Random bits of my so-called life.

I was listening to an NPR talk show where Kamala’s views were being discussed by various guests. This was NOT an interview with Kamala or a campaign event. They were discussing her views throughout her career and the pros and cons of those as they may help or hurt her campaign. They said some things that were hard to hear for a Kamala supporter. They are going to do the same thing with JD tomorrow. I intend to listen to tomorrow’s show too (if I get home from the grocery store in time). Why? Because although I’ll admit I have some preconceived ideas about both candidates, I want to hear what others have to say. Presumably others who are getting more than the sound bites of information I listen to.

This was rankling to those who don’t agree with my political opinions. I won’t go too far into that bit of “fun” marital strife but at one point, the question asked was something like, since Trump is the other candidate for president, why don’t they discuss his views? For one thing, I don’t think the focus of this show was to compare presidential candidates. It was more to compare “unknowns”. Kamala and JD are not unknown so to speak but they are not well known for their political backgrounds. At least not to the general American public. And yes, Kamala is the current veep. But we never really get to know most veeps very well, do we?

But… WE ALREADY KNOW TRUMP’S VIEWS! We have endured one presidential term under him already. His views? His views are whatever he thinks his current audience will respond to. A few things? Immigration? He hates immigrants. Apparently. Yet he has married two immigrants. Dictators? He loves dictators. He and Kim Jong Un “love each other?” Say what (and not even to mention his “relationship” with Putin)? Make no mistake. I believe every dictator on earth sees Trump as a stupid patsy that they could “potentially” use to their advantage. We won’t even talk about the choice issue. How many abortions has he paid for? Infrastructure week? I don’t think that ever happened, did it? Those are just a few examples.

Well, where was I? Dinner happened before I could finish this. Grilled duck breast, brown rice, broccoli and more of the peas I shelled in my back yard. The wind came up this afternoon but is dying down now. It is still pretty warm, probably in the 70s. So I’m not sure what all I said earlier but I will listen to whatever radio show I want to. At least NPR hosts do not scream and yell and hurl epithets this way and that.

The sailbote belongs to my cousin’s son aka my first cousin once removed.

Except he’s probably anything Western European except Scot. French? Irish? German? Would be fun to find out his DNA analysis, not to mention his ID twin’s. Up to him/them though.

He picked a really hot sticky day to swab the deck. Oh, not anywhere near 100. Maaayybeee the lower 80s but humid and fly-ey on the beach, which is where I decamped to when he started this swabbing operation. An operation I am ecstatic about. Himself: “At least it isn’t black any more.” I could smell the Pinesol from the beach. It’s not my fave smell but I lived.

Meeeee? My first day of vacation? Filled out my absentee ballot (August primary) and drove it up to Brimley to hand-deliver it to the post office. Bought band-aids at the park store on the way back. Also bacon and frozen hash browns (staples around here in the summer). They did not have walnuts or any other kinds of nuts that I could find but did have chia seeds? Whut? Later on, the GG was able to find walnuts at the Brimley Dollar Store which he went to for Pinesol. Go figger.

Thunderstorms rolled all around us most of the day but although we got a good rainstorm in the afternoon, anything severe was always in the distance. We needed what rain we got and it seems to have eradicated the Pinesol smell.

Young adult cousins visited the moomindeck in the evening to get lightly ‘hattan-ized and many interesting conversations ensued. I’ll leave you with this loverly ditty about Vernher von Braun (who the GG is currently reading about). One never knows what topics of conversation will come up at the moominbeach.

G’night, KW

We have a new (sharp) kitchen knife here courtesy of a beach urchin. I TOOK THE PLASTIC BLADE GUARD off today and used it to cut up some scallions. It was wonderful. I then washed it off and put it in the dish drainer to air dry.

When I went to put the blade guard on again, I somehow slipped and the blade made the teensiest tinesiest little nick in my right thumb. For a moment or two it looked like it hadn’t even broken the skin but alas a drop of blood eventually made an appearance. And being a finger, more and more blood followed. Could I find a bandaid? I could not find an appropriate bandaid to save my life.

Eventually I prevailed upon the GG, who supposedly has a first aid kit at the ready for North Country Trail hikes. We’ll talk about that some other time (or not). EVENTUALLY, he found a few bandaids and I put one on the cut on my thumb. After all of that, I realized there was also blood on my right index finger and that it was enough blood that it probably hadn’t just dripped off my thumb. Yes, I had also nicked my index finger. I didn’t even notice when that happened.

