Random bits of my so-called life.

The first stramash actually began last night, when power went out in the Waterhill neighborhood. And didn’t come back on. Here at the Landfill, we had four BRIEF outages yesterday, one of them hours before any storms rolled through. The City Mouse was still without this morning. And her office was also out although that was not indicated on the power company site so she schlepped over there not knowing. In the end, I had my fave co-worker here at the Landfill today starting mid-morning.

The second stramash began when a truck delivered our new IKEA couch. This couch is not for the Landfill. We are taking it up to the moomincabin to replace the EXTREMELY uncomfortable living room furniture that we’ve been living with for DECADES. The City Mouse arranged all of this. I was happy about that mainly because I HATE picking out furniture. A secondary reason is not blahggable. But I REALLY REALLY REALLY appreciate that my “baby” has grown up to be such a wonderful responsible person, even though she had to endure meeeee as a mother.

The folks that delivered the couch tried to do a dump and run. They put everything in the driveway (in the rain) but did not verify with us that they had delivered all 23 pieces (it’s a sectional). The GG chased the truck down the street. Fortunately there is a stop sign at the end of our short block so he was able to catch them. As it turned out, they found a couple more of the 23 pieces still in the truck. A second issue is that we got an extra of another piece. Or something. What was delivered did not match up with what was sent.

In the end, after talking to IKEA, the GG arranged to drive to the nearest store (a half hour away) and exchange extra pieces for missing pieces. The last thing we wanted to happen was to arrive in the yooperland with an incomplete couch. In the end, it all worked out. The delivery guys were [very unfriendly] contractors, NOT IKEA employees. The IKEA employees were great!

The only remaining issue I have is that we are hauling these things up via several vee-hickles and Cygnus is currently loaded such that I cannot see out the rearview mirror. I can get grocks without the rearview mirror but I will NOT drive to the yooperland without it. I wanted us to rent a trailer but it is $400. I was okay with paying that amount and The Commander would also have been but no one else is so I decided to stay outta the fray.

At the end of the day, we had a ‘hattan in the back yard and I sent the City Mouse home with a second one in one of the jars I make overnight oats in. It has a lid that closes tightly.

I dunno. I thought I would be doing tons of chores today and pre-packing for our NEXT trip to the yooperland. This will be our 4th of July trip but I will stay for a while after that and telecommute for a week or so until UKW arrives. I won’t be there for six weeks like I was in 2021 but I’ll be there for a while and sounds like the GG will be with me. I/we will return to The Planet Ann Arbor in late July or so. We will probably go back up for a couple weeks surrounding Labor Day. And probably close the cabin then. Wait, didn’t we just open it?

I slugged around a lot today. Except for clothing and a few food items, I don’t really have much to schlep up to the moomincabin. Well except for the new couch but I’m staying outta that fray🤣. I’m all for paying beaucoup bucks to rent a trailer for Mooon Yooonit to do the hauling but others have different opinions. As long as I can fit my meager belongings into Cygnus, I guess I don’t care if she also has to haul couch parts.

It has been dry dry dry here in the armpit of the Great Lake State. That would be southeast Michigan. This afternoon we had tornado watches and severe storm warnings. We did get a good thunderstorm or two. I wouldn’t call them severe although when the first one rolled through the winds were high and GG was outside watching the trees and wondering if a tree might fall on the Landfill. If that had happened, it would be our third tree. Thankfully, it didn’t happen and I don’t think we are going to have a tornado.

Has been since March 13, 2020 although this pic is from 2010. It’s a good thing my work team doesn’t require us to meet live because then I would have to dress up a bit more, I guess. And put some makeup on, maybe. Early in the pandemic my then boss Amazon Woman said, “I don’t want anybody looking at me this morning.” YES!!! Other teams do different things. Whatever. So they see ME but as KennyP took my pic for my work badge waaaay back before COVID. It is actually a good pic so yay for KennyP! And I am wearing what used to be bizcaz for me, understated COMFORTABLE mix-ables bought online from Chicos and JJill, etc. Elastic waist skirts! I’m a skirt gal and don’t do pants except for smartwool leggings which are an UNDERlayer.

