Well, not really. At least not if you have a Mackinac Bridge commuter card or a four-dollar bill. We used our commuter card and so here we are, hanging out in the yooperland on this winter solstice new moon kind of weekend. Dark and dreary? Yes it is! Until the xmas lights come on and the good cheer starts to flow.

It was a long albeit fun day. It began by providing nitrogen (and whatever) to the Landfill Back Yard and taking a shower in the Landfill Dungeon. And then a drive up the thankfully dry I75 SUV Speedway to meet up with the UU and The Beautiful Gay at Diana’s Delights in Gaylord. Can I tell you how much some of us were Delighted when we found out that Diana’s Delights serves whine for lunch? Yes.

Onward to the yooperland where we are meeting up with our HSS North Country Trail buddies tomorrow to hike. We’re doing something different this time. We have no business in Sault Ste. Siberia for the moment (although there are family members in that area who we dearly miss) and the cabin is closed for the winter so we’re staying at a motel here in St. Ignace. I walked a mile and a half down the street and back up along the waterfront boardwalk (part of the NCT) until the GG finally texted me something like, “WTH ARE YOU?” I texted back “Walking the waterfront” and fewer than 60 seconds later, as people were disembarking from the Mackinaw Island ferry, we met up. And did a wee bit of shopping. Including the Voyageur Trading Post, a place that had a note saying it was closed for 15 minutes so we started walking on until the GG saw Alan coming to open up the door. We went inside and that turned out to be fortuitous for all of us, Alan because we bought some things and us because we discovered a new place to shop for art. It was all good and then it got exponentially better when “somebody” mentioned the North Country Trail and Alan said that he had just encountered Kay and Stan at the post office. Oh! We know them! yada yada yada yada, we’ll see them tomorrow! Good times.

In another fortuitous coincidence, a high school friend of mine (who has a Michigan I75 SUV Speedway rest area named after him, no less and go figger) saw my “I’m crossing the Mackinac Bridge” facebook post and it turned out he wasn’t far behind me.

Anyway, after a Dinosaurs Poop In the Grass episode and a wonderful lunch in Gaylord and more driving and a bunch of walking and some shopping and getting a few grokkeries and tons of driving throughout all of it and FINALLY some downtime, we got dinner at the restaurant here at the Driftwood and now we are chilling out yet again. I think we are done watching “Cops” but not sure what we’re watching now. Something like Volgagrad Russia and a twisting bridge. Glad it’s not the Big Mac and thinking about the *old* Tacoma Narrows.

Love y’all and g’night. KW.

Oh yeah and whew!

“Is anybody in there? There are two of us out here!” It was Renee’s voice, loud and clear and friendly as always and she wanted to use the lady’s powder room at work and so did Wilma but there was a MAN in there. He was painting. I heard this from my cube so I scuttled around to queue up behind them. I felt a weeeeee bit sorry for the young male painter, who cowered outside the bathroom door until all three of us emerged. A stranger in a very strange land.

We actually do NOT have a working terlet here at the Landfill tonight and so it was interesting to have the work toilets somewhat compromised too.

Anyway, once in a very blue moon, I actually do go OUT and so I did tonight. Dinner at the Oscar Tango and believe me, whenever we show up on a night besides Friday, our fav-o-rite OT folks wonder what day of the week it is.

Waiting in line in front of The Ark, just south of the Main/Liberty intersection. Seems like folks are a bit overdressed for our unseasonably warm (50 or so) weather.

Downtown on our beautiful little Planet Ann Arbor. Come live with us here!

Someone needs to remember to take their work badge off before they go out to have fun. (And yes, I think it is okay to post this image since there is virtually zero identifying information on it.)

Iris Dement[ed] has been an acquired taste for me. The first time I heard her was at the folk festival in Hill Auditorium and the acoustics were absolutely shattering my eardrums from the get-go and when Iris came out, all I could think of was something like, “what the heck is that caterwauling?” That was years ago and I have heard her on the radio many times now and her style of singing has grown on me, not to mention that she is funny as all get-out and she has basically the same hairstyle as I do, at least she did tonight. I love her and I did not at any time feel like falling asleep at this concert. YouTube Iris Dement Our Town if you dare. I’m too lazy.

And then I came home and provided some nitrogen to the lawn and I will probably do that again before I go to bed and maybe during the night or maybe not. We’ll see.

G’night, KW.

P.S. No one turned into a grease spot tonight.

