Random bits of my so-called life.

npJane came over today to get a key to the moomincabin to make a copy of it so she could have her own personal key. There’s a key next door at the Old Cabin but she needed her own key and I totally agree. Like why are we only now getting around to this? Not that there’s anything crazy going on in the fam (there isn’t), just that this is a good thing for her and for us for various logistical reasons that are too boring to go into.

The course of the conversation brought up memories of the doors and locks on the moomincabin since it was built. In 1960. I was six. My (late) brother was three. Yeah, okay, do the math.

The photo shows the front door (to the right) and the back door to the left at the back of the photoooo. Both doors have a little lever that locks the door. The front door also has (or had) a sorta traditional lock that you had to unlock with a key. So even if you had a key for the lock, if you had locked the levers, you couldn’t get into the moomincabin.

I’ll never forget when this kind of thing happened to my me, my mom, and brother, after a trip to town. Somehow both levers got locked and there we were on the deck not being able to get inside. The Comm was a bit stressed out about this but with a few bits of good luck, the kitchen window (unseen in the photo but to the left of the refrigimatator) was open a bit. We pushed the window screen into the kitchen and I was enough of a monkey at that time of my life that I climbed through the window and over the sink and unlocked the levers on the doors. I could NOT do that now🤪

Eventually, after many many years but while The Commander was still alive, the front door lock broke and after many *more* years of multiple people trying to find a replacement without success, we went with “door 3”. The problem is that the doors on this ancient cabin are not a standard size (eeet eeez a cabin, roight?) and cannot be replaced easily. I mean we could replace them but that might require more renovation that we might want. What to do? I dunno. I’m just musing, not looking for advice🧡

I’m not talking about the bird. We’ll get to that. I’m talking about how extreme heat is interfering with my “purse” strategy.

I hate carrying a purse. I’m sure I thought it was cool when I was a tween/young teen. A purse! Just like the teenagers (and our moms except their purses were not “cute” or “cool”). They were functional. Except when they weren’t. When a purse is NOT functional it is because there is too much crap in it and you can’t find what you need when you, uh, NEED it. Like your wallet. A whole ‘nother issue. And then there is when crumbs or sticky things are in your purse. How long have those things been in there? Months? Yes, maybe. Cleaning that stuff up is kinda like cleaning out a grade school kid’s backpack after the last day of school. Does it move? Don’t touch it! Is it slimy? Handle with care.

Since the onset of covid, my “purse” has become a Patagonia polarfleece vest. I own several of them at all times so if my daughter tells me my vest is dirty, I change to a clean one and throw the offensive one in the laundry🤪 She’s always right!

So vest/purse. Left pocket? iPhone. Right pocket? Cygnus X-1 key fob, credit card, debit card, drivers license, and occasionally some cash if I think I might need it. I sometimes need it at the farmers market although many vendors now accept plastic which is really handy. I know some folks are not comfortable with a cashless society. I am not one of those except when something doesn’t work.

The problem with my vest/purse is that a polarfleece garment is not compatible with 90-plus degree temperatures. Since I am an early morning shopper anyway, I wear my vest on my early morning grokkery dashes and take it off as soon as I get home. We’ll talk about the related issues with that undergarment of FLINGING some other day. OR NOT 👀

Back to the birdie. The GG and Joan did their last hiking day in the Adirondacks yesterday and I *think* that’s when he got the pic of the bird. They are on their way back to the Great Lake State but are visiting friends of Joan’s in New York (state) tomorrow so they will not land on the Planet Ann Arbor until sometime Wednesday.

P.S. Thanks to longtime bloggy friend Margaret for inspiring this post👏

The GG sent this pic of today’s mud hike.

Liz sent this pic of the dinner in progress that I will get to eat some of. She stopped by for a ‘hattan this afternoon. We had thought about lunch somewhere downtown but neither of us felt like going anywhere near downtown during the heat wave. Cement City in the middle of Tree Town.

Mouse sent this pic of her return from a looooonnnng drive from South Carolina to SE Michigan with stops along the way.

Another hot day but I never felt unwell throughout it all. I slept well last night and my house stays relatively cool and I dunno. I still haven’t needed to turn the A/C on. If I need to I will.

As opposed to tick collection. The GG has a tick collection. He puts all of the little buggers he finds on his skin into little vials filled with alcohol.