I could tell a few stories about my family and tie-dyed t-shirts but to make this short, the other half of my post-covid bizcaz outfit is long skirts. In the 2021 mid-summer covid “lull”, between the original vaxxing and omicron, we entertained various cousins and their friends and SOs at the moomincabin. I ordered covid tests and the Fedex gal that delivered them LOVED my outfit. Tie-dyed t-shirt and long blue tiered skirt. I told her that I was telecommuting and that was my work outfit. She nicely asked me if there was a preferred way to get her truck out of our “parking lot”. I replied that: 1) she was certainly better at managing that weird parking lot than I was and she could do whatever she needed to do. 2) She was lucky that *I* was the only person there at the time because she didn’t have to deal with umpty-nine-bazillion automative vee-hickles and the Lyme Lounge. She was easily able to navigate our parking lot and managed to do it again later that summer when my frickin’ work laptop died and Amazon Woman had to send me the team’s extra laptop. The Fedex gal and I were kinda old friends by then and she knew how to navigate our parking lot but I think I was STILL the only person/car there.

I was up early today and down to the farmers market where I got yet another four quarts of shelling peas, some greens, and sea scallops at Monahan’s. I spent quite a long time shelling peas today and also cleaned out most of the refrigerator. Heading north on Thursday and not sure when I will be back although others will be around. But I’ll still be online because FIBER OPTIC. Of course I’ve been online via a good DSL for YEARS but I’m happy that the yooperland is moving into the future.

I dunno. I’ve heard that women tend to get more liberal as they grow older. I have always been at least somewhat liberal but in the last few years I seem to move more and more toward the liberal progressive end of things. In particular I adamantly think people should be treated equally no matter what their skin color, gender, age, religion, whatever is. But I do not think they are. Local polly-ticks are currently making an attempt to change that by forbidding police to pull over folks with broken taillights, etc., and it has caused the typical firestorms on next door neighbor, et al.

I don’t think I have the “chops” to go into it all that deeply tonight but I am not afraid that a Black guy with a broken taillight who is not pulled over is going to break into my house and murder me. Apparently tickets can be mailed to offenders. The idea is to keep the police from kneeling on somebody’s neck until they die. Etc. Disclaimers: I do think people should keep their taillights, etc., in working order. But I don’t think a broken taillight is a good indicator of a murderous person.

Years and years ago at the moomincabin, a guy we know as Mean Gene was looking for The Grinch at Radical Betty’s house. The Grinch was not there but Radical stood on her back (second story) deck and had a shouted (friendly) conversation with Mean Gene. A (beloved) person next door overheard whatever it was they were talking about and shouted, “SHE’S A REAL RADICAL!”

Yes. I have some of the same DNA as Radical Betty did (she was my aunt) although I am not even half the person she was. But she, like The Commander, identified as a republican in earlier years. The republican party began its inexorable march to the right and my matriarchs did not march with it. They would be horrified at what the GOP has turned into now. Are we social justice warriors? I dunno but we all care/cared about the welfare of others no matter what they look like or believe. Isn’t that why this country was started in the beginning? I am starting to get more vocal about this as I age so watch out.

I had a run-in with Mean Gene on the moominbeach when I was very young. I escaped his unwanted advances because I could run faster than him and knew the paths through the woods. I (silently) made my peace with him many years later at Radical Betty’s memorial event. He held no threat for me any more and my fear and anger evaporated into thin air. Stories for another day.

I’m a little conflicted about whether this should be on my blahg or not but when I went grock shopping today I was at the uScan and the guest counter person recognized me and gave me the employee discount even though “my” employee was not there today.

I know that this discount is extended to me but I NEVER ask for it. I’m not Warren Buffet but I’m affluent enough that I don’t really need it. I wish there was a way to pass this kind of “perk” along to someone who needs it. Once I was in line behind a young man trying to pay for a few grocks with some kind of plastic “welfare” card. It was from another state (I think) so the system wouldn’t take it. I sneaked past him and ran my own debit card through the swiper. I told him to pay it forward someday. I would do that for someone again in a heartbeat.