Yes, we are having another of our intermittent infestations. The mice scurry in, the mice scurry out, the mice play pinochle on my snout. Actually, I have never had an actual Scurry Mouse play pinochle on my snout or even run across my shoulder while I was asleep. It was a young squirrel (shirrel, cirker, eeeeek, whatever) that ran across my shoulder. Anyway, we trap a bunch of mus musculus specimens and they go away for a while and I don’t know what happens to their habitat but they reappear. I cannot figure a pattern to this. Once when the Beach Urchins were actually urchins and The Commander and Grandroobly were down here visiting, My Old Coot donned a face mask and resolutely sprinkled diazinon around the perimeter of the house. Our target that time was some big ugly black ants but it kept the mice out for a good long time too.

This morning I was doing something in the chitchen and I heard some scrabbling noises under the sink. I opened up the cubbert door and there was mus, staring straight at me. I do not do mus traps so of course I texted the GG, who told me to give it a sandwich, which I did and when I got home mus had taken a nice swim in the, you know, terlet, which STILL works but we now have a NOTE from Justin (or somebody) that we will REALLY be without one tomorrow night. Knock on wood, that night is optimum for us to be without a terlet because we are goin’ downtown to see Iris Dement[ed] at the Ark so we will have access to modern plumbing for the evening and we are heading off to the Great Not-So-White North on Friday so there are rest areas, etc. So like maybe eight hours without a terlet? I can do it!

Aaaaand there is progress! The kind of visible progress that can be posted, that is. This is what the wall above the new [but filled with construction stuff] tub looked like this morning. I dunno what is up with that loverly (really) color of adhesive paint or whatever it is but see that little recess? (View from the throne because that’s as far away as I can get to take the photoooo 🐗)

Here is a similar view this afternoon. BIG white subway tile! And that teal/blue accent tile I posted the other day will line the little recess. It will hold shampoo, etc.

Just to show you that the tile goes all the way up to the ceiling. I struggled to remember if the old blue tile did that too. I didn’t think so but… Outta sight, outta mind, after 30-ulp years of taking showers in that Blue and Only Bathtub. The GG set me straight that the Blue Tile went up two-thirds (or maybe four-fifths) and there was [icky] drywall above that. I do wish I could find a pic somewhere that had a gratuitous shot of the beauteous Blue/Green/Purple/Metallic Silver wallpaper that we had for the first few years we lived here…

I don’t have a whole lot of things to say today except that a few things in my life were resolved today in a positive way. Again I walked into the Landfill after work and found a working toilet. I wasn’t necessarily expecting that. I walked in the woods after I got home this afternoon and encountered my beautiful young next door neighbor and her beautiful baby daughter and dog. We were talking about renovations and I told her that we were possibly doing without a working terlet at some point (not tonight though…) Of course, she offered her terlet to us *any* time. And of course I told her that using the backyard in the dark here was fine with me and we laughed and she said something like, “It’ll be like camping.” Yes, it will be if we ever have to actually deal with it. We’ll see.

It is warmer than usual for December although this kind of weather is definitely not unprecedented in the southeast part of the Great Lake State. I cannot complain. I am enjoying being able to drive the Ninja on dry roads at this time of year. I also (believe it or not) enjoy the dark at the beginning and end of the day during this beautiful winter solstice time of year. Still, I am looking forward to mid-January when the sun starts to show its ascendance back toward the northern part of the sky. The seagulls return to the moominbeach in February and so it goes. Florida in April? I think so. Two weeks this time around? I love Florida (although I don’t want to move there) and I’m working on it.

I’m rambling but it was a very very very good day and I feel like I can move forward from a rather difficult season.

Love y’all,
KW

I had to brace myself to walk into my house this afternoon. Why? Look ma, no terlet! Although our contractor had planned to set the terlet up after each day’s work, we found out on Friday that putting in the floor might be tricky enough that the terlet would have to go away for a night. Monday night or Tuesday night. We weren’t sure.

So, whaddya do when you live in a “modern” house with indoor plumbing in a “suburban” neighborhood where outhouses are not allowed? You have a couple options. If you are dealing with #1, you can use a drywall bucket in the basement or you can provide nitrogen to the plants in the back yard. Both of those are reasonable options for us. We have a few drywall buckets around (we have a source for those but that’s a secret 🐸). And at this time of year, it is dark when we are home and there are places in our yard where we can’t be easily observed doing urbanP, at least in the dark. And it is not cold enough to freeze your [insert body part here] off this particular December! #2? Some things are better left un-discussed.

This potential situation created quite some hilarity at the end of my work day, not to mention a few offers of other people’s facilities. I appreciated those offers but I am not gonna drive to Hamburg Township or even down to W1.5’s house if I have to P in the middle of the night. I will find another way, thank you very much. I am pretty resourceful in that area, having grown up using an outhouse during the summer months. A real one with a great big hole. I dare you to shine your flashlight down that hole 🐗.

