Oh Jeebus, keep reading…

First of all, I am not a Trump supporter and I think we all have to be vigilant about the actions he takes as president. But I am totally kidding about rolling power outages and even the general mayhem. Our historically stable neighborhood has experienced a number of random power outages over the last six months or so, like tonight. The power company doesn’t seem to be able to explain them but I do NOT think that Donald Trump (or Barack Obama) has anything to do with them. I do think that a generator is in our near future. Just enough power to run the furnace is about all we need. Although I will say that we are approaching mid-November and we have only turned the furnace on a handful of times. What the hell is this place, Florida or what?

So, we spent a while talking to Luke of Perrynet out in the street and then we continued on over to Knight’s for dinner. A few minutes before we continued on, the lights came on in the neighborhood. Of course, Knight’s was slammed because of people without power, at least that’s what we thought but Knight’s can be randomly slammed any old night of the week. We bellied up to the bar and got ‘hattans from Yul Brynner (I think his real name is Mike) and after a lot fewer minutes than the 40 they told us we’d have to wait for a table, we were ushered upstairs to OUR FAVE TABLE, the Boobish Table, where if you are a guy (or anyone who wants to look at boobish types of things), you can look down over the railing and… If you are reeeaallly unlucky, you might see something interesting and Froooogggy might take a pic of you looking over the railing with your eyes bugging out and post it on the internet.

It wasn’t quite cleavage-type weather tonight but the GG looked over the railing ANYWAY and he found our friends of porterization sitting down there waiting for a table. JP does not normally wear a hat. At least not that I know of. He is wearing one in the pic because the GG sailed his hat down off the balcony. We were finishing up at that point but we sat downstairs with our friends for a bit before schlepping home to our (thankfully) powered-up house.

This is kind of a random thought but one of the places I found comfort today was with White Men. Yes, really, and getchyer mind outta the gutter because that is not where I’m going AT ALL!

I was in and out of sleep last night (punctuated by not a small amount of caterwauling) while the GG dared watch the election returns. At the bitter end, all I could see was black. Odd color, since it is also one of my faves, being that it forms the foundation of my Uniform and I like to walk in the dark. This black signified something different and I pondered whether I would/could/should post a pitch black square somewhere on the internet. Here, facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever. I did not but one of the first things I saw in the morning was a post from a facebook childhood friend, one of my late brother’s best musician friends. He posted a pitch black square. If I weren’t, well, meeeee, I would have totally LOST IT.

I know that others probably slept late today and those of us on the “losing” side may have had trouble facing the day. I got up swinging. I am in over my head at work right now (don’t worry, I can handle it), so it was up and out to walk at 0-skunk-30, chores and then off to work, hi-ho! I work with a lot of people of all descriptions and that includes some white guys of a certain age. We don’t EVER talk about polly-ticks where I work so, while I can kind of guess at these folks’ views, I don’t always know. This morning as I bumpity-clunked into my cube, I heard the Benevolent Despot ask FZ how he was doing. FZ said that he was fine considering… I yelled over the wall, “Clickbait nation”. We all laughed (because we are geeks and don’t get taken in by bullshit headlines on the internet (and you shouldn’t either)). The Benevolent Despot repeated an election joke that a facebook friend of his had posted that was funny while not revealing which “side” this person was on. We laughed. We didn’t say *anything* else about the election. The Benevolent Despot was in a Wandering Phase and FZ and I kept on with our work, yelling over the wall to discuss a high-level defect that we had both worked on. I was comforted to know that I wasn’t alone and that it was a couple of baggy old white males who were with me.

