Random bits of my so-called life.

Loverly dinner tonight with beach urchins. I who have “everything” demanded a No Politics Day gift, being a music pod thingy that actually WORKS! I cannot connect to our old Home Pod without all kinds of difficulty and recently we have discovered if you accidentally turn it on it plays random music, usually not stuff any of us like.

So I received Wonderboom 4 yesterday and I got it set up today and I gave Lizard DJ power this evening and they all chose 1980s. Cool with me. The first few years of the 1980s we were still into rock music of many genres and that’s around when MTV first came out and was still good (maybe still is but we don’t ever watch it now). “Something” happened in the mid-1980s that switched our music listening habits from rock to Wee Sing Dinosaurs, etc. (“Dinosaurs On!”) I didn’t really listen to music much again until the mid 1990s when my main vee-hickle, the Island Teal POC, became permanently tuned into 1990s alt rock. I was driving kids all over town in that old POC and I loved the music.

Lizard and I were reminiscing tonight about various things from her childhood. Like books she read were way above her level (no parental supervision) or that people are trying to ban nowadays. And her 5th grade DARE “graduation” when the father of one of her friends (and a respected local lawyer) had to scramble his backpack out to his car when he realized that drug-sniffing dogs were in the room. Do they still do DARE nowadays? Neither of us know. Marijuana is now legal in the Great Lake State, a good thing in my opinion even though my limited number of experiments with it as a young person were not successful. Paranoia? Yes. And no thank you.

And somehow we got on to “Jane Says” by the band Jane’s Addiction. I always liked the song. She was not crazy about it, at least in part because it got played *all* the time. I dunno who Jane is and I don’t know all the lyrics but she is looking for her wig. This always totally cracked me up.

I am outta words for tonight. You’re welcome!

Today is the real No Politics Day and we *mostly* avoided that topic except when a surreal discussion about a married couple bickering about car radio vs. earbuds started to slip off the cliff🤪 I quickly donned my queenly crown and stopped that one.

The main activity of the day was joining mouse and the racc for lunch at Dexter’s Pub in, uh, Dexter. Our trip to Dexter was slow as molasses in, well, January because we were about the fourth vee-hickle behind someone going *very* slowly. That was actually okay because it was snowing to beat the band and I didn’t mind the slow speed. The GG said the snow on the roads was “grippy” and I agreed with him but you can’t always rely on “grippy” if you have to stop fast. Fortunately Dexter is only about a 10 mile drive.

I started my day by making a donation to the Little Traverse Conservancy, an organization that helped us save some family land from developers. That was a number of years ago and a very complicated situation and I’ll leave it for some other day. Or not. But a while back I started my own little tradition of sending them a sizable donation on No Politics Day. The GG additionally does frequent maintenance on the Jim Finlayson Trail (Jim was my brother) that the conservancy built on some of the land we used to own. This donation is my favorite thing to do on NPD. A gift to the LTC and a gift to meeeee.

We’re having shrimp tonight, just the two of us (not very romantic though because the GG will be on a North Country Trail zoom call). Tomorrow night will be a “celebratory” FinFam Steak Dinner for us and the beach urchins and their friends. What the heck? Last year covid scuttled our family No Politics Day “celebration” (sorta, it’s complicated). We eventually celebrated The Day After Groundhog Day instead.

Is that all there is? I guess so. The pic is a quick-and-crooked iPhone point-and-shoot out the front window after the sun went down. The iPhone did something to the light and just to keep things real, the pic features LOfPnet’s truck and our garbage/recycle carts.

I *know* better than this but I just put a chicken pot pie in the oven without a tray underneath it. It was frozen when I put it in but as it began to thaw, some wee bits of crust fell off and pretty soon I was smelling a few weeee wisps of smoke.

I rectified the situation PDQ by putting a big baking sheet underneath the pie to catch the drip and pulling the cord on the kitchen fan, which vents(?) stuff to the outside. The GG is on his monthly North Country Trail (NCT) call and I figgered the folks on the call would not want to listen to a smoke alarm. And they didn’t. Tonight’s call is a monthly call. He is frequently on other calls with other NCT chapters. I love to listen in and I try to keep my mouth shut. (Even when I can hear man-splainin’ going on, which a couple of folks seem to be doing tonight. But not the GG although he is capable of man-splainin’.)

