Random bits of my so-called life.

Yesterday, the GG spent a considerable amount of time with a young relative of ours who goes to college here on The Planet Ann Arbor. They were working on car issues and the GG was having a great time! This young man is my first cousin twice removed. His grandmother is my first cousin.

Encouraged by that, the GG reached out to a relative on the PacNW and was rewarded by a couple of photos including this one, which I have posted without permission from anyone. This young man is my first cousin once removed. His mother is my first cousin.

All of these folks have roots and property at the family moominbeach on Gitchee Gumee, which is where I spent all of my summers as a kid and as much time as I can manage nowadays.

Can you surf on Gitchee Gumee? There are places where people do surf on Gitchee Gumee. Not on our beach. We have shallow water in our bay with a couple of sandbars that we can easily walk to before the water gets “deep” (12 feet or thereabouts). When there’s a northwest wind, we get decent-sized waves that break near the sandbars and we can body surf on them or dive straight into them. The waves never get big enough to surf with an actual surfboard.

And that’s a good thing because there is rarely a “undertow” on our beach, the kind of thing that sweeps children under the water to drown. When my children and nieces were young I sat on the beach and counted heads while they swam (including the surfer in the pic when he was at the family beach).

Not sure if this surfer is ever going to want to live or even own his share of the moominbeach family beach property but however that all works out, he is always welcome here.

Subtitle? Are we spending enough money?

We ordered this over the weekend, at least a version of it. Ours is something like four feet shorter. I fergit how much it costs. The Pensioner tried to save $700 by not getting that upper row of windows. Ohhhhh, noooo you don’t! The more windows, the better.

If I could have my ‘druthers, I would want a fancier, sorta greenhouse-y shed but I’m okay with this one. At least I can stand up inside it without hitting my head on the “boom” or whatever that metal bar thingy is in the middle of our existing (half-destroyed) shed. And I think it might be big enough that we could maybe sit out there on a warm rainy day. And it has windows! With screens!

So, after giving that prodject the go-ahead over the weekend, I got up this morning and threw a load of laundry in. Everything was all right. I came back from my walk and put the laundry in the dryer. When I turned it on, it made the screeeeeeeeeeching noise it’s been making the last couple weeks. Wait, what? You are wondering why I have been ignoring this noise. I did notice the screechy noice but either forgot to report it to Mr. Fixit or did and he processed it as Random CIS XX Chromosome White Noise, meaning it went straight over his head with a great big whooshing noise. But couldn’t *he* hear the screeeeeeeching noise, you ask? Friends, it is my acute musician’s hearing that catches most funky noises made by mechanical beasties.

Anyway, 20 minutes into the dryer cycle, I was in the No Longer Blue But Still Only Bathroom aaaaaannnnnd….. The screechy noise stopped. And so did the dryer.

Although Mr. Fixit did in fact get the dryer going again, a new one is on the way. We bought this one in 1998 so it is time. I had to laugh when he texted to ask if I wanted him to pick one out. Yes, PLEASE! A couple of warshing musheens ago, I spent an interminable length of time in Big George’s appliances while the GG made the sales guy take apart every warshing musheen in sight so he could make sure that it didn’t have the same “controller” (whatever that is) as the existing one because he did NOT want to mess with that problematical part ever again. Why was I there? I do not know. I wish I could have that hour of my life back.

So yeah, go pick out a dryer. It is a *dryer*. I tend to use dryers on one setting. If I have items I don’t want dried on that setting, I hang them up to drip dry.

But. Ooooooooh! Some of my Random CIS XX Chromosome White Noise must’ve gotten through to Mr. Fixit’s brain because THIS dryer “has WIFI”! I THINK that means it can connect to Wifi and can therefore text me when it’s done!

First and foremost, we did NOT wake up to several inches of accumulated snow this morning. In fact, it didn’t snow at all and I don’t even think it rained that much. So much for weather hype. But this *is* the Great Lake State and things can get squirrely on short notice.

In the last week, I have read the entire Earthsea Trilogy. Most of my reading took place yesterday and today. I don’t get to read much during the week, lunchtime mostly. At the beginning of the first book, I was a little put off by what I was thinking was rather “stiff” language. That wore off quickly as I got to know the characters and made heavy use of the map to figure out where the heck “we” were going.

When I finished that last book in the “trilogy”, I had a couple thoughts for “what’s next?” in my head. One, a vague idea that the Earthsea “Trilogy” ended up being more than a trilogy. The second that maybe I needed a palate cleanser before reading more of Earthsea (or even Ursula). I looked up the next book in the “cycle” and decided it might be different enough to actually *be* a palate cleanser. Also I was thinking I was maybe trying to make myself adhere to some sort of KW-devised OCD “rules” about not reading umpteen books by the same author (except hello Outlander). In the end I banished my OCD to the dark shadows of the Landfill Dungeon (where it belongs) and downloaded the 4th book in the Earthsea cycle.

