Random bits of my so-called life.

After another community dinner, a couple of beach urchins (of different generations) went swimming. I did not join them. Instead I kibbitzed with a cousin about the local area polly-ticks. Hint: he is immersed in MAGAts here, most of the folks I know here are NOT MAGAts. I do agree that education has not helped a lot of people in this economically challenged area but I would more likely target their life circumstances. Education is largely what you make of it. I know this area better than my beloved cousin may think I do because I grew up here and went to school with many folk who came from very disadvantaged backgrounds. I even dated a few in my misspent youth and don’t get me wrong, they were NOT bad people.

But not to get into polly-ticks too deeply tonight. None of us have comprehensive solutions to these complex situations. So we went down to the beach to watch the swimmers (UKW and Lizard Breath). They are in this pic of crepuscular rays (Jesus beams🤣) but you have to embiggen a couple times and even then all you can see is their heads.

A few minutes later, this bote, the Stewart Cort, was upbound. I’m not sure if you can see the swimmers in this or not. This was the first 1000 foot lake freighter and I remember the first time we saw it go upbound. If I have it right, it remains the ONLY 1000 footer to have cabins both fore and aft.

The swimmers came in and we all sat there for quite a while after as a storm approached. Although we saw some lightning in the distance and felt a few drops of rain, it seems likely that the bulk of the storms will miss us.

G’night, KW🧡

Today. It was raining when I woke up and I so love hanging around in bed in the early morning rain that I didn’t drag myself into a vertical position until not too long before seven. Coffee on the deck and simple breakfast. Eventually the GG went to hike the rail grade to Brimley and UKW to Meijer for grocks.

I went to pick up the GG at Jack’s Grub and Pub and then we went on a reconnaissance mission over off the Old Brimley Grade Road to look for blueberries. Did we find any? Mostly not ripe yet. We’ll be back though. I did not get any butts up blueberry picking DNA but UKW has it in spades and so does the GG.

I was never really cold today but I did wear my polar fleece jacket for coffee on the deck this morning. When we got back from our blueberry reconnaissance mission it was getting hot and UKW and I took a dip in Gitchee Gumee. My first for the year. Actually I took a dip, she swam some laps.

During this, the GG was out in the Motor Bote – he was out there for two hours. When he returned, UKW proposed a beer bote trip for the three of us. In the time it took me and UKW to go up to the cabin to get beer, binoculars, and a ziplock for my iPhone, the sky turned DARK and we heard a rumble of thunder. The GG had checked the weather by then and saw severe storms in the area. We decided to abandon the plan to take out the METAL BOTE and watch whatever storm ended up rolling through, which ended up being nothing.

BBQ chicken, rice, and salad for dinner and now chilling out for the evening as the wind ramps up again.

No bears today but I did see these Sandhill Cranes on the way to the laundromat. Laundry, two grock stores (because only one seems to have hash brown patties, a “fad” this summer), recycle, and then a trip to the Green Bag garbage facility up on the res.

And then things got more interesting because UKW arrived. We had lunch at Pickles and then reconvened later on the moomindeck for cocktails with our cousin-neighbors. Dinner was late late late but in the end we collaborated with the cousin-neighbors at the Old Cabin. I had spaghetti sauce in the works and the Old Cabin folks added to our salad. The GG managed to rope in the Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchie, aka UKW’s brother, as a guest. An impromptu cousin party happened but a good one.

That’s about all I have for now. So happy to be able to hang out here with cousins on our beautiful beach. Love y’all, KW.

This is not a particularly exciting photo but I saw this deer print on my 0-skunk-30 beach walk today. Deer are not uncommon on our beach but we don’t often see them and I did not see this one.

I didn’t quiiiite make to the very end of the beach. The neighbors at the very last lot have cut down their forest and installed SOD(!!!) and I could see someone watering it this morning. I did not want to talk to them. SOD??? Noooooooo! I used to be able to walk to the end of the beach and there was NO ONE THERE! And no dad-blasted frickin’ road for anyone to get there.

