So we were at a wedding. It was our youngest cFam niece and it was an 80 mile drive from here, through downtown Daytwa and BACK through downtown Daytwa. We couldda stayed in a hotel overnight, I guess. I think we both wanted to sleep in our own bed tonight. I am still a covid coward but I managed. A lot of it was outside but a lot of it was not. It is waaaay past my bedtime so I guess that is about all for now. G’night.
You won’t see me post many pics of this order of insects. That is because I have a weird but not really uncommon phobia. This particular specimen does not freak me out. Except that I don’t really like ANYTHING that flutters. Except birds as long as they are not fluttering around my head.
This is a mouse photooo, taken at the moominbeach I think or maybe Betchler Lakes (which don’t look like lakes). She hiked there with BUGLVR today. Actually she didn’t hike with BUGLVR, just encountered a vee-hickle with that license plate in the parking lot. Makes you feel comfortable about solo hiking. Except maybe for bears. So my mouse is at the moomincabin. That’s one far flung one.
Lizard Breath texted from Daytwa Metro today, “At the airport”. Okaaaaay. I wasn’t exactly sure where she was going but since she was going to visit her lifelong friend (since middle school), I figgered San Fran and when I got the landed at SFO text, my hunch proved to be true. Far flung number two.
The GG? He is at a 50th high school reunion “meet-and-greet” at a barrroooom somewhere over in Royal Joke or wherever. I am not there thank the gods. He may or may not come home tonight. I don’t expect him to drink anywhere near too much to drive but it will be fine with me if he stays at his nephew’s house tonight. Not-so-far flung number three.
I don’t really like reunions that much. His are hard for me in particular because he is always there with his identical twin brother and they are on their “game” and I just get taaaared and wanna go home and go to bed… I missed my 50th last summer. I had sorta planned to go and paid for it and all. In the end, after a summer of traveling up and down the I75 SUV Speedway, I didn’t have it in me. I DM’d The Beautiful Mimi and told her everything was absolutely fine but I would miss out and they could keep my money. Of course it ended up being a COVID spreader😵💫 I was not surprised.
Yes, the GG and I are in different graduating classes and he’s one behind me. We were born the same year (I am a few months older). But whereas I was known by some as “the brain of Lincoln School” (I HATED THAT MONIKER!), he and his identical twin were “loved” so much by one of their grade school nuns that she wanted them back for another year. That was sarcasm and the Twinz of Terror are both uber smart despite the fact that their father once told me twins were born with half brains. Well, they are smart except for politics🐽🐽🐽.
In my back yard? Why yes of course.
It was one of our moominbeach cousin neighbors asking if they could come over. They have been here on the Planet off and on for a while, notably this week. Taking care of an elder member of the family. I keep reminding them (probably annoyingly) that when I was in the midst of this kind of journey with my mother, I was 10 years younger than we all are now. A weird little perk of being born to what was in those days an older mother. She was 33 when I was born. I was her first of two and my brother (her favorite🤣) died way too young.
There are lots of stories about all that of course but tonight’s story was that my cousins were a bit weary and my back yard is a great place to sip a cocktail on a day like today. Hot but not too hot. We were gonna eat leftovers for dinner but their plans to meet a sibling and family for dinner kind of fell through so they ended up seeking dinner out with us instead. First choice was HOMES but that WHOLE NEIGHBORHOOD was SLAMMED with cars so we went with Plan B, which was the Session Room. We hit Sessions just as they had cleared out (60-person party on the patio?). Parking was easy and there was plenty of space on the patio. Salmon BLT with avocado for me and it was small enough that I didn’t need a box.
I’m not sure anyone ever said Mr. Musk is a good graphic designer. I mean where did he come up with that “X”? But if you embiggen a couple times you might be able to make out “Tesla” on the building across the street. That place used to belong to a friend of a friend. It was a bowling alley then, a very popular one.
G’night, KW.