Eventually I got both cuts bandaged up – and NOTE that these are the miniest of mini cuts. Bandaged, I managed to assemble enchiladas WITHOUT getting any blood in them or even touching them with my bandaids. But then… LATER… I took the bandaid off my thumb cut and after I immersed my hand in dishwater it started bleeding again. I AGAIN bandaged it but somehow in the process I accidentally wiped blood onto my CHEEK to the great entertainment of the folks at the impromptu pre-dinner gathering on the moomindeck. (The moomindeck is the absolute best place for an impromptu gathering as long as the wind isn’t screaming outta the northwest.)

Tomorrow I am gonna go and pick up some REGULAR bandaids at the park store in Brimley. Not kneecap bandaids or teensy tinesy little round bandaids that you can’t WRAP around your thumb/finger. Just plain old straight bandaids. By then I probably won’t even need any more bandaids but they’ll be here for others.

That’s how deep Gitchee Gumee gets somewhere north of Munising, which is just to the west of the Pictured Rocks.

The depth in our bay doesn’t go beyond 12-13 feet. Along our beach, there is a sandbar system. Two sandbars and it doesn’t get over your head until after the second sandbar. This makes it a very safe swimming beach, especially for little kids because you can tell them not to go beyond the second sandbar. Additionally there is an island right in the middle of our bay (not visible in this pic), which prevents undertows from forming. That’s what my dad believed and I think he was right. We are very strict about lifeguarding *anyway*.

The swimmer in the pic is one of my beach urchins, who drove up from The Planet Ann Arbor today. After the swim, a couple of her second cousins came down to the beach from the Old Cabin and we hung out talking until the MOE-skee-TOES were even bothering meeeeee a bit. I remember when these young men were very young and someone dubbed them the Boyz of Noiz. Not so much any more. Highly intelligent, successful, and thoughtful young men.

Other than that, a grock shop, toilet cleaning, and green bag garbage dump kind of day. Chores and errands. Everyone is taaaared and so g’night.

That’s what I’m looking forward to for the next couple weeks. It’s been a while since I’ve had two weeks of vacay in a row. I get six weeks all told so it’s not like this is the only little bitsy of vacay I get. I have been there done that as a young person. I tend to take vacay in the summer when daughters, cousins, etc., are visiting the moominbeach. So it depends on when they are around how many weeks I take at a time. Make no mistake, I am happy with this kind of arrangement.

As are most of my vacations, this will be a Busman’s Holiday. I will be cooking and cleaning along with all the fun stuff of hanging out on the beach and deck with relatives.

This morning, before my last day of work before vacay, I did laundry and dropped off the recycle (so I would have reusable grock bags for tomorrow’s grock run). I had company on my outdoor bench at the laundromat this morning in the form of Le Marquis, a cousin-neighbor. He was off to the grock store afterward. I had to skedaddle back to moominCubelandia for work. During which I finished up one prodject and absolutely nothing else happened. Summer time… … … And the livin’ is easy… … …

The GG hung around on the beach and motored around the bay chasing freighters with Le Marquis all afternoon. This is his pic from beneath our big sun umbrellas.

Then there was dessert next door to celebrate a birthday and that’s about all for tonight. Lots to do tomorrow.

P.S. [Ka]MALA: Make America Laugh Again. I don’t think I made this up. I think I heard it on the radio sometime today. I haven’t laughed, at least not about politics, since 2016. Let’s laugh again.

This was the “sunset” two nights ago. Rain was moving in and we got rain most of yesterday. Sunset or not, I still think it’s beautiful.

Out there in the channel (past the front yard, beach, and bay, a half mile or so away) is the Philip R. Clarke heading downbound. I am calling it my “baby bote” because when I was a year and a half old, it docked on the lower St. Marys (no apostrophe) River and opened up for public tours. It was not brand new then but only a couple years old and has two “sister” ships, the Arthur M. Anderson and the Cason J. Callaway.

My parents took me on a tour. I *think* I have vague memories of this. Walking (because I could walk!) up and down the stairs between the various levels. I dunno if these are true memories or if I’ve just been told this story so many times I *think* I remember it. I have also toured more than a few other botes in my time, long after I could consciously string thoughts together so those memories are real and maybe I’m conflating a bit. (Also old planes but we’ll go there some other time🐽)

I have a *real* memory of taking the ferry across the Straits of Mackinac sometime the year before the BigMac bridge was built. I was three and we used to “go to Detrite in the middle of the night”. That means we got up at something like 3:00 AM in order to catch the first ferry across the straits then on down the old two-lane highways to visit my maternal grandparents in Detroit. I remember being dressed in my best for those trips, a tartan wool plaid skirt purchased in a specialty shop in Canananada. My memory is walking around up on the deck with my dad, with my hands in my pockets just like him.