So we have a terlet tonight and I am thankful for that and if you thought for even a nano-second that I would faaar the contractor and haaar a lawyer to harass the contractor because of one unexpected night without a terlet, you are nutso. We like the contractor a LOT and we are all human and sometimes things don’t go EXACTLY as planned and that would amount to pole vaulting over mouse #2. And we are tough and resourceful when it comes to dealing with plumbing stuff.

What else did I come home to today? Our cabinet and sink have arrived (but have not been installed yet – they are in the front living room). And Certified Bathroom Lady left an accent tile sample and some paint chips to choose from to match it.

And I am outta steam so that’s about all for tonight. 💜

Oi miss moi babies but they’re moiles away. But I hate to make them feel like they are obligated to visit their baggy old moom and I also don’t want to foist myself upon them. Lizard took a mini vacation over here on the turkey day weekend so I didn’t figure we’d meet up with her although I have kind of a hankering to get over to DayTwa some day soon. Mouse has more jobs than time for now. Busy? Yes. I had a kind of a plan though so yesterday, I texted my mouse and asked if/when she was working this weekend. I figured the answer would be something like, “Yes, all the time.” But today turned out to be a day off, so I proferred the most tentative of offers possible, something like, “If you want to do something (aka hike) and/or let us feeeeeeed you, lemme know. No pressure. I know you’re busy.”

Yes we did hike and what a glorious morning for it. After a quick little breakfast of eggs over easy, hash browns, and toast (something like that anyway, I think some duck bacon also made its way on to the menu), we headed out to the Geology Center of floating bog fame. I never get tired of hiking out at the Geology Center! Boring drab time of year here in the Great Lake State? Not with that gorgeously bright sunlight melting off the icy fog. Here we are on the main trail out to the floating bog.

Pitcher plants abound in the floating bog. Here is my best, uh, pitcher of pitcher plants [snort]. Mouse has many that are better.

My yooperland friends are reporting temps in the 50s. An Icy Fog has its grips on those of us in the southern lower and we are barely making it outta the dern 30s. When we got out hiking this morning, there was still a lot of frost around, depending upon the micro-ecosystem (don’t google that!) we were walking through and the geology center encompasses a wide variety of those.

Shortly after I took this pic, everything began to melt big-time and for a while, as we walked through a pine forest, it was literally raining on us with a brilliant sun in the background.

Here is yer fav-o-rite blahgger, lookin’ a lot like Grandroobly (her dad) with some good old MacMu DNA shining through.

This Moss Face is what I was photographing. There are British Soldiers in there. My photo is so-so but Mouse has some really good ones. I do get more of a kick than I deserve to about my blue Keen sandals peeking out at the bottom of the photoooo.

Of course, I *had* to get a photoooo of this cute little mousey and no, this pic did not deface anything important. It’s just a little ink drawing on the sawed off end of a deadfall. Glad I could capture it before the elements take it over.

We drove out of the geology center under a low-hanging albeit brilliant sun in a beautiful blue sky. The loose plan was to meander the back roads home but I think all three of us were kind of thinking about a “beer” and a snack somewhere so, when one of us put an actual voice to that desire, we made a beeline over to Cleary’s Pub in Chelsea.

I dunno how to describe this weather but we had brilliant sunshine all the way back to The Planet Ann Arbor. We took the river route home and shortly after we turned south, we were again enveloped by the icy fog that has hung around all weekend. I am envious of my yooper friends and family for their wonderfully warm temperatures but it’s not really all that bad here and I’m glad they’re enjoying the warmth and lack of snow after at least two winters of being dumped on. People are posting about getting their outdoor chores done and going on motorcycle rides, etc. Love to all of you, but especially to those in my homeland, the beautiful yooperland.

Y’all know which one. This has been (knock on wood) a warm December so far and I am thankful for that after the last several years, especially that terrible albeit beautiful Polar Vortex winter. 2014.

We’re facing down the 2015 holiday season with no snow [knock on wood] and a torn-apart bathroom. Decorations? Huh. I’ve made some very minor inroads into gifts for people but when your kids are as old as mine are, it’s hard. They don’t need anything and we’re all still dealing with getting rid of all the crap I bought them when they were small children. We all have too much stuff and we don’t want anything more but it’s always nice to open a gift or two on Christmas morning.

Today? What was wonderful about today? I walked down to the farmer’s market and the GG met me there with the Ninja. We won’t talk about the morning… But we did walk downtown for lunch and “xmas shopping”. Lunch? We were able to snag seats at the Griz today at the bar where our friend Janelle works. She’s getting married in a couple weeks and we got hugs before we left. She is a wonderful bartender and we’ll miss her when she finishes college and gets a “real” job. Whatever the heck that means.