Today was my last work day before my next vacation and it was not a very productive day. A meeting got canceled and I was happy about that because about half of the important “players” are off this week and we really need as many folks to be there as possible. In the end I kept an eye on my work laptop but spent the afternoon reading. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone. (Seed, a book in which a black hole is a character.)

We subjected our neighbor-cousins to porterization in the late afternoon and that was enough socialization for me that I had to chill out for a good half hour before ringing the dinner bell. No work tomorrow, at least nothing I’ll get paid for. Laundry, grocks, recycle, garbage, and I dunno what else. The GG did a bunch of vacuuming tonight. It needed it even though there are no dogz here any more. Sand, pine needles, and other outdoor detritus.

The Viking Octantis went down this afternoon. (Er, downRIVER, I mean, it didn’t SINK!) I was joking last week that I spent beaucoup bucks on filet mignon for our anniversary. I mean we couldda spent $12,000 (per person) to cruise Gitchee Gumee on the Octantis, right? That is a lot more than a few hundred bucks of filet mignon for 12 people. To be fair, the $12,000 price tag is for a very large fancy room. There are a few rooms that have almost as much square footage as our house. Smaller rooms are available at more like $5000 per person and probably more to our liking.

I have never taken a cruise but I am pretty sure I am not a cruise kind of person. Certainly I would NOT be happy on one of those huge top-heavy-looking Disney-type botes that cruise the Caribbean. Too many people. Norovirus [and covid, which isn’t over yet] and all kinds of other crapola. Cramped rooms. Crowded swimming pools. Yuck. And waaaay more food than I like to eat. Plus you are pretty much trapped on the ship until it comes into a port. You can’t just get in your vee-hickle and take a little drive somewhere. Or build a little campfire at the end of the day. And what about the pirates? You know, the pirates of the Caribbean🐽

Still, the idea of cruising Gitchee Gumee is entertaining and the Octantis looks a little more “friendly” to an introvert who likes to party but likes to party QUIETLY. Will we ever do it? Probably not but we’ll see. For now we’ll get along with our little motor botes.

We were hanging out on the moomindeck last night when a big thunderstorm (or two?) rolled through. There was thunder rumbling along for a steady 20 minutes (or it seemed that long, I wasn’t really keeping track) before the skies opened up. Hail and LOTS of rain ensued.

We needed that and then we woke up to a 60-something degree day complete with a moderate nor’wester – that means the waves are coming in and breaking onto the beach. I spent the day chilling in the Lyme Lounge with html and the gnarliest old-skool javascript on earth. Chilling in two ways. One is that coding is (usually) a zen activity for me. Two is that it was CHILLY out there today. I wore a polar fleece jacket and socks all day.

Why don’t I revamp the gnarly old javascript? Because it doesn’t do anything REAL, just drives the navigation menus on our high-fidelity product prototype. Revamping it would not be a productive use of my time. As long as I understand how it works, I just continue to maintain it. And I DO understand how it works but I still get tangled up in it from time to time. It doesn’t take much to break it. But then I get to do some debugging and that is (usually) fun.

Haha, today the GG asked me if I wanted to learn how to sharpen his chainsaw. My reply? I can’t even figger out how to open the Lyme Lounge window. Do you REALLY want me anywhere near your chainsaw? Answer? No, I guess not. (Actually I did finally figger out the window but I’ll probably forget it over the winter.)

The consensus around these parts is that the best sunset pics have clouds in them and I totally agree with that. Technically this one does have clouds but they are not the dramatic kind that create all kinds of interesting reflections on the water. I used our pine trees to create a bit of interest instead but it is what it is. Yer fav-o-rite iPhoneographer here. With her XS. Yes, I still have an XS. (And I’m not apologizing, just musing.)

That said… I made two trips to town today. The first to get enough grocks to get the two of us through until Friday (hopefully) when we start to fill up with people again. The second to pick up the GG at the locks where he ended up after walking to town. He got what sounded like a loverly sandwich at Bird’s Eye Outfitters but did not think to ask me if I wanted one. It’s okay, I finished the last of the tofu/black bean taco stuff but Bird’s Eye is in my future. Maybe when UKW is here. We’ll have to do Kenny’s Pitchen too. A LOOOOOONG time fave.