Life can be so hard for so many people. You can talk all you want about people pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps but there are folks who don’t really have any bootstraps. I’m not sure what a bootstrap is in any case, maybe I should google it. The Commander used to tell me her father, who I called Funny Granddaddy when I was small (he made what we now call dad jokes), believed people should be given a million dollars (or whatever) when they were 21. OF COURSE, a lot of people (of any age) would squander a large amount of money like that but I think the point was more that if you pay people a decent wage, more of them might become productive, positive members of society. I know there are “welfare queens” and other scammers out there but I think most people are trying to do their best. I’m not sure I have made a point but I think about this stuff from time to time… And struggle with it…

As ambivalent as I am about getting a discount I don’t really need, I was of course appreciative about being treated so graciously this morning. I have worked as a cashier. I loved it but I know what those folks have to put up with from customers and I ALWAYS try to be uber friendly. They deserve higher pay. (I was paid $1.75 an hour when I started my first cashier job but that was a long time ago and it was a summer job and I was living with my parents who basically paid for EVERYTHING I needed.)

The pic is a random one of my daughters and cousins of various degrees crowded into the moomincabin one evening eight years ago. The Commander always loved when piles of people were crowded into that small space and I must’ve had a laundry trip planned for the next morning.

We are having eggplant parm except minus the parm because… I checked the fridge for parm this morning. There was a partial tub of shredded parm in there. I inspected it through the translucent plastic. It looked okay. When I OPENED it this evening, there were flecks of GREEN in there. Nope. I threw it out. It’ll work, the dish I mean, there is mozzarella underneath the tomato sauce and I bought that today.

Here’s a view of the moominkitchen. The adult is my daughter and the child is one of my many first cousins twice-removed (aka my cousin’s grandchild). This one happens to be Cap’n QUEEN Leila and they are making corn chowder from The Commander’s recipe. I took the pic from the living room, staying outta the fray. As I try to do although they were having a good time and all was calm.

Maybe you can imagine a grandmother managing four granddaughters standing on stools (and dragging them around) in that small space. And some butt dancing.

I posted this pic on facebook once upon a time and a lifelong friend of mine who also spent summers on the moominbeach asked who the child was. She told me C*Q*L reminded her of MEEEEE when I was young and yes, we share some DNA. For one thing? That HAIR? That hair is MY HAIR. How the heck did she get MY HAIR? 🧡

C*Q*L is well ensconced in her teenage years now. As near as I can figger, she’s been a “teenager” since about the age of three but maybe that’s because her older siblings are a set of triplets? Whatever, she is and always has been a FORCE OF NATURE.

We haven’t seen C*Q*L frequently since covid and also her family moved out of her branch of the family’s cabin next door but I know she is TALL now. Probably taller than anyone in my little fambly. Definitely no longer in need of a stool to help with corn chowder at the moomincabin although I bet that’s the last thing she’s thinking about doing these days.

Height is another genetic puzzle. My dad was six feet and he is the tallest FinFam member in recent generations (I think) but I have been told that his grandfather was 6’5″. C*Q*L’s “papa” (my cousin’s husband) is also over six feet and her mom is pretty tall too. My great grandmother was apparently very small but their early married life in northern Saskatchewan would be a whole ‘nother story. And a third hand report. My dad’s grandfather died on a fur trapping expedition (in the 1880s) when his children were very young.

So I dunno how it all works but I am glad to have all of these beautiful and wonderful people in my life and I am so happy that our grandfather bought our beach 100 years ago and we still own it. I don’t care how tall or short we are or what our hair is like or what color our skin is although most of us are pretty WASPy in terms of that…

We didn’t have a kitchen dancing kind of father’s day but in the end, a couple of father-ish things happened yesterday, on Juneteenth. Turning the tables, the GG did something for each of his daughters. Drove one to pick up her vee-hickle after maintenance and replaced a battery in the other’s CO alarm. Oh, not that she can’t change a battery. But the “new” battery she tried to use as a replacement was in fact dead and she didn’t have any others. He (of course) did. I know he was happy to “save the day” in both instances. As an adult I lived a five hour drive away from my parents so they weren’t usually available to help with stuff like that.

