Random bits of my so-called life.

This little red squirrel and her buddy chase each other all over the yard and up onto the deck constantly. It can be quite the commotion. She seemed interested in the impatiens momentarily but ultimately didn’t bother them. The impatiens are absolutely amazing this year but that’s beside the point. Last year Heinrich (snowshoe hare) or maybe some deer ate them.

Later on, I was inside doing something in the moominkitchen and there was more commotion on the deck but this time there was a kind of a big bang. Like bigger than two little red squirrels would make. I didn’t check it out though. I went back out on the deck to read and then Le Marquis approached, which started up a commotion on the ground below the deck. What the heck is that? It was a wounded bird. A grackle I think (read on).

Apparently it had hit the western picture window. This happens quite frequently but more often than not, the bird is stunned but comes to in a bit and flies away. This bird was not able to fly. I watched it flapping and fluttering along the ground. When I last saw it, it was out by the shed and another bird was watching over it. Its mate maybe? Ugh.

I didn’t see it after that but a few minutes later a whole flock of black birds flew overhead. Merlin told me they were grackles.

People on the Planet Ann Arbor are always asking on next door neighbor (which I love to hate) what to do with injured birds and aminals. I. Did. Not. Do. Anything. There are a lot of wildlife rescue outfits down on the planet. I don’t have a clue what is available in the yooperland. Plus. Could I catch this bird? Probably not, the way it was flapping and fluttering around.

I do feel bad though. I hate to see any living being (except moe-SKEE-toes and biting flies) suffer and die and I have no doubt this bird will die if it hasn’t already. Maybe this bird got a proper send-off from its mate(?) and that whole flock. It was bizarre and I wish I knew what was going on.

Sigh. I started nodding off during the Trumpian party convention last night. What little I heard was BOOOOORRRRING. As I was driving around the eastern yooperland doing errands this morning NPR filled me in on the details. He has not changed and I did not miss anything. I won’t tell you how many times listening to this I said “F*CK OFF” or “What a bunch of SHIT” or “YOU ARE AN *SSHOLE” or whatever. Since I was the only person in Cygnus X-1, I don’t think anyone cared? But tonight I’ll tell y’all a moomincabin story instead.

Okay, so a few nights ago, I mobilized to hit the sack. I took a short turn through the moominkitchen and found THESE little (dead) buggies in the dishpan. I do not know what they are but I know that they are not a threat to humans. They do not sting or bite or anything. They are very fragile little buggies that probably don’t live more than a day in the best of circumstances. The moominkitchen dishpan is not anywhere near the best of circumstances.

Okay, there is a hatch of some sort. How are they getting in? Oh yeah, the back door is probably ajar. And I was right. Bad pic but maybe you can see some buggies. On the right of the pic. The shelves on the left are a reflection.

The back door is tricky, as are many things about the 60-something-year-old moomincabin. If you don’t consciously shut the back door, it doesn’t shut itself. Except sometimes it does. If it does shut itself, sometimes it SLAMS. I have explained this to various folks not familiar with the quirks of the moomincabin. I always say something like, “if you hear the back door slam, it’s probably slamming itself. It doesn’t mean somebody is mad at somebody. Not usually anyway.”

So in fact, the back door was ajar. I don’t mind if it’s ajar during the day but I definitely want it to be closed tightly for the night. I mean, a bear could probably open it even if it was closed tightly but it’d be a lot easier if it was slightly ajar. Or an insect hatch could make its way inside. So I pulled the door shut.

The last pic shows the back door in daylight. It’s the door to the left, at the “end” of the kitchen. The door to the right is the “front” door. To the left of the kitchen is the mini-hallway that leads to the mini-bathroom and my childhood mini-bedroom, which I am mostly sleeping in this summer, sharing it with a water heater and various detritus.

I don’t want to talk or even think about politics tonight. But one of the things I am struggling with is the crapola I’ve been hearing about how various people (some of them elected officials, like the Texas governor maybe?) are stating that “God” kept Trump from being killed last weekend because “God” wants Trump to be our next president.

BULLSHIT! Sorry about the capital letters but if the Republican Trumpian party can write its “platform” in capital letters, I can write BULLSHIT in capital letters. Trump randomly turned his head and mostly missed the bullet.