Bidenomics? Are they better or worse than whatever the Orange Baboon did? The stock market goes up. The stock market goes down. The wheels on the bus go up and down. Life is like a river. Etc. Etc. Etc.
How much influence does the American president REALLY have on the stock market? I don’t believe he (and they have all been male in history) does much of jack-doodly to influence the stock market. The president may make a policy or two that end up TWEAKING it but the whole thing is kind of a crap shoot subject to umpteen bazillion outside forces.
Like covid 19. I dunno, did the market index go up or down during covid? I’m thinking down. So did the Orange Baboon really raise the stock market to astronomical heights? Maybe for a while but at what cost? And what did Biden inherit from the OB? A covid-ravaged economy? There seem to be a lot of folks out there who think covid is done. They are forgetting how scary it was when it first reached our shores. PEOPLE DID DIE. MANY OF THEM. Businesses closed if they couldn’t adapt to covid-related changes. People lost their jobs. “WE” had no clue about how to manage covid and in part thanks to an incompetent (yes) president, our health organizations were not helpful. Let’s just shine a light up into [where, anus?]. It’ll be almost like a cleaning. Word salad anyone? Why didn’t the CDC try to put an end to that nonsense? The OB was NOT a king after all.
I have never played the stock market. For one thing I don’t understand it very well. It seems like a crap shoot to me. One time I was gifted some family bank stock. My parents thought it was a wonderful gift but it immediately tanked into nothingness. It was like the ONE time I played slot musheens at a casino. The GG gave me $20 and I put it in and TOTALLY lost it within about 20 minutes. Never again and that’s why I don’t mess with the stock market.
I am a successful failure. That means I am not a bazillionaire but I am pretty darn comfortable. The main key to being a successful failure is to always live within your means and that’s what we do. I do splurge on grocks (shhhh, don’t tell the GG).
I can’t really comment that much on the indictments. I suspect the Orange Baboon will weasel out of them somehow. The Orange Weasel? That gives the aminal weasel a bad name. Whatever.
I knew we (as a country) were in trouble after the OB got elected back in 2016. It was way pre-covid and we were having a birthday dinner at Weber’s with some friends of ours. I tried to talk about the word salad way of talking of the person our country (but not me) had just elected to the office of president. Crickets. No one seemed to care? No one seemed to agree with me?
I was thinking can y’all listen to this idjit talk and think he actually knows something about ANYTHING? I mean besides himself. Yaaaaaarrgh! I’m sure the phrase Word Salad has been used by others besides me since 2016 but it was THIS YEAR that I actually encountered it. Not that I always make total sense when speaking but then I AM NOT A PUBLIC OFFICIAL, MUCH LESS THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. And I at least TRY. I don’t just open my mouth and let my brain spew random shit out.
To answer the question “Jim Beam?” Well. The Sault Meijer was out of Ten High for umpteen bazillion days and we had ‘hattan drinking folks at the moomincabin so I upped my grade from “well bourbon” (Ten High is typical) to Jimmy Beam. I blame the outage on the fact that the Big Mac bridge was apparently backed up for MILES below the straits MANY days during July even during the week. The yooperland thrives on tourism but this is waaaaay too many people in my opinion. I have vague memories of crossing on ferries before the Mackinac Bridge. No way could that number of people have crowded into the yooperland in those days.
Flinging today? Nuttin’
I kinda wanted to write about Barbie today. I haven’t seen the movie and won’t until I can download it onto my phone. Nevertheless, I am pretty intrigued. I’ll write about Barbie before and/or after I watch the movie. I will probably not wear pink no matter what.
What is bothering me is the big black/white X that has replaced my twitter bird. I was an early enough Twitter adopter (2007 when I got my first iPhone) that I was able to grab @kayakwoman as a handle. In the beginning I did not friend people but a bunch of guy-type folks friended me. Eventually my kids found me out (which was okay!) and then I became friends with various people I actually knew in real life and we actually tweeted for a while. One time we were driving to our sister Kathy’s house for the cFam xmas party and we were in an ice storm and one of her sons was tweeting who had arrived and who had bagged it and how the roads were, etc.