[Delete rant about smoke/CO alarms that beep raucously at any time of the day or night because the battery is low. The last time this happened to me, it did the most awful caterwauling imaginable and then a voice started saying “fire, fire”. It stopped – because there was NO FIRE — but I could not get back to sleep. Jeebus.]

The Landfill Chitchen, while not very big, is big enough to allow for a bit of kitchen dancing. You can maybe see in the pic. The moomincabin is mostly a one-person kitchen although I can remember The Commander cooking with all FOUR of her granddaughters on stools, well, maybe the eldest was tall enough to reach the counter without a stool. Sure wish I had a pic of that but digital cameras, not to mention iPhones, were not available in those days and I was never any good at managing film cameras but that’d be a whole ‘nother story.

Anyway, when two adults are in the moominkitchen they are constantly bumping butts. Back in the day, before the Marine Traffic app, when a freighter came into view, it was always very exciting and somebody or other would yell, “BOTE!” I remember my mother and I scrambling to get out to the front window to see the bote, bumping butts the whole way. As if we hadn’t ever seen another bote in our lives.

There is a trail in this pic but it’s a mini-trail through “our” mini-woods. I grabbed this crappy point-and-shoot of the sunrise as I took off on my walk this morning. I left the house just as my mouse returned Cygnus, then walked to her work. She had borrowed Cygnus overnight while Oriole had some service done. Oriole is a Crosstrek like Cygnus except she is orange and has a stick shift. I had been thinking about buying a second RAV4 but when I saw Oriole drive up the first time, I had to have one of those. I do still love Mooon Yooonit (our RAV4) too but usually it’s the GG who drives her and she is frequently filled up with crapola, trail maintenance tools and pamphlets and other detritus.

So. Himself arrived at around nine PM last night, hence no Father’s Day activities. We don’t exactly celebrate holidays in general except to use them as an excuse to get together.

We are not done with the North Country Trail but our friend Joan finished her second complete “thru” hike yesterday. “thru” is in quotes because although she hiked the entire trail, she did not do it contiguously. It still counts. They had finished her remaining yooperland sections on Thursday, then took Friday and Saturday as travel days, etc., the GG to Hoton Lake and Joan to her home. She left the last six miles for a trail section near her house so she could finish at home among friends. The Twinz of Terror and others joined her on that last section yesterday and it all ended triumphantly.

And then he drove home (swinging by FlaMan’s place to drop off beer🤣). We’ll do some sort of make-up Father’s Day later in the week. Maybe. I suppose we could’ve celebrated today on Juneteenth? It is a federal holiday but not one that I get off (yet). I also don’t get Columbus Day or Veteran’s Day. When my current company took over my original company, we lost MLK Day… For about a year… Then it sneaked its way back onto the schedule. I can only guess why and don’t get me wrong, I am supportive even though MLK Day is not at the best time of year to have a day off. Except when it falls on my bday🤣. I also have a suspicion that Juneteenth will become a company holiday one of these years but we’ll see.

Since my cousin has brought up the subject of carnivorous testicles (in the comments a couple days ago) and I don’t have anything else to say, I guess I will tell that story (again, I know I’ve told it before). Actually there’s a mini-story and then a bit longer one.

The mini-story is that when I was in college and renting one of those crappy box apartments with several other people (including my cousin actually), we were having a pizza dinner one night. A roommate’s boyfriend was there and he didn’t eat meat. So we had a veggie pizza and a non-veggie pizza. I forget who was cutting the pizza but they apparently cut the meat pizza first and then made a movement toward the veggie with the same knife. He yelled, “DON’T USE THE CARNIVOROUS UTENSIL!”

Sometime after that, in the summer, I was at the moominbeach and my other cousin UKW was visiting her parents Radical Betty and Duke. UKW is a total butts-up blueberry picker and when a blueberry picking expotition was scheduled, I weaseled my way into it even though I am NOT a total butts-up blueberry picker. I just wanted to spend time with UKW.