One of our country’s founding principals is supposedly religious freedom. To me that means that people are free to practice whatever religion they believe in. Or none if they don’t believe there is an entity that mindfully created our universe and actually CARES about us lowly humans on the lowly Planet Earth. As I have said before, there may be some entity somewhere who has created all of this stuff but I doubt that entity cares about our lowly planet with its churches and mosques and temples and henges and whatever. All religions are human constructs to try to make sense of what we (humans) can’t make sense of. They are all fine as long as people don’t try to use religion to control other people.

I’m done with politics tonight although I seem to be settling in to the Republican Trumpian convention again. What the f*ck will Trump say?

But okay, today… Laundry, Pat’s Grocery, work (where I and some others found out – surprise! – the whole company has a day off tomorrow), an afternoon trip to the Bay Mills Indian Community farmers market (tomatoes, cucumber, and stromboli from the the former owners of Karl’s Cuisine). Followed by an evening with the cousins at the Old Cabin.

What if God was one of us? (youtube link). “Nobody callin’ on the phone. ‘cept the pope maybe in Rome.”

This photo is from last night. It looks like a storm is coming through but it was a plassover if anything happened all. I was down there pulling the umbrellas out and stashing them behind the bench since the wind had increased.

I am hoping we are at the end of a Three Day Blow but not sure. Three Day Blows are typical here on the southern shores of Gitchee Gumee. This is the third day and I am kinda hoping to wake up to a bit quieter day tomorrow. This was also the coldest day of the blow but we are supposed to warm up into the 70s tomorrow.

I have not paid much attention to the Republication convention today. Thankfully most of the NPR talk shows were focused on other things, in one case whales! Now though, coverage is starting for the evening. Unity is a theme? Unity for who? Those who want *everyone* in our country to come together and sing peace songs? Or only those who support Donald Trump and his stoopid Word Salad? Once again, the Republican party is NOT the same animal as the party my parents voted for when I was a kid. It has shifted so far to the right (and to craziness) that my parents wouldn’t recognize it. And in fact my moom at least did NOT recognize it in her later years and became an avid Obama supporter.

I am rambling. We are spoiled by yet another beautiful sunset tonight but I am not gonna try to get a pic. Laundry in the morning and a mini-grock run to Pat’s down on Easterday and Ashmun, which used to be the A&P when I was a kid. Maybe they’ll have utility beer there (Bell’s Two-hearted). Meijer has been out of it for a while except for bottles and I do not wanna mess with bottles up here in the yooperland. And so good night.

I am feeling a bit calmer today (knock on wood). “I am at the cabin. I am at the cabin. I am at the cabin.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

I did not sleep all that well last night. I mean I slept mostly through the night but woke up at 4:45 or whatever and never did totally fall back to sleep, not even into (the sometimes dreaded) REM sleep. Was it raining? I could not exactly tell. Okay, so… I got up to use the Water Closet. Did I bother to walk the 5-10 steps into the kitchen and out to the back door and turn on the back deck light to LOOK and see if it was raining? No, I did not. I trundled back to my little cot and checked out various weather apps. It was not raining. Except it actually was because then I could hear it and it was wet along the edges of the deck when I did eventually dredge myself out of bed. BTW: I sleep pretty well in general but when I do have one of those Batscope Hour nights, I long ago learned to just roll with it. If I don’t get a full night’s sleep, the next day is pretty much the same as the days *after* a good sleep.

And at this time of year on the moominbeach, 4:30 AM is not really a Batscope Hour because by about 5:00 AM, the seagulls are calling out at the island and the sky is getting light. A month from now, the seagulls will be gone and it’ll still be dark at that time.

On my lunch break today, I looked at Marine Traffic and saw that the FANCY cruise ship Viking Octantis was upbound from the locks. I managed to get down to the beach to get this pic.

When I was a tween and young teenager, we used to water-ski in our bay. A few of our parents had speedboats that could pull water-skiers (not my parents though). Once I was recruited as a “spotter” in “Toot juniors” bote. The spotter’s job is to let the bote driver know if the skier falls so they can be rescued. On that trip, the bote driver (Toot) had his head turned totally backward to watch the skier (my job) with a huge smile on his face. Meanwhile, we were heading straight to the island at high speed. Absolutely terrifying! We’re gonna hit the island!

Somehow we didn’t but I think I refused to spot in Toot’s bote ever again.

P.S. “Toot” is “Otto” inside out and Toot/Otto was a fellow Veteran Greenhorn with my dad.

I had to look that up. It’s been a long time. Not that I was ever a cheerleader. I was a cheerleader wannabe for a while as a tween/young teen but my body does not really flex in the ways that a cheerleader’s body needs to. I could sorta do some of the stuff cheerleaders do (cartwheels, splits, etc.) as a kid but it didn’t come naturally to me. I was envious of those popular girls until I decided I wasn’t.