It wasn’t too many years later that I migrated from tweeting to friends and followers to using Twitter as a news aggregator. I do remember once when the Commander was (unhappily) in a rehab facility. We were having a “ruff” day and as I exited the facility for lunch or whatever, I tweeted “FML”. That alerted the then SanFran daughter to check in on me. I WAS OKAY.
I can’t remember the last time I actually tweeted something. I’m not sure anyone is even following me any more. But I still use it to check on news and a few other things. So why am I so pissed off that Mr. Musk has changed my familiar little blue bird into an X. I dunno. I guess I am just sick and taarred of rich assholes imposing their values (if you can call them values) on little people like me. And yes he is an asshole. Yeah, he is rich and can do what the f*ck he wants. Sad that he doesn’t seem to care what his USERS want. The whole thing about paying for “verification” makes my head explode.
I’ll talk about Barbie some other day. The doll and eventually the movie when I get around to watching it. My opinions about Barbie are much more mellow than my opinions about Mr. Melon.
Today’s fling: 1) The box my Keurig musheen came in last xmas. Why are we saving that again? I suppose it was in case the musheen failed and we had to send it back? It didn’t fail. The box is in the recycle now. Kudos to Keurig for packing it with cardboard buffers instead of styrofoam. 2) A small Plum Market grock bag is half full of “jewelry” and ready for Kiwanis on Saturday. Nothing expensive or sentimental. Stuff I bought for myself and didn’t wear because, y’know, I don’t really wear jewelry. I’m keeping earrings even though I don’t really wear them any more.
I didn’t actually come up with “Life at the Landfill”. Umpteen bazillion years ago I read an article about folks who self-published mini-‘zines. On paper, I mean. I was intrigued, enough to experiment with the idea a bit when the beach urchins were young. It wasn’t really something I could sustain, plus I figgered the friends and family members I sent it to would get pretty damn bored pretty damn quick.
But one of the ‘zine’s was written by a guy who worked at a dump (if I’m not misremembering). I think his ‘zine was called “Life at the Landfill”. I looked around MY landfill and yes, I usurped his title for my own various purposes.
Driving home from the yooperland on a Saturday turns out to be a good thing, except for the fact that I had some trouble remembering which day is was. I was dead taaarrred last night and didn’t sleep very well because it was hotter than I’m now used to. Although not ANYWHERE NEAR as hot as a lot of summer nights are. Someone insisted on turning on the central A/C yesterday afternoon which in my opinion did not help with this. I’m not sure why. The good news is the not-very-hot weather cooled down toward morning.
I woke up refreshed, drank my coffee out in the back yard with word puzzles and the Merlin bird ID app and managed to tink away at laundry and other chores. That included spraying down the outside of this FILTHY grill and giving it a light washing. The GG was not impressed but my goal was to get rid of the pollen and other detritus enough that I could put a GLASS down on it. The GG dealt with the Bud cans in the corner. Those are a function of FlaMan although we contributed a few beer cans too.
Late this afternoon I found myself sitting in the Landfill Dungeon trying to figger out how to deal with the mess. At a glance it looks like Hoarder Central down there although it is a WEEEE bit more organized. Except for the cardboard box (banker’s box size) that contained 1) an empty beer can and 2) a small piece of random waste plastic. Why? I am looking for empty boxes so I EMPTIED that one. I can see that if I want to jump-start the flinging progress, I am going to have to take the lead. Much like I did when I began my first pass at flinging, maybe 20 years ago?
The last time I went to the grockery store, this critter hitched a ride. I had a spider on an earlier trip. No one discovered Sluggo. I went through the u-scan and didn’t interact up close and personal with anyone. That was a good thing because this time I forgot my mask and didn’t double back to get it. I was in a rush to get back to the moomin to join a work meeting. So, uh, I have literally TWO things on my list and I’m going through the u-scan so… In and out, chop chop chop.