I fitted these trips around my WORK SCHEDULE. Because, yes, I am working this week except for Friday. I was reluctant to log on this morning. I mean, this vacation stuff is not all that bad. But then I did and as I was going through my email, I got a HUGE SURPRISE! A good one but not blahggable. Suffice it to say I didn’t get faaared. (Yet. Because at an “at will” company, ya nevah know.)

We’ve been sleeping in the Lyme Lounge for most of this trip. For the duration that I’ll be working from there, we are sleeping inside the moomincabin. That means we don’t have to switch the bed in the Lyme Lounge into a table every morning and back to a bed every evening. And when I say “we”, I mean the GG. I couldn’t even figger out how to open the back window today😵‍💫

Sort of anyway. I did MEGA laundry this morning. And I did not do it all because lizard breath took sheets down to her house to wash. The GG and I do not personally use sheets up here any more. We have comfortable sleeping bags and we sleep in those. But guests need sheets. Anyway I appreciated not having to deal with the sheets. (I also cleaned out the refrigimatator, not that it needed it, I just needed to reacquaint myself with its contents.)

I had a laundry “helper” today. Last night the GG was all, “Do you want me to come with you?” My gut reaction was “NO!” because I ALWAYS do the moominbeach laundry by myself these days. But then. I woke up this morning and I thought what the heck, it’s Sunday and I am not in a big rush to do anything much (i.e., no work or anything). So I texted him (he was still asleep in the Lyme Lounge) and told him if he was still interested he was welcome. We had some coffee first.

The laundromat itself was weird today because when we got there (still waaaay on the early side), there were all kinds of big pickup trucks in the parking lot and men doing their laundry. That seemed weird to me because usually it’s only me and a couple other patrons. Fortunately it wasn’t crowded INSIDE. Eventually I overheard a man telling a fellow patron that he was on the crew that is building a new lock (Soo Locks, google it if you don’t know what it is). So I figure that since today is on the weekend, the workers have the day off and some were doing laundry. DISCLAIMERS: 1) There are ALWAYS men doing laundry there and 2) I’m sure women also work on the new lock prodject.

BTW: Someone once asked me if I was “excited” (or something) that the Orange Baboon was building a new lock. Say what? This lock has been in the works for MANY years, waaaay before The Former Guy took office. As he does, he was just trying to take credit for something he had next to nothing to do with. In fact I’m gonna guess he doesn’t even know what the Soo Locks is. Grifting along…

Of perhaps greater interest than a trip to the Up North Laundry is that we had a BEAR SIGHTING on the way into town! A bear ran across Six Mile in front of us, rambled around in a farmyard for a few minutes, then ran BACK across. I DID NOT GET A PIC! I could’ve probably done it as it made its return trip but I was sorta gobsmacked and didn’t manage it. It was a small bear but we THINK a little bigger than this year’s crop. We did not see a mama. Yearling? I dunno…

So you’ll have to be satisfied with this pic of Laundry Man. He was actually helpful although I have my own “system” and mostly told him to sit and read. Bored with that, he took a wee walk and found the Mean Old Grunchie Old Grinchie having breakfast at his main restaurant, Frank’s.

I hate driving days, especially when my precious beach urchins are the ones doing the driving and I am left to await their safe arrival, five hours down (or up) the I75 SUV Speedway.

All three of them left this morning, traveling in two cars to The Planet Ann Arbor, leaving at different times with two in one vee-hickle and one in the other. The three are my two daughters and my niece, who is like a daughter to me. What threatened to add to the stress was that one of the taaars on Pengo’s rental car had been experiencing fluctuating pressure. These “kiddos” are all sharp cookies and they stopped at Mark’s Tires to check it out yesterday. Mark’s found a screw embedded in the taaaar and fixed it and all was well.

Anyway they are all down on the Planet tonight and I miss them greatly up here at the moomin. These gals are all wonderful creative cooks and they took care of us well. I managed breakfast (bacon and hash browns, make yer own egg, etc.) plus FinFam Steak Dinner for our anniversary and a leftover night on Thursday when they were tired and discombobulated after a day of hiking and there was plenty of leftover food.