I can’t leave the GG out of this white male theme. He endured my caterwauling throughout the night and still, when he found himself down at the farmers market this afternoon, he cared enough to text me to ask if I wanted anything from down there. Yes, white and red onions, fingerling potatoes, and cherry tomatoes if anyone has them. Life goes on and KW needs to go on with it…

That’s all I have. I may talk more about election-related topics or I may not. I am a very politically complicated person. I see everything in RGB (billions of colors) rather than black and white. It is difficult for me to sort all of that soup out and articulate it. Whatever happens next, if you are someone I love already (like my family(ies) and long-time friends), I love you no matter who you voted for. But I do not like Trump. I hope he can find a way to convert me…

My voting experience today… First of all, I did NOT sleep well last night. I wasn’t nervous about voting per se. It was more that I wasn’t looking forward to all of the angst surrounding taking my 0-skunk-30 walk vs. getting to the school early enough that I wouldn’t have to wait in line. But I would still have to wait in line *anyway* because I would have to get there well before the polls opened at 7:00 AM, meaning I would have to wait in line until they opened the polls. This stuff all got into a circle in my dreams and added on some shoreline stuff and some work stuff… My 0-skunk-30 walk is mandatory for me and anything that messes with it is stressful. Usually it’s just thunderstorms…

As always, once I got out into the beautiful dark morning, I calmed down pretty much completely. I forced myself to walk for at least a while (it turned out to be around 5000 steps) before approaching the polling station at around 6:30. I was voter number 27 and I was behind this young couple in the line. I do not know them and I did not interact with them and I hope they didn’t know I took their pic. They were doing exactly what I was doing, “playing” with their phones.

My voting experience was fine except for a small glitch. As I went through the line today, I bantered with my neighborhood friends The Beautiful Kathy and The Beautiful Jackie, who were both working the polls. I did not take a voting booth selfie. It’s still illegal in our state. Actually the booths were set up to face the center of the room instead of the other way ’round. I kind of wondered if that was so the poll workers could easily watch for people taking ballot selfies. I think a lot of people don’t know about the law and are confused about the recent court flip-flopping and I hope that no one today had their ballot canceled because of that. But we’ll go there some other time.

The glitch was that I filled out information (in pen) on a small ballot thingy. I was assigned voter #27 and ballot #527. For whatever reason, a poll worker wrote ballot #525 on my handwritten ballot thingy. That did not match my ballot, which was #527. So I got sent into detention to get it all straightened out and it *did* get straightened out PDQ and then after I fed my ballot [successfully, whew!] into the Eater, some baggy old flirty old good guy yelled across the room asking me if I was trying to commit some sort of illegal voting type of act. I can’t remember what he said or what I retorted but it was all friendly and then I was OUT. And man oh man was I ever missing all of the times I spent in that lower elementary hallway.

Not sure if voter #243 canceled out my vote or not but if he did, it is not the first time and it won’t be the last.

Oh, and I think that Mr. Mxyzptlk was once again the first voter. I am not sure but after the polls opened, he was the first person who came out. Was he first? I dunno. But I’m gonna guess he was. There is a history here.

Somehow, I have something like 13K steps today. That is low for me but it is worth it.

And just for fun, here is The Cream with Politician. A long-time fave of mine.

My fav-o-rite North Country Trail bridge has taken a turn for the worse. Actually I think “we” are in the process of replacing it. I say “we” but the truth is that I am a fringe member of the powerhouse bunch of folks who maintain this section of trail and the uncountable number of bridges, boardwalks, and elevated walkways. I have yet to wield a hammer or haul a bunch of lumber into the woods ON FOOT or even clip a wayward branch. I contribute lasagne once in a while and I confuse people about the number of miles we’ve hiked by insisting that my fitbit is counting miles accurately (not). I [try to] stay patient and upbeat during the cat-herding that happens prior to group hikes and I tolerate the GG’s absence at times when I can’t get north because of work responsibilities. Oh yeah, I LOVE to man the booth over at the Quiet Water Symposium at MooU in March.

I *think* that both of the pics today show the same bridge. There is some dissent about that around here tonight. But. The bridge was always fine in nice dry summer conditions. It was almost my nemesis during a loverly April snow hike in 2013. The folks in the pic walked over this rickety old bridge with aplomb. I *think* they are older than me but not sure. I was TERRIFIED! I hung on to the railing with a death grip as I inched my way across. I was feeling like I was my mother, even though I think the last time she wore snowshoes was in her 20s. Hmmm. Maybe this kind of situation was why… To be fair, I was wearing old-skool wooden snowshoes with no kind of grippy-type-thingies of any sort. Slippery? Yes. I now own “modern” snowshoes.

