And also extreeeeeeemely randomly, via a sorta spammy type email message, I came up with a couple of doodlies that I actually want for xmas! That is, I shop on Etsy sometimes and I got a message from Etsy suggesting things for *other* people. There wasn’t anything on the list that I would buy for any of the few people on my list but lo, there were a couple of things *I* liked.

The GG is off gallivanting around with our North Country Trail folks this weekend. I wanted [badly] to go with him but I was feeling a bit behind in putting together our meager xmas festivities and I have very little vacay time left (as you’ve heard me kvetch about before) so I am here at The Landfill. I will do a lot of walking this weekend but most of it will not be in the woods. Alas.

It was a kind of slodgy day over at Cubeland and I was feeling a little blue about life in general, not that I have any reason to feel that way. Mouse and I had plans to eat at the Jolly Pumpkin but we were hanging loose about whether we would meet down there or she would park at The Landfill so we could walk down and back. I was fighting off laziness when I told her it was her decision. My gamble paid off, she decided she wanted to walk down and back. I knew that walking would be the best thing to do and that I would feel happier if we did but I needed someone else to decide that for me. And, you know what? I am sooooo glad we did all that walking!

And what fun! The JP was crowded when we got there and they gave us a 30-45 minute wait. Okay. We walked up to the second floor bar and there were two empty seats there! We grabbed them and ordered some cab and our loverly bartender told us that we could eat our food there if we wanted to. And so we did.

The crowd ebbed for a bit but when we left it was overflowing. It was loud there and so much fun. Still, some of those people were beginning their evening out and I am glad I am well past the end of mine.

Love y’all,
Kayak Woman

P.S. I did remember to schlep my leftovers home tonight!

I’m not all that crazy about the Pantone color of the year this time around. Apparently I’m not the only one. One review I read compared it to the color of dried blood. At any rate, it’s kind of an earth color. I don’t dislike earth colors but they don’t go all that well with the kinds of colors I *do* like. You know, like Island Teal.

Then again, some of the cFam gals got together and repainted part of the cFam cabin living room. I can’t remember exactly what the color is but it is not totally unlike Marsala 18-1438. I didn’t participate in that endeavor. I was burnt out from the Landfill Chitchen reno and my on-going de-hoarding prodject, etc., etc., ad nauseam. I’d’ve probably been rooting for something like Island Teal. Which would *not* have been the right color for that wall. I *like* what they chose, earth color or not.

Oh dear, do I remember music theory 101 well enough to “help” a college student pass the class? I *loved* music theory. I *rocked* music theory. One of the few artifacts from my college career that I cannot bring myself to fling is an A+ paper that I wrote (and typed on an actual *manual* typewriter) in which I deconstructed the Mozart Flute Concerto in G. I think that paper means more to me than my senior recital program. I could’ve probably gone on to a career as a musicologist if it had been on my radar screen. Anyway, the QB (who also played the flute once upon a time) warned me this afternoon that someone over on the other side had a daughter who thought that Music Theory 101 might be a no-brainer class and she had suggested me as a resource. I am here to tell you that Music Theory 101 is not not not a no-brainer. Except for those of us who have nerdy analyst brains. But it’s been a long time. I wish this young person well but I’m not sure I would be much help at this stage of the game. I’m not even all that sure that she’s being taught using the same vocabulary that was used back in my day.

BTW: I had the wonderful experience of actually meeting up with my Music Theory 101 teacher a couple years ago. By a series of coincidences that defy description, she is the best buddy of one of The Comm’s friends. This friend had made The Comm a beautiful afghan and I contacted her after The Comm died to tell her that I thought she should have it back. She and her friend came to The Planet to attend a concert and I met them for breakfast! My long-ago teacher was just as wonderful as I remembered her!

Anyway, I am a nerdy analyst. I once analyzed music and now I am an IT systems analyst. I’m not bragging about my job. It’s a very good job but it is not all that fancy, I literally fell backwards into it, and I am only one of many very good people who keep our many-headed hydra of a product in line. I’m a small cog in the grand scheme of things. I like it that way.

I’m not sure exactly where I started or where I ended up but we are walking over to Knight’s in a minute so seeya tomorrow!