Their plan was to leave mid/late morning today but they all needed to pack so I made myself scarce, going to town to pick up a few grocks, return umpteen bazillion cans/bottles, and drop off a load of recycle. “Stay outta the fray” continues to be a good mantra for a mom/aunt of 30-somethings. I remember when I was a similar age and trying to pack myself and the beach urchins up to go home from the moomin. The Commander would hover, trying to make sure I didn’t forget anything, which of course caused me to forget things because it distracted me. Eventually I came up with a strategy in which I would hand her a grocery bag into which she could put items she thought I might forget and that pretty much worked and reduced stress. I am not a hover-er. I don’t think! I’m sure I have my moments.

Anyway they are all gone today and I am alone with the GG and I miss my kiddos.

Those are the words The Commander spoke to me after my brother and dad had both died. It was my brother’s idea to build a fancy garage here at the moomincabin. My brother was a Car Guy. Legitimately, as he was an automotive engineer, not just an aficionado.

Some of us were not crazy about the garage idea. That included The Commander. I think. My idea was to build a bunk/bath house. More sleeping space and a second bathroom. Alas, even I knew that the plumbing involved was probably beyond what we could do, at least at that time.

I looked my mother in the eye and said something like, “Yes, we have a garage. And that’s a GOOD thing.”

And it is. It served as a storage space and staging area when The Commander died and we were dealing with all of the stuff from the Dillon House, aka Grandma’s Other House The Real House Where She Lives Some of the Days. It stores various trailers and botes and things, including some owned by various cousin-neighbors. It provides an extra bit of parking space when we have umpteen bazillion people (and their vee-hickles) around. Those are our vee-hickles in the pic, Mooon Yooonit and Cygnus X-1. And it is barely visible from the moomincabin because of all the trees.

And it is a FANTASTIC space for the GG. He loves to hang out in the garage. When people drive by when he’s out there, they often stop to talk so it’s kinda like the corner coffee shop. This morning after the beach urchins left to do Brimley-style errands, the GG was heading out the door and I asked, “Where-ya goin’?” Well. He was going to the garage where he spent a few hours sharpening one of his chain saws.

Hey, bro and parents, wherever you are, thanks for the garage!

P.S. Brimley-style errands? Four Seasons grocery, Dancing Crane, Mark’s Tire, post office, and Besteman’s garage for maple syrup. Not necessarily in that order. You can get a lot done in the little burg of Brimley. Actually Besteman’s is technically Rudyard but who’s counting?

And Canananada too. It’s usually on the right. Canananada, that is. The island is in the middle and belongs to the USA. The land on the left (that you also can’t see) is also USA owned.

We’ve had a lot of this kind of weather this trip. Foggy, that is. This is a good thing because it means it isn’t all that hot here (usually). In fact it was so chilly this afternoon that yer fav-o-rite blahgger actually turned the propane heater up in the moomincabin.

One of the things I love about fog is fog horns. When I was a little kid here, the fog horn was a stationary device out in the channel somewhere, probably at the “cement block” but not sure. Wherever it was, I LOVED snuggling in my little bunk bed listening to the fog horn. Nowadays all of the freighters have their own fog horns and when it is foggy here in the Saint Marys River system, you can hear a freighter’s approach via its fog horn.

I always say our beach is on Lake Superior but technically it is on the Saint Marys River. It just looks like we’re on the big lake because we look out onto a LOT of water. The freighters probably don’t blow their fog horns out on the lake but once they get into the river system, it becomes important to blow them. The freighters communicate with each other via marine traffic comm systems but they need to let small botes know something BIG is in the area. I still love listening to the fog horns.

Tonight was supposed to be a veggie taco night. It turned out to be Mother’s March on Leftovers instead. The refrigimitator was full and it was time. We’ll do the tacos tomorrow night.

“I before E, except after C or when sounding like A as in neighbor or weigh”… Or freighter 🐽

First pic here is before faaarworks. It kinda looks like a storm is rolling in but it’s just a cloud.