Yes, I am a fast reader (or can be if I’m not reading something mind-numbingly dense). When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, I was told I was reading at about an 8th grade level. Something like that. I’m not bragging and I wasn’t an “early” reader although I could spell my name and recognize words like “stop” (on stop signs), etc. I can clearly remember decoding words via phonics, etc., in 1st grade. The building blocks to reading were embedded in my head and I was right on time to take off.

Plenty of intelligent people struggle with reading as children and I can remember Mrs. Bishop (my uber-cool 2nd grade teacher) explaining to our class about how kids with dyslexia don’t always see letter shapes as other people do. This was cutting edge stuff in 1962 and I am impressed that she was paying attention to it and also that she was able to explain it to the class in a way that we (or I, at least) could understand it. She did this without shaming any of the struggling readers in the class, who may have had dyslexia or maybe some other learning disability.

I could rattle on and on about this but I won’t and you’re welcome.

G’night. KW

First and foremost. I love this pic of the UU but I posted it without permission and if he does not want it posted, I will remove it! Once upon a time, long long ago, he had a fugly photo of me and he crumpled it up and threw it in the garbage unasked. I appreciated that and will always remember it.

Today we dropped by a wondrous bday party. It was for our 3-year-old great-niece, who lives with her parents on the other side of The Planet Ann Arbor from us. We walked into the party a bit after it got going and there were a lot of young parents and their children there and I saw someone with a kind of dinosaur-looking outfit on. And then the UU (the child’s grandfather) walked in from somewhere and HE had this wondrous dinosaur hat on!

Apparently it was a dinosaur-themed party although at one point, the birthday child, adorned with a pink crown and carrying a pink flag sashayed past me declaring to anyone who might be listening that she was the King of [I didn’t catch what she was the king of]. She is definitely a Force of Nature!

It was really fun and afterwards we decamped down to the Griz for Saturday Lunch with Janel. She raved about my newly shorn hair and when I showed her a pic of the place I got it cut she mistook it for a dumpster at first. Of course it is not a dumpster, it’s a creatively re-configured space in downtown Detroit and I don’t know what it was before it was a hair salon.

Dinosaurs… When my older child had her 2nd birthday, I tried a dinosaur-themed birthday of sorts. The grandparents were with us but we didn’t have a bunch of friends and children. My child was interested in dinosaurs and we were reading books about them, so I bought a bunch of big plastic dinos for her. Problem? She opened TRex first and was so freaked out that she tried to wrap the package back up.

Okay, so you can see the main spine, right? Running along the bottom of the photoooo, there is a much smaller spine. Can you see that one? Based on the positioning of the little spine, speculation was that there was a third spine in there somewhere too. I can’t see that one and neither can you but there is indeed another little spine in there. A few weeks after this, the Twinz of Terror arrived and the earth (or at least the Great Lake State) hasn’t been the same since. And yes, there is an Excel spreadsheet behind the xray pic.

Don’t get me wrong, this xray was not the first evidence that Grandma Sally was carrying twins (numbers 5 and 6 out of 10). The doc had already figgured it out.

The Twinz of Terror celebrated their birthday together tonight at our neighborhood pub Knight’s. We had a table of nine. That included the UU’s son and daughter-in-law and their daughter as well as our own friends of porterization. I still don’t understand the lottery game we played but it was funny as all getout.

It is a riot to be married to an identical twin, especially given that the UU is married to a woman who has become one of my soulmates. And no, I do not ever get the twinz mixed up but that’d be a whole ‘nother blahg entry. When I first met the GG, I didn’t quiiiite believe him when he told me he had an identical twin. I was pretty much jaded about men at that time and didn’t really believe anything any of them told me. But I took a gamble and, on a trip to HL, his identical twin showed up (and a couple other sibs). I took a chance on the GG and the rest is history.

TMI? Maybe. The GG is all hot to get a new shed now that he has been talked into having a pre-made shed trucked in. So. KW! Dooya wanna drive out to Chelsea to look at sheds? No way. Driving home today was a looooonnnng slodge. I blame it on the upcoming UofM graduation ceremony(ies). I wonder how many folks have flown in early to hang around our beautiful town before Saturday. But I have flung some underclothing and I am not willing to dress up again.