The chicken pot pie is not the one I make with the biscuit crust. It has a regular pie crust and I bought it frozen from the Bay Mills/Brimley farmers market at the end of the summer. It was made by Karl of Karl’s Cuisine, a restaurant I went to many many times in Sault Ste. Siberia, pre-covid and pre-death. It was one of the restaurants in The Commander’s lunch circle’s rotation and when I mentioned that to Karl and his wife, they smiled. There were a lot of pods of little old ladies who lunched at Karl’s so I didn’t even try to connect myself to The Comm, Radical Betty, Barb, and Cam. But so many times, I would get up at 6:30 AM, launch to the yooperland from The Planet Ann Arbor, and meet my own little pod at Karl’s Cuisine for an early lunch. Karl and his wife understood and I’m sure they were happy that I didn’t try to describe who my mom’s pod was.

Karl’s chicken pot pie is to die for but Karl doesn’t have a store front so you have to hit up the farmers market when they are selling it there. You can’t just buy it at the grocery store.

Bad pic of last night’s fool moon. I don’t really understand how to use my iPhone for dark conditions and lights in the schoolyard (and our yard) did not help. But it was the first time we have seen a lit up celestial body in at least a week and given the fugly conditions all day yesterday, I did not think we would see the full moon. And I was freeeeezing so I didn’t spend a lot of time out there.

Back when I was a kid, we visited my maternal grandparents (Granddaddy and Bolette) in Detroit a few times a year. We would often drive down in January to see the Detroit Auto Show. Snow be damned. My dad was an expert driver (and pilot) and gave us a safe ride. (It was an 11 hour drive before the Mackinac Bridge was built and five hours after, give or take weather/traffic conditions.)

In the early years, our whole family would go to Cobo Hall for the show. When I got to be a tween/teen, The Comm and I would walk over to the downtown Hudson’s department store (where she once worked) and shop until we dropped. We’d have lunch on the mezzanine, then meet up with my dad and brother back at Cobo. They were Car Guys and my brother ended up being an automotive engineer. Mom and I were more into clothing and fabric.

But we still enjoyed the auto show. When I was young, it was all beautiful shined up cars and gorgeous female models showing them off. I didn’t care whether they knew anything about the cars or not. I was just totally entranced by their beauty and fancy dresses.

The auto show was always in January until, hmmmm, I fergit when. It may or may not have been before covid when some “super-brain” decided it should be moved to the summer or maybe September. Those things (and maybe others) were tried and (hello) the auto show is now happening in January again. I could’ve told them that January was the best time for the auto show but nobody would’ve cared what I thought.

The GG and I didn’t go to the auto show this year but we have occasionally attended it over the years. It’s a lot easier to drive to Detroit from The Planet Ann Arbor than from Sault Ste. Siberia. The pics are from 2011, when we were checking out Subie Outbacks. So we parked atop Cobo Hall on a frigid January day.

I dunno what kind of car this is but there is actually a female model showing it off. That matches my childhood memories. The vee-hickle is probably in a junkyard now.

My own “model” here. I think I tried to interest him in this loverly blue Jeep Wrangler to replace the long-dead Indefatigable but he wasn’t really interested in another Wrangler by that time. I tried.

For whatever reason, the po-leese had a fancy display at this auto show.

My answer to that question was an unqualified “No!” The book was “All Fours” and I encountered it because it flew by on my daughter’s Goodreads feed. So I added it to my to-reads and then I *read* it. She seemed a weeeee bit surprised that I might take such a book on🤣

Yesterday we spent some time talking about the book over lunch and I think we landed more or less in some of the same places. First, it is a very weird book. There are characters that are not necessarily likeable who do cringe-worthy things that absolutely drive me NUTSO. “Difficult” themes abound.

And sex… There is QUITE a lot of sex, some of it pretty raunchy. I teetered on the edge of whether I wanted to call it “gratuitous sex”. My definition for that phrase is something like “sex that is in the book for no real reason except to put sex in the book and doesn’t add to the story.” In the end, I decided that for the most part the sex in this book was in fact part of the story. But it is probably not to everyone’s taste.

So I enjoyed the book even when I was cringing and may at some point explore more of the author’s work. It’s cool to be able to talk about things like that with your adult daughter. But then, even when my kids were small, I read them some stuff that I’m gonna guess some parents might want banned. “Gorky Rises” for one (the young frog protagonist has *got* to be on hallucinogens) and a whole bunch of Roald Dahl stuff. And then there was the time we were at the moomincabin and she read “Mother Earth, Father Sky” because it was on her grandparents’ bookshelves. None of the adults had actually *read* it so had no clue how much sex and violence was in it. She survived the experience and I eventually read the book (first in a trilogy). It’s by an eastern yooperland author from a town a short distance from the moominbeach and is VERY GOOD!