We (the GG and a coupla significant others) are shooting off some boom stick bottle rocket type stuff. Others got better pictures. I was just doing my usual iPhoneography stuff. This is the best I got and I don’t think it’s all that bad. Bay Mills started up their faaarworks just about the same time the MOE-skee-TOES came out in full force so we decamped to the moomincabin.

Today I sucked up my covid paranoia and we went to Pickles for lunch. Unmasked. The GG and I decided against splitting a whitefish sandwich in favor of the 2-piece whitefish basket. The fish was loverly and I was glad I didn’t have to chomp through all the bread that comes with the sandwich.

So yesterday was a certain holiday all its own, an anniversary of more years than I am strong enough to count. This was the main thing on the menu. There are actually 16 of these little filets (yes really, it’s a big bowl) but it turned out that they couldn’t all fit on the grill so we put some of them back in the freezer for another occasion. We still had plenty. I managed to unwrap them and discard the butcher paper before the GG could catch the price. I knew he would get sticker shock🤣 Cheaper than some fancy trip somewhere though.

We had a pretty darn good party with everybody staying at the moomin plus a few cousin-neighbors. 12 people and my favorite way to celebrate any kind of anniversary is to treat others to food or whatever. Paying it forward, successful failures that we are.

Our young cousin and her fiance left this morning (they are WONDERFUL guests) and then… What are we gonna have for dinner tonight? An ongoing problem, We still have seven people to feed. Two of the beach urchins (there are three here) and a significant other made a grock run. I can’t say enough times how nice it is to have capable ADULT beach urchins around to help with meal planning and cooking. I was thinking about how I was about the beach urchins age when I started doing more of the cooking and shopping, etc. here at the moomin when we had a crowd. The Commander still paid for most of the grocks and Bank of Moom is doing whatever of that people will let her. Lots easier these days with venmo, etc.

I don’t often post pics of PEOPLE lest they think they look fugly but here’s a little glimpse of a cousin, a niece, and both daughters. I don’t think anyone looks fugly but then I’m not in the pic.

Meat? Yes we had tons of meat. Republicans? I don’t think there was anyone at this party who is a registered member of any polly-tickle party but I could be wrong. I know that when Hilary was running I actually bought some of her campaign paraphernalia. I bought it to counteract the Trump magnet someone stuck on the Lyme Lounge as a prank. Alas, I was endlessly spammed by Democratic party emails. I vote exclusively for Dems these days but I won’t join a party. I think there MIGHT have been ONE person at our party who votes Republican. It is not anyone in the pic.

Today? Hot hot hot. But the forecast is for cooler temps the next couple days and maybe t-storms tomorrow? I don’t know anything about the air quality but the fire danger is significantly down so that is a good thing.

Okay, it was “neurons”, not “neutrons” that weren’t firing. Saturday night, there was a brief conversation about what to have for dinner *Sunday* night (i.e., the next night). The beach urchins said something about a chicken dish and yer fav-o-rite blahgger’s takeaway was that we HAD a plan for dinner and she did not need to be involved.

The next *morning* (Sunday), some of our cousins were heading in to town to explore the Sault Meijer and get a few grocks. They asked MULTIPLE times if they could pick something up. Our “neutrons” continued to fail to fire and we kept saying no. *Finally* after they left, we realized that we HAD NO PLAN for dinner! It was okay. The beach urchins got a list together and texted our cousins and they saved the day.

Our “neutrons” are now firing a bit more normally, the dish was Lebanese Chicken with 7-spice, and it was fantastic. Since we only have one oven here, we cooked the chicken on the grill. I should say the GG and Lizard Breath cooked the chicken on the grill.

We now have eight out of nine people here including Pengo Janetto who arrived from Hawaii and California and Laos and who knows where else late Saturday night. She is a world traveler these days. Since I was fast asleep in the Lyme Lounge when she arrived, no muskellunges were flung although I’m sure there was plenty of giggling.

And that’s about it for now🐸

To be continued… 🤣

I potted three of these things with impatiens when we came up here for the Memorial Day weekend. They were still doing well a few weeks later when the GG did a drive-by on his way from hiking the yooperland North Country Trail back to the Planet Ann Arbor. When we arrived maybe 10 days later they were gone.