More than a few years ago, one of the beach urchins moved out of the Landfill into a shared house down on Third Street or somewhere. Moving day coincided with UofM graduation. Obama was scheduled to speak that day and we all watched his helicopter arrive at the Big House. He was the president then and it was lots of fun to watch that helicopter arrive.

We have an egg in the robin’s nest over in the southeast corner of the main part of the house. Back in the day, they used to build nests in the corner of the house right where I liked to sit. The GG made us use the other back door so we didn’t disturb the robin’s nest. Thankfully these robins are nowhere near where I want to sit.

So I walked into Barry Bagels this morning to meet up with MMCB₁. There was NOBODY in there! Our fave counter gal was there to take my order (“medium house coffee to go”). Then she started raving about my newly shorn hair so we talked about that for a bit. Then… Dun dun dun… My subconscious somehow made me say something like, “We haven’t been in here for a while because MMCB₁ was in Australia for a month. I’m not sure exactly what made me say that but it seemed to be something like, “I wonder if she was thinking one of us died or something?”. I followed this up with something like, “She’s a globetrotter and I drive over to Cubelandia every day.” Yes I am an awkward conversationalist but this gal seems to like me/us anyway. Of course her main relationship to us is to take our coffee order.

When MMCB₁ arrived, she was wondering why the counter gal knew she had been in Australia until a light bulb came on, i.e., “Aha! You must have said something”. MMCB₁ has more upcoming trips but she will be able to meet next week when none other than MMCB₂ will be grandchild-free and will also be able to meet! Can I just say we are both excited since she hasn’t been able to meet for coffee since last summer or thereabouts!

And then the GG was all hot to build a new shed from scratch… Until we talked to his brother JimC at lunch yesterday. Not so fast… This is a man who has had a long career doing industrial construction work involving heavy equipment like cranes and things, which means he does NOT fool around when it comes to safety issues. He said (a couple times), “You don’t want to break a ‘finger’ or something.” Well, no.

And then today, he followed up with recommendations for decent, non-metal pre-made sheds. I like the shed with the clerestory windows and I am pushing for that even though it is $700 more.

That was my email subject to Amazon Woman and FZ this AM. What were the last minute plans? Well. It is FlaMan’s bday today (and my grandma Margaret too). I won’t tell you how old FlaMan is but it is one year older than me and his twin brothers. (My grandma would be 131 if she were still alive.) So my last minute plans were that we were meeting other family members to take FlaMan out to lunch and I would be AWOL from Cubelandia for a large part of the day.

The birthday lunch happened at Little Joe’s Tavern in Grand Blanc, just a mile or so up the road from FlaMan’s apartment. A couple other cFam sibs also showed up. Even with three of the cFam sibs over there on the other side, there are a lot of sibs.

The Lady of Linden brought her family’s birthday hat and the birthday boy wore it regally throughout the lunch. The LL snagged pics of him in it and then handed it over to the GG so she could get a pic of the GG (glasses on) and the UU (glasses off) in the hat since their birthday is Friday. This week of April is jam-packed with cFam bdays.

The Lady of Linden was four when the Twinz of Terror (GG/UU) were born. At that time, she had an older brother and two younger brothers and STILL NO SISTERS. With the Twinz’ birth that became FIVE brothers and NO SISTERS. She was NOT HAPPY, at least not until her parents bought her a new bike (or so the story I’ve been told goes). Eventually three sisters and another brother came along and the family became The Happy Dozen.

Today was not my birthday but I received a cute little gift anyway – Dollar Store Froog. As you can see, his eyes light up and they are solar powered.

We had a really fun time but as always, a trip to FlaMan’s can be a wee bit exhausting. Don’t get me wrong, we love FlaMan and it isn’t a problem. When we got home, I hopped onto my work laptop (that beastie needs a name) for a bit, just to finish some lingering textarea stuff up and chill out a little bit.

Omigosh, look at the time. I guess I need to get inside and wrangle some Easter leftovers into Gertrude for dinner. It’s not like we didn’t have a decent lunch! Salmon BLT for me and a bite of FlaMan’s complimentary ice cream sundae.

HB to FlaMan (and grandma Margaret) 🧡🧡🧡

So, this is the crappy old shed of Schoolkid WoodsP fame yesterday (before the floor got ripped up).

I will be soooo glad to get rid of this thing. Back in the Jurassic Age when we first moved in to this place and the first beach urchin wasn’t even born yet, I remember spending part of a beauteous rainy June afternoon sitting just inside the entrance to the shed. We were young then and I couldn’t get over myself for actually owning a house! I loved being able to say “my house” instead of “my apartment” in a sentence. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have a garatchkey. We could afford to buy a *house* on the Planet Ann Arbor and as many nights as I counted thousands (dollars, that is) in my sleep before we finally closed on this place, it really wasn’t/isn’t a fancy expensive place. But I still like it because it backs up to a woods and the neighborhood is nice (and “safe”) and walkable.

