And there was yesterday’s dog owner rescue. I was tromping through the woods. I knew that someone with a damn brain was in there with their dog because the gate into the woods was shut. People shut it so their [untrained] dogs can’t get out and run out into North Maple to get hit by automotive veehickles. So I knew there was a dog in there but I guessed that it was not the young German Shepherd that tried to bite me at the beginning of the storm known as the polar vortex and luckily, it wasn’t! It was my “friend”, a pit bull who apparently ADORES me. Many dogs do but apparently not the young German Shepherd… This poor dog’s owner was struggling though. She had let the dog run free in the woods but couldn’t corral it when it was time to go home. She had been in there for an HOUR!!! When I came along, the dog ran to me in a FRIENDLY way. As I greeted the dog, I grabbed onto its neck and hooked my thumb into its collar and its owner was able to re-attach the leash. My childhood dog Tigger taught me well and I miss her so much sometimes.

I needed a few grokkeries so I put on my hip waders bedraggled snow boots and YakTrax, threw on my Maple Leaf Backpack and slodged down the Landfill driveway. Eeny meeny miney mo. Street or sidewalk? Sidewalk? *Mostly* wet pavement punctuated with stretches of ankle-deep water on top of ice. Street? A loverly combination of water, ice, and slush. Every step meets a different surface. Note the trenormous puddle at the end of the Landfill driveway in the photooo below…

The bus stop near the Dexter / North Maple intersection always seems to become a shopping cart graveyard in the winter. This used to happen even before the Plum Market and Aldi built stores there catty-corner from each other.

This snowbank isn’t exactly yellow but I still wouldn’t eat the snow.

Walking was a challenge today. I’m sure driving was fine but I didn’t drive anywhere. I didn’t neeeeeed to drive anywhere. I will drive somewhere tomorrow. I think I’m getting cabin fever.

Of course I did not personally take this loverly photooo of the moomincabin in winter. It was taken by our fav-o-rite gubmint slacker*. I sat on the Green Couch and telecommuted all day. And watched the fog generated by Southeast Michigan melting.

The purpose for the GG’s northward trip was a hike tomorrow with our fave group, the Hiawatha Shore-to-Shore Chapter of the North Country Trail Association. I love those hikes but alas, I have a finite number of paid vacay days and I am in heavy duty vacay saving mode at this time of year. The hike got canceled due to the truly weird weather that happens in the Great Lake state. Tomorrow is supposed to be warm and very wet and with snow on the trails…

But the GG had some other things on his agenda, including checking up on the moomincabin. Here is what he messaged me about that: “Cabin Intruder!!! Knocked over pictures, pushed clock off the wall, may gave gotten into Liquor (shot glass on floor), chewed up a little wood, and permanently passed out in the bathroom.” It was a squirrel (shirrel, cirker, aaaaaaaaaah?) and I have a photo of it but I won’t post it. Poor little thing. BTW: there is no alcohol in the moomincabin at this time of year (summer is a different story). We remove all food and drink when we close in the fall. But poetic license don’tcha know.

The GG is staying at the Hotel Ojibway (of Crabby Tom fame (or notoriety…)) tonight and dining with Jeep at the Elk’s Club. And an LSSU hockey game may or may not be in his future. I am hunkered down, not that I really need to be. npJane and I toyed around with a meetup at the Oscar Tango but it didn’t work out and I am okay with that. I have a no-guilt policy about stuff like that. It began when BFF and I planned to meet up and ooops, my dad took a turn for the worse and died. Ever since that BFF and I have made plans with no guilt policies and we have always felt extra fortunate when our plans work out. In this case, the snag was merely that npJane ended up working later than expected and since we both have wonderful jobs, that is a good thing all the way around.

*The GG is ANYTHING but a slacker. He has been working for That Darn EPA for many years. He works hard and he deserves every bit of time off he gets. But he does have infinitely more vacay time than I do and I often wish I had more, although I love my job.