All that said. I only tentatively recommend “All Fours”. Like I said, there is a LOT of raunchy sex, difficult themes and characters and some very weird stuff on top of it all. If you are interested, do some research first! I’ve only participated in one session of one book club in my life but I suspect most book clubs would not get along with this book. If it’s not your cuppa, I won’t be offended.

Man, it’s just starting and I am already sick of it. I have been spoiled the last number of years. First the GG retired and asked for a snowblower for xmas. A yooper-sized snowblower, kinda like the one my dad bought when he was 75 and finally sick of shoveling five feet of snow every other day. (That’s a “slight” exaggeration🤣)

Then, the last couple winters we had maybe 3-4 weather events for which the snow didn’t disappear PDQ. Last winter we had a Cement Storm and Thundersnow (or was that the year before) with 40-50 degree days in between storms. This year the temps are staying colder and the slippery stuff doesn’t get a chance to completely disappear before the next weather event arrives. More typical around here but I was getting used to the warmer, drier weather.

To top it all off, we had our driveway redone a few years ago. It NEEDED it! Big slabs of broken concrete were tipping in various directions, pushed up by a humongous tree. The top of that tree fell on The Landfill once. Don’t worry, we’ve had it inspected and trimmed a couple times since that. But the lovely new driveway is so flat and smooth that it seems to get slicker than the old one.

I also admit I didn’t do a bang-up job of cleaning up the snow and salting after Friday/Saturday/today’s small snowfall events. Oh well.

When the GG is outta town on the weekend, I often go out to lunch on Sunday with the older beach urchin. The younger one is always welcome to join us but she almost always works Sundays. Today we chose The Session Room as our destination and we both had grilled turkey on naan (with bacon and lots of veggie friends). And gossip. And book talk. And memories of her childhood and mine. The GG came home late this afternoon after a crappy snow drive down the I75 SUV Speedway from Hoton Lake. I had kind of not expected him until tomorrow but it’s all okay. Glad I wasn’t with him for that drive though. The Speedway is rarely a relaxing drive on a dry day let alone snow.

G’night, KW

Little Tigey (yes, I know it’s really a domestic cat) is a xmas gift. I am soooo hard to buy gifts for. I just don’t neeeeeed anything. This year I cobbled together a list of improvisational quilt books, some merino wool shirts and nightshirts (how did we exist before merino wool?), a doormat, and I fergit what else.

One morning I was over at the Plum and talking to my mouse and there was a cute “tigey” plastic grocery bag hanging in her department. I am not necessarily drawn to cats but this one spoke to me and I admired it. And I ALWAYS need re-usable bags because “people” are forever using My Stuff And not returning it! Anyway I was happy to be gifted this (I haven’t even used it yet) and I have named it “Little Tigey”.

It reminds me a bit of “Tigey”, my little brother’s childhood beach towel. Isn’t Tigey elegant in his mid-century modern style? Donald the Squirrel could serve him a cocktail. I admired my brother’s Tigey towel but I also liked my own childhood beach towel, which was striped in various hues of teal and green with some sorta adjacent colors thrown in. Alas, that towel was long ago torn up into rags. For a while I could still get my hands on one of the rags but not sure if it’s around any more. The Commander apparently couldn’t rip Tigey up and I CERTAINLY couldn’t so after she died, I made sure he was in a safe place at the moomincabin.

Those were the days when each of us had ONE beach towel and probably two bathing suits (in case one got “soiled” in some way and we’ll talk about peeing in the lake some other day). I am here to tell you that I owned no fewer than FIVE bikinis as a high school/college student and around that time our little family began acquiring new beach towels at what now seems an alarming rate. We can outfit at least 10 people with beach towels if we need to. But we usually don’t need to. The beach urchins have their faves and guests either bring their own or the weather is awful enough that no one needs beach towels.

I am rambling again today. I have been home alone and there was just enough snow on the roads this morning that I elected to stay home early (when I like to shop) and then not brave the grocery stores later when the Saturday crowds are there although I did do a couple quick and dirty errands to smaller stores. I will be out getting grocks for the week bright and early tomorrow!

So I am rambling.

I got a bunch of pics from one of my beach urchins. Apparently she was cleaning up her house today. All of us, the beach urchins, the GG and I struggle to get rid of stuff. We are *not* hoarders, just it is hard sometimes to fling the things we need to fling.