So on the expotition were Betty, Duke, UKW, and me, and we were driven by Lewie, a childhood friend of my old coot and Radical Betty. We were rattling around out on the back roads in the area between Brimley and Raco and about all I can remember about the actual blueberry picking was sitting on a little insect-infested hummock with “I got my thrill on blueberry hill” running through my head.

I don’t remember how it got started but I told my story about the carnivorous utensils and Radical mis-heard it as carnivorous TESTICLES. Hilarity ensued as it often did when Radical was around.

Her mind must have been in the gutter that day in general because another thing that happened was Lewie kept talking about a “cat house” in Raco. Radical Betty somehow got the idea he was talking about a BROTHEL! In Raco? I mean there’s hardly ANYTHING in Raco so if there is any trade in prostitution, it probably doesn’t happen in an actual brothel. You’d have to have known Lewie (a lifelong bachelor) but the idea of him purchasing favors from a WOMAN is unimaginable. BUT GUESS WHAT? The “cat house” he was talking about was a building where BULLDOZERS were stored! “Cat”erpillars! Imagine that!

Banana was one of my childhood nicknames. I tolerated it for the most part. Nicknames can be annoying when some people use them but tolerable when others do. I never minded when The Engineer (my brother) called me Banana. I almost NEVER liked “Annie” (my brother didn’t EVER call me that). I am “Anne-with-an-e”, not “Annie”. Still I tolerated that from a few people. (I don’t actually like my actual NAME very well but that would be a whole ‘nother story.)

I tacked on “Black Thumb” to Banana as an adult and homeowner because I kill every single blasted living plant I am entrusted to care for. I just don’t understand plants.

So I did NOT grow these peas. But I sure like shelling them. It is a zen activity to me. Last week no one had them at the farmers market or maybe I couldn’t find them. It happens. I found one vendor with sugar snap peas. I find sugar snaps kind of stringy although a lot of people love them. To each his own. Today there were multiple vendors with shelling peas. I bought four quarts today from the first vendor I saw and I will be buying more until the pea season is over. We’ll eat some right away and freeze the rest.

After the farmers market I decided to fill Cygnus up with gas. It was just after 7:00 AM so I knew the Speedway on my way home would not be busy with lorries everywhere like it sometimes is and I was right! It wasn’t busy but it was funny! Just after I got out of Cygnus to start pumping, a Black guy roared in on a fancy motor-sickle (not a pickle 🤣) with a sound system that BLARED raunchy rap the whole time he was filling up. It was LOUD and quite the change from the quiet jazz I had rolling along in Cygnus. It obviously takes longer to fill up Cygnus than a motor-sickle so he took off before I was finished, blazing off up N. Maple, music still blaring, heading for Huron River Drive I’m gonna guess. He seemed to be loving life albeit for very different reasons than I was, he being off to motor-sickle adventures and me to quietly shell peas in my backyard. So I gave him a silent salute. Have a good day sir.

“I don’t want a pickle. Just wanna ride my motor-sickle.” – Arlo Guthrie

When I scroll facebook, I scroll PAST “marketplace” come-ons and just about everything else. I want to know what you’re having for lunch and that’s about it. Oh okay, I do use it to “spy” on friends and family members a bit. Those who still post stuff on facebook. My spying is innocent, just a modern day Gladys Kravitz. When the GG wonders aloud what one of his relatives is up to, I get a kick out of being able to tell him.

But WHAT??? I don’t know why facebook’s algorithm thinks I would be interested in an old trailer, car (especially THAT car), or motorcycle. But. What the heck is that fourth pic? It kinda looks like great big carnivorous plants. Fake ones. What on earth could I possibly have done to make facebook decide I might want those things?🤣🙃😵‍💫

This was a pretty good gully washer and man oh man did we need it. Light rain came through this morning and thunderstorms were predicted but here in the Great Lake State, ya nevah know if yer really gonna get tstorms or not. It looked pretty darn iffy today but we got a pretty good one late this afternoon. It wasn’t quiiiite severe but there was a lot of thunder and my noisy bird cohabitants were quiet for the duration.

I lost power twice. One was just a flicker, the second a couple seconds. I had to turn my radio back on, reset Gertrude’s clock and reset the color of one of my strings of LED lights. There’s an app for that but it is clunky in terms of user experience. So far (knock on wood) Gertrude is not having a seizure so I haven’t had to go down and toggle her circuit breaker.