I blame Heinrich the snowshoe hare. I see him hopping about the yard nearly every day. Potting flowers here is always a risk because we aren’t usually around to make sure they thrive. Like this year it was dry dry dry for weeks and weeks. Then there was the year I potted the flowers and the temperature went down into the upper 20s that night and I had to haul the pots inside the moomincabin. They survived that year. This year not too much. That is they survived the DRY but not Heinrich.

This morning was another grock trip. This time I bought tons of perishable food and since it was early, there was a staffed cashier without a line. So I eschewed the U-scan. Man oh man those cashier gals were FAST. I put my bags and my grocks on the conveyor belt and WHOOSH! I was outta there PDQ.

I did a lot of cooking prep this morning and then a lot of time on the deck in the afternoon reading and watching popup thunderstorms blow through. Beautiful variable weather today. And that is about all today.

P.S. Hahaha. I made potato salad for tonight and I was nervous about whether it was any good or not. Multiple people have now gone back for seconds!

The idea was to hit up the grock store on the early side. You know, before all the holiday weekend revelers get there to stock up. This did not exactly happen. A MUCH needed severe thunderstorm rolled through instead. That wouldn’t have precluded a grock trip but the power outage it caused gave me pause.

We are a bit gun shy about power outages because The Planet Ann Arbor, particularly our daughter’s neighborhood, has had MULTIPLE outages since about February. They have frequently lasted DAYS and people lost appliances and things. DTE (Ann Arbor’s power company) keeps telling people to get whole house surge protectors but those keep failing.

So. How long was this gonna last? If we don’t have power here, we also lose running water (although Lake Superior is a short walk to the beach). But we are going to have innumerable visitors in and out this week and we will need RUNNING water. Through pipes. Not the kind where you grab a bucket, run down to the lake, fill it up, and run back up. And what about the beaucoup bucks packages of filet mignon in the freezer?

The storm moved through slowly but finally the rain at the moominbeach let up and there was a bit of light in the west. I headed to town, the plan at this point being to get the non-perishable items on my list. My brain was buzzing with how to keep up with enough ice to keep the filet frozen. The storm had left the moominbeach but it and I were both heading east and it was going a bit slower than I was so I kept catching up with it. There were times it was raining so hard I could hardly see anything and I was glad I was on our little back roads with hardly any traffic. The freeway wouldn’t have been fun.

I made it to Meijer just as the rain slowed significantly. I had told the GG to text me if the power came back on and he did but I was probably going thru the U-scan when the text came in because I didn’t notice it until I got back into Cygnus. There was no way I was going back inside the store. To be honest, I figgered from the beginning I’d end up making another trip tomorrow, power outage or not. And yes, I need to get corn chowder ingredients, which were not on my list this morning🤣

In the end, we lost power for maybe an hour. We have Cloverland Electric up here, not DTE, and they were ON IT!

So we got on the road at 7:43 this morning. The only reason I know that is because Cygnus X-1 notifies me each hour that I have been driving without turning off the ignition. Today at four hours, I happened to look at the clock and it was 11:43. It was hazy on the Planet Ann Arbor this morning but I didn’t think about it much until we got south of Flint and it was getting hazier and hazier and darker and darker. I had air quality on my brain (doesn’t everybody?). But then a few raindrops hit my veeendsheeld. Oh, it’s a RAINSTORM. That’s why it’s so dark.

So for maybe a half hour, I/we navigated heavy rain and crazy drivers (me at least). When it started to clear up, the GG called Cygnus to ask if I was okay(????) Well yes of course! What mile marker was I at? Well, 184. Which was EXACTLY where he was. So I was barely behind him but we couldn’t see each other for a while because of intervening traffic. THE GOOD NEWS! I SEEM to have conquered my pandemic-related lack of driving confidence. (Knock on wood.)

When we arrived at the moomin, our super-hero Couchman swung into action. He unloaded all 23 boxes of couch onto the deck and here are some of them.

Here he is about to begin zee cloning.