About all I can say about the polly-tickle situation right now is a great big UGH! I am unable to process any of it. Today was a work day but the radio was rolling in the background all day because my ADHD won’t let me concentrate on the complicated stuff I have to analyze, design, and write about without brain micro-breaks. Actually I do not have ADHD at all, that was kind of a joke, probably a bad one. But I often have to approach things in bits and pieces until I get to the point where I’ve internalized a project enough that it flooooows. Radio or word puzzles help me. Micro-dosing, if you will, without the LSD.

So what does Trump mean when he says he is fighting? Who is he fighting for? Besides himself, that is. What are his weapons? Word Salad is certainly not an effective one. It’s all empty rhetoric to me.

What I want in a president is someone who is capable of analyzing issues (with the help of some actual Subject Matter Experts) to come up with solutions that move the country forward. Incrementally if at all possible. Drastic change with its unintended consequences rarely works out well. I realize our country has a lot of problems but I don’t think we should use a sledgehammer to solve them.

I will refer again to immigration, which seems to particularly rankle Trump (whose ancestors were immigrants). Mass deportation on his Dictator Day? How could that possibly go wrong? I believe there need to be some rules around immigration. I do NOT believe all of the “open borders” BS. I believe we need to treat immigrants with compassion. (And not tear their children away from them.)

We need a president who can work collaboratively on complex issues like this, not just wield a big battle axe. Now. If we actually need to FIGHT. Like wage war. We do need a president who can be strong enough to make difficult decisions. But I do NOT mean a “strongman”, which I think Trump is trying to portray himself as. To me, strongman means authoritarian rule of some sort and that never turns out well.

I am quitting now because I don’t feel like I’m making much sense at this point. As I said at the beginning, I am unable to process much of what’s going on.

My cousin Pooh took this pic and I did not ask for permission to post it so asking forgiveness instead. I’m kind of at the end of my rope tonight. The UU drove up today and he and the GG attended some sort of woods medicine training in Sault Ste. Siberia. They took the training in order to qualify to lead hikes st the 2024 North Country Trail celebration at the end of the summer. Not to mention that they have been leading hikes for umpteen bazillion years. On my advice, they managed to figger out how to take the “back way” to Clyde’s Drive-in for lunch.

Tonight we grilled steak and corn to go with mashies and broccoli and sat outside to eat. The neighbor-cousins came over afterward to hang out. We talked of cassowaries and 10-foot snow drifts and all kinds of other things.

Love y’all and g’night, KW.

I kinda wanted to blahg about Big Abe and then the whole Trump shooting came up, which I knew I couldn’t make enough sense of to blahg about. In the end, a third choice came up and I went with that.

Gladys Kravitz that I am, I sorta keep track of who drives up and down the two-track road behind the moomincabin. The Grinchie drives in and out multiple times per day. The Red Truck drives back and forth multiple times per day. I don’t think it is road worthy anywhere except the two-track but I could well be wrong. And there are other vee-hickles of various description. One of them this summer has been a beautiful Blue Truck.

I was surprised when the Blue Truck pulled into the moomincabin/Old Cabin parking lot tonight. But I knew it was a friend or relative so we went out and sure enough it WAS, and so we helped them park. Two other vee-hickles also parked in our “lot”, including Cap’n*queen*Leila’s. C*Q*L is DRIVING and she wasn’t even involved in the whole GG’s Driving School for Children in The Indefatigable (because she wasn’t born yet).

The occasion? One of the family triplets (my first cousins twice removed aka my cousin’s grandchildren) was getting engaged tonight in a surprise event on the beach. I mean they had a private engagement after which umpteen bazillion family members jumped out of the woods (and some of them into the water) to celebrate. The surprise element is why people were parking in our lot.

We were not formally invited to this event (which was A-okay) but since we live right next door, we ended up down on the beach to give congratulations to the newly engaged couple and hugs to various cousins.

Because the GG had his “Let’s Go Brandon” t-shirt on, I felt compelled to repeatedly make disclaimers that we live in a politically divided house and I do not support MAGA. Maybe my tie-dyed t-shirt already made that statement but you never know. It isn’t that I care what other people’s positions are, just that I in NO WAY want to be construed as pro-Trump/MAGA and I feel the need to separate myself from anyone sporting pro-Trump/MAGA crapola, even though I love the person and have lived with them for umpteen bazillion years. That said, I do NOT support violence against any political candidate, including Trump.