I don’t know who the person is but she works for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. She is collecting deer ticks if I have it right. The ones that cause Lyme Disease. That’s the disease our Lyme Lounge is named after. On the trip to pick that thing up out in Minnesota, the GG and mouse were inundated with ticks every day. When they finally landed at the moomincabin, the GG was sick enough that for a quick minute, we thought he might need to head to the urgent care to get checked out for Lyme Disease. In the end, he decided it was probably black fly bites. And yeah, it probably was. I know from experience how nasty those are because they make me feverish. Same for Radical Betty. The GG did recover and has never showed any subsequent signs of Lyme.

Weather update? It got up to 89 today (not 92). I snagged some shelling peas at the farmers market at 0-skunk-30 and was home by 7:20 or so maybe? A cloud layer kept Mr. Golden Sun from keeping us hot most of the morning along with breezes. Persistent winds allowed me to keep the Landfill doors and windows open all day. I felt cool as I shelled my peas in the back yard.

I am glad that the local NPR stations didn’t broadcast those BEEP BEEP BEEP weather alerts for a 92 degree day three days before it happened. They did that a few years ago. It kinda freaked my daughters out, like will mooom be okay. Yes. She will. 92 is not allll that hot and there are many ways to keep cool and if all else fails, moom can turn on the central A/C. Which she may have to do on Monday when she will be working.

What annoyed me about the radio this time was all of the suggestions for how to keep cool in hot weather. There are many ways for Michiganders to do that on our extremely few 90-plus degree days and most of us know how to do it if we have the means. Dunking into Lake Superior water will cool you off quick but most people don’t have access to Gitchee Gumee, including me when I’m on the Planet Ann Arbor. There are people who don’t have access to air conditioning in their homes. I didn’t have A/C in my home until about 20 years ago. It was horrible when the beach urchins were small children and we had a heat wave.

We were lucky to have a big backyard with a plastic kiddie pool. And a cool breeze just rolled through so I am ending this blather now.

G’night. KW

Which is cutest, the black widow spider from a couple days ago (South Carolina) or this red eft from the Adirondacks?

I’m not sure what a “heat dome” is but it seems one is heading our way. It is supposed to last five days. I will probably have to turn on the Landfill’s central A/C to get through this one. I hate turning on the A/C. It means I have to shut everything up and can’t hear the birds and insects and whatever is going on outside. But I’ll do it if I need to. Of course, the stuff going on outside today was garbage/recycle/compost trucks thundering through the neighborhood and a neighbor getting their house power washed…

I don’t really have much more to say today. On hot nights like this weekend promises, I remember filling a KMart type kiddie pool with cold water in the back yard and bathing the baby beach urchins and washing their hair in there. Almost like bathing in Lake Superior but a whole heckuva lot smaller. My (late) brother observed an episode of evening beach bathing one time and asked why his kids were not included. What can I say? Ask your wife. (She thought the water was dirty… Not.) Okay, I am riding my blahgging edge posting this.

G’night. Randomly watching Murder Bot episodes. Wonder if the GG would be interested. They are short. Kinda like Joe Pera but not anything near the same content.

The GG was looking at the Landfill driveway via a webcam last night and the title is the question he posed to me when we talked on the phone. Um… We danced around that a little bit and he couldn’t figure it out. I finally said, “I WANT YOU TO USE YOUR BRAIN TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION FOR YOURSELF.”

Answer: Oh, it’s Joan’s car😵‍💫 Ding ding ding, you win the booby prize.

Yes. Remember? You drove Joan out to the Adirondacks in Mooon Yooonit and she left her car in our driveway. (Men🤣)

I then told him that what I should’ve said was, “It’s my boyfriend’s car.” He replied, “But that would be a pickup truck.” Um, how long have you known me? I have never had a boyfriend with a pickup truck. I am not really attracted to men with pickup trucks (the GG knows that) although who knows, maybe I’ve just never met a pickup truck guy with the right chemistry for meeeee.

My second high school boyfriend used to sometimes pick me up in the Blue Goose, his family’s ancient “International”. I think that’s what it was. I think I even drove it a short distance once or twice. It wasn’t a pickup truck. It was a behemoth. Seven kids in that fam, six beautiful girls and BF, right in the middle. His dad more often drove his Toronado and BF owned a little Gremlin that he usually drove. It had an 8-track tape player and we used to play Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” as we drove around Sault Ste. Siberia. “Arguing” (don’t ask) about which one of us was closer to 18. I was 17. He was 19.