In total, the trip from Sault Ste. Siberia to Detroit in those days took something like 11 hours. Nowadays with the BigMac Bridge and the I75 SUV Speedway it’s five hours or fewer. At least it is when there aren’t big traffic backups or, you know, snow and/or ice.

I had forgotten that this statement was from the 2020 VP debates. Kamala vs. Mike Pence. Actually I had to do a double-take and look this up (again) because, wait, Pence was Trump’s running mate in 2020? Yes, of course he was. It wasn’t until January 6, 2021 that Trump’s insurrectionists (yes, I meant to call those yay-hoos that) set up a noose to hang him that they parted ways. Sorry, I was in a time warp for a minute.

The local NPR station used to be classical music during the week and I miss that to some extent now that it has changed to talk. I don’t miss all of the music. Some of it I like to PLAY more than listen to. Bach flute sonatas, I’m looking at you. Anyway. There are some good talk shows and one today interviewed the author of a new book “I’m speaking”, by a vocal coach and named after Kamala’s statement. In other words, shaddup and let me finish a sentence. The NPR program was scheduled long ago and the events of the last week were coincidental.

I don’t want to go too much into the specifics because I am not an expert in any of this complex stuff and I cannot sort out my thoughts in the time it takes to write a quick blahg entry. The main thing is that many women don’t like what their voice sounds like and this coach helps them with that. She is *not* a speech therapist and disclaims that.

Although I have always been a bit shy about speaking up, my voice has always naturally projected and I don’t mind what it sounds like. I know what it sounds like because I routinely record work meetings when we are talking about complicated functionality. I *always* get permission from the others in the meeting for recording. And they always agree because the main person who listens to the recordings is meeeeee. Probably because my voice projects, my parents were always trying to shush me up a bit. My parents were wonderful in most ways but I think this was a mistake. But all parents make mistakes. I sure have.

This topic is too complex for tonight so we’ll talk about puddles instead. This was our two-track Cabin Road this morning when I was going out for a grock run. On this road, if somebody is coming the other direction, one of you has to dive into a driveway or whatever to let the other vee-hickle go by. We had a LOT of rain yesterday (loverly) and it looks like these puddles might be difficult to navigate but they are not. Cygnus (Subie Crosstrek) had no trouble and even the Ninja (fancy Honda Civic) could do it without trouble. It helps to drive s-l-o-w-l-y but also we have a micro-local Road Commission and that crew frequently “grades” the road (not sure that’s the right word). Many thanks to Mayor Pete and his crew.

Bookending a bit here. Kamala? You go girl! If you aren’t finished speaking, let ’em know. The same applies to all humans who are being talked over or shushed.

21 years ago yesterday (7/22/2003) was my first blahg entry. I was at the moomincabin with one daughter (in the pic) while the GG and the other daughter were still on The Planet Ann Arbor. I am not a fan of phone calls and thought if I wrote a blahg entry every day, it might cut down on the need to call. I think I remember that being at least somewhat successful.

Back then I was “rolling my own”, meaning I did not have blogging software and wrote html/css code myself. I did that every day until sometime in 2006 when I glommed on to a platform that provided WordPress blogging software. That worked for a while until they had some kind of major problem and I lost service for a couple weeks or something. I had to beg the overworked, underpaid, UNCARING tech support folks for my database but eventually I got it. My friend The Guru saved the day by yanking me and my database onto his own platform, also WordPress but MUCH more stable.

The pic is the first pic I posted. It is my then teenaged mouse with “Bob” in the background. Bob was a piece of driftwood that my brother set up with sunglasses and other pieces of attire (not really visible in the pic or maybe Bob hadn’t gotten dressed that day). My brother died in 2005 but he was an occasional guest blahgger on ababsurdo in its early years and wrote a couple of hilarious entries. Eventually Bob disintegrated and is long gone. I don’t *think* this pic was taken by my old Sony Mavica. I *think* I had a Canon or something by then. The pic doesn’t look as pixelated as the ones the Mavica took. I loved the Mavica *anyway*, floppy disks and all.