When this shipping channel navigational structure was erected, Radical Betty called it the Fickle Finger of Fate. I have never been exactly sure what she meant by that. After all these years I’m still not all that sure what it really does. I think the freighters don’t really need buoys and other navigational structures any more. But what the heck do I know.

Lizard Breath being a relatively new talker, misheard fickle finger as pickle finger and that has been its name ever since.

The GG put the motor bote in the lake this morning and went all over the bay and channel including over to Brimley and Bay Mills and out to the pickle finger. It was a good day for the bote.

After my brother died, his widow and I and one of his then teenage daughters took off in kayaks and sprinkled some of his ashes in various places, including The Pickle Finger. From the Pickle Finger it is between a half mile and a mile straight shot back to the beach. It looked like a storm was brewing and his daughter’s energy seemed to be flagging a bit and I was a little worried about her. We did make it back to shore (and I can’t remember if there was ever a storm or not). The Commander was waiting for us there and declared that there would be no more kayak trips to the Pickle Finger. Of course there *were* more trips out there but she was right that we were riding our edge by going that far out in kayaks in potentially bad weather.

This pic is not from today and I sure wish I could find the one of The Commander out there on the eaves brushing pine needles off but I can’t so you get this one instead.

Suzy Homemaker, aka the GG WASHED THE MOOMINCABIN WINDOWS today. Boy oh boy did they need it. He even did the upstairs windows although, as I said, he did not go out on the eaves at least as far as I know.

I was in the moomincabin chitchen waiting for our leftover dinner to finish heating up when I heard Joe talking on the radio. I knew he was doing a press conference tonight but I hadn’t realized it had already started. We had just started the Derry Girls series last night and I knew the GG wanted to watch the second episode during dinner. Well. Wait. I wanted to hear Joe for myself. So I asked that we wait to start the episode so I could listen to Joe.

I am pro Joe but admit I wanted to hear him for myself. In our politically divided house, I am thankful I wasn’t given any flack about that. So many women throughout the world are not allowed to have their own opinions. I am VERY fortunate that I am able to think for myself, educate myself, work, vote, and own my own goddamn car, etc. I want that for every woman in the world and don’t want to lose my own rights and privileges.

Joe finished and we finished eating and we were just settling in to watch Derry Girls when I spied our neighbor-cousins coming across the way. So much for Derry Girls for tonight and that was okay.

I dunno what the pundits (and crackheads) have said about the press conference but my own opinion is that Joe did just fine tonight. He seemed to be on point to me. I liked his answer to the question about why he didn’t act as a conduit to a younger generation. I think all of us (including Joe) agree that our presidency needs to be handed off to the younger generations. Just that this is not the moment to do that, with an extremely dangerous authoritarian threat to our democratic country.

I posted this plant a few weeks ago and she was looking a little sad. I am not a good plant mom from the get-go but I was doing pretty well with this cute little one and I am pretty attached to her. But then we were gone for over two weeks and I forgot to engage a plant sitter to check up on her.

I asked a beach urchin if she would temporarily adopt my little plant. She is good at nurturing plants and has a number of them and I knew she would know how to care for mine. Yes yes yes! And look how well she is doing! Thanks to L and C for taking care of her!

In other news, we had another foghorn morning with a little (I mean a *little*) rain and moderate northwest wind with temperatures in the 60s all day. Good day to work from the moominbeach and I worked on an archaeological dig ALL day. My “local” NPR station is in mid-Michigan and I knew there were rainstorms around that area but I didn’t really think about the Planet Ann Arbor, even though the folks at my morning stand-up meeting were talking about them. Out of sight, out of mind?

Today’s rain (in Ann Arbor, not at the moominbeach) was undoubtedly an artifact of Hurricane Beryl. We had a similar phenomenon after Hurricane Ike but I was *on* The Planet Ann Arbor for that one. It is the only time our basement has ever gotten the slightest bit damp and it also set a smoke alarm off a few times.

So the next bit is a little odd. The GG noticed that the webcam at the Landfill had stopped working, indicating a probable power failure. I looked it up on the DTE app (lucky-shucky/gas utility down there) and it wasn’t clear whether there was an outage at the Landfill or not. I am not a fan of the latest upgrade to the app’s interface but we won’t go there because boring and even though I do user experience design for a living, I’m not sure I could’ve done a better job 🐽

Anyway, I opened up my laptop to write my blahg and checked my email and voila! There was an email from DTE telling me that that our METER had notified them that power had been restored. Since I didn’t even know the power went out, I had not notified them. I am pretty sure the DTE app isn’t lying to me because I haven’t seen umpteen bazillion complaints on Next Door Neighbor about power outages. At any rate, there isn’t anything in the freezer we can’t afford to lose. What remains of the precious peas I shelled in my own back yard are here in the moomincabin freezer. Next year I am gonna buy twice as many peas.