But I have no boyfriend and am not interested in one at this stage of the game, pickup truck or not.

So it rained a lot overnight and a few more times today. After a few hot days, I was chilly enough this morning that I put on a polarfleece vest and I’ve had it on all day. This weekend is supposed to head up to the goddamn 90s. I am not a fan.

And no the picture doesn’t go with the title.

I’m talking about the Air India plane crash except I’m not really even talking about that, not exactly. I’m remembering the 1987 crash of flight 255 here in southeast Michigan. It crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metro. A 4-year-old girl was the sole survivor. My daughters at the time were two-and-a-half and a few months. Was I freaked out? Yes yes yes yes.

If you live in my area, there has been a lot of talk about that incident since the Air India crash. And a lot of it is incorrect. For instance. When the girl was found alive, a woman (strapped to her seat) was found on top of her (something like that). Everyone jumped to the conclusion that her mom had positioned herself that way to try to save her child. Nope. When things got sorted out, it turned out to be a random stranger. When something like this happens, my brain, despite me trying to get it to shaddup, usually tries to imagine the chaos of the interior of a plane going down. I don’t think the people on that plane had any more than even a few seconds to think about anything, even pray or whatever they do. I think it was sheer bedlam and total panic and who knows how that woman landed on top of the young girl. (I know the girl’s name but I’m not going to name her. Y’all can do the google if you want.)

Also, I’ve seen multiple comments from people who say there have been THREE catastrophic plane crashes at Metro in 30 years or so. Nope. I’m sure there have been incidents in which smaller aircraft have crashed or whatever or individual people have died. Those kinds of incidents are tragic but they don’t take up the news cycle for multiple days. I don’t remember anything else where hundreds of people lost their lives and the google doesn’t turn anything up either.

So. The girl, according to all accounts, doesn’t remember the crash. She was raised by her aunt (mom’s sister) and uncle and they WISELY kept her completely out of the spotlight. A few years ago (can’t remember how many), she was included in a documentary featuring sole survivors of plane crashes. I believe she did talk about some of the emotional stuff involved in losing her family all at once and I don’t know what else because I don’t really want to watch it. The important point is that, as an adult, she could make the decision to participate and control her own narrative.

Here on the west side of The Planet Ann Arbor, the Landfill is under a Metro flight path. I can hear a jet as I write this. At this point in the flight (arriving or departing), planes are very visible but far enough above that if you aren’t outside, you usually can’t (or don’t) hear them. I enjoy watching them pass but not as much as I enjoy watching lake freighters thrumming along up and down the upper St. Marys River in front of the moomincabin.

The pic is a black widow spider and her babies. I did not take the pic. Although it might be a simple point-and-shoot, it feels artistic to me. I just hope the photographer didn’t tangle with it. If they had, I’d’ve heard…

A text sometime mid-afternoon alerted us (me and beach urchins) that the GG and Joan were back in an internet service area toward the end of their three-day backpacking segment. They begin a second backpacking segment tomorrow, two days this time. After that it kinda sounds like smooth sailing with friends (trail angels) hanging out at their campsite cooking and whatever.

It is hotter than Hades here on The Planet Ann Arbor albeit only in the 80s or so. I’m seeing predictions for 90s on the weekend. I may have to turn on the central A/C for some of that. At least we aren’t getting weather alerts. It’s summer. It gets hot. Some summers are hotter than others. The summer of 1988 was 90s and 100s for days on end. My then baby mouse picked up the roseola virus that summer and there was a day when her temperature (104) matched the outdoor temp. We didn’t have central air in those days (we don’t usually need it) and I actually sat in a kiddie swimming pool with her in the back yard. Counterintuitive but it somehow cooled her off without making her sicker. (104 is a high temp but typical for roseola, which is not normally dangerous to healthy children.)

Quite randomly, my brain dredged up the old Tom and Jerry Ice Mice cartoon today. Click if you dare.

It’s only the first part of three and it ends abruptly. After some exploration, I found where I could download episodes (and whole seasons). I downloaded ONE episode – Ice Mice. I do not need every episode of every season of Tom and Jerry.