We schlepped home to the Planet Ann Arbor today and I took that beauteous tie-dye Meijer bag to the Plum this afternoon and I don’t think Sluggo was still with me. I did wear a mask at Plum. I think my mouse and I were the only folks in there with masks on…
We had a beauteous drive down today although I can’t stop myself from doing “mileage marker math” when I’m driving that route. Number of miles to St. Ignace and then Gaylord. Number of miles from Gaylord to Grayling, Hoton Lake exit, and West Branch. And so on. Maybe you get my drift. I know the mile markers for most of the exits. Yes, I can be OCD. But. No traffic jams (southbound on a Saturday), weather was fine, etc. I SEEM TO BE OVER MY PANDEMIC-INDUCED DRIVING PHOBIA. Driving was FUN today, even tandem with the GG and the Lyme Lounge.
So we are home again and I’ve been gone for a month. We will head back up to the moominbeach in a while. It isn’t even August yet but alas, it’ll all be over too soon. Summer, I mean.
For whatever reason my loverly significant other has been referring to the direction of the wind that puts waves like this onto the moominbeach as NORTH. NOT… NOT… NOT… These waves are coming from the northWEST. Here is a MAP and TELL ME that we are looking NORTH instead of northWEST. We are the blue dot and a northwest wind comes straight in down that line with Lake Superior on it.
A northwest wind like this one creates waves that crash directly onto our beach. The water is generally warm (or feels warm) on NW wind days, assuming Gitchee Gumee has finally warmed up for the summer, which it actually has.
When the wind actually does come from the actual NORTH, you would see little waves coming crosswise from the right. Maybe a few whitecaps but not many. The water and the wind would be COLD.
The so-called Undertaker’s Wind comes outta the swamp. It is a southEAST wind, not a south wind. Some people (my kids?) have told me my dad called the wind outta the swamp an undertaker’s wind. I can’t say that I actually remember him saying that but one of my cousins said, “It sounds like something your dad would have said.” Yes, it does. Our beach is in the lee in a SE wind. Water dead still.
We also sometimes get winds from the SOUTHWEST. I haven’t seen one in a while but they can be wicked in their own way. The waves come in from the left and the wind can be strong enough to blow sand along the beach. Sandblasting. And if there is some kind of insect hatch, you get blasted with those too.
I dunno what south, east, or west winds exactly do. But those that I described are our prevailing winds here at the moominbeach.
My house on The Planet Ann Arbor is still without power. This morning my mouse moved some packages of meat and three ziplock bags of peas from the freezer to a safe place. I was concerned about the peas because I personally shelled all of those peas myself. What a tragedy it would have been to lose them.
Beyond the peas I couldn’t remember anything except for some fancy pork chops from Sparrow. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose those but it was a small amount of meat. Then. This afternoon, I suddenly remembered that I had a whole crapload of COPPER RIVER SALMON in the freezer. Man oh man, losing that would have been a tragedy. And ssssh, don’t tell the GG about my recklessness!
Why did I not bring that stuff up here with me? I’m not sure exactly. We have some non fish eaters and I didn’t exactly have a plan for most of it. I knew that when UKW was here she would be brimming with ideas about how to feed people and I kinda wanted to stay outta that fray as much as possible except as a support person / dishwasher. In any case, my mouse saved the day by rescuing the contents of my freezer and you can bet I will be using up that stuff PDQ when we land back on the planet.
We cooked the rest of our anniversary filets tonight. The ones that didn’t fit on the grill on our anniversary. So here is the GG hanging out by the grill. The MOE-skee-TOES have not been all that bad lately but they were somewhat bothersome tonight. Other than that, it was a pretty hot day (for here) but only in the low 80s and a late afternoon swim in Gitchee Gumee cooled me off right good.
We had a rainy if not terribly stormy day here on the moominbeach. The GG took a (metal) motor bote out this morning. He was out in the shipping channel when I called him to say I had heard thunder. I don’t think he could have heard it over the motor noise. He did not mess around and headed back to the beach directly.