The City Mouse did lose power and I haven’t heard if it’s back yet. She lives in a neighborhood that has been hit HARD with power outages this year. People have lost appliances. Her refrigerator had to be replaced. The power company provides NOTHING for burned out appliances. I don’t really understand how the power company can get away with this but I’m sure there are all kinds of rules and regs in place.

Anyway the rain is done for now (and who knows how long it’ll be until we get more) and I am sitting in my backyard enjoying the early evening with leftovers heating in Gertrude. And having my “daily” sneezing fit. IT IS NOT COVID AND IT IS NOT ALLERGIES.

Snapping turtles laying eggs anyone? This is yesterday’s photooo from the GG.

The GG, Joan, and David are wrapping up their hiking trip and next week I will no longer be Moom Alone. It was really odd today that I opened up my laptop to a chat from a fellow team member who politely informed me that there was a lot of background noise from my laptop in meetings yesterday. He mentioned conversations and TV noise. I was chagrined at this because, um, conversations? I was the only person in the house (and I was not talking to myself, at least not during any meetings). TV? I don’t watch TV. He doesn’t know that of course but I do run NPR in the background. I usually have the volume so low that I can’t really hear it and it is in the kitchen, so not right next to me.

Still. Yesterday, I had some idea that I actually wanted to listen to the Orange Baboon get indicted or whatever it was that happened. That happened at the same time as a meeting. So I had the radio volume up just a wee bit. I did not in fact hear the OB thing but I’m not sure I missed much of anything because apparently it lasted long enough for him to plead not guilty, then fly off to Bedminster to do one of his bombastic word-salady speeches and commiserate with his minions. People of little brain and that’s as far as I’ll go with that, at least today. But my hearing is acute and my radio was not loud and not in the room where I work.

Today I had to wonder if the “noise” that was coming from me was the many LOUD birds that inhabit my yard. I have been asked about that before but that time the person who heard them recognized bird noise and thought maybe I had PET birds. Nope. I do not have pets. But the birds in my yard at this time of year sing LOUDLY and some of them operatically.

At the end of my work day today, I was in the back yard and there was a big bird “fight” or whatever, involving crows and I’m not even sure what else. I don’t think hawks were involved and I really couldn’t follow what was going on.

First, my mouse texted this lady slipper pic to me earlier today. These lady slippers are not like the ones at the moominbeach (same genus, different species) but they are beautiful.

My beach urchins cooked me dinner tonight. I bought most of the food this morning, following the grock list they sent me. A version of “I’ll buy, you fly” from the days of my youth when Marvin Chard Schmucker and other friends would send me up to the bar to get another couple of beers. It was FUN though and since my fave cashier Joyce was there and had no line, I eschewed the U-scan. She asked, “Are you mad at the U-scan?” 🤣

I had a good but interesting work day but by the end of it I was like, uuhhhhh… The best thing that happened today was that I got the amazing news that it sounds like my team will be developing a mobile app. This will be our first and although I am excited, it is also a wee bit scary. That was just an email and we won’t be starting on that prodject for a while. A meeting about an ongoing prodject in the late afternoon was good but left me psychologically exhausted.

It was so much fun to hang out with my adult children tonight and reminisce about all kinds of stuff. After they left, a nice soaking kind of rain set in. My flowers should be good for a few more days at this rate.

I’m not sure when my MacBook’s photo app started being able to find random things by just typing in their names. Like “llamas”. I mean this pic is not named or tagged “llamas”. It’s named IMG_0686.jpg, and I took it in 2015 with my old iPhone 5S in the exact location as the alpaca photo from yesterday.

At least I and Photos think these are llamas. I don’t know much about the differences between llamas and alpacas except that llamas are bigger. These guys look big. There do seem to be other aminals including maybe alpacas in the background.