One of the beach urchins was totally enamored with Tom and Jerry (mostly Jerry). I’ll let you guess which beach urchin. I had an uncle Jerry and at one time we were going to a party with the MacMu relatives and when I said something about “Jerry”, she was amazed. “His name is JERRY?” Like how could there be somebody in the world besides a cartoon mouse whose name is Jerry?

Of course, when I sent a link to the nuclear fam, a beach urchin replied wondering if there was something going wrong at the Landfill. A flood of mice or water in the Landfill Dungeon perhaps? No no no no no🤪

Like I said, I am getting some outhouse pics.

I have an overnight guest tonight, if you can call the GG’s identical twin a guest. I was idly chatting with my new colleague today and mentioning to him about the overnight guest. His wife, like me, is shy about house guests. I replied that I totally understood that because I get angsty about overnight guests sometimes too but not the UU. I have spent so much time with the GG and the UU at Hoton Lake, both at the Moldy Old Cabin and the new place. At his house or our house and the moomincabin.

We sat outside for a ‘hattan and then for a very simple dinner, which was chicken thighs, wild rice, asparagus, and salad.

This is one of the moments I am missing my parents a bit. When we bought this house, we made sure there was a place for them to sleep during their frequent visits from the yooperland. At first it was a double bed in what became the first beach urchin’s bedroom and then when there were two beach urchins, we bought a fold-out couch in the back room for them. Full circle, now we have a bed in what we now call the spare bedroom. It’s from my parents’ house and we can pull a second bed out from the main one to make a double bed of sorts.

You know those stupid t-shirts that say “Grandma (or whoever) went to Florida (or wherever) and all I get is this stupid t-shirt.” The GG is in the Adirondacks and all I am getting is outhouse pictures. This is actually a very cool outhouse, a personal camping outhouse. I bet no vampires or werewolves are hanging around outside with blood dripping from their fangs. Like they did at my childhood outhouse.

I am not complaining about the outhouse pictures. I greatly enjoy them. I do not expect to receive a lot of scenic pics from this junket. They are taking a LOT of photos but most of them are of signs. Because they are doing an intense mapping exercise on a part of the North Country Trail that goes through the Adirondacks. Our friend Joan is the brains behind all of this. The GG is pretty savvy with all of it but Joan grew up in the area and knows it well. The GG is a mainly a support person. Other people are also involved as “spotters” (helping them get to and from Mooon Yooonit). These “trail angels” also provide food and shelter (and showers!) and someone is hiking with them today as they embark on a three-day backpacking segment of the trip.

I felt oddly “weird” (lonely?) today so I tentatively reached out to an uber busy beach urchin with a plea. Lunch? She obliged me and we ate at The Griz. I can’t explain the “weird” exactly but I’m okay now and I greatly appreciated the lunch. And. I managed to exit the parking lot without trouble😵‍💫

By all accounts I was not needed at the No Kings Day protest here on the Planet Ann Arbor yesterday. I am glad so many people showed up. Our friends of porterization were there with signs. They sent a pic. I didn’t quiiite understand “uncuff” on one of the signs but eventually I think I got it. JP can be tricky😉

My beach urchin didn’t attend the protests either although I think it’s safe to say on here that both beach urchins are totally anti-Trump, like their baggy old moom. She is uber-busy with her work and other enriching activities. We were totting up all the stuff that was going on yesterday on The Planet Ann Arbor. The protest. Juneteenth (speaking of, do I have tomorrow off? Prob’ly not but I should check). Start of the A-squared library summer program (she had books to return and the downtown library was slammed), and oh, yeah, the farmers market. Every Saturday.

The Planet Ann Arbor is a great place to live.

Not to be confused with spelling bee season, as some people have🤪 I was up early and down at the farmers market when it opened at 7:00 AM. I was playing a game of chance. Will anyone be selling shelling peas? Or will it just be sugar snap peas, which I don’t really prefer. It seemed a wee bit early in June for shelling peas but I scored some! I will be back buying more for the next few weeks. I may even chance the Wednesday market.

I didn’t really need anything else today since I’m trying to empty out the refrigimatator before the summer boomeranging begins and I have no one else to feed for the next week or so. It’s a never ending battle😵‍💫

I did not go to the local No Kings Day protest even though I soooo hate Trump and his sycophants and acolytes and other random smarmy hangers-on. RFKJR anyone? I don’t really have any words for my absence. Friends and neighbors did go. I just didn’t feel like going? I don’t like large crowded events from the get-go. It was Saturday. I don’t work on Saturday and choose my activities carefully. Shelling peas was one of the things I chose to do today. Zen… Trump et al cannot be gone (again) soon enough for me but I don’t think my presence at a protest will make much of a difference.