So I was was heartened today when this beach urchin texted pics of the stuff she had organized to donate. I am so happy about this. For whatever reasons, I showered my children with STUFF! Stuff they didn’t really need. I’m not sure why I did this. Was it because I didn’t have a whole lot of *stuff* as a child? Yes and no. I never wanted for anything as a child but my parents also didn’t buy me all kinds of crapola. Like they didn’t buy me a nice new car when I turned 16 like some other kids in my high school got. I didn’t have my own car until I was maybe 22 and it was my parents’ crappy old Pinto wagon.

We also did not buy our children new cars when they got their driver’s licenses. They got licensed with The Indefatigable, the 1992 Jeep Wrangler we bought when they were seven and five. Stick shift. Yes. They were the cool kids with that jeep (sometimes with a kayak on top) and Mouse had it at college after study abroad. I did help with cars though, in one case via some of what The Commander left me. Nowadays my adult children deal with their own vee-hickles. Which I am happy about (although I am always willing to help).

A (poor little) Rich Girl in my high school class received a fancy little car (Mustang maybe?) when she turned 16. Her parents are long dead and nowadays (via facebook), she seems to struggle with with housing insecurity. What happened to their money? I do not know. Probably they didn’t live like paupers like my parents and I (mostly) do. I care about her but I can’t help her.

Oh well, I just got a notification that a new episode of Silo is on so I think I will watch it.

It is The Commander’s birthday. She’d be 104. Yikes! So I remember the date (usually) from that but also because it is a friend’s birthday. (And Richard Nixon’s.) And, as of today, a new small cousin’s.

That’s all I will say about that. Back when Al Gore invented the internet (which is either mis- or dis-information, I’m not sure which), I jumped onto the information superhighway and I would sometimes proclaim personal occasions including births. But not any more. That’s for parents to do if they choose to do so and I respect their privacy. Babies are born every day and they are often born on other people’s birthdays. We only have 365/6 days a year after all so there have to be some repeated birth dates. But I know The Commander would be tickled by this news.

The moomincabin looks a little sad in the pic. But then it is all buttoned up for the winter. The big window on the left is covered by a protective screen. I HATE those things but they are very necessary. There are Protective Fish above both the back and front door (they are a little blurry). Victoria, an artist friend of ours who sells at the farmers market, makes those. Guess what? They work! As protection, I mean. That is all I will say about that😵‍💫

I’ve got lots of political crapola swirling in my head but am not able to focus enough to write about any of it. Free speech? What does it mean and who is defining it these days? Are those folks qualified to define it? Who *is* qualified to define it? More questions than answers. And that’s just one of the many topics I am cogitating upon.

This photo is from 2014, the Polar Vortex winter. The year that Canananada got drunk and fell asleep on the northern USA. (Somebody else somewhere on the internet came up with that quip, not me.)

Winter started in earnest on January 1st that year. The Detroit Red Wings played the Toronto Maple Leafs here that day on The Planet Ann Arbor in the Big House (aka Umich football stadium). Football Saturdays on The Planet Ann Arbor are quite orderly as the city and most of the fans understand the traffic / parking “rules”.

Not so much for this one-off hockey game. A different crowd of fans and 8-10 inches of snow? Um. A bunch of folks parked at Briarwood Mall, about a mile away from the stadium. After the game, they traipsed right down the middle of Main Street to Briarwood. On foot. In the snow. The police were pretty much helpless at any kind of cat-herding at that point.

The next day was a work day for us. The EPA called a snow day so the GG didn’t have to go in. I have always been able to telecommute so that’s what I did. As it turned out, my work parking lot was not plowed and the folks that did show up got stuck in a big mess. When the plowing contractor finally showed up, everybody had to go out and push cars around so the lot could be plowed. The LSCHP (my boss at the time) bellowed “if all we’re gonna do over here is push cars around, we might as well all work from home”. Indeed. And now we all do work from home but not because of snow.

That began the worst, snowiest winter I have ever experienced here on the Planet Ann Arbor, aka the Ice Road Asteroid. I won’t describe all of it except to say that we had a *glacier* in our back yard in mid-April.

Out of the mouths of a couple of feisty female octogenarians (back in the day, they are both dead now). Say it with complete disgust! (Barbara was a long time friend and moominbeach neighbor of ours. I knew her all my life and she taught all of the beach urchins in my generation how to swim.)

This (it’s a screenshot of a tweet) keeps showing up in my “memories” in various places on this date. It was The Commander talking and I wish I could remember when she said it. I mean, I can’t seem to get all the way back to the original pic. It wasn’t 2012 because she died early that year and didn’t get to vote (for Obama). It might’ve been 2008 but she definitely voted for *one* of “those men” that year. Obama of course. My once Republican-voting mother had shifted firmly to the other side.