G’night,
Kayak Woman

I’m not quite there yet. I’m not exactly sure what I’m feeling right now. I *want* to be looking forward to the holidays but I am not really. I want packages under the tree Christmas morning. Oh, not for me. I don’t need anything. For others. But nobody else needs anything either. Is an Eggs Benny breakfast and a Duck Dinner enough? I hope so.

The gift thing for successful grown children is difficult. What do they need? Nothing! Like me… Well, we do have a list from one of them. The other? I actually came up with an idea today but it’s not something I can actually put into a package. But we’ll see. The Commander somehow always came up with a small box of beautiful gifts for me well into my adulthood. I’m sure she did that for my brother too. I never gave her a list. Not sure I’ll be able to make that kind of xmas for my adult kids but we’ll see… But they will be here if the weather permits and, gifts or not, I love them so much!

I’m not sure where this link will take you but, I have heard this sound a lot this week taking walks by the ponds near Cubeland and it fascinates me way more than it should! Because I have been throwing rocks out there to determine whether there is ice on the pond or not. It’s not always easy to tell.

I mean, both the phone and the laptop are on wi-fi and everything else is humming along but I took a pitcher of a packet of Hollandaise sauce mix a half hour or so ago and it is not showing up in iPhoto yet… Oh, there it is. It turns out that if you take a photoooo by “swiping up” the camera and don’t actually open your phone, your photoooos don’t get sent over. Am I supposed to know this kind of thing?

So, whyyyyy did I post this loverly Hollandaise sauce packet today? Well. Before Thanksgiving… 1) I KNEW I had umpteen packets of this stuff around The Landfill. 2) I COULD NOT FIND THEM!!!! 3) I bought two NEW packets. 4) I used one of those to make Thanksgiving Breakfast. 5) I FOUND SIX PACKETS! In a cupboard I hadn’t thought to look in… … …

I think that next year we are gonna have to eat Eggs Benny more than the approximately three times we normally eat Eggs Benny per year. Lemme see… That would be Thanksgiving morning, Christmas morning, New Years morning (depending upon where we are), and sometimes Easter morning. Easter is a mixed bag around here. We both grew up in Christian religions (Catholic & mainstream Methodist) and we observe / celebrate Christmas but Easter is usually more or less a regular Sunday for us now that we don’t have beach urchins to provide egg hunts and Easter Baskets and a few presents and candy up the wazoo for. I remember one morning quite a few years ago that it was HOT here on Easter and we schlepped kayaks down into the Huron River. Our breakfast that day was a baggy of Cheerios and a mini-can of V8 juice. More often than not, Easter is a cold snowy [or just plain yucky] day around here and Eggs Benny is appropriate.

Anyway, I have a lot of these Hollandaise sauce packets to get rid of. One of my nine regulars has requested two of them. I just hope I remember to stash them in my Maple Leaf Backpack the next time we end up down at the Oscar Tango. Other than that, I think that Canadian Bacon will be on my grokkery list more often throughout the next year because we will be eating Eggs Benny a bit more often.

P. S. KW, please remember to schlep your Edmund Fitz mug home from work and run it through the dishwasher.

Okay, I have a Santa collection. This is a terrible photoooo. My GPS switched over to “night” before I even left Cubeland Farms today — right around five — so even though it was a pretty smooth commute, by the time I got to the Landfill, it was pretty much pitch black out. I didn’t feel like futzing around getting a fancy pitcher. You get what you get.

So, I have a Santa collection but I am NOT a Santa *collector*! This is it! It shares half a banker’s box with some gaudy metal xmas tree candle-holders from Pier One or somewhere and it is not going to grow. I “inherited” most of these Santas from The Commander although there are a few specimens that she gave me over the years. And one that Lizard Breath made in nursery school or somewhere. Can you spot that one?