Oh man, sorry about that long higgledy-piggledy entry yesterday. I was Moom Alone and had the radio rolling through the background of my work day. And yesterday was all bad bad news to someone who does not want Trump back in office. Today I was heartened to hear that Big Gretch (who I totally support) supports Joe and I’ve heard some other folks have backed off a bit on calls for his demise. But we’ll see…

Yesterday was a “hot” day. I mean in the 70s somewhere, not 120, like Las Vegas has reported. We don’t EVER get anything near that here, not even 100, but if we’d had that here, I would’ve spent my whole day immersed up to my neck in Gitchee Gumee, one of the earth’s biggest air conditioners. But it was hot enough that I replaced the glass windows with screens in both moomincabin doors and opened a lot of windows. And we ate on the deck.

The GG likes to “take the edge off” so he had buttoned everything up by the time I was ready to go to bed and I was not a happy camper. It wasn’t exactly *hot* inside but I wanted air-flow. Fortunately, I have it in the “back bedroom” (once my childhood bedroom) where I can open two windows, one at my side, the other at my head, both just barely above my bed. Bliss. At least in mid-July. I have slept in that bed wearing Smartwool leggings under my nightshirt in my sleeping bag with a comforter over it.

I got this kinda fuzzy pic of the waxing crescent moon after we watched the penultimate episode of Fargo and before we crashed out for the night. This morning I woke up early to the sound of foghorns in the shipping channel. Looking at the Marine Traffic app, three freighters were out there. Somewhere. They certainly weren’t visible, hence the foghorns.

Some people are disturbed by what they might call mournful foghorn sounds but foghorns are comforting to me. When I was a young child snug in my little bunk bed (in the back of the moomincabin where I am sleeping this summer but not in a bunk bed), there were stationary foghorns out in Whitefish Bay. Nowadays the ships just blow their own horns. They have high-tech ways of knowing where other freighters are but need to warn small botes that might be in their vicinity.

I think this quote from February is where all of the current political chaos started. I can’t write about this complicated situation, at least not eloquently, so I’m not gonna try very hard.

But I want to know a few things. If y’all get Joe to step down, who are you going to run in his place? Kamala? I have nothing against Kamala but I don’t think she would beat Trump. I mean, I’m not even sure Joe can beat Trump at this point.

A lot of my MAGA buddies (yes, I have some) are terrified that “it’ll go back to the Obamas.” As near as I can figger, that vague statement seems to mean some sort of black magic will happen and Michelle will become president. This puzzles me to no end because that I know of, Michelle has said over and over and over that she has no interest in the presidency. So where the f*ck is this BS coming from? The so-called Deep State? And what the heck *is* the Deep State? [Don’t answer that.]

How soon is the Democratic convention? Pretty soon, right? I don’t know a whole lot about the 1968 convention. I was not very politically aware back then except maybe for “stop the [Viet Nam] war” and “lower the voting (drinking) age”, issues that affected meeeee pretty directly. But google that convention if you dare.

Why is no one talking about Trump and his constant spewing of lies, not to mention Word Salad? Cognitive issues? This drove me NUTS in 2016 and it seems like I’m only hearing other people *occasionally* talk about it now. Why is he being taken seriously?

Do y’all really want to vote for a guy who wants to be a dictator? Do you have any idea what it’s like to live under the whims of a narcissistic person? I do not, thanks to the fact that the generation before me fought to eradicate Nazi fascism. I don’t want to go back there. And yes, I believe Trump when he talks about being a dictator for a day. That scares the sh*t out of me, but even scarier is imagining him deciding to continue his dictatorship indefinitely with all of his yay-hoo “base” supporting him. The Q Shaman? The Proud Boys? No thanks. Then, when he dies, would we end up with “Baby Trump”? (Remember Haiti’s Baby Doc?) Is that what we want? Really? Why is he being taken seriously? Yes, I intentionally repeated that question.