Why? Well. Reproductive rights was definitely one of her hot-button issues. A life-long pro-choicer, her stint as a high school “home-ec” teacher did nothing to dissuade her views on that issue. She taught many “disadvantaged” kids (mostly girls) and in my high school — BEFORE ROE V. WADE — there were a fair number of unplanned pregnancies. Hey, those happen!

Some of those situations turned out better than others and my mom cared about those kids and their babies. Options were limited. Get married at an early age, get a New York abortion (if your parents could afford to pay for one), sit out your pregnancy somewhere no one could see you and give your baby up for adoption, or raise your child as a single mom with the stigma that was still attached to that in those days. Make no mistake, all of these options *can* work out well but are excruciatingly hard decisions for women to make. Especially women without financial and/or emotional support.

But she also chafed under the male domination of our government and the way a lot of those “*men*” seemed to get away with breaking “rules” (I’m oversimplifying here). Another quote from her regarded Mark Foley (google him): “Why under the *sun* do we have somebody like *that* in the government?” About all I could think of to say was “Indeed!” Thinking about some of the people (men but also women) we have in the government *now*, Mark Foley almost seems tame.

My mom did teach a lot of girls and most of them were not on the “college track”. But one semester, a bunch of senior football players needed an elective and they were steered into one of her classes. I think it was child care (a class she designed) but I’m not sure. As a high-school senior myself, I was not generally a fan of “jocks”. I had a cute college sophomore boyfriend and could be kind of a snob about that🐽 But these guys were really good people and if I remember accurately, they had a blast in her class and she had a great time teaching them. I am Facebook friends with some of them now.

We are not really seeing much of a change in the amount of light, partly because it hasn’t been very sunny. The sun is setting later but not rising earlier – yet. A couple weeks and we should see a bit more change.

A correction to yesterday’s entry! I meant first book I started in 2025!!! Not 2024. I did finish the book after work today and loved the ending. And my next book “The Humans” is in the hopper. Aliens, mathematics, and I’ll find out what else. Seems like I’m off to a good start.

I stayed away from the news today, not wanting to think too hard about the events of four years ago. (I will never forget my then boss Amazon Woman’s GASP!) I don’t understand why anyone at all was thinking there might be a repeat of that event this year. Trump won (though I will NEVER understand his appeal. Businessman? PBBBBBFT) and the current *democratic* prez and VP promised AND DELIVERED a smooth transfer. I mean the vote was certified without incident, I know the entire transfer of power has not been completed yet. But I think we have every reason to expect it will be.

This is not a democrat/republican issue. I don’t regard the J6 insurrectionists as republican. We don’t have a republican party any more. We have a Trump party and those folks were/are part of it. I have blahgged this before but one of the images burned into my brain from that day is a scruffy looking yay-hoo lounging in Nancy Pelosi’s (?) office saying something like, “Well, we’re here so I guess we should form a government.” We *have* a government and flawed that it may be, I do NOT want that particular person to be involved in creating a new one. Sorry but I don’t trust him or any of his cronies.

Fortunately the folks in office (democrats) this time are sane, reasonable, thoughtful folks who are following the rules our forefathers set out. Both our forefathers and their rules were flawed (as most things are) but I think they were thoughtful about what they were doing. Those rules can (and have) been changed. In my not-so-humble opinion, change needs to happen slowly and mindfully. Unless you are in the act of pulling someone out of a burning building.

I dunno if anything I said made sense and hope it doesn’t open up Pandora’s box. (Fun fact, I just remembered I was Pandora at the Sault High Latin banquet my third year of Latin🤣 Third-year students were gods and goddesses.)

Okay then. I *am* still on goodreads but I am slowly switching my brain over to StoryGraph. Where all the Cool Kids are. A lot of people are voting against Amazon (which owns Goodreads) with their phones/laptops. I agree with their sentiment but I am conflicted because I developed a pretty good habit of buying certain things (oh, nothing exciting) on Amazon during the early days of the pandemic and am reluctant to give that up.

For the first time in a few years, I did not complete my Goodreads challenge for 2024. I think I was 15 books down (100 being my goal). I’m not sure *exactly* what the issue was. I certainly read some good books this year but I also read a bunch that I got kinda bogged down with. No specific titles come to mind, just in general.