Over the years, the shed got filled up with crapola, some of it worthwhile crapola (bikes and sheds and yard implements for all seasons). Other crapola not so much (crappy old pieces of wood and things I couldn’t begin to describe.) I and/or we occasionally cleaned the whole thing out every couple of years but since that first day of rain back in June 1984 (yes), it has never been a comfortable place to hang out in.

The GG spent the entire day digging through the frickin’ clay in the Landfill backyard in order to build a new foundation for the new shed. He needs to dig up the clay now while it’s not cement-like, like it will be in June.

He also demolished the front half of the shed and hauled the metal over to a reclamation site that gave him $8.00 for it. We’re rich, roight??? No, we’re just happy to get rid of the metal. The “half-shed” will probably hang around until the new shed is well underway. It can store important tools, etc.

So the second pic represents @tmotu’s progress. We have to build a new foundation because city rules require certain distances from easements and whatever.

Me? I did not help with any of this at all. Instead, I went to Cubelandia and cleaned up a bunch of textarea tags on my work’s high fidelity demo. Do y’all know what a textarea tag is? I do. But we don’t use a whole lot of textarea tags and I was not sure what the f*ck was going on with most of them. Crazy css classes and strange attributes and whatever. In the end, I got on to the W3shool site and spent maybe 10 minutes figuring it all out. And then I cleaned up our demo. This was kind of a ridiculous prodject to undertake this morning but it had to be done at some time and I learned some things I didn’t know before and I felt like I had actually conquered something. It was fun and sometimes that’s all it takes.

Finally a beautiful warm sunny day. Easter. A lot of my Christian facebook friends exulted things like “He has risen!” As an agnostic, I am a bit skeptical about the religious connotations of the day but I did cook rather traditional Easter-type food and even bought some candy and it was nice to sit outside this afternoon and get so hot that I had to move into the shade. It’s been a while and just yesterday it was 42 or thereabouts and raining to beat the band.

I picked in and out of household/cooking chores all day. The Pensioner took the storm windows off, put my Ninja’s summer floor mats in and I dunno what else. And then he got going on the Shed Replacement Prodject. He called Lizard Breath and I out to the shed before he pulled up the floorboards. Why? Just in case there was a ‘possum underneath there. He has encountered that kind of situation before. Nothing was under the floorboards today, including skunks, thank you very much. Chippies were scampering in and out like crazy.

Easter dinner was ham from the Polish folks that come to the farmers market from Hamtramck. Their food is sooooo good! Everything else was from the Plum Market. Mashed potatoes, garlic bread, asparagus, morels and fiddleheads. Asparagus is not local quiiiiite yet (soon) and I dunno where they get the morels and fiddleheads. They are an Easter special and not cheap but what the heck.

It’s late (for me) and I’m kinda rambling. I’ve finished a whole bunch of books, some that I’ve mentioned in passing, some not so much, not that I won’t get to them later. A family/friends prodject in the works is to embark upon Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Trilogy. This will be a loose book club with as little or as much discussion as anyone wants. (And I know nothing about book clubs so don’t ask me what the “rules” are.) The trilogy will be a re-read for me because I last read it in high school or thereabouts and remember very little about it except that I’m not sure I understood it.

G’night! KW

I was up early this AM but we kind of slogged out of an early trip to the farmers market in favor of a bunch of cleaning chores and a grokkery run (for me). By the time we got down there it was raining cats and dogs and the place was slammed, which I knew it would be, which is why I *usually* get down there at 0-skunk-30.

Today, we had to pick up a Protective Fish, one that Victoria had repainted for us after a bunch of years getting beaten up by the weather up on the Hoton Lake Garatchkey. So we never really parked anywhere. The GG parked in a NO PARKING ZONE to go get the fish. I drove around the block. Then… I panicked about the food I have stashed for Easter dinner and decided to obtain a bit more. So… The GG hung out in a NO PARKING ZONE while I ran through the market to buy what I needed. No asparagus yet (but I knew that). It’ll be coming soon.

All of this happened in drenching rain so it was extra fun. After the market, we did a River Ride with the goal of eating lunch at the bar at Dexter’s Pub. Problem? The place was slammed! Apparently we were not the only people who wanted to go to the pub for lunch. So no seats at the bar, which was what we wanted. In the end, a nice gentleman who was sitting between two empty seats kindly moved over one and we had our pub lunch.