[Delete a whole bunch of stuff about the weather, etc. here…]

Except to say that we are in the fifth day after Ion or whatever the heck it was and the damn roads here are still in a state of total crapola. I made it home slowly but safely (no snowbanks for me, thank you very much) this afternoon. The plan was, or so I thought, to walk over to Knight’s for dinner. We had a reservation for 7:00. Or so I thought.

I was putzing around in the chitchen when the GG said, “We need to leave soon.” “Soon” doesn’t do it for me. Give me a damn time! The time turned out to be 25 before 7:00. At 28 before seven, I was getting my snow gear on (yes, it was snowing — again) and he said, “I’ll be in the car.” That stopped me in my tracks! What? Why are we driving to Knight’s??? Knight’s is the neighborhood steakhouse / pub. It’s right around the corner. It turned out we were not *going* to Knight’s. We were going to the Real Seafood Company. That was a surprise. I am not all that crazy about surprises. Unless they are reaaally reaallly good ones but in the last few years, usually they are not, so I’d rather just kind of keep on going on…

And what was the occasion? It isn’t my birthday. The Commander would’ve turned 93 today but I had no plans to observe that occasion. The GG finally provided the fact that we would be Porterized tonight. And then, “It’s Diane’s birthday!” Okay then! I clicked my crappy old YakTrax-clad boots together! Let’s go have fun! And fun we had on this loverly but snowy (goddamn it) evening. Escargot and mussels for appetizers and I had mahi-mahi grilled Shanghai style. Oh yes, I ate the spinach! And some whine…

Note to self! Incorporate the Real Seafood Company into our sniggly little restaurant rotation a little more often. But not on Friday nights!

The photoooo? It has nothing to do with our birthday dinner tonight. My uber-cuzzint Pooh asked me for The Comm’s recipe for Italian Cucidata cookies a while back and I sent it asking [half-jokingly] her to to send me a few if she made it. These finally arrived after several days without any mail service at all. They are beautiful! When I used to make cucidata, they were kind of doughy and lumpy and generally misshapen. Pooh’s are much more delicate. The Comm used to dip them in milk and then multi-colored nonpareils. Pooh used a more organic topping. I have yet to eat one of these but I’m sure they are fantastic.

Good night, sleep tight, may the bed bugs freeze,
Kayak Woman

P. S. NHSCK on

First a little selfie (that banned word everyone loves to hate) of yer fav-o-rite blahgger and Mouse.

I was working from home and Mouse had the day off so she came over to this side of town and we walked to the Plum Market for a few grokkeries and a cuppa coffee at Zingerman’s. Weather apps reported temperatures all over the place. This app (on my phone) was definitely nowhere near the ballpark:

It was actually still below zero at this point. Eventually, when it got up to zero, I went out and faaarrred up the Ninja for a good bit of Egregious Idling. Er, that is, I tried to faaaar it up. I wasn’t sure it was gonna kick in for what seemed like five minutes but was probably more like three seconds. But then it caught. I *think* my cute little vee-hickle is still using it’s its original battery. Yay for the Ninja!

Here’s a shot of Mouse as we were walking home. She is proud (and should be) that most of her nice warm outer garments are handmade — by Mouse herself! That coat has no less than FOUR layers! Doesn’t that street look loverly? Don’t let the 35 mph speed limit sign fool you. 55 on a dry day, baybay. (Roads were TERRIBLE this morning — glare ice everywhere — but I won’t go there, just glad I got to and from work without incident. Even the speed demons were crawling along for the most part.)

There is plenty of [snow] mountain climbing on the way to and from the Plum Market these days. Here’s a loverly shot at the back of the parking lot. (I didn’t actually have to *climb* that mountain, most of my “mountains” were more like a couple feet.)