I found myself seeking out “short” books for the last couple months but that wasn’t very satisfying. I mean, some of them were very good but I kept seeing longer books that were calling my name and I was so wrapped up in finishing the challenge that I eschewed reading them.

Okay. So I am done done done with reading challenges. For now anyway. I could change my mind at some point. I’m allowed to do that. Obviously I don’t need a challenge to make me read so I’ll just read whatever I feel like.

I wasn’t a super early reader but all the building blocks were in place by first grade, which was when reading was taught back then, and I TOOK OFF like a rocket. I particularly remember sounding out the word “surprise”, like “Oh, *that’s* how you pronounce “suprize” (the word in my head).

A hilarious memory (to me) is when I was four and I wrote my name with an “o” on the sidewalk in front of our shabby little yooperland bungalow. That’s right. A-n-n-o. I remember being very insistent that it was the correct spelling. The Commander disagreed but gave up on trying to dissuade me, wisely choosing not to die on that particular hill.

Anyway, the first book I *started* in 2024 2025!!! is “The God of the Woods”. It is 480 pages (not long but not short) and I am greatly enjoying it and closing in on the finish. Couldn’t put it down today (although I did finish my pantry purge). I read “Long Bright River” by the same author a while back and liked that one too. Whether these are everyone’s cuppa, I dunno. To each their own.

The GG space-i-fied meeeee for six-plus hours today via a 19 mile hike to Dexter and back. What did I do? I worked on purging a lot of stuff outta the Landfill Chitchen. I *finally* got rid of one of the half-bottles of ketchup as well as a ROCK-HARD bag of brown sugar (there was also a SOFT bag of brown sugar, unopened until I used a couple tablespoons of it tonight). Sorry but fling-a-ding. I also “combinded” two jars of molasses. Note that I have not used molasses in anything in a couple years. I have used *pomegranate* molasses, which is a whole different thing. But I only have one bottle of that.

I was pretty ruthless at purging. A bunch of dried beans and other things went into the compost. They were “expired” although probably still good but I have not been using dried beans for anything in a while and I needed to make some space. Shortening that expired in 2022. I don’t really use shortening any more but here’s a salute to The Commander, who taught me as a young child how to measure shortening using water. Those were the days. Nowadays I just saw off enough butter to add up to whatever amount I need.

I am not finished purging yet. I’m thinking I will go through and look at EVERY expiration date and purge anything that has expired, whether or not I think it has actually gone bad. I HATE to throw food out but my pantry cupboards are a total jumble and it’s time to take control.

This is a fairly typical post-holiday activity but a couple other factors are raising it to a new level this year. The pandemic is FINALLY enough in my rear-view mirror (even though it is not gone) and I need to get rid of a few more pandemic purchases. The accidentally huuuuge bottle of oregano is not quiiiiite ready to go yet. I’ll give it a good send-off when it goes. (And don’t worry, this is not my first “post”-pandemic purge.) Also, moving back and forth to the moomincabin in the summer always results in some duplicates, etc. and I still working on weeding last summer’s extra out. Last but not least, a nod to our loverly holiday norovirus. A good gut-purge always serves as an impetus for a big kitchen purge.

Faaaar in the faaaarplace, cold outside but seems like any snowstorms will hit well south of us. Winter Storm Whatever. No panic shopping here, not that there ever is.

A cluttered photo that shows this year’s xmas tree. It is “skinnier” than usual and I am happy with that. Navigating around our usual xmas trees in order to turn the lights off for the night has always been a challenge. We also don’t have a whole crap-ton of ornaments on it. Less is better.

We had guests over here tonight and the GG “wowed” them by playing actual record albums on our 1980s vintage turntable. Other components in this tower (to the right of the tree) are newer and I couldn’t probably tell you what vintage all of them are. But the records we were playing were vintage also, some of them American western stuff my parents bought after WWII (Sons of the Pioneers, etc.), others Irish stuff I bought after we were married. I love Spotify when I can get it to work with our crappy music pods but I indulged the GG tonight especially since he was willing to play DJ.

I remember when we bought that “entertainment center”. It was like $800 for a turntable, radio, cassette player and I fergit what else. At some point we added a music CD player. $800 was a lot of money for us then. Our first daughter was a very small babe in arms when we bought the thing and we were standing in line at an electronics store or whatever, waiting to buy it when she began to get a little fussy. Is she hungry or does she just need to, y’know, suck on something? There were no accommodations available for feeding a baby in that store so I stuck my little finger in her mouth and that did the trick until we could get to somewhere else. I am not anti-pacifier (or anti anything that gets a parent “through the night”) but we chose not to use pacifiers and it worked for us. TMI?