After lunch, we forced ourselves to walk up and down Main Street to look for xmas presents. I didn’t really want to go into Peaceable Kingdom even though I love it but I did and wouldn’t you know, we found a few things there. I bought these glasses for Froggy and Green Guy and the folks at Peaceable Kingdom were so happy that I wore them out of the store. I subsequently wore them all over the Main Street area on the Planet Ann Arbor.

Of course these glasses were really for Froggy and Green Guy. So Froggy has the Santa hat glasses. Green Guy is stuck with the snowflake headdress.

Love y’all. KW.

Drain flies? Drain flies? DRAIN FLIES? I had to ask that something like three times. Whaaaa? It sounded like insects that breed down in the drain somewhere. And guess what? That’s what it is! Kind of reminds me of sitting on the crappy old pull-out couch in the moldy old cabin at Houghton Lake in the spring when the place used to flood a bit and mo-skee-toes would breed behind said couch. So much fun…

We will not talk about the weather tonight. Why not? Because, climate change or not, we want this weather to stick around for a while. We are all still a bit shell-shocked from the Polar Vortex winter and, climate change or not, we would loooooove to have just a weeeeeee bit milder winter this year. Tonight was midnight madness downtown and I did NOT have to suit up in a balaclava or yaktrax or any of that stuff. I was wearing my red Keen sandals and a skirt and tights and smartwool socks and a turtleneck sweater and scarf and fleece jacket, ski band and little magic glubs. I was good to go. I was comfortably warm throughout the entire evening. The town was crazy with people, even more so than last weekend for that big sporting event.

Midnight madness is a big shopping event but we did not do any shopping unless you count dinner at the Oscar Tango and tickets to Iris Dement[ed] at the Ark next Thursday. Yes we are going to see Iris. I love Iris. The Commander would hate her and probably crab at me for liking her music. It’s true that Iris’s voice can be a bit strident, depending upon the venue’s acoustics. I wonder if I should take along some earplugs… We walked through Downtown Home and Garden to watch the glass blowers and the robot and look at the cute aminals and listen to Mr. B play the puano and harass Mouse’s roommate. We didn’t buy anything. I’m sure we will buy an xmas tree there when we get around to buying an xmas tree. I hope that’s not this weekend. I’m not quite ready. I’m steeling myself for the possibility of not having a terlet [at all] for an overnight period early next week. Thankfully, it is dark enough when we are home at this time of year that providing nitrogen to the back yard should be a discrete enough activity so as not to prompt any neighbors to call the police.

Our bathroom reno contractor has instituted a new method of communication in the form of a notebook that they leave in the house for both of us to make notes or ask questions or whatever. Low tech but effective and leaves a bit of a paper trail. I am lost without a paper trail.

So last night, the GG wrote a question about how many bird bones they found in the chimney when they demolished it. (He is welcome to comment and correct / expound / whatever.) Turns out they did find evidence that birds and also squirrels had lived and died in our chimney. This does not surprise me, even though since the early days of our ownership of this loverly landfill, we have secured the chimney somewhat.

Oh boy, back in the day? Birds fairly regularly came down the chimney and into the LIVING AREA OF THE HOUSE! If I was home “alone” (i.e., with a beach urchin or two), I would CALL THE GG IN A PANIC! THERE IS A BIRD IN THE HOUSE! COME HOME AND GET IT OUT! I am not at all afraid of birds in the great outdoors. In the house? Flap-flap-flap yaaaaaahhhhh! Then there was the time the GG and Master W were doing something with whatever water heater was down there at the time. BIRD BONES!!! YEESH!

In recent years, we have not had birds in the house. We had a young squirrel once a couple years ago but I think he came in through an open door (wide open, that is). A bat came in on a long-ago Thanksgiving weekend but we think he was schlepped in via some faaaaarwood. Chipmunk? I’m sorry buddy that you had to die in here, again, door left open. And then there’s always… The mice scurry in, the mice scurry out, the mice play pinochle on my snout…

Last summer, we were at the Moomincabin with Mouse and she kept hearing a bird chirping in the chimney. Eventually we all heard it and the search was on. And we SAW a bird in there. But then it was gone again! Apparently it could come and go as it pleased, which pleased us because we were not sure how to get it outta there. It also (possibly) solved the mystery of how we have twice over the last few years found dead squirrels in the cabin. Most birds can fly themselves out of that chimney and that one apparently did. A squirrel not so much.