The Comm’s Santa collection was her way of decorating after she and Grandroobly stopped putting up a tree. I don’t actually remember when that was but probably sometime in the beach urchins early teenhood? Maybe? Whenever they made that decision, I’m not sure it had all that much to do with grandchildren. We took Lizard Breath up there for her first xmas when she was two months old. After that, we stayed home. That was hard (for me) those first couple years but as time went on, we grew our own [non-]traditions. Some years we would head up to Siberia *after* xmas. My brother almost always took his family up there for part of the holiday season so the grandparents were not lacking for grandchildren. That said, I think they often felt relief when all of us left and they could get back to their usual routines, etc.*

Anyway, after 1984, I spent exactly two more xmas days with my mother. 2010, when she hitched a ride down to The Planet Ann Arbor with Our Northern Correspondent (and we drove her back on New Year’s Eve). And 2011, when we drove up to Siberia to open gifts with her in her assisted living apartment and cook dinner for her in Command Central. That was the last time I saw her healthy but that would be a whole ‘nother story. A long one.

* Am I turning into my mother? For years I went north with two kids, two vee-hickles, tons of crap that we didn’t need and pets (during a certain period). Oh, and food… Food that my mother didn’t need me to leave. Whenever we were packing up to leave, The Comm would be kind of following me around… “Don’t forget this. Don’t forget that. Did you remember about this?” It drove me absolutely bonkers until one day when I had a couple of epiphanies. One: My mother loves us but she wants to regain control over her own space and she wants to make sure all of our junk is outta here. Two: I am trying to FOCUS on packing all of our stuff but it’s really hard when my mother is following me around asking me to remember various things. I finally said to her something like, “Moom, please let me pack for now and when I think I am finished, I’ll let you know and then you can double-check that I’ve taken all of the things you don’t want me to leave behind.” That actually worked! So… Lizard Breath was over here for a few days around Thanksgiving and she was packing up to leave on Saturday and WHAT WAS I DOING??? Popping around saying things like, “Don’t forget this. Don’t forget that. Did you remember about this?” Liz (being very polite): “Mooom…” Me: [ulp] “Okay, I am being like The Commander.” I actually said something like that. And then I left her alone and washed the dishes.

It was still in the 20s when I took this photoooo this morning. Last weekend we drove by a metropark that was not on our radar screen and, after much difficulty using the metropark website, I finally pulled up a PDF map with a bunch of trails on it. I could not get the Moraine Fen trail out of my head and so we headed up there this morning. Pretty little trail (2.3 miles or something like that). Beaten path but NO BLAZES whatsoever. You’d think that would be okay since the trail was so well worn. Problem? Intersections! There were a few and twice we got off onto spurs that, well, were not part of the trail. It was okay. It looks like wilderness but we were in a pretty contained area bounded by roads, we had a good phone signal, and we could actually hear traffic on US23, so we were not really out in the tootlies like we often are when we hike the North Country Trail. But “our” sections of the NCT are very well blazed and maintained and I kept conjuring up visions of our NCT friends tsking about the lack of blazes and the condition of the trail in general. Still, it was fun and we did not see *anyone* while we were hiking, despite the proximity to the freeway.

The rest of the day was kinda like watching paint dry so go somewhere else! I rather reluctantly put out my Santa Collection (more on that in another post, maybe) and picked away at a bit of flinging. Folks, I am kind of getting to the end of flinging my clothing. If you look at my half of the closet, there really isn’t that much. I got rid of a few more things today. I kept the things that I wear *all* the time and a few nostalgic items. One black/metallic silver sweater I used to wear back in the day. I’m sure it would still fit after a fashion but it doesn’t look the same. A black/metallic silver sweater of Radical Betty’s… In many ways I am not like Radical Betty but we definitely received a few of the same bits of DNA.

We drove down to the river to take a Sunset Walk at our fave Barton Dam Trail in the late afternoon. The sun sets at around five these days. I sure hope the woman with the strong Russian (?) accent found her destination. The one who summoned us to her vee-hickle to ask how to get to a nearby nursing home / rehab facility. We spent some time with her and I hope she made it to her destination but I’m not sure if she did and in the end, I just wanted to get outta there. Why did this woman not have a goddamn GPS in her Caddy-lac veehickle?

It’s 6:00 AM on Saturday. All roight! Let’s go!

Walked down to the farmer’s market this morning: lettuce, brussel sprouts, parsnips, [small] red cabbage, smoked mackerel, tenderloin roast, pasties. What else? Oh, a bonus. Got to watch that creaky old freight train cross the Drop Acid, Not Bombz railroad bridge in the dark. How cool is that?