I do not want a dictatorship, even for a day. As messy and slow as democracy is, I would rather keep the status quo. I do NOT think Joe has dementia. The debate was horrible but he doesn’t sound like that all the time. He sounded SICK! I mean with a debilitating cold virus, not Alzheimer’s. And his opponent is a narcissistic lunatic.

Okay, this entry is kinda all over the place. It’s not because I have dementia, it’s because these are all really complicated issues and I’m a relatively uninformed but very concerned citizen writing a quick blahg entry, not a book. And the lawyer who made the quote in the title had no business stating an opinion like that. He is not qualified to comment on someone’s mental status.

Love y’all, even my MAGA friends although I wish you would expand your information sources, not to mention hone your critical thinking skills. G’night from the Shores of Gitchee Gumee. A few MOE-skee-TOES but not terrible.

Back when I and my brother and cousins had young beach urchins, there were often moments of “strife” or whatever you want to call it. “Strife?” Yes. The strife that happens when multiple families with children share a small space, even for a short time.

Radical Betty, who spent many summers (but not all because she and the family were in Alaska for a while with her Air Force colonel husband) in the Old Cabin with her sister and their children, would gnoff and gnoff about the craziness that sometimes happened over there. She would say “shades of the past” when we would kvetch about whatever we had going on with our children and their cousins.

Here at the moomincabin, we are GREATLY enjoying watching my cousins and their children and grandchildren. My cousins’ children are my first cousins once removed and their grandchildren are my first cousins twice removed and my children’s second cousins once removed) Need a picture? Oh Granddaddy what the heck did you start here? Whatever it is, it’s good. We got The Engineer’s (my late brother) Tonka trucks out and some other beach toys for the young cousins to play with. Good to see them get some use.

The moomindeck provides a bit of respite for those who need to chill out and today it provided entertainment for a two-year-old who was insistent on visiting the “other” cabin. Which is the moomincabin. This sweet kiddo has figured out that the Old Cabin and the moomincabin are deeply connected and it was a total riot to watch and listen to him. He especially likes the door. Doors in general, I’m told. We don’t share the same language quiiiite yet but we will soon enough.

The pic is from a few nights ago when we put The Cranberries on Wonderboom (our pod). Delores O’Riordan committed suicide a few years ago (pre-covid) and we were here when we heard the news. This music was MAJOR for us when the beach urchins were teens and tweens and we would be rambling around through the northern lower, usually over by the beautiful Jordan Valley. Usually but not always in The Indefatigable (1992 Jeep Wrangler).

I had to take this pic before the GG took a MUCH NEEDED shower. He is sporting a North County Trail “blaze” on the bridge of his nose. I posted this photo on facebook and it has gone “viral” in a minor way.

The GG and Lizard Breath took off this morning on a junket to paint blazes on the North Country Trail north of Tahquamenon Falls. I was looking forward to a day of space-ification so I could “reset” the refrigerator, etc. Some next door cousins interrupted that for a bit but I love them and was HAPPY to hang out with them for a while.

The GG and friends are always working hard on keeping the Hiawatha Shore-to-Shore section of the North Country Trail in good shape but they are working extra hard this year because the annual NCT “celebration” will be held in St. Ignace this year.

People sometimes wonder why we, who live on the Planet Ann Arbor, are volunteers with an upper peninsula North Country Trail chapter. Well, it’s because I grew up here and thanks to my parents and grandparents, still own property up here. When I am talking to people I don’t want to get complicated with (like my boss, etc.), I just say, “A hundred years ago, my grandfather bought a beach and we still have it.” It isn’t that simple but it’s close.

Years ago, we hiked the NCT for the first time. We got lost a few times. Kinda scary when you are hiking in the woods and can’t find the trail. After that the GG ran across the Shore-to-Shore chapter. Most hikers are introverts so getting to know these folks was a bit awkward at first but they became wonderful friends. It helped that one of the group knew The Comm and Radical Betty. Our NCT chapter has been very active over the years and our section of trail is now actively patrolled by an enthusiastic group of volunteers who paint blazes, lop hanging branches, and chainsaw fallen logs and things. To be clear, our chainsaw folks (including the GG) are trained and certified.

I am not the worst bathroom cleaner in the world but my older beach urchin is much better than me. She scrubbed the heck out of this little space today, even behind the terlet where it is perennially damp and therefore always a little scuzzy. I hate cleaning behind there soooo much that I avoid doing it. She did it with *many* paper towels. This surprised me a bit because my beach urchins, like most millennials (or whatever they are), do not like to waste disposable things. But sometimes a little waste is worth less gross-osity, especially if you are cleaning a 40-something year old bathroom with the original linoleum floor tiles, which are 60-something. But paper towels? Note to self… You are never too old to learn new tricks and sometimes you learn them from your children.