The take-aways from this blahg entry? 1) Hopefully we will have one fewer avenue for aminals to try to work their way into our house. 2) It wasn’t until I wrote this entry that I made the connection that the Landfill Chimney looks looked almost identical to the moomincabin chimney. Lemme see. Landfill? 1959. Moomincabin? 1960. Or maybe that’s what they all look like…

It was in late January of last year that the Twinz of Terror and I were standing in the Blue and Only Bathroom scoping it all out. Folk Festival weekend. The GG said that we weren’t really using the chimney for anything. The three of us kind of looked at each other…

Removing the chimney definitely added dollars to this prodject but I think it will be worth it. I was gonna try to get all eloquent about buying this place as “kids” (30), thinking we’d trade up some day. Not, but I’ll do that some other day.

I received an email from CKBL while I was at work today that the chimney was gone. I knew that removing the chimney meant *moving* the water heater and that *might* mean no running hot water for 24-48 hours or thereabouts. I was very excited about the chimney removal. I was less excited about the possible lack of running hot water although I knew I could deal with it. Know why? Because I grew up spending my summers at the Old Cabin and moomincabin, where cold water came through a garden hose connected to my Uncle Don’s well.

When I got home today, the water in the kitchen sink was running very slowly and didn’t seem to be getting hot. I feared the worst but I rallied to the cause and strategized how to deal with a limited cold water situation in the Great Lake State in December. Which means I filled my two biggest pots with water and started them heating on the stove. That was part of our dishwashing strategy back at the moomincabin when I was a kid, not to mention the Moldy Old Courtois Cabin at Houghton Lake in the winter when we had to pump water outside and haul it inside. I can do this!

The GG came home. He fixed the low water pressure issue. He figured out that we actually had running hot water so I will be able to take a shower in the basement tomorrow. Being married to a C-fam Boy is great because they do know how to deal with plumbing issues. I’ll stop there for tonight and we won’t talk about jiggling the handle 💜.

I love The Planet Ann Arbor but sometimes I get mighty tired of the bickering.

Last night we were finished with our episode of Downton Abbey and I checked twitter or email or facebook or probably all three once more. Bike fatality. 6:54 PM. Corner of Dexter and Wildwood. CORNER OF DEXTER AND WILDWOOD. CORNER OF DEXTER AND WILDWOOD! That is only BLOCKS away from here. It is just up the street from the y-shaped intersection where Huron splits into Jackson and Dexter. I used to live a couple houses away from the party store there. 54-year-old man. Toooooo close to home.

One man dead. His family likely in a shock that I can’t even imagine.

The driver? A 20-year-old young woman likely wishing she could turn time back just one split second. I just killed somebody with my car? What? Thinking about being a kid again with no driver’s license. Well, that’s what I’d likely be thinking about. Why was I so eager to get behind the wheel back then? And I was. Drive drive drive. I wanna drive. I still love to drive. Her mom? What will happen to my beautiful child, the college student with so much promise? What will the (insane) legal system do to her and our family? The dead man is the main victim but there are so many other victims here.

Stepping back a minute, I don’t know what happened and likely won’t for a while. I don’t know anything about either one of these people. Was the driver drunk? Or “texting”? Did she drift over into the bike lane. What about the biker? Was he visible? Was he in the bike lane or did he drift out in front of traffic?

I got distracted there for a minute by remembering that I found evidence of mus musculus under the sink today, so where was I?

I’m not sure where I was but I’m not gonna link to any of the mlive articles about the bike accident because many of the comments make my head explode (and I’m too lazy to link). Our city is trying very hard to promote modes of transportation *other* than driving and I totally agree with that! Alas, trying to retrofit our city with truly bike-friendly lanes on some of our major roads is probably not affordable at this time. This is a complex issue and it will take some time and maybe a shift in our country’s main mode of transportation to sort it out. We have made this kind of shift before, given that my grandparents traveled by train and sometimes steamship when they were children and a mere 50 years later, I grew up with one (and then two and then three…) cars in the driveway. Maybe self-driving cars will avoid pedestrians and cyclists?

Until that kind of shift happens, let’s try to get along together. It is so damn dark during the commuting times of the day at this time of year. Please please please. Drivers please watch for cyclists and pedestrians. Cyclists and pedestrians, please remember that even the most sober, attentive drivers cannot always see you or know what you are planning to do next. And whatever the traffic laws are, even a teeny little Smart car is bigger than you and can smash you like a bug. So be careful, because someone loves you. And someone loves the person who unwittingly kills you by hitting you with their car.

Love y’all, KW

P.S. Mus musculus update. The GG does not want a cat. I wasn’t suggesting we get one. That is all. [big cheesy grin here]