Hmmm, what else is there? I know there is something else. Is it that 3 (or 4?) of the 5 women’s terlets are currently disfunctional over at Cubelandia? The CRD did not want to hear about the one that “spurted”. TMI, he said in his distinctive accent. Plumbers have been called but this might mean that I will have to bail tomorrow and work from home. If that happens, I hope the GG will be able to vamoose in some way, shape, or form. I married him for better or worse but not for lunch or working from home. Most people didn’t and couldn’t work from home until well after we married.

We don’t normally talk polly-ticks at Cubelandia but during this campaign season a few little tweet-type thingies slip out occasionally. I complained about a certain sticker that has since been removed from the Lyme Lounge and it was a group convo but I didn’t realize that one of the group supports that person. This woman is one of the sweetest people on earth and I regret making even the barest negative reference to that sticker now.

Tomorrow morning, instead of doing my usual beautiful 0-skunk-30 walk, I will be circling the polling place in my backyard, waiting to see when the first people show up. I know that it’ll be well before 7:00 AM when the polls open. I don’t care if I am the first voter. I long ago conceded that “race” to Mr. Mxyzptlk. I don’t know who y’all are voting for but please please please VOTE. And then consider that whoever you vote for can’t necessarily change your own particular world as soon as they get elected or anytime thereafter. Each one of us has a responsibility to try our best to make our country a good place to live. I don’t exactly know what that means but I think one of the things it means is not sharing every single bit of click-bait face-book crapola just because the headline matches your world view. READ the article. Check out its sources. Does the headline match the content? Do you *really* agree with whatever points are made in the article. If you can even decipher all of those points because I cannot always do that and I am a systems analyst so I get paid to so that sort of thing. Another thing is to try to pay it forward if you can possibly do so. That can happen no matter who is president of our beautiful but sometimes difficult country.

Love you all, no matter who you vote for. -KW

Moom, did you decide what you wanted to do today?

No. What do you want to do?

I won’t bore you with all the details. I was having this text message exchange with my mouse as I was shopping at the Plum Market this morning. We didn’t figure out what we were going to do at that time. We were both still thinking through our days. My day included some actual work.

We didn’t figger out what to do until Mouse actually got over here to the Landfill. Whaddya want to do? Whadda *you* wanna do? The choices were 1) drive down to the river and walk and 2) walk downtown and get a whine or something. We *finally* chose door #2. #1 would have involved a [short] drive down to the river and lots of people and dogs and probably bi-cyclists, etc. #2 was mostly neighborhood walking but did involve Miller Woods and West Park. And the Grizzly Peak, where we opted to sit at one of the bars, rather than outside. KW in particular is not crazy about sidewalk seating, especially when it is tightly sandwiched between the sidewalk and the street. It’s okay though, there were a lot of folks outside and maybe that allowed us to get a seat at the bar.

I am sorry that I cannot rant and rave about the return from Daylight Savings to Standard time. I dunno. It is now light when I return from my 0-skunk-30 walk but here it is 6:30 in the evening and pitch black. In a few weeks, it’ll be very dark on both ends of the day and then a few weeks after that, we will be heading onto the upward trend that leads to 10 o’clock sunsets in June. I do not have any issues with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). I think that is because I get OUTSIDE every single blasted day. Is it dark? Is it light? Is it raining or snowing? Whatever. To be truthful, there are days that I have to FORCE myself to go outside, especially at 0-skunk-30 but also at other times. I ALWAYS feel better after I go outside, even if it if just for a few minutes. If it *is* dark, can you see the moon? Or Orion? Or Ursa Major? How do you feel after you have seen some of those celestial entities? I always feel really good.

Love y’all, KW

Just have to say that I was not here today. I was thinking how much fun it might have been to hang out in the Lyme Lounge at the Straits state park this morning. There was lucky-shucky and gas and whatever. Alas, no shower. Well, maybe if I had known that it would be 50 frickin’ degrees this morning, I could’ve used the bag shower. Alas. It was my job that kept me from being up there this weekend. If you are one of my five reglear nucular taggers, you may have an idea about what went down at my job yesterday. Fortunately, that is a rare occurrence but it does happen. I am sad about it but I am okay. If it happens to me at some point, I will be not be happy but I will get on with life.