We had rain off and on, some of it fairly heavy but nothing in the way of storms, just rumbly thunder. Down on the Planet Ann Arbor? The tornado sirens blew, prompting a long discussion on next door neighbor about why they blew when there was no tornado and various other esoteric questions.
My friends, the reason the “tornado” sirens blew is because a short but INTENSE storm blew through. There was NO TORNADO! BUT! The power is out all over the place including my house, The Landfill, and trees are down everywhere. The Plum Market CLOSED AT 5:00 PM! That allowed my grock worker to leave early, which gave her time to check out The Landfill. Fortunately everything looked okay, meaning no trees were down.
Le Marquis treated us to dinner at Wicked Sister. He had wanted to take us out earlier in the month after our anniversary FinFam Steak Dinner but the moomincabin was slammed with people that week so it didn’t really work out. Tonight was lovely. It was us and Le Marquis (his wife my cousin Pooh is in Ann Arbor for a bit) and his older son and lovely significant other were also with us.
I love Wicked Sister. Its previous incarnation was Benoit’s Gin Mill, which was a Dive Bar and me, UKW, and Radical Betty witnessed the faaaar that heavily damaged it. Out of those ashes rose Wicked Sister. It’s a totally different place but I hear tell that a bartender from the Gin Mill now works for Wicked Sister. Yay for him!
At the end of the day, after work, I joined the GG on the moominbench. It was soooo hot down there!!! I decamped to get my bathing costume on and man oh man, I walked into our Lake Superior waters until I was up to my neck. And then I DUNKED! It isn’t always easy to get yourself totally immersed in the waters on our beach but today it was felt almost like bath water, at least compared to the last couple weeks. It was refreshing enough that I was able to sit on the moominbench for a bit without feeling hot.
Our bay on the upper Saint Marys River just before the river mouth where we open up into Whitefish Bay and Lake Superior is a wonderful place to swim. Along the shore we have a sandbar system with two sandbars that allow anyone beyond toddler height to swim where the water depth is not over their head. Beyond the second sandbar, the depth increases gradually but doesn’t go below 12-13 feet until after the island (which is not in the pic).
After dinner we went back to the beach and this pic is of my cousin’s child and his significant other taking off into the sunset in his sailboat. They live in NYC but they love this place and we love to connect with them here.
I knew UKW had an uber early departure this morning. Although she did not want to wake anyone up, I did wake long enough to see her leave although I didn’t let her know, just watched from the window. It is now pitch black at 5-ish in the morning. Earlier in the summer it was pretty light by that time. This morning I had to use my iPhone flashlight to get to the water closet without ramming into or tripping over anything.
Much later when I was officially up and moving around, she texted to say that an engine had sucked in a bird the night before so her flight was delayed while they checked it out. An event like that may or may not be a big deal in an airport like Detroit Metro or SeaTac. In Sault Ste. Siberia, only one(?) passenger plane comes in and out per day and if your early morning flight is delayed, it is a crap shoot as to whether you will reach your destination that day, especially if there is a connecting flight and there usually is unless you are just going to Detroit.
Early on, her alternate flight plan involved more than one layover and a detour through LA but she made it to Detroit and after a false start there, she eventually texted that she was back in Seattle, meaning she would probably make it home to the San Juans tonight.
I was kind of exhausted today – in a good way – but I went back to work, from the Lyme Lounge. And I have begun to work on “resetting” the refrigerator. Can we get through the rest of the week without getting more grocks? Probably not. More recycling and more garbage and one laundromat trip are also in my future. It never ends… … …
This morning I [sadly] said goodbye to my roommate of the last week or so, my elder daughter Lizard Breath. The first year we came up here with her, she was nine months old and she and I slept together in the bottom bunk of the bunk bed my brother and I shared as children. Easy feeding if you catch my drift.
