Random bits of my so-called life.

This is not from today. It’s another one from the Polar Vortex winter. I don’t think the sidewalk is icy in this pic, it looks wet so we must’ve had a mini-thaw. I was walking to the Plum Market, which you might be able to see on the right if you embiggen a couple times. It’s purple.

This morning? Like I said, it was sloooowww. I woke up on time but fell back asleep until almost seven. Because I planned to hit up the plum for grocks at eight, this left no time for a walk. But that turned out to be a GOOD thing because when I exited my front door, there was ICE all over the driveway. I got enough sand or whatever it was down to make my way safely to Mooon Yooonit’s door, which was only a few feet away. The sidewalks looked awful too but I decided to deal with them later. The roads were fine as I expected and I had AWD anyway.

I had help from my grock rodent at the U-scan. I don’t really need U-scan help. I am a U-scan ninja. But I don’t know it all and she taught this old ninja a couple new tricks today so that was cool. And I don’t even wanna know what the total was. I bought filet mignon and inflation is real (but I don’t blame Joe). I am much better prepared to deal with it now than I was as a kid but feel for those more affected. I dealt with it like I have always dealt with fluctuating gasoline prices (which are ALSO NOT controlled by the president). Close my eyes and pump.

As it turned out, I swiped over to Next Door Neighbor after I got home and there were multiple posts about people falling and injuring themselves. Lotsa doggos were missing their walks today. No thanks. I’ve apparently been taking a mini-break from walking since COVID anyway. The last morning I walked was January 13. I started coughing later that day. At no time have I felt too unwell for walking, although while symptomatic, I made a conscious decision not to expose myself to the cold. This is a psychological thing. I usually don’t mind cold and snow much and when I have regular old common colds, I layer up and push myself outside ANYWAY. But after two years of serious isolating, getting a breakthrough case took the wind out of my sails for dealing with winter. I just want it to be OVER. Winter, I mean. COVID is over. For now… Oh, don’t worry, I will soon push myself to get back into my routine. But not until the ice goes away.

Me? Roooomba, cleaned fridge and bathroom, put various displaced items back into their rightful places, did our daily word puzzles, and read. I CANNOT get the wordle today. In large part my fault because I AGAIN re-used rejected letters and have managed to paint myself into a corner 🐽🐽🐽 Rocked the xword and spelling bee though. Cheers!

This was not what my driveway looked like this morning. It’s from 2014, the infamous Polar Vortex winter. The one when Canananada got drunk and fell asleep down here. As someone more clever than I said.

Actually the driveway and walking conditions were okay early this morning, a wee bit of snow but not really slippery. By the time I had to go out to get the garbage carts, after three hours of meetings and various sorts of precipitation, there was slushy stuff of varying and unknown slipperyness everywhere.

There’s this Big Air Olympics event that I don’t really understand but it involves getting up into the air. On skis, right? I thought about that as I shuffle/baby-stepped down the slight slope (and I mean slight) to get my carts today. This was extremely annoying to me. Why did I not put on my Yax? Putting salt down would probably not have helped in this case. (Delete long stuff about salt in various conditions.) I was greatly mollified when LofPNet came home and did his own shuffle/baby-step thing down to get his carts. I was once a downhill skier, albeit an amateur one who knew her limits. I could do little mini-jumps, the kind that are part of the trail. I NEVER tried to get to anything like big air and don’t want to try now.

I was thinking the main roads were probably okay tonight but apparently there are “numerous” crashes on the freeways. Slow down folks. Jeebus.

As I was getting ready to hit the rack last night, people were texting me about terlets. I’m sure you know which terlet(s) and yes I picked these friends. I’m not gonna dump a bunch of incoherent opinions about TFG and his terlet(s) tonight or maybe ever. I doooo wanna buy a “but her emails” hat but they are currently sold out. Not that I think Hillary may have been the best president but I believe she’d’ve been a lot better than TFG and I was not all that upset about Her Emails for reasons I can’t necessarily articulate, at least not tonight.

I may be misremembering but I think throughout the pandemic I have had ONE door-to-door solicitor. It was one of those young idealistic clean water action kiddos at NINE O’CLOCK at night! Those folks are always out in June when it is light until after nine. I think those clean water folks exploit young college students and when I told her there were better ways to make money than going door to door (not to mention actually clean water but I didn’t say that), she told me her mother had said the same thing.

Today. A white pickup truck stopped in front of my driveway. That wasn’t all that odd in itself because there have been a lot of trucks of all description in our street lately but this felt somehow different. A woman got out and started WALKING UP MY DRIVEWAY. Sometimes Amazon delivers in odd vee-hickles but this didn’t feel like Amazon and I’m only expecting one package and that’s tomorrow or so I’ve been told (it’s just liquid barkeeper’s friend so kinda ho-hum).