Oh yeah. Yesterday… Our stooopid wifi issue is fixed. The GG spent at least four hours on it last night with no success. I was feeling really growly about it this morning and then I thought to myself something like, “He’ll probably think about this in the back of his mind all day at work today and I bet it’ll be fixed directly when he gets home.” And it was. I walked to the Plum Market after work and by the time I got back it was fixed. Which means he maybe worked on it for five minutes today. I dunno why this stuff is so hard that a computer scientist and a systems analyst have to go through so many gyrations to fix it! I can blahg from my phone or ipad but I just got fed up…

I cannot get online. Okay, I am online via a frickin’ cable. After the the GG futzing with the problem for FOUR HOURS!!! Try to get a *real* service person on the line? Not.

That’s what I used to tell The Commander back in the Jurassic Age. By the time I got to junior high or so she had given up on me and I can remember many days freeeeeezing in my mini-skirt, nylons and “fashionable” little fake leopard skin coat on the way to school. Minus 25 (F)? No problem. I am kind of amazed that I never got frostbite in that crazy getup.

These days I am the Queen of Layers but I still don’t like to wear snowpants. I tried for a few years. I looked (and felt) like a purple Pillsbury doughboy. I finally donated them. I stewed around for a couple years about what to replace them with (I can do without them down to about five degrees). Finally I hit on the perfect solution! My mid-calf length wool skirt! It does the trick perfectly. Well, maybe not at -25 but I give myself a pass on those rare days.

I telecommuted today. That turned out to be a good thing because, as those who *didn’t* telecommute said, it was “exciting” at work today. Why? Well. Because the parking lot was not plowed this morning when people arrived and only 4WD vehicles could navigate the snow without getting stuck. So multiple vee-hickles got stuck. When the plowing service eventually came, it apparently made the situation *worse* by plowing more vee-hickles in. Folks were wondering if they would be able to get out of the parking lot at the end of the day. I’m not sure if they were joking or not.

Whaddya do when it snows? You grill chicken (or duck or veggies or steaks or whatever) of course! And that is what we did last night. Of course it was something like 23 degrees at the time (and snowing), not -5 -9 like right now. But I’m sure we have grilled at -5 -9. We can dress for it (and it’s a gas grill so when you’re cooking something like chicken, there are long periods of time you can let it bake relatively unattended).

All in all it was a pretty long slodgy day. That Darn EPA closed today (weather, not sequester or furlough), so after a flurry of shoveling early in the morning, the GG’s main sources of amusement involved watching the temperature slowly descend from around 13 to -5 -9, monitoring the Planet Ann Arbor snow plow tracking web app, reading, and deciding to use the Blue and Only Bathroom every single damn time *I* did, even though those times were few and far between.

Love y’all. If you are Up in the Land of the Ice and Snow (beware, it’s a YouTube link), stay warm and be careful driving.
Good night, –KW

P.S. Of course I didn’t *ever* say, “I don’t need no stinkin’ snow pants” to The Commander. I can’t remember when that idiom entered the English language but it wasn’t around in the 1960s. Besides that, The Comm always HATED when I used it on my blahg. I used it *anyway*. (It’s my blahg and I will cry if I want to yada yada (she hated when I wrote “yada yada” too).) I’m sure she probably hated Led Zeppelin too even though she probably didn’t know what that music was. She did like some of Pink Floyd’s stuff, Dark Side of the Moon anyone? [insert cheesy happy grin here]

I do not know if we will actually get an entire foot of snow during the Polar Vortex commonly known as Ion but it is definitely coming down. We have made one good pass at shoveling out and I expect some evening shoveling is in my future. So why is my loverly little thermometer proclaiming that it’s sunny? I do not know. Fortunately it has come to its senses and is now showing rain clouds.

I went to the Jackson Road Meijer early yesterday morning before the sun was up. That turned out to be a smart move because apparently everybody on earth panicked yesterday and went shopping to stock up on food and snow shovels. (Snow shovels, you’re wondering? You people live in the Great Lake State and you don’t have a snow shovel?) Anyway, I read that some people waited an hour and a half in line to check out. I did not wait at all at Zero Skunk 30. I went through the [deserted] express uscan even though I had more than 12 items. I did not buy a snow shovel.