I will NEVER NEVER NEVER understand The Orange Baboon’s appeal to all of the unwashed masses he DOES NOT CARE ABOUT. Again. Who does Trump care about? If you answered “himself”, ding ding ding, you win the booby prize. And it is the booby prize because even though you got the correct answer, you still have to live with this asshole wannabe dictator running our country.

A random memory from my childhood *before* the I75 SUV Speedway was built and we traveled from the yooperland to Detroit et al to visit relatives. We were often on two-lane highways and when the National Guard (stationed in Grayling) were on the move, we struggled to pass slow moving convoys of MANY vee-hickles, camo-clad national guard soldiers hanging out the back of the trucks, no seat belts anywhere. It became much easier to pass those convoys when I75 was completed to the yooperland.

It struck me today that the Michigan National Guard issued a statement to inform people that if they saw long convoys of military vee-hickles traveling today, it was not related to Trump’s [stupid] vanity parade. It was guardsmen being transported home from Grayling after a couple weeks of intense training sessions. Those sessions are not new. They happen every year or whatever. Just please don’t jump to conclusions when you see military convoys. Trump is awful but military exercises happen all the time, since way before Trump. Please fact check what you are seeing.

Love y’all, KW.

This is meeee in junior high. I don’t remember the occasion or the venue and neither does the photographer, The Beautiful Mimi, who took this with her Polaroid camera. It was on a photo board at a class reunion (40th maybe?) and I grabbed a pic of it with my iPhone.

I so so so wanted to be a party girl, in with the in crowd, etc. I was not. I was a nerd. I am still a nerd but I long ago learned to OWN being a nerd. I am also more popular as an adult although I am an introvert and pick my social activities carefully.
But being a nerd in junior high (7th-8th grade in an ancient rattle-trap building in a perpetually economically depressed northern outpost city) did not equate to being a popular party girl.

The gal to the right of me is Cindy. When I entered junior high, I wasn’t put into classes with the friends I had known since birth or Sunday School or grade school. I kinda didn’t know anyone. Cindy was new in town and this *new girl* befriended *meeee*, a third generation child of a prominent local family. I don’t actually remember a whole lot about our friendship but I remember how sweet and funny she was and I was sad when she moved with her family the next year. I think her dad was a pastor and probably had different postings.

My journey into whatever popularity I have as an adult began on the bottom rungs of boyfriend-ism. You’re a freshman and somebody says a cute sophomore(!) guy likes you and you are gobsmacked and he gives you his big Indian head ring (that you have to wrap with yarn to fit it onto your mini-finger). People notice you differently? Maybe? Or were they already noticing you but afraid to approach you? Maybe… Anyway, he eventually breaks up with you, which breaks your heart but you meet somebody else and somebody else yadda yadda yadda. You gain bits of confidence throughout all of this and learn how to deal with men… Eventually you hook up with the GG who gives you children and a wonderful family of in-laws and helps you take care of your mother when she is at the end of her life. My parents and family were/are wonderful but my small northern outpost city was difficult to grow up in, especially as I was always expected to be somebody who I sorta was and sorta wasn’t. It’s very complicated and I am still trying to figger it out.

I still love the Indian head ring guy but just as a memory. He has a good life and so do I and we are long over each other.

So here I am, a popular woman when I do interact with people but I don’t usually because I am also a huge introvert with social anxiety. In the end, this is all just a bunch of navel gazing🐸

My head is spinning today with all the crapola on the news. Trump has a way of mangling everything he does in such a way that many many people get hurt. And then sometimes he has to “claw” things back. Our taxes are paying for him to do all that. Do all y’all MAGAts care?

The thing (out of many) that happened today that is sticking in my mind is only indirectly related to Trump. It’s how a US senator was “taken down” to the FLOOR by security forces of some sort for wanting to ask Kristi Noem (Ice Barbie* and Dog Killer*) a question. I know it’s not quite as simple as that. I’ve seen some videos and I don’t totally know the whole story. But why is our country employing citizens to throw other citizens to the floor anyway? There’s gotta be a better way. Oh, I forgot, the Orange Toddler is in charge. If you are angry, just throw it. Throw it anywhere. Ketchup on the wall, roight?