The pic is of two bloodroot plants still wrapped up warmly in their leaves. Credit to my Mouse for this pic (and permission to post it). The huge rain we had today and the sun and warmer temperatures we’re supposed to get in the near future will kick spring into full gear although I would not be surprised if Old Man Winter throws a few more snowballs at us. Yes, Michigan.

So what do you buy someone who has “everything” for their birthday? Actually, his birthday isn’t quiiiite yet but I gave him his new drudge toy early. It is a Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner.

When I came home from Cubelandia today, the house smelled like cleaning products (no Febreze, thank you very much) and the new purple vacuum cleaner had obviously been in use. I think it is a keeper. We’re adding it to our stable of vacs. Lemme see… A big Hoover upright vac, the Electrolux canister vac that my uncle used in his medical office back in the 1950s, a shop vac, Roooooomba, and there has got to be another one but I fergit whut. And now this one, cordless and bagless but able to easily reach difficult places to dust and eradicate spider webs and things.

Hey, I wanted to buy him a drone but he seems to be happy with a vacuum cleaner. What can I say?

First a Twitter play:

KW [surveying some household disorder in the Landfill Back Room]: We’re having actual guests on Sunday.

GG [tongue in cheek]: Then you better get going and clean the house.

KW: [aaah!!!]

GG: [silent giggling]

Exeunt.

Okay, I am lucky enough to have a good job (knock on wood) and I live with the loverly Suzy Homemaker.

Today Suze was two-and-a-half outta three.

1) It’s Garbage Day Eve and he met me IN the driveway as I arrived at home. He asked if I wanted him to take the bins down to the curb. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I would love that. But wait! There is a bag of garbage in the chitchen that needs to go out and a couple of recycling items. Ha ha! He was taking the chitchen garbage outside and complaining about how horrible the smell was. And then he remembered that the smell was Febreze 🐽🐽🐽. The sooner we get through those garbage bags, the better. (Or maybe I should offer them up on Nextdoor Neighbor and see if anyone wants them. For free. Hmmm…)

2) The dishes he used today were washed and air-drying in the bamboo rack. Most of them could’ve gone into Bertie to be washed later but I’ll take it.

3) Bzzzzt! I put a load of laundry in this morning before I took my 0-skunk-30 walk. I put it into the dryer before I left for work. When I got home, it was still down in there. But. Suze was only too happy to retrieve it for me so he gets a half-point for that.

Note that I can do any and all of these things myself with absolutely NO PROBLEM and often do and sometimes WANT TO. Today I was happy not to have to.

Oh yeah, that report? I am not surprised. That doesn’t mean I support the Orange Baboon. I think he is the worst president ever, not to mention human being. Yes there *are* some Bad Hombres out there and I believe the OB is one of them (although I doubt he is killing people or selling them into slavery). I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone with any kind of reading comprehension and critical thinking skills cannot sort through all of his Word Salad and Twitter Crapola to decipher his lies, gaslighting, and ugly swipes at people who disagree with him for whatever reason.

I cannot for the life of me fathom why any woman would be attracted to the Orange Baboon unless she was doing it for money. I would have to hold my nose to get within 50 feet of him (of course I’m sure he wouldn’t be interested in me either).

I am not a particularly knowledgeable person when it comes to polly-ticks. Although I am not religious, I do try to live by the Golden Rule I learned back in Sunday School at the Sault Ste. Siberia mainstream Methodist church. I see Trump through the lens of the Golden Rule and he is not cutting it in my not-so-humble-opinion. I hope our country survives his presidency and I hope he is a one-term president.

Love y’all, KW

So, I took the compost out a few days ago. I walked all the way out to the southeastern corner of the Landfill backyard, where the compost bin has *always* been. And. It wasn’t there!

This empty spot is where it was. Note that you can also see the back end of our dilapidated, tree-damaged metal shed. You know the kind. It’s where you store all kinds of cosmic debris if you don’t have a garatchkey (besides the front closet). Lawnmowers and other lawn tools, snowblowers and other snow tools, Sugar and Jealousy if they still exist, a big metal cFam thingy with a picture of a Marine (?) on it and a spray-painted swastika. I think. I am too lazy to walk back there and look right now. Or maybe The Pensioner [finally] got rid of it. I dunno. He tried to give it to Victoria of Protective Fish a couple years ago but she deftly side-stepped the offer.