I was pretty insistent that I got to have some chill-out time before bed, i.e., goooo home or Ima gonna let the dogs out. I neeeeeed chill-out time before bed. Otherwise I struggle to settle into sleep. We operate on different circadian rhythms than our friends and there ain’t no way I will ever stay *up* until 5:15 AM or even 2:00 AM. 5:15 AM is when I am beginning to poke my head up for the day.

Two grock stores in the morning and then a bunch of chores and lamb stew for dinner! G’night, KW!

Disclaimer: I did not take the photo of the woman rowing. It was an xmas gift to me and the GG and I have it on the shelf above the kitchen counter. After the sun went down (WELL after the sun went down, I mean), I looked up and saw my kitchen LED lights reflected in the glass and took this meta-pic. The woman rowing is our daughter and we love the pic and I hope it is okay that I posted this altered pic.

Moving on into 2025. It is a new year and I do not make resolutions. A lot of people (non-Trumpers like me) are maybe kind of freaked out about the future. I am too, make no mistake! He is just about the worst person to obtain the American presidency ever. We’ve endured him once, why oy why do we have to endure him again? A mini Trump primer (again): HE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING EXCEPT HIMSELF.

The only way I can approach the new year is to roll into it with the attitude that “I can carry on”. I said this to people who asked if I was okay after my uber boss Amazon Woman got laid off a few years ago. I think some of them thought I might quit. Nope. I mean. I am an adult. A mature adult at that. I have raised two awesome women (actually they raised themselves) and buried my entire childhood nuclear family (brother dad mother) and, yes, I can carry on. I hope…

I know that there are others out there who don’t have the means or the psychological stamina to carry on. Praying for you in my own godless way.

In the process of canceling our little NYE party, our beach urchin side-channeled us to say something like, “I know youse guyz have been cooped up for a while so maybe I’ll come over for a while tomorrow (New Years Day) for some spirits.”

Yes we have been cooped up. Not that we can’t get out or haven’t. I mean we drove to a rest area the other day to drop off North Country Trail swag. Just I dunno. It has been a struggle to get through this holiday season and I am glad it’s over. I think.

So the beach urchins and one SO did come over this afternoon. I had smoked salmon and fancy goat cheese spread and they brought samosas and some fancy blueberry cider.

I “have” to work tomorrow. I don’t really have to work tomorrow. I could take tomorrow and Friday off. I reeeeealllly want to but… If I do, that means I will have already burned two days of paid time off for 2025. Which I don’t want to do. I will be taking a certain day in mid-January off. The anniversary of the day my dad locked himself out of our shabby little Superior Street bungalow in Sault Ste. Siberia and had to break in through a basement window. At least I think that’s what happened. I definitely do not remember it.

We’ve been “watching” the Rose Bowl. It is over now but we could have done without the chucklehead commentators that commandeered our viewing experience. Bah humbug.

I looked across the street and there was a big billow of smoke rolling along. What was it? Ohhhh! They’re lighting faaarworks over there. Putting two and two together in true Gladys Kravitz style… 1) There are little kids across the street tonight but the neighbors have exactly one adult daughter and she’s expecting their first grandchild soon. 2) There are no extra vee-hickles around so no big party or whatever. …I’m guessing that they are babysitting for the wife’s young charges (she’s a nanny) while their parents go out and party. Those children are in good hands this evening.

It was difficult to get a photo, so this is about the best I got. That pesky tree juuuust to the left is a culprit and for reasons I couldn’t articulate if I tried, I couldn’t navigate to a better view without going outside my house, which I didn’t want to do because it is once again raining cats and dogs or maybe I should call it “snaining” because it is laced with a bit of that white stuff.

We were scheduled to attend a party tonight too. A low-key dinner affair at Lizard Breath’s house that we’ve been doing the last few years and one I find myself looking forward to. Alas, noro put the kibosh on that. Oh, we’re basically over the disease but still a bit low in appetite and a bit fatigued, making it difficult for the hostess to feel like cooking a whole bunch of fancy stuff (she’s a really good cook). We’ll plan a party later on and maybe that shrimp ring that’s been in my freezer since about September (don’t ask, I can’t even remember the timeline myself) will finally get used.

This is okay. Like I said, we are *all* still coming around (I mean, we are FINE, don’t worry about us🐸). But also, given what Old Man Winter is doing now along with the overnight forecast, it is probably not the best night to be gallivanting around. Although I am skeptical that we’ll actually get the kind of freezing rain that makes it impossible to drive around town. If we get freezing rain at all.