But yes, this woman clomped up my driveway and rang the doorbell with a YOOHOO! I clomped over to the door, maskless, because it’s a glass door and there was NO WAY I was letting anyone in the house. “They” were working on a prodject “around the corner”. There is a neighbor SORTA around the corner who is getting something done in his front yard, orangeburg replacement we’re guessing so I was thinking that. But no. They would have some time tomorrow to replace my front window. What???

Um, NOOOOOOOOO! This isn’t the first time we’ve been approached about the window and I’m not sure why people think I would WANT it replaced. And replace it with what? I LIKE MY WINDOW. It is currently a bit cluttered as it is directly adjacent to teleCubelandia and has endured along with me a bout of breakthrough covid, mild as it was. But man, floor (almost) to ceiling (almost) windows with multiple panes and sills to put fancy clutter on. And a ledge (you can’t see it) at the bottom that I can stand on to peer up and down the street.

So. NOPE! She then tried to entice me with replacement doors (she knows nothing about the doors in this place) and when I didn’t go for that, asked me if the “attic” had enough insulation.

Jeebus. If we need work done around the house and it’s something the GG can’t manage, we seek out our own contractors or whatever. We have had varying experiences with that strategy but they’ve been largely good. We would NEVER hire someone doing door-to-door home repair sales. Shysters.

This woman had a bit of the look of the Michigan woman (Mellissa somebody?) who was hanging around with Rudy about the voting musheens. She had a lot less hair but she may want to re-think her “look”. Maybe I shoulda told her that 🐽🐽🐽

Not this year. Two years ago I was at Tahquamenon Falls on our North Country Trail chapter’s annual gathering there. We used to rent a couple DNR “lodges”. They are comfortable albeit not fancy lodgings. Built for families to use as living quarters, they each accommodate 8-10 people. Something like that.

The last time we drove up for one of those junkets was two years ago. COVID was lurking but we weren’t sure what to do about it yet and so went about our business, in my case with some trepidation. Last year there was probably a day hike. This year there is a day hike. The GG tried to make it happen but the few area motels are NO VACANCY this weekend and driving up and back from the UU’s house in Gaylord is 2.5 hours each way. That’s waaaaay too much driving, especially with a five mile hike in the middle of it all and whatever snow Old Man Winter decides to spew at the yooperland and the northern lower.

The Tahquamenon Falls state parks have changed immensely since I was a kid. We would drive there from the moominbeach and if we took the shore road it took forever because it was a crappy old potholed gravel road. We would have lunch (PBJ sandwiches, etc.) at the Tahquamenon river mouth. I remember my grandparents were with us once. I guess I was about five. After the river mouth we still had something like 20 miles to go to get to the parks.

Back then, the parks were a tourist attraction but they were soooo hard to get to that they were usually not crowded. And I’ll just throw out that most of the folks there were WASPy type people like my family.

Nowadays? It’s a LOT easier to get to Tahq and the parks get visitors from all over the world. You can stand on the platform by either of the falls and listen to people talk to each other in multiple languages that are not English. And then there was the year that the young DNR gals outfitted a multi-generation Indonesian family with snowshoes and after considering the miniature grandma for a bit, put her in children’s snowshoes. Our DNR gal had also passed the fam doing snow-driving up to Tahq. They were going 45 miles an hour at the most. I am HAPPY to share Tahq with the world and LOVE all of our world visitors.

Oh there is now a brewery at the Upper Falls park. I have not been there since two years ago when we squeezed all kinds of people into one table. Maybe someday we’ll be able to dine inside again. I’m not ready yet even with my possible but probably temporary covid immunity.

Aside from an occasional mini-coughing fit, I am 100% over covid except psychologically. And I am OKAY psychologically, just at maybe 98%. I can deal with that.

For me? Mild cold symptoms throughout. I have had waaaay worse colds in my life. No sore throat, headache, fever, loss of taste/smell, fatigue, brain fog. None. Nada. Cough. But not one that woke me up at night. Occasional runny nose. The GG *may* have been a bit feverish and fatigued at the beginning. Other than that, he was a lot like me. Why did I share his air? Because his original antigen test was negative. Stoopid me. Sneaky COVID.

Anxiety? Yes. It wasn’t terrible but I really never have anxiety issues with the Common Cold because I know I’ll get over it even if I cough for a few weeks. COVID? As “we” don’t seem to be able to learn, this virus affects everyone differently. People who are vaxxed don’t seem to get that sick… Except for the ones who do. So there were plenty of moments of thinking about whether my cough was getting worse (no) or I was getting a sore throat (NO).

I quarantined for 14 days. I have not been impressed by the constantly changing CDC guidelines. I know that the “science” “changes” as we learn more about the virus but with so many people doing their own “research” on the internet, I think the CDC and other organizations should be crystal clear when they communicate to the unwashed masses about this still deadly disease.