A disclaimer re the swastika thing: the GG and his family are not Nazi sympathizers. His dad spent WWII in the South Pacific on the Hornet aircraft carrier. The GG has a few “oddities” in his “collection” and that is all I can think of to say. We have often joked that I’m just waiting for him to die to get rid of that thing. And that awful painting in the Freakout Chamber. AND THAT HORRIFYING MANNEQUIN in the Landfill Dungeon that freaks me out EVERY time I see it even though it has been around here for YEARS! Of course I do not want The Pensioner to die any time soon.

Anyway, I was nonplussed about the missing compost bin for a split-second and then I remembered that we (aka The Pensioner) are about to embark on a prodject to jettison the crappy old metal shed and build a loverly new one. I turned 180 degrees and there on the northeast corner of the Landfill back yard, was the compost bin. Note that we are not prolific gardeners but the compost bin does provide me with soil to pot my impatiens in. I’m remembering that the first thing The Pensioner did upon his retaaaarment was to rebuild our compost bin…

Sugar and Jealousy? They are cute little plastic sleds. Sugar is pink and what color do you think Jealousy is? One winter back in the Jurassic Age, I used to have to keep a bowl of warm water on the front porch so Sugar and Jealousy had something to drink. And once, after a big wet snowstorm, one of the beach urchins came home from school in tears. I was surprised because it was rare for one of my beach urchins to come home crying even when a tear-worthy event may have happened (“my eraser was stolen but I got it back”, [told to me in almost a whisper] etc.)

That particular day, the tears were real because a tragedy was waiting to happen. The kids had all made “snowballs” at recess and my beach urchin was terrified that someone would destroy her cute snowball (“others who are not girls”, no doubt). What did I do about this? Of course I saddled up Sugar and we went over to the schoolyard, loaded up Cute Snowball and hauled her home, where she proceeded to melt undisturbed in the Landfill front yard. I soooo miss those days.

P.S. I was about to spell “nonplussed” with a hyphen, i.e., “non-plussed”, but something the systems analyst (emphasis on “anal”) in me made me do The Google and I found out that it is not hyphenated in any way, shape, or form. I also wanted to make sure I was using the correct meaning and I was. I seriously doubt that “nonplussment” is a word 🐸

Oh yeah. Yes, almost everything is brown and kind of oogly around here these days. Give it a week or two and The North Shall Rise Again!

I’d post the pic of yer fav-o-rite blahgger wearing the household Tin Foil Hat but it is an oooogly of titanic proportions and I do actually have a bit of vanity going on so you get this beauteous crocus instead.

The Tin Foil Hat was specially hand-made by the GG in the earlier days of his re-taaaarrr-ment. Contrary to most of the Tin Foil Hat folks, I don’t reach for our Tin Foil Hat when Rush “Limbo” tells me to. I reach for it *before* listening to Rush.

Long ago a fellow (beloved) cFam out-law dubbed me “The Family Liberal” (that story is funny as all getout but it isn’t exactly internetable) so y’all are wonderin’ why I listen to Rush “Limbo”. Well, I don’t, at least not frequently. But on a recent trip up to the Great White North, someone else turned on Patriot Radio and I decided to listen to the old entertainer for a bit to see what kind of crapola he was gonna spew upon his fan base.

As it turned out, I actually agreed with some of what ol’ Rush was saying. I can’t remember the exact details but it was something about the Mueller investigation report. I have never believed that the Mueller investigation would end in a Trump impeachment. Frankly I don’t think Trump is, well, maybe “savvy” is the best word, enough to “collude” with Russia unless the “collusion” involves a new Trump tower. So I didn’t hang my hopes on the investigation to get rid of the Orange Baboon. I’m with my new fave politician Nancy, “he isn’t worth it.” And will someone *please* define “collusion” to the OB (and his base) and educate him/them about the fact that it isn’t a legal term? Labels are important!

What I did NOT like about the “entertainment” was the nasty inflammatory language Rush was using to rile up his fan base. We all need to be *talking* to each other and such language only serves to divide us further. For example, I want to know why the “Trumpers” feel so threatened by immigrants. To my mind, these “convoys” that approach our southern border largely consist of bedraggled, desperate people trying to escape horrific living conditions, like many of our own ancestors did. And when the Orange Baboon says stuff like “our country is full”, I don’t believe he is basing his statements upon facts. I don’t know what the facts are but when I hear people refuting his reckless statements, they are generally speaking calmly and citing statistics, not ranting and raving about anyone they disagree with.

Sorry about that. This started out with our first crocus and a tin foil hat and turned into a stream-of-consciousness rant. And that made me remember that during the couple years my brother was alive to read my blahg (and occasionally guest blahg), he liked when I did incoherent stream-of-consciousness stuff. I wonder if he wouldda liked this one or what he might’ve thought almost 14 years after he died. He didn’t always agree with me about politics but I think he may have listened to my views. But. Missing you tonight, brother…

So, I was uncharacteristically nervous about driving down to Detroit on Saturday. It’s not like I haven’t droven down there about a gazillion times before what with visiting various people incarcerated at the good old Henry Ford Hoosegow for days on end.