Happy New Year to y’all! Love, KW

Light-dark-light. Saturday. Bright sunshine and no clouds ALL DAY. Sunday. Heavy heavy rain ALL DAY. Monday (today). Bright sunshine and no clouds ALL DAY.

We took a drive to a rest area this afternoon. Specifically, the Monroe I75 SUV Speedway Michigan Welcome Center. Why did we drive to a rest area? To deliver North Country Trail flyers, of course. Why would you drive to a rest area? This kind of activity is relatively frequent for Michigan’s Designated Helper, aka the GG.

This involved going south and Mr. Golden Sun was so bright, I was wishing I had my sun hat because he is also low in the sky and there are no leaves on the trees so there was pretty much no escape from him. We took the back roads home, which involved driving west and north and that was much easier on the eyes since Mr. Golden was basically at our backs.

I took this photo of the Methodist Church in Deerfield, a little town in SE Michigan. The GG subsequently took a pic of a Catholic Church (balancing out our respective childhood religious persuasions) but I posted this one.

We continue to improve from noro but are still a bit fatigued and my digestive system is slowly restarting. TMI? I promise, nothing gross about this. I ran into my mouse this morning and she was fully KN95 masked for the [noro] duration. I did not mask for my grock trip but I was only in there for a few minutes and didn’t interact closely with anyone except her. I did not have to spend the entire day with people getting in my face asking me questions, etc. Her main reason for masking at this point is to protect *others* although knowing even the bitsy-est bit about how viruses work, we *think* we are probably not contagious at this point.

Major chore of the day was de-contaminating the bathroom. It needed it anyway and noro pushed me over the edge.

Tonight’s whitefish dish is in the oven. The recipe title (from a long ago Gourmet Magazine) includes the word “Pacific” and I know there are probably different kinds of whitefish everywhere but mine is good old Lake Superior whitefish, which is a very mild, totally NON-fishy fish. I topped it with capers, black olives (not Kalamata for this particular dish), scallions, and lemon zest, buzzed up in the Cuisinart and sauteed in white wine.

So lots of trivia on a boring kind of day.

Cheers, KW

P.S. I must be feeling a LOT better because writing this has got me thinking about cooking things with Kalamata olives🤣

Okay, 6:30 AM. Let’s get up and get going. And I did. I have approximately three cotton maxi skirts that hang out on the counter next to the sink as I rotate them. (I get dressed in the bathroom.) One of these was a bit soiled (don’t ask), which means the others were suspect since they were all bunched together. Plus other laundry (some of it also suspect). So I took a quick shower and threw the whole mess in the washer PDQ.

We’ll never know for sure but after some googling, we think our illness was caused by a norovirus. Our case timeline (who got sick when and after which gathering) is complicated but my gut says it wasn’t food poisoning, which was also under consideration.

I wasn’t moving at top speed this morning but I was pretty darn fine. As my system is restarting, my main food for today was Saltines with butter, an old childhood “treat”. I texted that to the beach urchins and one of them said it actually sounded kind of good. I was still being careful but I’ve got xmas leftovers warming in the oven for tonight and the sight/smell of them isn’t turning me off. Alas, I will have to throw some of those out after today. I am pretty darn sure they are not contaminated and I HATE to throw food out but I am kinda *done* with xmas food. I’m planning a nice light whitefish dish accompanied by rice and a simple green veggie for tomorrow night and looking forward to it!

I haven’t been able to focus on reading for a while, particularly in the last few days. Sick in the last few days but otherwise various reasons too long to articulate. Then I randomly ran across “The Husbands” (Gramazio). I don’t know if I’d call it great literature – I may even end up calling it “chick-lit”, which I normally steer clear of. But it bends time and space, which I like, and it is hitting the spot so during/after the laundry and word puzzles, I read all day. It also rained cats and dogs all day, which was nice since I was sitting in my window seat.

The GG periodically battles squoils that try to ravage his bird feeders so one year (quite a while back), I bought “Donald” off Etsy. I’m not sure if he really likes “Donald” or not but the rest of us do. This was before Etsy started selling all kinds of cheaply produced stuff from “overseas”. Which, in full disclosure, I have been known to buy. Like cotton maxi skirts. I have more than three of those but three have currently been hanging out in the bathroom. Once a clothes-horse, always a clothes-horse albeit a clothes-horse of a different “color” these days but we’ll go there some other day. Or not.