Speaking of being vaxxed, I need to note that I have only had the J&J one-and-done. I fully intend to get boosted (probably with Pfizer) but I HADN’T gotten around to it yet. It’s hard to process all of the info and pseudo-info out there about how effective the vaccines are and sometimes it seems like the J&J has received a fair amount of negative publicity in that respect. Yet it apparently protected me (GG had Pfizer). Then again, my immune system has always been pretty dern good so maybe that also protected me. But who knows and I am still a STRONG supporter of vaxxing and STILL intend to get a booster. Double emphasis there.

Although I am feeling a bit more immune these early post infection days, I am STILL staying mainly at home away from people except for my early morning grock grabs. I MASK for those. To me, masking is a demonstration of care for OTHER PEOPLE. Those who may be more vulnerable to the virus, which likely still has some tricks up its sleeve.

This is one of my current fave walkers here at TeleCubelandia. I watch a daily parade of walkers, bikers, runners, dog-walkers, and a kid(?) on a moped. Actually I dunno if he’s a kid. I can’t see his face but he is “small”. A young man in any case. He gives a little toot just to the north of my house, which makes me want to connect him with the older woman on the northwest corner. She walks in the direction he comes from just about daily and once JUST pre-COVID when I was taking my garbage carts out, I commented (buttinsky that I can be) that she wasn’t wearing a hat in freezing weather, she said, “I’m just going to my son’s.” But who knows.

Some of these characters have not changed since March 2020. LofPnet across the street but he hasn’t changed since we moved here and he lived with his parents 🤣. Bequet Force of Nature and her parents next door to the south. John and Peter from around the corner. I miss our neighbors to the north, who took daily walks with their young daughter and dog. They moved to California last summer and have a second child by now. The people who bought their house are wonderful though. They are also interns (at least she is, I dunno what he does) so it’s likely they won’t be here forever.

There are other people I don’t see any more. Like for months that first year a kid, I mean a tween or young teen, walked by every day. A small kid with kind of glorious long curly blond hair. I didn’t see him any more beginning fall 2020. I dunno if he doesn’t walk by here any more or maybe he grew six inches and cut his hair and I don’t recognize him.

The girl in red is new this winter. Or maybe she is also a regular that I don’t recognize because she doesn’t wear a puffy red coat when it isn’t cold enough for one. I wonder if I’ll recognize her dog and therefore her when she eventually doffs the red coat.

Of course this girl In red is a woman, not a girl. When I was a little kid and we used to walk to Canananada (that means we parked our cars and took a ferry), there was a wonderful restaurant called The Girl In Red. We would walk to Canananada and our parents would buy us little tartan plaid skirts at Eaton’s(?) and I kinda fergit what else. I always wanted to go to The Girl In Red but didn’t always get to go there. I don’t remember too much about TGIR except that there were very fancy pastries and a treasure box of some sort. And I think the usual funk-fugly ladies’ room down a dark set of stairs.

Alas, TGIR burned down sometime in the 60s and was not rebuilt. I sorta remember this but I am in a facebook group based in the Canada side of Sault Ste. Siberia and occasionally TGIR comes up and EVERYONE from the Canadian side remembers the faaaaar and misses TGIR.

Cute kiddo, eh? No I am NOT biased. Not at all 🐽

This would’ve been second grade with Ms. T. When we bought The Landfill, this little imp was on the way and one of our main factors in selecting our location was that there was an elementary school behind it. And a WOODS! The school is situated so that there are literally NO streets to cross between it and our house. The Landfill, while not fancy, has been a good enough house that we still live here. Even paid off the mortgage after 13 years. And we have always had great neighbors. I always say something like, “This is the only house on the Planet Ann Arbor with a woods behind it that we can afford.”

This little rapscallion had a pretty special relationship with Ms. T. It was Ms. T. who realized that our kiddo had “inherited” a placement in a lower reading group than where she belonged. I knew this but wasn’t sure how to address it, not wanting to be THAT parent. But you know that a kid who reads Nancy Drew books in first grade doesn’t need to be learning basic phonics in second. Not gonna address the controversial subject of reading groups now or probably ever. I am not an educator. Anyway, before I had to figure out an action plan, Ms. T. caught on and moved her to the top group.

No school is perfect all the time but our elementary school worked out well for us overall. I would say that this little urchin went through with a particularly “good” cohort. Mostly decently socialized kids and LOTS of supportive parent volunteers. We weren’t quiiiite as lucky on the second time around but overall the kids made good friends and so did I. I remember getting shooed away by multiple teachers because we would tend to hang around outside classrooms gabbling like crazy after dropping off our kids.