It was *partly* because when I go to Mexicantown, if I miss my exit, I will end up on the Ambassador Bridge, which means I am going across the border into Cananananada. I have never missed that exit but people do and it is not as easy to return from an accidental border crossing these days as it was when my old [late] friend Ozone Bob drove up to Sault Ste. Siberia from someplace in the northern lower. He *forgot* that he had crossed the Mackinac Bridge (which connects Michigan to Michigan) and so when he got to the International Bridge (which connects Michigan to Ontario, Canada) he paid the toll and crossed it. When asked at Canadian customs, “What do you have to declare?” He replied, “Paraphernalia! I don’t want to go to Canada!” The paraphernalia was for his head shop and Canadian customs simply turned him around without making a national incident out of it. I’m thinking Canadian customs called American customs and said something like, “We’re sending this guy back. We didn’t want him in Canada.” I’ve heard that it isn’t all that easy in this day and age of “terrorists” and “gang members” and various other “Bad Hombres” that the Orange Baboon seems to think are thronging our borders. But I managed NOT to go to Canada. I got off an exit or so early at Vernor Highway and I know my way from there.

But really, what I was nervous about was the Dreaded Dashboard Lights. I had no reason to be nervous. The Ninja is getting up there in years but it (knock on wood) purrs along like nobody’s business. And so it did, all the way to Detroit, all over downtown Detroit, and all the way home to The Planet Ann Arbor. No Dashboard Lights, no matter how many times I nervously checked the dashboard.

Guess what? The GG was rattling around in the Great White North all weekend in the Frog Hopper and THAT vee-hickle lit Dashboard Lights and was running “rough”. He managed to limp home this morning and GUESS WHAT!?! The Subaru dealer cannot get the Frog Hopper in for a MONTH! I cannot believe that for the price we paid for that vee-hickle, they can’t provide better service than that.

It’s okay, he is taking it to somebody else that works on Subarus. There are plenty of people around here that do. But boy oh boy am I annoyed. If I have any real say about our next chosen vee-hickle, which is coming up sooner than we want it to, we will be buying a[nother] Honda. Never a problem getting into Honda for service. I mean, if there weren’t other shops around here that can work on Subarus, what were we supposed to do? Rent a car for a month? No.

I know that the Notre Dame Cathedral story is (so far) the story of the day but did anyone see the Killer Cassowary story? You’ve heard of “Florida Man”? This is “Florida Bird”. Maybe with a bit of “Florida Man” thrown in given that the man owned a cassowary? Sorry that he died but jeeze. And the cathedral story is horrific but not too surprised that it lit up like it did, given all of the ancient wood in that place.

That describes the weather today. Rain/snow/whatever. Other people in the lower Great Lakes area are posting pics of actual snow. Ninja had a wee bit of wet snow on her veeeendsheeeelds but that was about it. We always get a few days like this in April. I am totally wallowing in the fugliness! I jumped around in the early AM and got my walking and gas/grokkery-getting out of the way early so I could get settled in with my book and all the xwords I’ve been hoarding all week before Sunday Morning Jazz started.

I got to see one of my beach urchins over @Plum and, I impulsively handed her some cash to “go do something fun”. The beach urchins do not need money from me. Yesterday, the other beach urchin paid for my haircut and subsequent lunch. That was a xmas gift that I didn’t cash in on earlier because it had to happen on a Saturday and I didn’t want to have to cancel a scheduled haircut if a blizzard or ice storm happened that prevented me from getting there.

Handing out random bits of cash is a tradition I guess I am carrying on from The Commander, who would occasionally spring a $50 bill on me during her later years. Once I was standing at the counter in Barry Bagels and somehow DROPPED one of her $50s on the floor. A fellow patron alerted me to that fact and, as I picked it up, I laughed, explaining, “$50 dollar bills come from my mother.” He said he wished she would give *him* a $50 bill too, which was particularly funny because I think he was a lot closer in age to my mother than to me.

Oh yeah, I had a coupon misadventure. I am not a coupon user (except for the electronic ones that come with the @Plum app) but somehow some Meijer coupons came in the mail for products that I actually buy, I mean like *all the time*. Dish detergent, terlet paper, laundry detergent pods, and whatnot, all of them *brands* I actually buy. Okay, so I will use the coupons.