So, people are panicky enough that there are now shortages of things at the local grokkery stores. Damn Arbor has some photooos of empty shelves at the Carpenter Road Meijer. I wanted to comment that the Plum Market is low on brussel sprouts but I [ahem] gave up trying to leave a comment. I can understand how a store could run out of milk, bread, eggs, anything but iceberg lettuce, and quinoa but I was surprised that there were only a few buckets of brussel sprouts left. We like brussel sprouts here but I thought it was one of those veggies that most people love to hate.

This is certainly turning out to be a bad snowstorm but it is nothing like the five feet of snow that Sault Ste. Siberia got back in December 1995. I wrote about that storm a few months ago. Here’s a more comprehensive account from people who were actually there. Hint, they called out the National Guard.

Anyway, we took a river ride and walked the trails around Barton Dam this morning before the snow really got going. It was a loverly walk until we walked through a thicket of cattails and suddenly my right foot went through the ice into cold ucky muddy water. I had no idea we were over water (I knoooowww…) or I would not have followed the GG onto that particular path. For some unknown reason, I had the foresight to pull a pair of Smartwool socks on over my tights before we left the house. Between that stroke of luck and the fact that it was 30 degrees, my foot stayed warm.

Hunkered down for the moment. The GG is going to barbecue chicken on the grill (yes, in the snow, in his Stormy Kromer hat) when he gets done pacing in front of the Green Bay game. I am definitely planning on telecommuting tomorrow. Our water pipes will be fine unless we lose power, which we usually don’t (but fingers crossed of course). You can’t live in the Great Lake State without central heat and we definitely have it as well as the associated thermostat wars. I know there are areas of the country where central heat is not ubiquitous but I always fergit because I live here…

If you are in this storm, please hunker down if you can.

Love y’all,
Kayak Woman

So far, not much snow.

Lemme see…

Garbage cart out to the curb.

Recycle cart out to the curb.

One trash bag full of clothes and shoes (contributed by several people) out for Easter Seals to pick up.

One box of small appliances to Habitat for Humanity. Including two clocks that the GG and I have expressed second thoughts about. He was remembering that after The Comm began her decline, she *always* wanted to be able to see her digital alarm clock and he assisted her with that on many occasions. I did not remember that. I don’t think she ever asked me about her clock. I got stuck with all the existential questions… (I always joke that she liked the GG better than me, at least those last few years.) I realized after the fact that the cute little Westclox mechanical alarm clock was small enough to find a niche around here somewhere, even though I would never use it. Oh well. Can’t look back. It is sooooo hard to make decisions when there is a lot of random stuff and I am picking at it sporadically. And I am not perfect, as more than a few folks will tell you.

Two boxes of kitchen paraphernalia and assorted knick knacks to Kiwanis. They sell all kinds of crap there. I saw people (I mean people like meeeee) walking outta there with bags of “bargains”. I am not complaining or even being snarky. Just observing. I did save a Sandy Claws thingy outta one of those boxes. I do not want to *grow* my current collection of Santas. I was able to put it away in ONE BOX today with a bit of room for a few other ornaments and I want to keep it that way! But I thought he needed to be with his buddies.

All of that was punctuated with a Skunk Walk, a vehicular trip out to Meijer, a walk to the Plum Market, an unsuccessful trip to DreamMaker Kitchens & Bathrooms (it wasn’t open), a couple loads of laundry, a gorgeous impromptu drive through downtown and along the river, gasoline in the Frog Hopper, and an afternoon of cooking and pre-cooking (nothing exciting), running Rooooomba, and adding a bunch of *ancient* books to a bookshelf (and dusting said bookshelf). Plus the GG did a bunch of stuff involving the hardware store and keys.