Inside that and all the other stuff spinning in my head was the zen of writing html. html is not a *programming* language. It is a *markup* language. There’s a difference. I am “teaching” my new colleague html. I have been coding html for 30 years. I’ve been getting *paid* to code html for 18 years🤪. When I have a project that requires me to code html, I am a happy camper. Even if it’s just boring changes that happen in a bazillion places in our high fidelity product prototype aka “the demo”. That kind of work frees my mind to work on other stuff. Kinda like **LSD might except in a controlled way where you don’t jump off balconies (see Forrest Gump).

So the fun thing about today was not that I was writing/editing html. I wasn’t. I was coaching my new colleague through editing html. He has some really boring html to edit and it happens about a gazillion places in the demo. I was feeling a little worried that this would be really boring for him. But. At the end of the day I received a message saying something like, “Don’t laugh at me but I am really enjoying editing html.” OMG! As they often say in the Handmaid’s Tale, “Praise Be!”🙏 Happy html coach here and by the end of all his “boring” editing, he is going to “grok” a fundamental aspect of our product. Because he’s gonna be thinking about it the whole time he’s doing a bunch of boring edits. Been there done that. And coaching him is also zen for me because he is soooo good at picking things up and even getting ahead of me.

*I know I am name calling.

** Here is the Moody Blues singing about LSD.

I did finish the last season of the Handmaid’s Tale series last night by watching the last two episodes. They have been out for a few weeks but I held off partly because I know the GG is not interested, not even one little bit.

It isn’t a big marital argument or anything and he doesn’t care what I watch. Or what I read or listen to on the radio. The only thing that bothers me about the radio is when I get into Cygnus and the radio is tuned to MAGA radio and I have to tappity-tap it back to NPR. Which he claims is “communist” but he also *listens* to lots of stuff on NPR🤪 Oh don’t worry, that communist stuff is just a dig at me and my “social justice warrior” views, which I have decided to OWN. Yes. I do care about people who are not as privileged as I am or are “different” in some way. Although I am not really anywhere near the top of the “heap”, not by a long shot, and am plenty “different” myself but being a baggy old white somewhat intelligent working woman makes it hard for people to discriminate against me. Well, except that I am a WOMAN.

It’s just easier to watch stuff like Handmaid’s Tale when I am “Mom Alone”.

I watched the end of the series with mixed feelings, which I am still processing. I am verklempt that it is over. I also *read* the sequel (by Margaret Atwood, the original author). It was totally different than the series. She wrote it well before the series was in full swing. I liked the book. At first I thought the series might follow the same arc but it didn’t. I liked the arc it did follow although it took me a while to get there because I wanted it to end like the book sequel ended.

The end of the series… I LOVED some of the things that happened. There were some loose ends I wish were tied up and weren’t but that’s how a lot of books and shows end up. I am resolving myself to think that is okay. I think the author consulted in some way on the series. If it’s okay with her, I guess I can make it okay with me.

Is the USA heading toward a Gilead situation? No probably not. At least not exactly but I am terrified at a lot of the directions our country *is* going in.

Back on earth (from TV land), those tents are the GG’s and Joan’s on their first night hiking/mapping a part of the North Country Trail in the Adirondacks.

I was thinking my boring blahg of blather today might be what some of the National Guard and Marines that have been mustered to do whatever crazy stuff the TACO (aka Trump) wants to do in LA are thinking. And anywhere else someone wants to protest against his stupid self-aggrandizing crapola.

But I got into an interesting little tech issue with photo-processing applications on my MacBook Pro today and that sorta precluded all of my thoughts. So many many many years ago, I had photoshop on my laptop. I was taking community college classes at the time and qualified for a student discount, which cut the cost down to about 10 percent, like about $300 instead of $3,000.

It was all fine and I used it even after I got a (good) job (and stopped going to WCC, which is a wonderful community college). And then. I got a new Mac operating system that didn’t support Photoshop so I started using a free photo processing app. I have used that for quite a few years now but it isn’t really working any more. So today, as I was beginning to write my blahg of blather, I wondered if I could buy PhotoShop again and, if so, how much did it cost. Yes to all of that so I downloaded it and here I go. Like Microsoft Word/Excel/whatever these days, it is a monthly subscription and I can afford it.