Oh yeah, the GG drove down to have coffee and a snacky breakfast with me and visit his girlfriends: Victoria (painted wooden fish and Santas), Wan Oo (not sure of spelling, kimchee), the gals at the Roos Roast coffee stand, Uncle Peter (pasties). Oops, Uncle Peter is not a girl, therefore he is not one of the GG’s girlfriends.

Got a ride home with the GG and swung into my regular Saturday chores of laundry, vacuuming, changing sheets, vacuuming (okay, Rooooomba does most of that), DUSTING! Yes.

Drop-off trip to Kiwanis at 9:00 AM. It’s their annual xmas holiday sale and we were a few minutes early and people were LINED UP!!! Tried to find a parking spot to actually go inside (reconnaissance mission) but bagged it and headed over to Ace Hardware instead. It wouldn’t be Saturday without a trip to Ace.

Home again and continued with chores and took a walk to the Plum Market while the GG installed another skinny little rev-a-shelf in the Beauteous New Landfill Chitchen. Then a solo trip downtown. Driving this time. Three destinations with two planned parking locations. I wasn’t optimistic about finding parking but, wouldn’t you know, I somehow, randomly, found a spot *both* times *right* in front of where I wanted to shop. Yes, I know there is a disconnect there.

I did walk through the big Kiwanis sale on that second trip downtown. It was so crowded and crazy that I could hardly navigate and I was also nervous that I might see some of the stuff that *I* have donated. Certainly none of the stuff I dropped off today. That stuff was surely still in a triage area.

I had an Odd Experience there. A woman stopped me saying, “You are wearing something that I made!” I looked up and yes indeed, it was Carol and she made the beauteous ski band I was wearing. She gave me two postcards for upcoming events she is selling them at. I graciously took the cards and told her how much I loved my ski band (it’s my third). I put those cards in my recycle bin on my way into the Landfill but that was not out of any kind of disrespect. I doubt that I will make it to either of her upcoming events and I do not keep paper stuff around but I do sincerely love her work and I really need to buy a few more of those ski bands. 16 Hands and the Art Center sometimes have them. Or I could just email her.

More chores and the Ninja’s trunk already has a new box of stuff in it since our Kiwanis drop-off this morning. I dragged the GG out for a walk to Westgate in the late afternoon. Man oh man, it was 40 degrees out but there was a bit of a breeze and it was that damn penetrating kind of cold. But we accomplished our main mission plus a few others that we concocted along the way. It was a good thing to do. It is *always* good to get outside and walk, whatever the weather is.

Love y’all and hope your day was as good and productive as mine. If it wasn’t, that’s okay. I have been on a kind of a roll lately but I know all too well that life is like a river and some days, weeks, months, years, are better than others. Onward.

T.G.I.F? I was walking down to meet the GG at the Oscar Tango in the dark of a late December afternoon, texting my progress: Duncan, Wellington Park, Maryfield Park, Huron Dexter Jackson, Crest (!!!!), 7th, Drop acid, not bombz! That’s always my last text. After that, I scoot up the hill past that new “No Walking Along Fence” highrise and past Downtown Home and Garden and across the street. I pull my backpack off, swing up the the steps to the OT and enter and there is the GG at his fave table!

Tonight, as I was walking downtown, there was a wee bit more texting going on than usual and I was thinking about npJane, who I haven’t seen since… Well, we couldn’t remember! But then, just about when I was texting “Crest”, which is the street her childhood home is on, she texted me something like, “Going to the OT?” Yes, yes, yes!!! I was! I was on my way. The GG was already there. And so not only were we porterized tonight, I got to see my baby cuzzint. As we always do, we caught up on fambiz and I sincerely hope we weren’t ignoring the others.

It was Moonlight Midnight Madness tonight, which means that downtown is nutso. I was kinda wanting to go to a new store, Bed and Butter but, in the end, we headed across the street to Downtown Home & Garden to look at the cute farm aminals and listen to the choir and then we accepted a ride home via npJane and here we are listening to jazz on EMU public radio and plotting the weekend’s activities.