I actually had to write a check to pay a bill. I do that fewer than five times a year. This year we got the moomincabin well pump fixed and the folks at the pump repair place probably don’t have the “chops” to set up an online payment system. Which is okay, I’d rather they focus on pump repair expertise. I was mainly concerned that the GG needed to make sure they knew where to send the invoice because there is an address at the moomin but there isn’t a mailbox and even if there was, no one is currently monitoring it.

But writing a check and putting it in the mail is a risky business these days, at least in our little city. People have been dredging mail out of the drive-up boxes, “cleaning” checks and writing in new payees and amounts, usually MUCH LARGER amounts. This sounds like an urban legend but it has actually happened to a good friend of mine. Fortunately her bank caught it.

My area post office and others have removed the big old drive-up drop-off boxes, replacing them with smaller ones with smaller slots. This prevents people from reaching down inside them to pull out mail but it also makes people get out of their cars to drop off their mail because the boxes (and their slots) are no longer conveniently located. This has also resulted in EXTREME vandalism at one PO branch where somebody destroyed the boxes completely and took ALL of the mail.

I have adapted. When I have a check I actually have to mail, I go over to the post office at 7:00 AM, when the “lobby” is open but not the service area (and NO ONE is around so I can easily park right outside the door). I get out of my car and go INSIDE and put the envelope in the slot. Then I cross my fingers that my check is delivered safely and watch my bank account like a hawk (which I do anyway) for it to clear.

I love technology when it works. I had the oddest experience with my plum app this morning. It’s one of those grock apps that earns you points or whatever and every once in a while, you get $10 off your order. I have been using this app absolutely forever, waaaay pre-COVID. It also allowed me to order curbside pickup grocks during the pandemic.

It NEVER fails. Today. I had all of the grocks I was gonna get so I tapped the app to open it. It crashed. I couldn’t open it again so I restarted my phone. This time it opened but I was logged out. I looked up my login info and tried to log in but my credentials were “invalid”. So I clicked forgot password and entered my email. If we have your email in our system, we’ll send you an email. Open email app. Refresh refresh refresh. Nothing. Tried to set up a new account. That email is already in our system. Catch 22.

I get this. I’ve spent a lot of time lately designing login authentication functionality. Although we don’t use forgot password. If you’ve f*cked up logging in to our product, you need to call someone and you need to know who that someone is because their phone number will not show up in the user interface. This is one of the many ways we protect our users from fraud. It’s a Sunday and plum probably won’t get this issue fixed until I’m guessing sometime during the week. And that’s okay for reasons too long and boring to write about.

These alpacas, which I thought were llamas, are nothing new. They are at the corner of Zeeb and Gregory and sometimes they are out but most of the time they are not. The photo is one my mouse texted me at some point in the last few days. I have taken their picture before but who knows where it is and anyway this is probably a MUCH better photo than whatever I took.

WE HAVE RAIN!!! FINALLY! We haven’t had rain in weeks. Amazingly I have not had to water flowers a lot. I think that’s because it also hasn’t been HOT HOT HOT. If we hadn’t gotten rain today, I was gonna water them. It held off until afternoon but we did get it and while it hasn’t been a deluge, it is a good soaking rain.

Today was the second day in a row that the GG called me while I driving Cygnus. Cygnus has easy-to-use in-car phone technology but when a phone call comes in, this what happens: First whatever is on the radio / map screen blinks out and the sound stops. It is replaced by a big bright incoming call screen. Then the assigned ring-tone starts up. IT IS LOUD! Much louder than the radio. The ring tone I have assigned to the GG is what the iPhone calls “SCI-FI” and it is a whistling noise. Did I mention it was LOUD? Back when I worked across the wall from W1.5, the GG called one day and W1.5 was just about rolling on the floor laughing. Yeah that’s just my goofy husband’s ringtone. But it isn’t LOUD on my phone.

Anyway, phones have been annoying to me for most of my life. Maybe not back when my friends Laurie or Helen called to make playdates or my grandparents were calling. That was fun and it made me feel grown up to know I could answer a telephone call politely. But they have mostly been an annoyance as an adult. I am SOOOOO glad the iPhone allows me to ignore anything coming from a number I don’t know.