Fast forward more years than I am strong enough to count… That baby has turned into some sort of wonder woman and it was soooo much fun to be with her. As things worked out this week, only the two of us were staying at the moomincabin so there was plenty of space. And just… I think we get along pretty darn good as adult mother and daughter. So I was sad to see her leave today, although I knew she had to, and was glad to know she landed safely on The Planet Ann Arbor this afternoon. Not to mention that she is living in the same town that I do so I will be able to see her again soon when I make my own return trip.
Just before she left, an unfamiliar vee-hickle (or so I thought, haha) drove in. The neighbor-cousins were hanging out with me on the moomindeck and they were the first to notice that Mooon Yooonit had “droven in”. That is the GG’s car. Say what? The last time I had talked to the GG he was hedging about coming up here at all, babbling about water heater issues at Hoton Lake. So I didn’t expect him. I had wanted him to come back up to the moomin but was hoping to have a couple of days here alone. Oh well. So he is my new roommate and all is good.
Oh yeah. I did not have to cook or do dishes tonight! We were treated to excellent food at the Old Cabin. I don’t think I can credit any one person as it seemed like a joint effort. I’ll be happily back in the saddle again tomorrow although at least for a few days, it’ll probably just be the two of us working on leftovers, etc.
Love y’all and g’night, KW!
The pic was early this morning before it all began. The view down at this end of the beach was a lot more beautiful up until a few years ago. There was an old disintegrating crib (rock dock) and a great big boulder you could climb up on. The neighbors down here have terraformed a lot of stuff since then. The crib ruins are practically non-existent now and I dunno where the big boulder is these days. It is NOT one of the boulders in the pic. Those have been moved to that location. Also many trees have been cut down. I wish more people could understand that more often than not, Mother Nature is a better artist than us humble little humans, especially when we try to recreate things using Mother Nature’s media.
Anyway it was an actual beach day, not one of those “every day is a beach day” beach days. Alas, our family toddler and her parents left for their home in the PACNW this morning. The moominbeach is their home too and we miss them.
There has been a party here at the moomin every night for the last week culminating in a birthday bash for two. UKW and Le Marquis. These folks are the same age as I am. Lizard Breath engineered Lebanese 7-spice Chicken (also a tofu version) and friends and UKW herself made raw blueberry pie. She would have preferred to pick her own berries but Mother Nature and Father Time didn’t cooperate so a trip to Meijer was necessary.
I did 75% of the dishes before taking a break to watch people swim and sail. The birthday girl herself helped me do the last 25% and we finished up in a big whooosh with the exception of one baking dish that I decreed would soak overnight.
There is one more party in store tomorrow night but it is happening at the Old Cabin rather than the moomin. I have greatly enjoyed EVERY SINGLE evening here but am looking forward to a wee break.
Love y’all, KW
If I were anywhere else on earth and something came STOMPING across my deck earLYE in the morning, I would totally freak out.
The last two mornings (earLYE aka 7-ish), someone has come STOMPING across my deck. I knew EXACTLY who it was. It was the Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchy and he is my cousin. Yesterday he dropped off some ancient maple syrup (unopened). Today it was to check out what his sister’s plans for the day were. At that hour it was all quiet in the next cabin over where his sister and family are staying. I did not know.
In the end, Lizard Breath and I schlepped into town for lunch at Penny’s Kitchen, grocks, Bella’s liqwire, and a menu from José’s. The Grinch treated us all to Mexican food from there tonight. We decided with the number of people we had (nine adults plus a toddler), that take-out was the best option and so we ate in the relative comfort of the moomincabin.
I tried to watch the next episode of Outlander last night but I had caught up and the next episode was not available until midnight. There was no way I was gonna wait until midnight for it to drop so if the streaming service wasn’t lying, I’ll watch it tonight.