It was cool that Mouse texted to remind us that Downtown H&G would have farm aminals around for Midnight Madness but it was already on my radar screen. Because… A woman that I do not know in real life (although I think I have *seen* her downtown) tweets about the city council so I follow her on Twitter. Yesterday, she tweeted a picture of my daughter with farm aminals. This was a big disconnect to me because I am almost 100% positive that she and Mouse are not acquainted. After a few split seconds, I realized that she had *re*-tweeted a photo from Downtown H&G (scroll down a bit) from last year. Mouse’s roommate works there so she and the staff are familiar with each other and we love to shop there so it’s all good.

Anyway, we went over there before heading home tonight. The aminals were pretty sleepy by the time we got there. The choir was good except that we couldn’t figger out why they were singing that song about “You’ll never walk alone” but fortunately they segued into the typical holiday fare. By that time, we were all ready to gooooo. I don’t handle Midnight Madness well in general. It isn’t unlike Black Friday except that it is downtown Planet Ann Arbor, not malls and big box stores. Nevertheless, I hate to be in crowded stores and I can’t imagine myself ever fighting with someone over any kind of item. More likely, I would be trying to foist some White Elephant from my house off on someone else.

Good night,
KW

Oh, not you. I’m talking to the radio. I didn’t listen carefully but it sounds like some nutso legislators over in Lansing are trying to let people bully and discriminate against people if their own “sincerely held” religious beliefs are being violated. That sounds scary to me. Who decides how “sincere” those beliefs are? A lot of blood has been spilled in the name of religion throughout the history of mankind and I do not think this kind of thing is what our country’s “Founding Fathers” intended.

Another issue caught my radar screen today, which is that a bill passed the house (or was it the senate?) that people with Hepatitis C would have to inform sexual partners of their status before, you know, making whoopie. I don’t think these folks have a CLUE about Hep-C. My little brother was infected with it as an infant. He was born with severe Rh-negative complications and would have died soon after birth without a blood transfusion. We didn’t know for many years that his blood was tainted. He had a pretty darn good life but he died of Hep-C at age 47. Google something like Hepatitis C transmission if you want to learn more but it is very rare for it to be transmitted via doing you know what. If you know you have Hep-C or any disease, I think it’s a good thing to tell a sexual partner but all of this seems like more attempts by various blowhards to legislate “morality”, whatever “morality” means. I went on longer than I wanted to about this but I am so annoyed. Our state’s elected leaders should be more concerned with repairing our crumbling infrastructure (and funding education would be a good thing too) than peering into people’s bedrooms. And they have no business practicing medicine.

I wasn’t angry when I started this. It was a pretty calm day. No blasted snow driving or anything and work was like it usually is even though I had to present something today. Please please please please though, we need to stop categorizing ourselves and others. Black, white, Catholic, Muslim, Methodist. We are all people and we need to learn how to put our differences aside and get along together.

I could go on and on and on but…
G’night

Okay, first of all, can I just say, “Much Ado About Nothing?” The trip Up North does not take place until NEXT weekend. I’m not sure that the GG always reads my blahg. I know that he doesn’t always *understand* my blahg when he does read it. (Do you? I don’t always and I write it.) But yesterday he did and he could not figger out why I was in such a big tizzy. I still have a decision to make but I have another week or so to make it. I loved my dear cuzzint Pooh’s suggestion of working four 10-hour days. With my job, not so much. It would take me a whole ‘nother blahg entry (or two or three or 10) to describe why. But it did give me the idea that I could maybe put a few hours into the job on, say, Sunday and take off early on Friday. That *might* do it although I kinda prefer not to travel too much in December. Better to stay home and pick away at prepping our very low-key casual-type xmas.

The title? I went to a meeting this afternoon in which us systems analysts were slated to discuss prodjects in the hopper for our next release and divvy up who would design what. We did somehow manage to do that in between discussing teensy tinesy little moe-skee-toe drones. Here’s a Snopes link on the subject to balance that other one out. You can draw your own conclusions. About all I can think about is that I’m not sure the technology is quite “there” yet but I will probably not ever look at a moe-skee-toe the same way again. I’ll still slap ’em. And believe me, I have slapped a LOT of moe-skee-toes in my life.