Did I want to go to FlaMan’s place today? Well, not really. If I could apparate to FlaMan’s and back that would be one thing. I didn’t wanna drive all the way up to Flint (an hour) and watch Gunsmoke for a couple hours and maybe make an “emergency” run to a drug store and then drive home. I worked all week and I wanted to make soup.

And so I did. I tried a turmeric broth soup with chicken and cauliflower and kale and Japanese noodles. I had to laugh when a daughter cautioned me about how to get the kale leaves away from the stem or whatever it is. I don’t use kale all that frequently but I do use it and I always tear the leaves off the stem. Once I wasted a few minutes of time watching a YouTube video that promised to tell how to remove kale leaves from the stem. What the heck? This person used a big f*cking knife to cut the leaves off the stem?

FlaMan seems to be doing well despite his younger brother’s unintended attempt to infect him with covid. The GG visited FlaMan a day before he (the GG) began showing symptoms and hadn’t tested positive even two days after. The GG was in fact positive a couple days afterward but it seems that he did NOT infect FlaMan, who has lung issues. We love FlaMan and are happy about that.

More talk about my own experience some other day.

I do not have a dog, therefore I do not have to serve as a Dog Doorman. Fortunately the GG can serve as his own doorman because can I just say in and out and in and out and in and out ad infinitum. There was a lucky-shuckial problem with the Lyme Lounge and his new parts arrived today except for something he had to go to the hardware store to get. Only one trip today though. Anyway he went in and out the door enough to make me feel a bit dizzy! But he eventually fixed it as he usually does.

I finished a boooook yesterday that I LOVED. Klara and the Sun. I was aware of this book but was eyeballing it with much trepidation. Why? Because I read another book by this author a couple years ago. Never Let Me Go. Oh boy, this author is a great writer but that book totally creeped me out and there aren’t very many books that creep me out (Echo Wife did NOT for example). A beach urchin pointed me to Klara and I started it AND COULDN’T PUT IT DOWN! There were Goodreads reviewers who did not like it but I got the distinct impression that they didn’t “get” it. I hope this isn’t a spoiler but if you were not created with human biological eyes, how would you “process” visual input?

Because I liked Klara so much, I have now embarked on a much earlier book by the same author, The Remains of the Day. I like this so far. I was puzzled about how a Japanese author would know as much as he does about early 20th century British culture and history until I read that his family moved there in 1960 and he was educated there. My bad for not even looking at his bio on GoodReads.

I had a Japanese uncle but he did not grow up here. It’s too long a story for the moment but he was 60 when he married my then 70-year-old [eccentric] aunt. I don’t know a whole lot about their story together. I do remember that they visited my parents in Sault Ste. Siberia before they were married and even though they were mature adults (like older than 50). The Commander wasn’t exactly sure how to accommodate them. She put them in separate bedrooms but giggled when she told me she could hear them shift rooms during the night.

Tatsuo and my aunt Roberta were up there so he could try to make some sort of deal with the Native American tribe out at Bay Mills. He struggled a bit with that culture. Little kids were running in and out of whatever meeting room they were in. He called Big Abe (a popular bar owner and not the chief) Big Chief. I can’t remember what he called the actual chief but some other guy was Big Mouth. I’m not sure anything came of that meeting.

I think this was before the casinos came to town. There are probably people who complain about the casinos but the tribe / community has become a great asset to their own community as well as ours.

So I posted a couple pics on Instagram last night. The dark snow photo from yesterday’s post and this one of the GG blowing snow with his yooper-sized snowblower. This morning I woke up to an email asking if I would permit this one to be published in the A2 Observer, a longtime highly regarded monthly local/area news source. This was once paper but it now has an additional online presence.

The Observer didn’t just randomly find my pic on Insty. It was the publisher (I think that’s what he’s called), who is one of my followers and a longtime personal friend of ours. We’ve known each other since our kids were in elementary school together and later because both families were heavily involved in the Ann Arbor Young Actors Guild all the way through public school.

His first wife and I were board members of that sometimes cray-zee group. She had this fantastic sense of humor and I can still remember times when things were particularly cray-zee and we would be emailing back and forth and I would almost literally be rolling on the floor laughing at some of her messages. Our executive/artistic director was BRILLIANT and we LOVED her but it could be challenging to deal with her at times. Most of us are. She is still alive as far as I know although YAG is defunct. Our friend’s lovely wife died quite unexpectedly in 2004, on a deep, dark December day. He has since married another lovely woman but I still miss the first one.

I gave my permission to use the photo but didn’t ask anything about when or where it would be published so I was a little surprised when MMCB₁ messaged me this afternoon that the Observer had posted my photo. The problem is I can’t FIND it! Even though I follow the Observer in various places. So I can’t link to it. Here’s a link to the Observer. I’ll post a link to the actual pic when I figure out where it is. It’s basically the same pic with a caption. Aaaaand here it is!