Because my sleeping bag was starting to smell just a weeeee bit funky, I decided today was laundry day. I don’t mean it was gross enough that the smell would knock you over when you came within 10 feet of it. Just after I estimated how many nights I’ve slept in it this summer, it seemed like time. I bet the GG has slept in his more nights than I’ve slept in mine. TMI? 🐽
When I got to the laundromat, it was pouring rain and there was only ONE other person there. I don’t even think the owner was there. This person was not doing laundry. I could only guess he was taking shelter from the rain. Homeless? I do not know. I threw my laundry into a couple washers and vamoosed to go drop off the recycling. He was NOT threatening and I was NOT afraid of him but I couldn’t sit outside on the bench because pouring rain and I didn’t want to invite conversation of any kind with anyone. Although a little later I did discuss the iPhone warshing musheen payment app with a woman who came in and asked me how much the warshing musheens cost. She elected to get quarters instead.
Pickle’s for lunch. It was still raining cats and dogs so we sat inside in the fly room. It was fine and the one-piece whitefish basket continues to be my fave. Some of us felt slodgy all afternoon after that little feast. Eventually we reconvened for a late leftover dinner here at the moomin.
So these are Froooogy’s (and Frogette’s and Green Guy’s) latest toys, curated by our visiting toddler. She pulls these things off the bottom shelves of the moomincabin kitchen storage units. Glass things are above her reach. We have had to move the coffee table OUT of the cabin a few times to give her a better place to play with her friends. Not being a coffee table fan in general (you have to MOVE them to VACUUM!), I am a fan of its removal.
The rain stopped late this afternoon but the wind came up. We don’t mind this kind of weather but as this week’s visitors’ stay nears its end, I am hopeful that tomorrow is a beach day. I mean a real beach day where people can swim and bote, not just an “every day is a beach day” kind of thing.
I almost totally fergot this blahg o’ blather tonight. This is a freighter heading into the sunset last night. Today I watched a salty come up and park in the parking spot waiting for I dunno what. It is still there. Then I watched one of the cruise ships go up and a jet take off from Canananada. We swam in the afternoon and then the cousins et al worked on leftovers from last night. That is all. G’night.
Because all three of the kiddos on the alligator are here at the moominbeach this week, it seemed appropriate to post this old picture of them on this blow-up beast we brought back from Florida a long time ago. They are a set of second cousins, born from me and the two female cousins who share my birth year.
While I’m at it, here they are during the first year of their lives, with their MOTHERS! Yes, I and the two cousins who share my birth year gave birth to our first children THE SAME YEAR!
These second cousins still get along together as they do with all of their other second cousins.
Tonight’s cousin party included representatives from all four branches of the family my paternal grandparents begat. One of which was yet another second cousin to the alligator kids albeit quite a bit older. A good time was had by all. Don’t talk about the frooogs, it’ll only encourage them.
Another day, another cousin party. Several cousins arrived in the middle of the night and another arrived late this afternoon. Our cast of characters constantly varies.
This young kayaker is a force of nature, a lot like her grandma. She is working on talking but also communicates with sign language. I wish my generation had known to teach sign language to our children. We’d have been able to communicate with them so much more easily. One of my children was speaking English sentences fluently by 18 months but in general babies take a bit longer learning how to make intelligible speech even though they know all kinds of things so much earlier. My kid was an outlier on that particular slice of the learning spectrum.
I started my day at the grokkery store. Again. I spend a lot of time there, don’t I? I had a lot today so I elected to go through a staffed aisle and wouldn’t you know it there was a SPIDER in one of my reusable grock bags. Of course there was, since my bags hang on a hook OUTSIDE the cabin, which is in a FOREST. The bagging gals handled the situation with aplomb.
Home again and I made lasagna and garlic bread, picking away at it all throughout the day in between word games, chores, and reading. The GG took a bunch of cousins out to scout out blueberries. I told UKW she could NOT take her rental vee-hickle into that area and she didn’t disagree with me. The roads out there are filled with big sand traps and water holes and things. The GG has traveled those roads a lot over the years and knows them well. The Old Brimley Grade Road (where they didn’t go today) is fine for her rental car. Flat dirt roads without any water holes or anything.
I am babbling. It was a wonderful day and that is about all I have. I will watch Outlander again tonight but there is no lightning in the forecast, at least that I know of. That was last night.
Enough already, KW. End it!