Mid prodject.

Around this time I was on the [hot and buggy] beach. Our cousin-neighbors came down and asked something like was I helping with this prodject or was it a one-man prodject? Well. Definitely it was a one-man prodject. My brain waves do NOT match those of the GG at least not for this kind of prodject. I was further asked if the Uncly Uncle were here, would it be a two-man prodject? Yes yes yes.

At this point the prodject was finished except for getting rid of the old furniture and breaking down the cardboard boxes for recycling. Le Marquis was also taking a pic so that’s his cam on the right.

A bit later the beach urchins asked if the GG was napping on the new couch. He wasn’t (yet). He was out on the deck processing cardboard for recycling. The old futon (fate not totally known) is under the tarp, which was provided by Le Marquis.

A question today was something like, “Moom are you feeling more ready?” Yes but I’m in that tipping point. The one where I have to transition from my beloved adult home to my childhood home. It is so beautiful in my Planet Ann Arbor back yard this evening, The birds are singing up a storm and it isn’t all that hot.

But we are leaving tomorrow nevertheless and I will be so happy to get to the moominbeach and then, whenever I decide to come back down south, I will struggle with that.

I talked to one of my sweet Indian-American dev colleagues at the end of today. I was kind of done done done. He is pretty much in that mode too as he is leaving for Paris Friday night and spending the next couple weeks in Paris and I think the south of France. Most of his trips are to see his family in India but he likes to travel in general and this will be a different kind of trip. He said he told his college-age daughter (I remember the day he was late to work so he could take her to kindergarten) to plan the trip and he would follow along. I did a similar thing when my daughter said something like, “Moom, we need a new couch at the moomincabin.” I told her to figger it out and the bank of Moom/Grandma would pay for it. It’s what The Commander would have wanted.

So this is what the moomin living room looks like right now (this is a few weeks ago). The GG is napping on a BROKEN futon and that other piece of furniture is soooo uncomfortable. It isn’t long enough for someone other than Tyrion Lannister to take a nap on and even though he would fit, he definitely deserves a more comfortable spot. I have fallen asleep there before but I was all folded up when I did.

My brother and his wife engineered the futon and the other piece of furniture. I’m not being snarky because they were really trying to to make things better at the moomin. My parents were for some reason accustomed to accepting donations from other people, I think because when we built the place they did not have a lot of money and were happy to accept hand-me-downs. I don’t remember ever having a problem with this. I was a kid then and furniture was furniture and I was outside as much as possible so furniture?

We got Chinese takeout tonight, enough for tomorrow night too. We are basking a bit in our back yard gearing up for tomorrow’s trip.

G’night, KW

My main chore/errand today was to pick up a bunch of filet mignon. It’s in the freezer and I’m gonna haul it all up to the moomin for a big shebang we’re throwing next week. It’s not like I can’t buy it up in the yooperland but the supply is more reliable down here on the Planet. I told the butcher I was not going to look at the price 🤣. I’ll just say that this is one time I appreciated getting the employee discount.

Other than that I was pretty stressed out most of the day except when the GG was off visiting FlaMan. There’s too much to pack and I’m almost afraid to look at what’s in Cygnus and how it’s situated. And the GG is often frenetic when he is [over]packing. And then work was more stressful than usual as everybody is trying to get stuff done during a constant vacation rotation. Most of us have tons of paid time off and you have to use it within the year or lose it so we definitely take it. I have told dev and others something like 100 times when I will be out 🤣 and I have an O-O-O message in my email signature and people are still asking me.

The GG just now asked me if there was anything HE could do tomorrow. Y’know, to “help” me. I am so scattered I couldn’t think of ANYTHING. Except laundry. I guess that’s a start. I mean I usually do most of the laundry but what the heck. He is certainly capable of doing laundry. When you are from a family of 10 siblings, you learn early so your clothes don’t disappear. The beach urchins also learned early, even though there are only two of them. Thinking back, laundry day at the moomin was always an EVENT, where The Commander and I would take them to the laundromat. Lunch and other activities were often involved.

I am rambling incoherently now so I’ll say g’night. You’re welcome!