Predicted storm total, that is. 12-18 inches? 1-2 feet? I can’t remember exactly what the latest is but it isn’t anywhere near that high. This doesn’t surprise me. Sounded like we were gonna get a bunch today (and we did as you can see) and then another big bunch tomorrow. Last I heard I thought they were saying one inch tomorrow.

Everyone working from home today. Those who are gainfully employed that is. The Pensioner was awfully quiet all day, reading, napping or both. He earned his keep with his snowblower late this afternoon. Another family member with an in-person job called off work for the first time *ever* and couldn’t even figure out how to do it. Me? Online with colleagues here and in India where some people have probably never seen snow although our folks are quite sophisticated and likely well traveled. Probably a lot more well traveled than I am.

Groundhog Day means winter is half over, on the calendar I mean. Any groundhogs in our yard today could definitely NOT see their shadows and I forget what that means. The movie is one that we’ve run into randomly many times on TV and we like it but I don’t think we’ll seek it out tonight. I kind of got “over” it during The Commander’s last couple months when I got “stuck” in Sault Ste. Siberia and every day took on a certain sameness. I would walk down the escarpment to the hoosegow or assisted living (whichever place she was) every day and hoof it back up at the end of the day and watch Crappy TV before crashing out. And I mean CRAPPY. Honey Booboo, Toddlers in Tiaras, and some stupid show about sorority sisters. You do what it takes to get you through the tough times.

And that’s all I got for today except that straggly bush on the right kinda looks like a tyrannosaur🤣 Cheers!

For years, whenever my preferred NPR station would interrupt jazz or whatever with a ballgame, they would interrupt it with the words in the title. A few years ago they changed to a sorta sporty bit of music. They just played that tonight. The GG is using the Foot Massage Thingy (FMT) and I have not applied myself to learning how to turn on the “pod” to put satty-lite radio on so it is silent for now.

It took me a while to make friends with the FMT. For one thing, it reminds me of the Oxygen Thingy The Commander was hooked up to in the final couple months of her life. It isn’t as musical. Which is a good thing. I am a musician if not an active one and I can still hear that musheen inside my head. Dooooo doo do do do do do.

The FMT was one of my bday gifts. F*cking breakthrough covid was another one. I looked askance at the FMT. I was highly annoyed at covid. I mean, “people” are always antsy about what do I want for xmas/bday/whatever. I am always like, dumpster in the driveway! Trip to Kiwanis Thrift! I am flinging. After a week or more I finally tried out the FMT and I’m not sure why but it is pretty cool.

We now have satty-lite radio on.

The last few days I’ve been hearing a strange twangy kinda musical noise coming from wherever the GG is. I finally figgered out that he was trying to play this instrument. I bought it from a children’s catalog a bazillion years ago. They called it a thumb piano. I think it is related to an mbira. Mbiras are instruments played in various countries on the African continent and it turns out that my cousin UKW owns many mbiras and is an expert at playing them. She plays other things too. Piano, flute, and oboe (likely not recently), marimba, mbira and I dunno what else. Those of us who do instrumental music can usually play just about anything we pick up although the clarinet was a major challenge for me 🐸.

This mbira type thing is not anything approaching a “professional” instrument but then again I think mbiras are often crafted by their players. It’s a bit different than buying a flute from Haynes or wherever like my parents did when I was a kid. You build your own mbira.

We’re on the cusp of a major snowstorm and I’m thinking of UKW hanging out on the moomincabin deck in the summertime playing an mbira. 🧡🧡🧡

This is sort of a guest post via the GG. He took this pic while hiking the North Country Trail in Appalachian Ohaaaao last week and seems quite affected by what he knows of the situation.

It is a shack with three plywood walls and one tarp. Generator (noisy one), wood heat, water from a spigot in a neighbor’s shed. He saw a young woman come out to dump what he thought was a chamber pot and a half-dressed man in rags also made an appearance. I don’t know if there are children. As bad as this place looks, it doesn’t really surprise me. We’ve seen similar places on other trips to Appalachia, in the yooperland, and there’s plenty of poverty to go around even in the vicinity of our own quite affluent community.

I have a lot of rather disjointed thoughts about this so this will be a bit incoherent. This pic looks like poverty to me but I also detect a hint of some other issues, maybe a touch of mental illness? I do *not* think this family’s lifestyle has anything to do with sitting around collecting gubmint money instead of working. That’s cognitive dissonance to me. In fact, I don’t know whether they work or not. And maybe they don’t work steady jobs but who knows.

Here on the Planet Ann Arbor, people who are down on their luck sometimes post on Next Door Neighbor asking for help. This makes me a little uncomfortable for various reasons but these folks are definitely gutsy. Not sure I would be in that situation. Some people offer *tangible* help (grocks, clothing). Some people offer links and information to/about organizations that provide food and clothing, etc. Some people snark. The point is that I think there *is* quite a bit of help in our affluent, progressive area if you know how to access it and aren’t too shy or proud to do so. Not so sure about Appalachian Ohio.