Problem. Do I know how to use coupons at the UScan? No I do not. My method involved swiping the item, then immediately swiping the coupon. Then after I “swope” the next item, the musheen would get confused and tell me there was an item on the scale that didn’t belong there and was I using my own bag. I was in fact using my own bag but said bag was in my trolley, not on the scale. That meant that the cashier had to come over and jumpstart the musheen to get it going again.

The second time this happened, a light bulb came on in my head and I asked her if my coupons were contributing to this problem. Yes, yes they were and she instructed me to save my coupons until the end. I made sure to *thank* her for being so friendly and patient with me, obviously a complete Coupon Klutz! The uscans were SLAMMED this morning and she was running all over the place fixing all kinds of problems for people. Grocery store cashiers deserve to be paid a LOT more money!

Thanks to “Morgrat” (Margaret), I am reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and LOVING IT! In fact, I am not far from finishing it but I had to put it down in order to get dinner ready… Even though… I am eating solo tonight… So dinner amounts to heating up leftovers…

In terms of hair, that is. I have a *lot* of hair and it was reeeaaallly long and driving me NUTS. My fave Hair Perfectionist cut a lot of it off today (she even cut a lot of it off before she washed it, why bother washing hair that’s gonna be cut off anyway🐸) and I *think* she even thinned it a bit in the back. She told me what I sorta already knew, that my straight-looking hair is pretty dern curly underneath. Which is probably why it looks scraggly so much of the time.

So, getting a haircut these days also means a drive down into the “Motor City” to meet up with my own beach urchin who discovered this Hair Perfectionist. She has moved her business to a new location since I last got my hair cut and this is what the building and entrance looks like. Ringing a doorbell is necessary to gain entrance to this black box.

The next pic shows what the place looks like *inside*. I have no clue what this building originally was. It now resides on an open piece of land surrounded by The Casino and other large structures. Detroit is such an interesting city…

After my haircut, we parked at MOCAD, where my beach urchin has worked for a number of years, and walked a couple of blocks to the Motor City Brewery for beer/whine and pizza. I always hand my car keys to Lizard Breath when I go to Detroit and let her drive me around so it wasn’t until today when we *walked* from MOCAD to Motor City Brewery, that I realized they were two blocks away from each other…

I don’t really understand the road/freeway geography of Detroit. As a young child, I rode in the back seat of my Detroit grandaddy’s Cadillac when we visited them on Mark Twain Street. Nowadays they have a great-grandchild who lives in Mexican Town and she drives me around, albeit not in a Cadillac. Worlds collide a bit for me albeit softly.

Nevertheless, I did manage to navigate the trickiness of getting on to the correct freeway to get me back to The Planet Ann Arbor. And going down to Mexican Town, I managed not to get on to the Ambassador Bridge…

I am not at the beach and I am kinda puzzled that it looks like there is a bote on the beach. I thought all of the botes were in the garatchkey for the winter but I could be wrong. Anyway, since me and the GG take care of the botes and this bote in particular is *ours*, there is no reason for any of the fainting-type Fin folk to get their underwear in a bunch. The bote will be fine and North Shall Rise Again. Soon!

Oh man, I decided to “work” from home this afternoon. Was I productive? No way, Jose. I totally got myself distracted. In part by finishing the book Middlesex. Wow! I have no clue what I want to read next. I will make up my slack time by putting in some time working this weekend but how do I follow that book?

When I was in high school, I learned definitions for terms like “communism”, “socialism”, “democracy”, “republic”, “monarchy”, “dictatorship”, and others. I also learned all about the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) and how that division kept our government’s balance of power.

Nowadays… I could probably remember how to solve a quadratic equation if my life depended on it. I definitely know how to structure almost any kind of writing assignment and that’s largely how I make my living (don’t refer to this blahg as a shining example of my writing).

I do not remember a lot of the civics/government lessons of my youth. I so wish I did. I wonder how many folks my age remember their civics/government classes. Some of them prob’ly do but they also may not remember how to solve quadratic equations.

What does communism (or whatever system you want to talk about) mean and how does one decide that this or that American politician is a communist (or whatever)?

I do NOT like the Orange Baboon, not one blasted little bit. I really don’t like the kind of person he has always shown himself to be and I think he is a terrible president but I will not label him as, say, a racist (among other things). Whether or not Trump is racist, I am not sure that labeling him as such is going to help those of us who cannot stand him to get rid of him.

Please, please, please, everyone. When you click over to news articles on facebook, please do not share them without reading them and thinking about them and the language they include.

Oh, and this is April in the Great White North. This pic is from the GG up in Gaylord. I am home on The Planet where there is no snow.

Love y’all, KW!