So I can’t quite yet write about what tRump is doing. I do wonder what is in the heads of the National Guard and Marine personnel who have been mustered to head to Los Angeles to possibly fight against their fellow American citizens. I’m sorry. I don’t agree. This is not a war. Our country is not in any kind of an emergency. Not all immigrants are dangerous criminals. In fact, I will bet that the percentage of immigrants who are dangerous is about the same as the percentage of lifelong American citizens. I might even point out that the mass shootings our country repeatedly experiences are most often perpetrated by white American male citizens. And those immigrants? 99% of them are coming here to mow your lawn and do your nails. (I stole that from the internet a long time ago.) C’mon, let’s kick Trump out. He’s just a narcissistic asshole.

One more episode of the last season of The Handmaid’s Tale. Am I up for it? We’ll see.

During the last couple years of my uncle Duck’s air force career, after his tour in Viet Nam, he and Radical Betty were stationed in upstate New York. Radical Betty had a Dutch friend she used to bicycle with and they would ramble along the back roads stopping for a beer here and there, her Dutch friend always saying that beer is good for you.

We have a lovely house guest over for the night. One that isn’t one of our daughters or the other half of the Twinz of Terror. Meaning clean sheets were definitely in order. Oh don’t get me wrong, clean sheets are always in order for guests but if the last guest was Lizard Breath and the next guest is gonna be Lizard Breath, I don’t usually bother to change the sheets. Same with the Terror Twin.

I made the eggplant parm that I can make in my sleep (from the original Vegetarian Epicure cookbook), pasta with pesto sauce, asparagus, salad, and garlic bread.

Tomorrow morning, our house guest and the GG are going to muster and head off on a trip to the Adirondacks to do some mapping on a section (or more) of the North Country Trail. It’s been a frenetic few days living with the GG as he packs and repacks and fixes the washing musheen, and who knows what else. Although I will miss him, I know they will have a great time and I wish them the best of luck. And it’ll be quiet here, hopefully, without a whole lot of negative energy. Except when I get riled up about whatever bullshit Trump says or does.

And I’m gonna be living on leftovers for about the next week.

I don’t frequently call out bdays on my blahg but here’s a shoutout to niece Pengo. I won’t tell you how old she is. She is quite a bit older than she was in the pic. She’s on the left if you couldn’t figger out the black and white face paint. Mouse is a “blue tiger”.

Youngest of my parents four granddaughters. Four and a half years younger than their first. The first one would be my super girl Lizard Breath (not in the pic). The second was my brother’s older daughter Val (not in the pic), two years later almost to the date. Lizard met her new cousin and then had her nose put a bit out of joint because her grandparents, uh, left. I asked Liz where she thought the grandparents were going and she said, “see new baby”. Nope. They’re going to Florida to see alligators and things. “Ckowp”, she said, making an alligator chomping noise (having been to Florida where she experienced “erderators” in up close albeit controlled situations). I’m pretty sure the grandparents visited us (and her) on the way back from that trip to Fla.

At that time, I was already pregnant with my mouse (in the pic), who was born six months later than her cousin Val. Two years after that, it was Pengo’s turn to join the fam.

We had thought about zooming with Pengo today but for whatever reason it didn’t quiiite happen. The GG aka the king of cryptic text messages sent a group text, “Pengo Hoppy Birthday! Be an aggressive driver this is Pengo’s birthday OK.” Be an aggressive driver? We figured out that his phone had somehow picked up something mouse was saying about an aggressive driver and inserted it into the message. Go figger.

Shish kebab (filet mignon, mushrooms, onion, green pepper), local asparagus, wild rice, garlic bread, salad (local ingredients) and that is about all I can remember. Time to hit the sack.

It was one of our wonderful cFam niece’s baby shower today. She’s the 18th of my parents-in-law’s 19 grandchildren and she looked fantastic.

The trip was an hour northeast of us over in “Cement City”. Don’t get me wrong, The Planet Ann Arbor has plenty of cement too and the northern suburbs of Megalopolis (aka Detroit), have plenty of trees. I enlisted a “designated driver” (my daughter) to chauffeur me in Cygnus. And I navigated our route via my phone. Although we didn’t get lost or anything, I did not do an elegant job of navigating. After we got there and I realized I’d been at this venue before (for the mom-to-be’s older sister’s baby shower, 17th of the 19 grandchildren), I decided that the GooMaps route might have been the shortest but not the best for us. It’s okay. We made it and I won’t even try to describe all of that. (For context, my daughters are 12th and 13th of the 19. And first and third of my parents’ four grandchildren, all girls.)