So we built this little seasonal cabin the summer I was six and this room was NOT a bathroom for many years. I’m trying to remember if my brother maybe slept in there in a crib at first but my memories are cloudy about that. We did have bunk beds in the room next to this (to the left of the pic). For many years, it was a storage room that we called the Little Room. We also used it to change in and out of bathing suits or pajamas. The moomincabin “walls” are all partitions with space at the top so you could climb on things and “peek” over the partition at the person changing🐽 Sibling shenanigans. I mainly remember the Little Room as being a very crowded little space with a lot of STUFF in it.

I was in my twenties when The Commander finally decided to convert the Little Room into an indoor bathroom. I am *thinking* that decision more or less coincided with her gaining a daughter-in-law (aka my brother’s wife, now widow) but I may be misremembering although I could probably look it up. The GG (who I was “with” but we weren’t married yet) would probably not have cared if there was indoor plumbing or not but I was ecstatic after all the years of using an outhouse and bathing in the lake at 0-skunk-30 before work*. Or bumming showers from neighbor-relatives.

A standard sized tub/shower would not fit in the space so The Comm did some research and decided that a recreational vehicle fixture would fit the bill. As she was shopping for one, most of the folks who sold them acted like she was crazy but eventually she found someone who would *listen* to what she needed and that is what we have to this day. I’m sure a lot of today’s fancy RVs have much more elaborate fixtures than this simple one but it has always worked for us and continues to do so.

*Mr. Drysdale, my boss at the Tempo discount department store when I arrived with wet hair once: Did you go in the lake this morning? 🤣

I’ve been attending the annual Piedy 4th of July party since forever. The first one I can remember featured a cookout behind the Piedy/Mac Old Cabin followed by a huge beach faaaar during which the much older (than me) Piedy boys launched Roman candles over the lake. Scary and exciting at the same time.

It has long since turned into a potluck and I always make lasagna, joking that it’s the only thing I know how to cook. We use this little “trailer” of The Commander’s to transport the lasagna down the beach to the party location. This is an old pic. The beach is quite a bit wider this year and there isn’t that much seaweed. Also it was not foggy today.

As much as I love the Piedy/Mac clan, as a friendly introvert, I spent quite a bit of time today storing up social energy. I was reading on Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench this afternoon when a lovely young woman in a white bikini came waltzing along and plopped down beside me on the bench. It was none other than Cap’n*QUEEN*Leila! All grown up, in high school and with a job, no less.

When her family lived next door a few years ago, she would visit frequently. I think she especially liked hanging out with the GG in the garage or one of our motor botes. He’s a lot more fun and kid-friendly than yer fav-o-rite blahgger. Then they moved a few miles down the road and COVID happened and we have only had short visits with her in the last few years so it was wonderful to sit down and talk with her a bit today.

Social anxiety or not, I also enjoyed the potluck, a highlight being talking to “B”, the Piedy friend closest to me in age. Along with others, we got going on the hilariously jury-rigged water and sewage systems our families have used over the years, beginning back when there weren’t really many rules for septic tanks and drain fields, etc. Running water from your uncle’s well via a garden hose? Not even to mention the outhouses. How many holes? One, two, or three? 🤣🤣🤣

So today. First thing I dropped the GG off at Gladys Crossing for a bug-filled hike from the moomin to the Soo. I continued on to Meijer where…

I was talking to myself while navigating my cart between another customer’s cart and a Meijer stocking kind of cart. “Can I get through here? Yes, I can!” A friendly produce worker engaged me in conversation, telling me that this week was the Soo Meijer’s biggest week EVER! I was apparently lucky to be oot and aboot on the early side although 9:00 AM is not really early for me.

Back to the moomin to prep dinner for today’s anniversary event. Filet, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and corn on the cob.

Back to town to meet up with the GG at Wicked Sister, a great lunch as always. Then. Back AGAIN to the moomin where the GG took a nap in the back bedroom.

Cousins began arriving at the Old Cabin almost immediately after we pulled in from our lunch trip. More are expected tonight and tomorrow.

Porterized for a happy hour, hearing far-away thunder. It was way out in Whitefish Bay and turned out to be a “plassover”. A “plassover” is a storm that looks very threatening but goes by to the north of the moominbeach across Whitefish Bay. The Commander and Radical Betty used to call those “passovers” but one day they’d had a wee bit more of a beer lunch than usual and RB turned it into a “plassover”.