I do not know why searching for moe-skee-toe drones on YouTube prompted Abby and Brittany Hensel on the the sidebar. They are conjoined twins and I am not going to link to these beautiful young ladies but you can google them. I have been fascinated with conjoined twins my whole life (honestly, who isn’t?). I am so glad I don’t have to share any body parts with a conjoined twin and I am glad I don’t have to parent children who are conjoined twins. I applaud mothers who *do* parent those children and raise them into successful adulthood. It cannot be easy.

Our Northern Correspondent Paulette posted this beautiful link today. All I can say is that my own paddling technique is not smooth enough to create this kind of motion. ONCP also posted a pic of ice hummocks forming on the moominbeach already. No kayaking for a while.

Yesterday, my cute little Ninja’s taaaaar light was on when I went to work. Text message to you-might-know-who: Tire light on. He came home and fixed it. Or so I thought. This morning, the taaaaar light was still on when I faaaaared up the Ninja. That was okay. Usually after the taaarr(s) get pumped up, the next time I faaaar up the Ninja, the light will still be on for a block or a half-mile or so, then it goes out. Whew! Today it stayed on all the way to work. Turns out *both* back taaaaars were a wee teensy tinesy bit low, now just one of them. We’ll see. I love this vee-hickle but the taaaars drive me nuts. They are not good in snow and they are so blasted finicky. Taaaaar lights are a good thing overall. I want to know if my tires (okay, taaaaared of typing taaaaars the Texas way (and so are you)). As much as I love the Ninja, if I didn’t have a decent auto mechanic around here, I would trade that thing for a top-dolla Honda Accord in a heartbeat because putting air in tires every month or so is definitely not on my bucket list. Not that I have a bucket list. Chore list, maybe?

The GG is a pretty dern good auto mechanic although we mostly take our vee-hickles in for service at the dealer these days. He worked at a gas station back in high school. He pumped gas and stuff and when it was quiet, he was allowed to do his homework. And he was held up at gunpoint. Twice? I can’t remember. He put himself through college (computer science) by working summers at the Hamtramck Assembly plant.

Goin’ Commando? Oh, no. Not in general. Designer underwear? No, not me. Cotton or cotton blend. TMI.

Should I go up to the Great White North this weekend? I want to. I want to hike with our North Country Trail friends. But I don’t have any more vacay and that makes it a really short, busy weekend. I am leaning toward going north. Convince me that I should go north.

When I am 90, if I can still do the computer generator, can I finally get rid of the old I-can’t-blahg-about-it category? Because I would love to tell you about my work day. It involved designer underwear on eBay and garage hot tub adventures, not your usual systems analyst stuff. An Interloper was hanging about my Loverly Dog-Poopy Cube for a while this afternoon and I love him too much to tell him to get lost. Actually, I *instigated* some of the hanging about by asking if S & S were here yet. Finally his manager caught wind of the convo and staged the usual intervention by calling me on the phone. Oh, she’s got a phone call, gotta leave. Cube Nayber was having so much trouble containing her laughter that she up and left for the ladies room.

What else? Did you shop on Black Friday? I did not, unless you count dinner at the Oscar Tango. I am not sure whether or not I know *anybody* who intentionally shops on Black Friday. I mean besides buying gasoline or groceries or the time we spent Thanksgiving at Houghton Lake and drove up to Petoskey the next morning. But shopping in Petoskey’s Gaslight District and lining up to get the latest deals at WalMart or whatever are kind of different things. I don’t remember what we bought that time we went to Petoskey except for lunch. I don’t usually need the kind of stuff that’s advertised for the big Black Friday sales. New TVs or tech “toys” or designer underwear or whatever. I don’t really need anything. I am trying to get rid of stuff here. If you are one of my nine regulars, you know that.

Small business Saturday? Lemme see… Farmer’s market, Sam’s, Kilwin’s, Ace Hardware, Kosmo’s deli. All small purchases because NOBODY NEEDS ANYTHING! And that’s kind of the whole thing. I ask my kids what they want for xmas and they don’t really want anything. And that’s okay because they don’t need anything much. All of us first-world folks already have more than we need.