I think there are folks who really can’t hold down jobs for whatever reason and I think our country is obligated to help them until big alien bugs invade the earth. I think most people want to earn their own money but I’m not sure the residents of this place are able to, not to mention manage whatever money may come their way.

I really don’t have any enlightening conclusions about any of this. I thank the gods that members of my own family (current and former generations) are willing and *able* to work and know how to handle their hard-earned money. I mean, I’d’ve gone NUTS if I hadn’t had a JOB during the covid lockdowns, not to mention during a mild case of f*cking breakthrough covid. It isn’t really even about the money for me at this point although that is definitely nice. It’s always nice to earn your own money.

Of course I am well aware that I have been telecommuting through the whole thing while so many others take the risk of working in person. Heroes!

Posted with permission, here is the halibut sweater and its knitter/owner. It does come from a pattern, by an Alaskan designer. Mouse can certainly make her own patterns but probably doesn’t have time to dash one off with this level of complexity. Looks like she’s at the Mason Tract.

Do I knit? People sometimes ask. The answer is, “I know how.” I get frustrated with things like Second Sleeve Syndrome and the whole blocking issue. Mouse probably initially learned from The Commander as I have no patience for teaching people things. She pretty quickly took off into the stratosphere. She is very talented at all kinds of fiber arts and I am not bragging.

My unofficial policy is not to post pics of people without their permission. I mean, occasionally a fugly of the GG gets on here but he usually deserves it and he even makes some of those into facebook profile pics🐽 I also feel pretty free to post old pics of the beach urchins from when they were kids.

The Pensioner earned his keep today, dealing with the snow I didn’t manage a week ago when COVID wasn’t quite in my rear view mirror. I got the inch or so shoveled off the sidewalk and salted it. That’s so nobody would report me to the community standards police or whatever they are. I bailed on shoveling the driveway. I wasn’t going anywhere and it wasn’t anything AWD Cygnus couldn’t easily handle so I took my cough inside and except for a couple of dustings, we didn’t get anything more. We are expecting more in a couple days though so glad he cleaned it up.

Disclaimer: as an early morning walker, I totally agree that people should promptly shovel and de-ice their sidewalks. It gets to be a real mess when they don’t and before I discovered YakTrax, etc., I had a couple of falls over the years. One second I’d be galumphing along, the next I was (whomp) on the sidewalk staring at the sky. Also cold symptoms don’t usually stop me from shoveling duties. While COVID for me was milder than some of the common colds I’ve experienced, knowing what a scourge it is and how unpredictably it affects people made me more careful than usual. If we’d had a lot of snow, I’d’ve hired LofPNet to blow it. We have a big yooper-style blower but I am an idjit and don’t know how to use it🤣

G’night from the Planet Ann Arbor where I have blues on the radio in the chitchen and the GG has football in the back room. He apparently isn’t boycotting it any more🐽

First of all, I did not take this pic. 🐭 and 🦝 went to Hoton Lake to ski and hike and 🐭 texted this to me so I’m shamelessly using it.

My main activity today besides a Mad Dash to the Plum early this morning (it was four degrees above zero) was making pea soup. I don’t make soup very often except for the occasional gazpacho in the summer. My lizard makes soup often and I am always intrigued when she texts that she’s making soup. So I asked for a recipe “book” of her soups for xmas. It didn’t actually arrive until My Frickin’ COVID Bday but that was okay. I was in no rush. It is also not in book form. It’s a zip file full of recipes and that’s okay too.

So I tackled pea soup today. Not that I haven’t ever made pea soup. I think our problem with soup recipes are that we always end up with too much to use up quickly and I know I could freeze it but when I do, I forget it’s in there and then months later, well, maybe you get my drift…

This was based on a vegetarian recipe but I was encouraged to add some bacon, which I did along with some Canadian bacon that needed to be used up. A point for Mother’s March. It was good. There is a 3-quart saucepan full of it in the fridge. We’ll see if we finish it.

Halibut? 🐭 made a gorgeous halibut sweater. I’m not sure if she used a pattern or designed it herself. It could go either way. When she was in high school, she worked in a yarn store. People would come in and, judging her by her youthfulness, would direct questions to the proprietor, who would often say you’ll have to ask 🐭 about that. She’s the expert. When I was checking out my grocks this morning, one of her co-workers wished me good morning and asked me if I’d seen the sweater. Yes, I have. Some of the folks over there know I’m 🐭‘s moom, others do not. I mostly keep it quiet. I’ve been shopping there since it opened and 🐭 was doing study abroad.

I got an ETA text that Himself would arrive at about 1:30. Okay. And here he is. Arriving. That’s dirty old Cygnus in the street. Mooon Yooonit and the Lyme Lounge are beginning their slow backup into the driveway from the Perrynet driveway across the street.