I have kept my old html archives but many of the links on the left nav probably don’t work any more. I am cracking myself up revisiting what I wrote about my blahg when I made the archive page. *I* don’t post about politics???? Say what? I could reasonably ignore that topic then but now that the USA has taken on a fugly orange tinge…

So, who knew? 1) That I would still be blahgging 21 years later. 2) That one of the many things I now get paid to do is write html/css code. And a bit of Javascript just to keep me on my toes.

I’m kinda kidding about the white pantsuit and I don’t mean to make this a political post exactly.

I am zooming with MMCB₂ tomorrow morning and we both support Kamala and she posted a pic of Kamala in a white pantsuit on Facebook yesterday. So when we connected today about meeting tomorrow, I told her I’d be wearing my white pantsuit.

I don’t actually OWN a white pantsuit. I haven’t owned any color pantsuit since I can’t even think when. I had a couple of pantsuit-type things when I first started working for Corporate America back in like 2007. They were not the kind of pantsuits you might be thinking, more like loose capri length cotton summerweight pants with a tank top and a loose cotton shirt. One of them happened to have white pants. I finally decided I am a SKIRT gal and haven’t worn pants for umpteen bazillion years except for Smartwool leggings.

The last time I wrote about putting on my White Pantsuit was fall of 2016. The GG went off to work and then texted in a panic because it was Garbage Day and the compost carts were full of yard waste (which I didn’t know) and he had forgotten to schlep them out to the curb. Thinking Hillary was gonna win (because WHO would vote for an *sshole like Trump), I merrily posted that I was putting on my White Pantsuit to schlep the compost carts out to the curb. We all know what happened next.

So I am a little nervous about putting on the proverbial White Pantsuit tomorrow, even though it’ll be one of my many tie-dyed t-shirts and a skirt (and a polarfleece jacket or vest depending on the temperature). But I’m gonna do it ANYWAY. MMCB₂ and I will have a lot to talk about tomorrow. I do know that. And if I thought buying a White Pantsuit would help Kamala win the election I would buy one but I think it’ll take a lot more than that. F*ck Trump and MAGA. I guess I did get political after all. Sorry.

P.S. I was asked ALL WEEKEND if my company was affected by the whole CrowdStrike thing. I figgered NOOOOO but REFUSED to log on to my work laptop to try to find out. As it turned out, the answer was NOOOOO and one of the more techie folks opined, “[insert company name] isn’t stooopid enough to use that software.” So there.

I was up early and had coffee on the deck, then shooed Chainsaw Man off to the trail, talked to the neighbor-cousins for a bit, then went inside to listen to this week’s “Left Right and Center” up close and personal. I half-listened to a couple more shows, then something came on about lucid dreaming and I decided I wasn’t that interested, at least not in learning how to do it. So I kinda “tuned out” for a bit.

When I “tuned in” again, the talk was decidedly different and it didn’t take me long to figure out that Joe had dropped out, even before I officially heard someone say it.

What do I think? I do not know. A few RANDOM sound bites from meeeee (not going into detail — you’re welcome): 1) I do not think he is senile despite the dismal debate performance. Armchair quarterbacks are making that call and from most accounts, Trump was awful too albeit for different reasons. 2) I am appalled that democrats did not rally around Joe. I hope for the best but his dropping out is a gamble and I hope to hell “we” don’t lose to Trump (and I am NOT a democrat although I almost always vote for democrats). 3) I wonder if Joe’s recent covid infection might have been his last straw. I remember how defeated I felt when I got it and I was just barely symptomatic. But his infection came after a string of crapola and maybe he decided he was just done.

What do I think about Kamala (seems like the likely candidate but who knows)? I do not know. We don’t ever really get to know the vice prez, do we? Will people vote for a Black woman? I sure hope so.

I am sick of all the talk about first woman, first Black, first Black woman. ALL human beings are capable of acquiring the QUALIFICATIONS necessary for handling important jobs like POTUS. It’s high time we stopped this kind of talk and voted for (hired, whatever) people because of their QUALIFICATIONS! Honesty being one of the most important qualifications for public office anything, something Trump does not possess and even admits it himself. Alas, I don’t have much hope…

That is about all for now. Onward into an uncertain future. Not that our future was certain when Joe *was* still running. Or ever…

Love y’all, KW

P.S. The first time I said, “I would vote for Mickey Mouse over Trump”, it was April 2017 and we were in Florida having dinner with The Beautiful Susie (gone now, alas) and Mr. Ed. That still holds true. And I am in NO WAY equating Kamala with Mickey Mouse! Although maybe Mickey might not make the worst president.

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.