My social anxiety always makes these events difficult to anticipate but I KNOW and LOVE all of these people and there is no way I would have missed this, especially since the beloved (to me) mom-to-be lives on the left coast and we don’t see her often. And of course, not EVERYONE in the family was there anyway, because of distance or not wanting to spread cold symptoms or whatever. Those of us who did get together made the air buzz with our gabbling.

Lizard and I were seated with my uber sister-in-law TBG, who is married to the GG’s identical twin, one of her daughters-in-law, and that mom’s daughter aka TBG’s granddaughter.

Because all members of the cFam have experienced Houghton Lake and many have even experienced the Moldy Old Cabin there, the one with frogs in the shower in the summer, a fish fly discussion came up. This photo had come up on my memories this morning so I am posting it. This is fish fly season at Houghton Lake. These flies are TOTALLY harmless. They do not bite or sting and they live around 24 hours or so. But they freak some people out, like a few other harmless insects freak MEEEE out.

Toddler food fight at that. I’m “mad” so I’m gonna throw my food on the floor. Waaaaaaah! Toddlers don’t usually throw their food AT people. They just fling it in a random direction. Trump and Musk are flinging it at each other. And later in the day Steve Bannon seemed to get involved somehow. I had no words at that point, except “I DIDN’T VOTE FOR HIM.”

This food fight doesn’t surprise me. The only thing that surprises me is that it took as long as it did for it to happen.

The Trump/Musk food fight was rumbling on the radio in the background this morning and I was like WHUT? I mean *whut* happened overnight. I hate Trump and didn’t vote for him either time. I have never thought of him as an appropriate president of our country for many many reasons. The first and foremost being that (in my opinion) he only (only only only) thinks of himself. Do y’all (especially you MAGAts) not understand that? Why not? He’s a businessman is not a good answer. He’s not a good or honest businessman.

He was gonna make the price of eggs (and other stuff) go down on his first day of office. And end the (very scary) war in Ukraine on his first day. Are those the kinds of things that compelled you to vote for him? Why? Did you actually believe his f*cking blather? Why? When have the “billionaires” Donald Trump and Elon Musk ever done anything for YOU?

In other news, the GG spent the entire day getting the email on my MacBook Pro laptop to work *again*. He bought a new MacBook for himself on Monday. He couldn’t get his email to work so he tried to duplicate the settings for *my* MacBook’s email. And so my email stopped working. He must have changed something but we don’t know what. It’s fixed now (I think) but he spent the entire day on fixing it and the Landfill atmosphere was suffused with negative energy.

At the end of the day… We had had tentative plans for dinner at Dexter’s Pub. Instead we ordered Chinese. It was the right decision and we ate it in our beautiful back yard. We listened (happily) to the neighbors partying with friends in their back yard and watched a few bird fights. No kids were next door. I’m guessing the daughter was at a friend’s house. That reminded me of the days of my kids’ sleepovers especially when Mouse and Goose (who lived around two corners) had back to back sleepovers for nights on end during the winter holidays.

Bagawk bagawk bagawk!

Not blues. I’m excited for summer. We’re planning for summer now. People will be in and out of the moominbeach. Back and forth from the Planet Ann Arbor. By plane and automotive vee-hickle. I am totally excited about seeing my cousins etc. Just trying to help think it all through. I so wish the moomincabin was big enough to accommodate more people…

Here on the planet tonight we have been engaged in the arguments that come with marital discord or whatever it is we deal with. We have argued a bit tonight but not necessarily about politics, even though we TOTALLY disagree about politics. I am soooo not orange. What an asshole.

I dunno at all how we manage this but we do. He takes care of a lot of stuff I don’t know how to do like fixing cars and mowing grass and he is the main manager at the moomincabin. I listen to whatever radio I want to and donate money to the causes I care about and he doesn’t complain about that (even if he doesn’t agree). I earn my own money.

But we’re working on summertime plans. I’ll be here re-factoring ancient old-skool javascript code plus my regular prodjects for the next couple weeks, while the GG does a wonderful boondoggle in the Adirondacks with our friend Joan. After that we’ll figger it all out.

Here we go.