So, what did I do today? I walked then I drove down to the farmers market and I did all kinds of chores and laundry. I flipped through a whole bunch of catalogs and mostly flung them but I ordered a few things on the internet. Mostly clothing. RedPlaidNation biz-caz-able jacket type thing that will fit into my “uniform”. A second black Patagonia polarfleece jacket (so I can throw one in the washing musheen and wear the other). A Patagonia polarfleece *vest*. TWO (count ’em) Toad & Co. Tomboy skirts. I had to search around for these a bit. I kind of randomly bought one of these skirts (black) from Title Nine last summer, not knowing if I would like it or not. OMG I love this skirt. I think of it as a “hiking” skirt but it is also cool for biz-caz. And we don’t even have to conform to biz-caz any more at Cubelandia. Jeans days forever. Almost any skirt is okay (unless it shows you-know-what but my skirts are never anywhere near that short). Anyway, I looked up my Toad & Co. tomboy skirt and bought a second black one and also a loverly purple one.

I do own a couple pairs of leggings and I will wear those in the winter because cold, but I have pretty much totally switched over to skirts of various lengths nowadays. I dunno. I just kind of rock skirts. Not sure why exactly. Just feels good to me to wear them. If you like to wear pants (or pantsuits), that’s fine. Wear them. But rock them!

It was kinda hot here today. I spent a lot of time reading a book (on my phone) in the back yard today. It was hotter than Hades for a while and then the earth continued to turn which meant that the sun moved over to the western side of the hose. I kept having to move my chair further back into the yard until I eventually needed to bag it and move inside. Then the GG reminded me that I could sit on the south side of the house… Duh… So I took a walk and then spent the last hour of the afternoon sitting out there watching the sun go down (and some neighbors). It was wonderful… Except for the moe-skee-toes.

Oh yeah, the book. Kavalier and Clay [corrected title]. A palate cleanser after the last book I read, True North. We’ll talk about that book some other time but can I just say for the umpteen billionth time, please please please do NOT EVER try to stereotype Yooperlanders. Not even if you grew up there and think you know it all. Just don’t do it.

Love y’all and don’t fergit to reset yer clocks. I hope I can cope with resetting my alarm clock. So far it seems to have a mind of its own.

My day at Cubelandia began with some rolling. It happens from time to time and it is never pleasant but this morning was particularly awful for everyone, not just the rollees, because it involved a few of our most beloved folks. Decisions like these are usually made “elsewhere” and it falls to the local folks to make the excruciatingly difficult decisions that result in people walking out of their long-time workplace for the last time. Leaving all of their computer equipment behind and whatever else was in their cube. The cake was the saddest part of all of this.

I was not targeted this time. For various reasons, I am probably not a target for now but I could have been six months ago and you never know what will happen next. I did my best to console those who are going on into the future today and then consoling those who had to do the job. I am a mom… My cube eventually became a gathering place for folks (of all levels, including the big guy) to just hang out for part of the afternoon. I am a mom… At the end of all that, we were all told we could have an Early Release today. Man oh man, we all needed that. None of us could focus. FZ and I stayed a wee bit longer to deal with a defect. I wanted to leave. FZ wanted to run. All of the managers were gone. I’m not sure where FZ ran or how many tears he shed (but I think it was more than a few) He told me thank you for telling him to go for his run. I am a mom…

I love my job. I am still pinching myself that I actually have this kind of of opportunity and the money that comes with it after all these years. What I love more than anything though is the folks I work with. This was a very hard day and so when I got home, I drove my Ninja down to Barton Dam and hiked alone there. So much fun and so many friendly folks and dogs and whatever down there. I needed that today. I am a mom… It was a hard hard hard day.

I am here and it is pretty dern warm here and I was doin’ my dern job today and that meant whatever it meant. Giving people a chance to talk about a whole bunch of stuff that had already been talked about maybe a billion times before. And me and my boss discussed getting food stains on our shirts or whatever. Jeebus, the leftover bag of potato chips in the Food Cube next to my cube is dangereuse.