Alas, I can’t really ignore the GG but it is still startling and when I drive, I focus on the ROAD! So. Yesterday he actually had a QUESTION and I had a brief conversation with him before I had to deal with a construction situation on Huron River Drive. Today… doo-doo-dooooooo-doo-doo-doo. Yes? Nothing. Hello? Random noises. Helllll-ooooo? More random noises. All right. I am in fairly heavy traffic, I am hanging up. I did not call back.

Farmers market bright and early this morning. NO SHELLING PEAS YET! I didn’t get much, just some asparagus (still in season here) and greens (kale and spinach). I have a good sea scallop recipe that calls for greens and now is the time.

Of all things, I have now heard officially from Mr. Butt Dial. He has apparently butt dialed MULTIPLE PEOPLE today. The problem is misty-type precipitation that keeps his screen damp.

…some folks will wonder if I don’t post, here is today’s money shot from the GG. It might not be easy to visually process but it is a BEAR TRACK! I am in between my evening’s two Outlander eps. G’night!

I was at the Saline Rd. Meijer at 7:00 AM this morning perusing the ground beef selections. I always check what they have at Meijer because I like to keep a pound or two of ground beef in the freezer and sometimes when I get to the Plum, it’s early enough that they don’t have it in the meat counter yet. And they don’t always sell it pre-packaged.

Anyway, I got a text that said there was a scary AQI today, making it hard for people to walk out at the bog or whatever. I was like, “AQI”? Say what? It’s the air quality index and it is ultra high because of forest fires in Quebec (and other places including the Great Lake State).

I was initially a bit flummoxed by this because I was oot and aboot (like a Canuckian does) early this morning and it was like 50 degrees, not hazy (that I could see) and a little breezy. I didn’t smell smoke and I was having absolutely no trouble breathing but I never really do have trouble breathing, not even during my COVID case. I had two COVID symptoms: 1) VERY mild cough and 2) EXTREME ANNOYANCE.

I spent a fair amount of time today trying to figure out how real this threat is. I mean the NPR station I was listening to was spouting out AQI warnings every ten minutes or whatever. I get that this can be an issue for people with asthma and other lung problems but I felt like they were over-reporting it a bit. In recent years every weather event seems to get over-hyped. Last year around this time we had a 92 degree day and there were warnings about it for THREE DAYS. It did get hot that day but for many reasons, I was okay. Strong breeze. Central air, which I didn’t even turn on. Shaded lot. Etc.

i am not saying that the AQI is not important because it is for people with breathing issues and it is likely to be worse in the future. I guess I am not saying anything much at all. There’s so much I don’t know…

The takeaway is that when the text message came in, I started talking to myself. In the grocery store. A fellow customer (cool-looking young black guy) caught on to that and we had a moment of hilarity.

I’m watching Outlander episodes (two tonight) and so I am about done done done. Just started season 3.

You might have to embiggen a bit.

This is not where I live although I have certainly lived in apartment buildings and duplexes in my life. These places are one block to the west of us on the west side of N. Maple, which is a highly traveled street, unlike my little street. If I had been home when these places burned, I wouldda definitely seen and smelled the smoke. I mean it was visible all over west side Planet Ann Arbor. But I didn’t see it because I was at the moomincabin. I knew about it because of Nextdoor Neighbor, a site I kinda love to hate.

These TWO duplexes burned down last week. Yes TWO. If I have it right and I may not, somebody was burning cardboard between(?) the structures and it got outta control and vinyl siding may have been involved. But don’t quote me.

Everyone made it out alive. One adult was taken to the hoosegow for smoke inhalation and released. Neighbors grabbed three cats right away and took them to a vet for evaluation and are fine. At that time a fourth cat (Lovebug) was still missing… A bearded dragon was not located right away but was eventually found and turned out to be fine. Lovebug was not found for a few days but a cat whisperer or whatever eventually located her(?).

I am soooo glad this fire did not turn into a tragedy for anyone including the pets. I guess the fact that it happened in the afternoon may have something to do with that? I have always been nervous about fire and living in dwellings where other people (that I don’t know) also live even though I haven’t had to do that in a VERY long time. What are my fellow apartment/duplex dwellers doing?

We are soooo careful here at the Landfill but still.