The earlier storm (in the pic) did turn out to be a plassover but we may still get some stuff tonight.

Via my mouse, who is checking The Landfill, MY BALLOT HAS ARRIVED! YAY! Mail has been so crazy lately I was a bit worried about that.

I am still too discombobulated to write anything about yesterday’s supreme court bombshell. Except that it really wasn’t a bombshell, was it?

Let’s see if I can make any sense talking about posting the 10 commandments in classrooms. Without writing a “book”, that is.

Putting aside the notion that it seems to be an egregious violation of separation of church and state for a moment… What are the powers that be looking to accomplish with this? Besides possibly shoving Christianity (more on that in a minute) down young students’ throats. Do they expect the students to READ the 10 commandments and suddenly grow halos? When is the last time you’ve been inside an elementary school classroom?

About Christianity, I will first reiterate my usual disclaimers that 1) I grew up attending a mainstream protestant church but 2) I have never believed in a religion. I’ll add a third one here: I am not a religious scholar. Driving up to the yooperland the other day after I *finally* (after three years) figured out how to switch radio channels on Cygnus without taking my eyes off the road, I stumbled across a very interesting segment on an NPR program.

On this 20-minute program segment, a number of actual religious scholars were consulted and quoted. I’m not talking about fire and brimstone preachers or medicine show snake oil “healers” or pedophile priests. I’m talking about people with PhDs who have spent years of their academic careers studying religion(s) in depth and are better equipped to analyze religious texts than your average politician. And YES, people who study religion to such a high degree are very important to our understanding of global culture. Don’t argue with me, MAGA. I am right about this.

The gist was that many versions of the 10 commandments exist. Not all of them are the ones us “Christians” were taught. Like just about everything else in life, there is a lot of room for interpretation. Different words are used in different versions. “Thou shalt not kill” vs. “Thou shalt not murder” was one example. To (sorta) paraphrase one guest, “There’s no point in posting a document like the 10 commandments in a classroom if you aren’t going to teach it to the students within some kind of meaningful context.” I’m not sure what Louisiana has in mind but I doubt that’s it.

That’s the GG in the pic and NO he has DEFINITELY NOT sprouted a halo🐽 It was warm enough to eat on the moomindeck last evening and that’s what we are doing. With Mr. Golden Sun behind us.

P.S. I am not going to list all of the commandments Trump has violated. Plenty of other people have already done that. It doesn’t seem to make a damn difference.

I’ve been told it’s No Politics Day. Even though it isn’t. No Politics Day is in January. But there’s so much soup in my baggy old brain, I couldn’t write about today’s events if I tried. I will say I feel like we are tipping into Handmaid’s Tale Land. And I am NOT just talking about reproductive rights.

I had a Market Assistant for my Meijer (big box grocery) run this morning. I like to do solo grock runs but I grudgingly accepted the offer. First, if I had a driver, I could work on my daily word puzzles in the car. Also, as it turned out he was helpful. I could not find yeast to save my life. I thought it was in one of the refrigerated sections but not. He found it by the flour. He did NOT find Boar’s Head sandwich dressing but that’s because they don’t carry it. I got everything else (I think) but it was handy to have someone to run around for stray items. I like to get IN and OUT of the grock store and don’t like when I have to traverse the store a bazillion times to find something. The staff is friendly and helpful and I’m not timid about asking for help but it’s a big store and there’s not always someone right where you need them if you are looking for something.

I went through the only open cashiered lane today. There was no one ahead of me in line (and I woulda gone through it anyway). I am a Uscan ninja but I had much more stuff than usual and the Meijer cashiers and their baggers are like WHOOOOOSH! I would tip them if I could but I did thank them rather profusely. Grocery workers have a hard job and need to be paid more.

After “co-working” for the day, the beach urchin and I decamped to the moominbeach to read for a bit. When the sun went over the yardarm, I came up to fix the refrigerator and get dinner (American Mom Chicken Shwarma) in the oven and the beach urchin channeled Grandroobly by sweeping the deck.

Reading? “Huckleberry Finn”, if you care to know. I have “James” on my TBR and figgered it would be good to revisit Huck first. Of course, I read Huck Finn in high school or thereabouts and remember almost nothing about it except for Huck and Jim and a RAFT. Good thing I am re-reading it.

Quiet Celtic music on the pod to chill us all out a bit. This Scottish gal (79% according to Ancestry) is loving it 🐽