Man oh man I wish I could be up north with the GG and all of the North Country Trail folks. But I am here alooooone on The Planet Ann Arbor. I am okay with that for now and I love you all. And how is the weather?

I can’t remember if the Red Wings won on Sunday or not. The GG went with Lizard Breath and one of our nephews. The game began at 5:00 PM and after it ended, the GG and Lizard Breath went out for a snack, etc. Thinking that the Red Wings had the same kind of schedule as the Lions, I had made enchiladas for dinner that day because usually when the GG goes to watch the Lions lose (or not), he is home in time for dinner.

As it turned out, I ate some of my enchiladas by myself and after a while I went to bed. Lizard texted that they were at the Woodbridge Tavern having an interesting interaction with a talkative homeless type person. Been there, done that. And then she texted me that the GG had used her facilities and was on his way home. I was in the rack by the time I looked at that text and I had already heard the GG come in. I left the door unlocked that night. I don’t always leave it unlocked unless the beach urchins (Amazon Women) are home for some reason and out at night. Back in the day we always left the door unlocked and people squeaked or grokked when they came in. I miss those days soooooo much.

I am kind of done for tonight but I think I am rooting for the Cubs for the World Series even though I do not follow sports for the most part. Let’s go Cubs. If I don’t watch (and I won’t) maybe you will win.

The pic is posted in honor of our fabulous 78 degree temperature today, not unheard of at this time of year but certainly a rarity. I also post it in honor of a facebook/childhood friend’s mother today. She died this morning at the amazing age of 102, mental acuity intact until the end. What a life!

Like most people, I have a healthy fear of stinging insects although I am not at all allergic to them. I was able to get up close and personal with this one. She (he? don’t know bee species well) was well, as busy as a bee. Was I noticed? I do not know. Interaction with that flower trumped interaction with me. Nevertheless, I got the best pic I could but didn’t linger.

I am working on a new prodject we’re calling “butters” and today I emailed umpteen links to documentation about it to iDeep over in India who will get it whenever morning happens over there after celebrating Diwali. Knowing iDeep as well as I can from I/M and email, I think he will be ecstatic.

Over here in Cubelandia, I was engaged in a hallway convo about why we are calling this prodject “butters”. It is because the proper name for the technology we are going to add to our product is so tongue-twisting that I will not be able to talk about it without getting totally lost. Since its industry-wide nickname is butters, I think it is okay that we call it that too, at least informally. I hate when we get lost in vocabulary so I am putting that out there front and center.

Of course I couldn’t just stop at that. I had to haul synaesthesia into the pitcher. I said that, to me, this project would always be Yellow! And it is… I am not by any means any kind of a full-fledged synesthete. I actually think it would be cool to be one but I am not. But I have always had a tendency to assign colors to things. Like, as a very small child, A, B, C, and D were red, green, yellow, and blue. I think I originally had some colors assigned to E through H but I can’t remember them. Colors at the end of the alphabet were [vaguely] metallic colors. E to me now is kind of gray. Sigh…

Of course, as soon as I brought synaesthesia into the conversation, people started talking about auras. They always do that but auras don’t have anything to do with synaesthesia. Seeing an aura is seeing some sort of veil of color surrounding someone else. At least that’s what I think it might be like. I have never seen one except maybe late at night at some barroom somewhere where a person was sitting in front of a bright light. GoGrannyGo and I had a good cackle about our salad days after that convo ended.

So when I came home this afternoon, there was a lawnmower hanging out in the front yard and it was NOT Becquet’s lawnmower, which is sometimes in her yard and sometimes down the street in her friend’s yard depending upon who is using who’s lawnmower that day. They trade sometimes. I found the GG on the couch in the back room but he was awake and it turned out that he had “forgotten” to put his lawnmower away. Good thing Becquet was not around today to try to use the GG’s lawnmower.

I am done for tonight but I’m always curious about other folks who might assign colors or whatever to letters or music or whatever. I don’t think synaesthesia is limited to colors.