And here is Himself himself, removing himself from Mooon Yooonit.

Here is the unpacking aftermath. I texted this to the beach urchins and one of them replied “rummage rummage rummage”. Indeed. In all fairness, he cleaned up this mess pretty quickly and also did a load or two of laundry.

And finally we went through the “where is Softy Beanbag?” thing. Again. Was she in his clothes bag? Yes, she was. She is an IMPORTANT aminal and none of us want her to go missing.

So after two frickin’ YEARS (almost) of the GG gallivanting around with various people mostly outdoors but not always and he does shop in person (like how many times a day can you go to the hardware store?), he brought the frickin’ virus home. All this time I was worried about him getting it somewhere. This trip I was worried about him GIVING it to someone. That doesn’t seem to have happened. By the time he met up with his hiking posse, I guess he must have been negative although I’m pretty sure he didn’t test again. That said, he and his posse are all intelligent mature adults and some of them have been facing their own COVID exposure challenges. I don’t know the details (and don’t wanna know) but they apparently worked it out and since I have HAD the goddamn virus, I don’t really care at this point. For the moment anyway.

IMPORTANT UPDATE! Softy Beanbag was not really lost yesterday. Himself brought her in, automatically dropped her on the bed, then FORGOT but couldn’t see her because a laundry basket was in the way! He doesn’t really read my blahg regularly 🤣🤣🤣

This is what I got from Ohaaaao today. These are not the gals the GG is hiking with. I’m not even sure these are gals.

A bloggy friend posted some scary pics today of storm drains that had their covers removed. She’s a walker / runner and was astounded that somebody would be stupid enough to remove them. People are pranksters, especially young people. Once when our kids were very young, we were taking a family bike ride and a couple of “older” (middle school?) boys were holding a rope across the street such that if a little kid (or anyone) was biking along, they would run into it and… I don’t *generally* scold other people’s kids, especially kids I don’t know, but you can guess those kids got an earful. Not that they necessarily listened. What an old witch, roight?

Maybe what was ringing in my ears is the time my uncle told us about when he was on ER duty and had to deal with a snowmobiler who encountered a wire that beheaded him… … … It seems kind of pointless to transport that person to the ER but I’m sure there are protocols I know nothing about. I also may not be remembering this entirely accurately but I know he saw some horrific stuff. I’m glad he’s not around to have to deal with the damn COVIDiots. He definitely had to deal with Polio patients.

Our storm sewers (that’s what we call them here) are kind of “built in” to the curbs so it would be pretty hard to fall into one, not to mention remove the cover. I do walk in the dark most of the year and I do walk in the street a lot, depending on whether the street is less icy than the sidewalk.

So I was thinking about this and Baby Jessica popped into my head. She fell down an abandoned well in somebody’s back yard and we watched for days while rescuers tried to get her out. And then *that* reminded me of Cecelia, the 4-year-old ONLY survivor of a Daytwa Metro passenger plane crash. The plane crashed on takeoff and we aren’t close to the airport but we are under the flight path. For days I wondered if I had heard/felt the crash but in the end I talked myself down off of that ledge. Nope. I was a young mother then and both incidents happened to girls close in age to my girls. These incidents are google-able but I’m not gonna provide any more info because I have sussed that one of these women does not want to be found and I respect her desire for privacy.

I can’t end on that note so on the positive side, I snagged three N95 masks today (at 0-skunk-30) courtesy of Meijer Thrifty Acres. Kroger is apparently handing them out too. Get ’em before they’re gone! Honestly, I wanna say that the government should’ve ramped up manufacturing of these masks back in 2020 and sent them out to EVERYONE but they didn’t because we had the idjit former guy and he was pushing hydroxychloroquine and shining lights up you know where. “It’s almost like a cleaning.” Oh, shut up.

G’night. KW

This is me w-a-i-t-i-n-g f-o-r-e-v-e-r to hang a louie outta the Plum Market parking lot. I am not 100% symptom free but it’s been 14 days. I feel GOOD but I’ve never really felt ill, a few early days of feeling a bit “in the grip” of “something”, but that left and otherwise it’s occasional light congestion. So I masked up and did a mad dash for a few items. I did not go near ANYONE! I am a Uscan Ninja. I’ve probably been using Uscan musheens since before the wonderful young folks who run the guest counter were born. I did not cough the whole time I was in there.