Are you tired yet? I am and I don’t even feel like I did that much today.

We’re under a weather warning here. A foot of snow maybe? After that the temperature is apparently going to dip seriously below zero (F) for a few days. I’m not sure what they’re calling this one. I think we’re up to about “I” at this point. “Iago?” “Iain?” “Ianthe?” “Ib?” “Icarus?” “Iggy?” Ion. A lot of people are in a bit of a dither about this. I would be included in that dithering group if I or anyone I care about had to drive more than a couple miles in the next couple days. Me? I was kibbitzing with the Queen Bee just before I left work yesterday and we were idly discussing the weather forecast and without any prompting at all, she said, “Work from home on Monday if you need to.” I prefer to schlep into Cubeland to work. I appreciate the ability to occasionally telecommute. I love working for a company that encourages that.

P.S. Look at my beautiful paper whites that my mouse gave me!

I am on a campaign to get people outdoors in the winter and one of the things y’all need to do to enjoy your time outside is to DRESS FOR IT!!! Layers and hats, please! Tonight I walked downtown and back in 8-10 degree (F) weather. What did I wear? Lemme see…

My black sequined mad bomber hat

Wool scarf

Wool / silk turtleneck sweater

Polartech vest

Columbia ski jacket (outer shell only — I almost *never* need the zip-in liner)

Tights

Cotton / spandex leggings

Long wool skirt

Smart wool socks

My *old* LL Bean winter tennies (you do not want to know about the new ones…)

YakTrax

Little knit glubs — the 50-cent kind you can buy at the grocery store. (I had an extra pair in my backpack.)

My Maple Leaf Backpack! Yes. This one, the backpack that prompted a fellow denizen of The Planet Ann Arbor to welcome me to my own city a couple days ago. That was so much fun. This backpack was part of the swag my parents got when they went on a trip to Toronto with the Lake State Elders (or some such group) back in the 1990s. They got two of them and eventually The Commander flung them on me. I really wasn’t using a backpack for anything at the time and I think I might have pitched one of them.

Years later, the Plum Market opened up “down on the corner” and I started backpacking most of my grokkeries. That led to using a backpack for trips to the farmer’s market and hiking junkets in general. You never know when you might want to schlep something home or shed a layer or need a bumbershoot or whatever. I had a different backpack for a while but the zippers got all skewgeed up and one day I dredged up this loverly maple leaf pack and I have never looked back. And people are always telling me what a nice backpack it is. Which always cracks me up because it’s just a cheap backpack my parents picked up free on a trip yada yada. Then again, the zippers work (knock on wood).

Well hey, it’s a better title than “Suck Suck Suckity Suck” roight?

All that suck refers to my horrific commute to (and from) work today. Why did I not telecommute? Long answer: I telecommuted throughout the holidays and my bleepin’ work ethic said, “Go to Cubeland today!” Short answer: I do not know.

About 10 minutes before I left for work, a SNOWPLOW!!! actually made a couple passes at our street. I was shocked because we are usually one of the last streets to get plowed. Why did I think that the main roads would be plowed? Because, not. Well not very well anyway. Maybe 12 hours ago or so? I traded vee-hickles with the GG today. I took the Outback and he took the cute little Ninja, performance taaaars and all. He has a shorter commute and doesn’t drive during rush hour.

Guess what? My commute sucked anyway. Even with the Outback. The roads were NOT cleared. Conditions were horrific. At one point, I had to turn into a parking lot to de-ice my veeeendsheeeeel vipers. So I could, uh, seeeee. One might think that when I turned into my business park, I might feel a bit of relief? Not. It was not plowed, I could not see the sides of the road, and two vee-hickles had spun out. Tailgaters be damned. I went slow.

Going home? The roads were just as bad or maybe worse. Definitely more slippery. I do not blame the plow drivers. I do wish the Planet Ann Arbor would place a higher priority on *services* for its residents rather than things like Public Art and Egregious Idling. We are a northern city and while we do not typically get slammed with snow in the same way that places like Sault Ste. Siberia do, we do need to be prepared to plow snow when it happens.

I don’t think I’m going to miss 2013 very much but then I don’t actually remember very much of 2013. I pretty much slodged along. I made progress on a few fronts, largely de-hoarding activities. But there’s still so much more to do. I neeeeeeed more vacation. I took vacation time in little dribs and drabs. I am getting pretty good at living in the moment but somehow I never feel quite caught up.

If the last couple of days are in any way a harbinger of things to come in the new year, I am cautiously optimistic for 2014. I mean, back on New Year’s 1997, the GG set off a faaarrrwork of some sort outside the back door and it tipped over and exploded into the house. An inauspicious beginning to an inauspicious year complete with getting hit by a tornado on the I75 SUV Speedway. So *this* new year’s?

I am not a sports fan. I could not care less about football or basketball or hockey or whatever. I like to watch skiing events in the Olympics and that’s about where it ends. But you know, the last couple of days, our beautiful little planet has turned into a suburb of Toronto with the Winter Classic over at the Big House. And it’s been snowing to beat the band. I hate slodging around the Landfill on winter holidays and this event is actually pretty exciting. I mean, who the heck would want to hang out at an outdoor sports arena for four hours in 13 degree (F) temperatures and steadily falling snow to watch a hockey game? 107,000 people, it turns out. So what did we do? Of course we walked over to the Big House to see what was going on. It was sooooo much fun!

First, a [crappy] photoooo for Jay (and my other Regenfolk cuzzints) of kids sledding at Slauson.

We were pretty much the only folks out and then we rounded a corner and there was a queue of Maple Leaf fans tromping through the snow to the Big House! We joined their little parade for a couple blocks. Hi Ho!

There is no way on earth I can describe the humanity we encountered over by the Umich Stadium today. Oh, yeah, 107,000 people? This photooo captures a bit of the venue and the weather and about .00000001% of the humanity. (Please don’t check my math.)

I am not sure why we walked across Stadium to the PiHi parking lot. The GG wanted to see if there was “tailgating” going on. There was. For this event, it mostly involved beer beer and more beer. Not exactly the same crowd as the UMich alumni who hang out at football games with their grills and cute little hors d’oeuvres, etc.. And beer. Not that the hockey fans were obnoxious. My few encounters with them were friendly and polite. Well, there was the one guy right behind me saying something about F-ing Canucks through a megaphone. The Maple Leaf fans [apparently] ignored him and I refrained from hitting him with my accidental maple leaf backpack. (I was welcomed to Ann Arbor today via that backpack.) Here we are waiting to go BACK across the street from the PiHi parking lot, megaphone guy behind me.

Just after I took *that* photooo, the crowd surrounding us broke out in all kinds of cheers and the megaphone guy got going and there may have even been a vuvuzela somewhere in there. I fumbled my iPhone out of my pocket but by the time I got the camera opened and set on video, all of the noise had stopped. Oh well. We continued walking to downtown against a huge stream of hockey folks, got “a beer” at the Grizzly, then walked home and shoveled out before settling into the Landfill to watch the rest of the hockey game and then the Rose Bowl. I am not actually watching the Rose Bowl but I did watch the end of the hockey game and I understood enough of what was going on to get that the Maple Leafs won. I know that the Red Wings are my local team but for some odd reason, I was happy when the Maple Leafs won. Go figger.

The last photooo is the “money” photo. I don’t mean that I think I could sell it. Of course not!!! But I was up early walking around the neighborhood and snow was on the ground and I dunno, I just felt really optimistic, at least long enough to post the photo on facebook. And all that walking around town? In the snow? With all the Canadians? Can we do this every year for New Year’s? Oh, prob’ly not. But we had soooooo much fun. Even for me, a non sports fan.

Happy New Year and may yours be a good one without any tears,
Kayak Woman