Thinking of making an early Meijer run tomorrow. For one thing, Meijer is handing out FREE N95 masks, three to a customer. We’ll see. It’s supposed to be in the low single digits tomorrow morning. I can do COLD but we haven’t HAD COLD for a couple years. But Cygnus has good bush warmers 🐽 (a derogatory term for seat warmers). I used to needle the UU like crazy for buying Caddy-lacs and things with bush warmers. Then we bought the Mean Green Frog Hoppin’ Musheen (2011 Subie Outback) and I became addicted to bush warmers. The Frog Hopper served our family for many years but is now gone. The young father who bought it was experienced with old / high-mileage vee-hickles and scrutinized our maintenance records, which were probably 99% complete, so we felt comfortable selling it to him. He knew what he was getting into.

Selling the Ninja (Honda Civic SI, 6-speed manual) was a whole different thing. It was older than the Frog Hopper (2008) but had fewer miles, ran like a top, and looked fantastic (repainted via recall). The GG put it on Craig’s list on a Sunday afternoon, almost immediately got a call and an hour later… It… Was… Gone… It was “my” car so I was a little sad. Probably good that it happened as fast as it did. I miss her sometimes and occasionally wonder if she misses me as a driver, since we sold her to a young college man (and his dad). I’m sure the young man doesn’t do the zen driving that I usually do. Then again, maybe she was bored with my driving. To be complete, we handed over our complete maintenance records on the Ninja too.

So, rattling along about automotive vee-hickles. Boring as all getout. I do not have any kind of brain fog or spaceyness from breakthrough C-you-know-what. Aside from ONE day off that I took as a mental health day to “process” my ANNOYANCE about the situation, I have been working and even holding my own against Mr. Bear. That can take some brain power 🤣. And I am doing my three word puzzles successfully every day. No loss of taste or smell. Took me a few days into all of this to even think about that but nope. Thank you god or whoever!

Because I really don’t have anything to talk about today because all I did was work 🐽

We bought the Lyme Lounge in 2013. It replaced The Little Princess, an old trailer that the UU owned but we used a lot. We would park it in the moomincabin parking area and the GG formed the Uncle Fester Club for all the then small beach urchins. The main activities of the Uncle Fester Club were making Jiffy Pop and telling scary stories. Except I don’t think they told a lot of scary stories. The only one I ever heard about failed something like two sentences in when a “cylinder” was mentioned and the urchins erupted in screams. I’ll maybe tell about the cylinder another day.

The Lyme Lounge was manufactured in Minnesota by the Scamp Trailer company and the GG and our mouse drove over there to pick it up. It was June when they made the trip and June is peak insect season. The return trip took them through the yooperland to the moomincabin where I met them.

They did a lot of hiking along the way and at the end of every day they counted up all the ticks they had encountered. I don’t remember the gory details but there were days when they found something like 60. He keeps his tick collection in little alcohol-filled vials or sometimes in ziplock freezer bags.

By the time they got to the moomincabin, the GG was feeling rather unwell and even though the ticks they encountered were not deer ticks, we couldn’t help wondering if he’d overlooked one somewhere along the way. In the end, we decided his fever was probably from black fly bites, another scourge but one that doesn’t cause lasting illness.

After all that, we decided the only possible name for our new trailer was the Lyme Lounge.

Note that the ticks in the pic are “dog” ticks, not the deer ticks that cause Lyme disease. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a deer tick although they are supposedly around. I am creeped out by any kind of tick and get panicky when I find one crawling on me.

What hat did you wear today? I have worn many hats in my life. My current hat is what the web app industry calls a BA (business analyst). For a long time I was a BSA (business systems analyst). I can’t remember my current title but it is some kind of engineer. My job didn’t change one iota, just the title. I do not know what the bean counters were thinking and I do not care. As long as I get paid. I continue to call myself a business analyst or BA. I used to be part of a BA team. It ranged from two to four people. After a retirement and a horrific series of lay-offs, I am the only BA.

Today my boss and I were discussing some of our next enhancements and she was emailing various people talking about the BAs. She is as good or better at my job than I am but she is also a MANAGER and so also good at what other people do, like developers and QA folks. So suddenly what came into my head was that she was wearing her BA hat!

So then I thought something like what does a BA hat look like? Well. I have four faves.

My summer hat. A Sunday Afternoon hat with a big brim and a long “tail” off the back. I now own five or six of these in various colors. Most of them are at the moomincabin but I definitely have one here. The pic was taken in Crazy Old Florida a few years ago, on the beach on Long Boat Key.

Then there are the winter hats. First up, my trusty old ski band. Once I actually went inside the Kiwanis Thrift and a woman said something like, “You are wearing something that I made.” Yes indeed I am. It’s amazing who you encounter in the thrift shops. People DO want your stuff.

And then there’s my smartwool balaclava. It is just about the most comfortable head covering ever. I do look a bit like a thug in it but my long wool skirt probably helps with that. And then there’s that Pinocchio look…

Finally there’s my sparkly bomber hat. I’ve posted about this before but it is one of the last gifts The Comm gave me in her life. I think she struggled with this but in the end decided it was okay. Thanks mom.