Random bits of my so-called life.

Suzy aka the GG earned his pay around here today. He scrubbed the heck out of the deck and its furniture and then he cleaned the moomincabin windows. Yesterday he got on a roll and potted the impatiens we bought for us, the Old Cabin, Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench and various other places. If I had known he was gonna go pig wild with the impatiens, I wouldda bought a fourth flat.

I am inching along on a prodject to pull EVERYTHING outta the kitchen drawers and cupboards here, WASH everything and WASH the drawers and cupboards before putting things back. I’m not sure when the last time this kind of cleaning happened.

My cuzzint npJane arrived with her dad, my Dear Uncle Harry, this afternoon. They are on a rocket trip to open up the Old Cabin for the summer and are shooting back down to the Planet Ann Arbor tomorrow. Yes they know that it’s Memorial Day and the traffic will probably be horrible. It is what it is. We hung out with npJ and Harry on the beach in the later part of the afternoon and our cousins “Jeep and Pan” joined us for a bit. Again, sooo great to get together without masks and worry of COVID.

And then we did porterzoomation and they had a bag of FRITOS right in front of the cam. It was the LAST bag of Fritos at the park store today. I have not had a Frito since I dunno, maybe sometime in 2019. I actually kinda fergot about Fritos. I was going NUTSO looking at that bag of Fritos and now they are on my list! I bet Pat’s or Meijer has them.

Actually it was 10:03 sun and the sun was down but sunset goes on for quite a while at this latitude as we approach the summer solstice. This sunset was not as spectacular as the one the night before (my cousin messaged me a pic of that one) but it made for a nice artsy (if I can apply that word here🐽) photo reflecting the moomincabin interior. This is not the first time I have taken this kind of pic…

We are inching along in terms of re-entering various “unwashed” public places. At least I am. The GG has been going INSIDE since I dunno when but always masked. NOW he is going inside UNMASKED. I am not in total agreement with that but it is CDC guidance and he is vaxxed (so am I) and in the grokkery store I accompanied into with him today, there was a mix of masked and unmasked faces. I was one of the masked and all store employees were also masked. I did not enter the hardware store. Oh yeah, I did shop at Parmer’s to get impatiens for the moomincabin but that was all outside including the cashier. This is a weird transitional time and I am masking in stores to respect those who cannot get immunized and might not know if my unmasked mug means I am vaxxed or lying about being vaxxed.

And then. The GG was about to leave to exchange an unexpectedly unwanted purchase from the grokkery store when I spied my cousins “Jeep and Pan” walking up to our cabin. They came INSIDE and I was SOOOOOOO happy to talk to them IN PERSON! And they brought homemade bread! 🧡🧡🧡

Man oh man, what a drive! The first few hours featured heavy rain, wind, and the typical holiday weekend warriors. We foresaw that this holiday weekend could potentially be extra busy so we left early in the day and therefore didn’t encounter any slowdowns. Cygnus drove like a charm. What a nice little vee-hickle! She even purrs although her purr is not quite the same as the Ninja’s. My fears that she would be over-packed with crapola ended up being unfounded. I was told I could choose an aminal co-pilot and I chose Softy Beanbag since Froooggy and Green Guy have been up here guarding the place for a couple weeks.

We had considered lunch at the Driftwood but bagged it. I am not quiiiiite ready for indoor dining and it was too cold to eat outside and Iggy and Mack were uber busy with tourists today meaning crowds. We’ll get there.

So how do you like that scenery? Looks nice and sunny right? It is but it was colder than blue blazes this afternoon. Aside from other layers of clothing, I had to layer hats. A balaclava for warmth and a sun hat to shield my face from Mr. Golden Sun. And yellow sunglasses. They shield me from glare while still allowing me to see my phone, which is where I normally read books (and check weather and marine traffic and facebook and twitter and Insty and whatever).

So below is your fugly for today, a baggy old bag dressed up for sun and cold. And there is no ice here, not that we expect ice at this time of year. I’m of course talking about cocktail ice. There are USUALLY a few bits of snow left over on Memorial Weekend but not this year.

He’s not really all that grumpy. I am probably more often a grump. I was REALLY grumpy this morning when I saw him start to pack stuff into Cygnus. I was planning on putting my clothes, grocks, and technological crapola and pretty much NOTHING else into Cygnus. Maybe Frooggy. I had thought the reason we were taking two vee-hickles (plus a camping trailer) was so I would have my own transportation while he’s off camping with his girlfriends. But nope. We are taking both vee-hickles so he can haul a whole bunch of crapola up there. Grrrrrump!

Me? I have two rolling suitcases full of clothes. I have TWO because ya nevah know whatchyer gonna have to deal with weather-wise in the yooperland. I have everything but boots and Yax. Grocks? I have FOUR bags of non-perishables lined up ready to go and will pack perishables in the morning. I always haul meat/seafood, etc. up there. It isn’t that the Sault Ste. Siberia area is anywhere near a food desert. I just have my fave markets down here plus some stuff ordered online from Luke’s Lobster. I don’t really need to haul non-perishables up there. Partly it’s a hangover from my pandemic year. But also if I haul stuff up it decreases my time spent in Meijer. I love Meijer and am sooooo glad they built a store there. For one thing, it’s located such that I don’t even have to go IN town to get there from the moomincabin. Still, Meijer trips cut into Beach Time.

Part of my grumptastic-ness was fueled by more coffee than I probably needed this particular morning. There was also an incident where I couldn’t figger out how to unlock Cygnus to drive it over for a curbside pickup. Turned out the fob in MY hand wouldn’t open the car because there was a fob INSIDE it. I vaguely remembered Jalen telling us about this when we picked it up. Welp. Yup, there was a fob INSIDE the car. Why was it NOT in the KEY BASKET? A [LOUD] driveway Twitter play ensued.

KW: Will you put that fob in the goddamn KEY BASKET?
GG: Don’t be such a bitch!
KW: Being a Crabby Bitch is part of my charm!

Okay. Now I know how to unlock Cygnus when one fob is inside and one is out. I assume Mooon Yooonit works the same way but I haven’t driven her all that much.

Tomorrow we will join the unwashed masses to drive north to the yooperland for the holiday weekend. I will be following the Lyme Lounge all the way and it sounds like it’ll be rainy at least downstate. I like and dislike tandem driving.

I did it. I went in-person shopping at my fave Plum Market this morning. I went right when it opened at eight. There was hardly anyone in there. I wore a mask and I didn’t notice anyone without but again, hardly any shoppers. I kept a good distance from everyone I saw except my mouse from whom I got a quick grocery store hug but we got vaxxed together.

I was nervous about going but once I got inside, that completely disappeared. My mouse was there and Joyce my cashier buddy was there. She has COVID hair to rival mine but hers looks a lot better 🐽 The seafood guy was waaaaay friendly and chattering up a storm. We shared stories about filling our freezers with meat and seafood back in the “beginning” when we all thought we would be eating beans and rice for the duration.

I FORGOT HOW TO USE MY DEBIT CARD! I kept swiping and swiping and it wasn’t working and then the cashier asked, “Does it have a chip?” Yes! Yes it does. I knew that! I am such an idiot. I am not ready for crowds and I’m not quitting curbside yet but that felt pretty good.

Cygnus took a trip to the dealer and they found and replaced a funky sensor in one of her taaars. I hope that takes care of the problem. It makes sense because it was very intermittent and sometimes the light turned off by itself. And the tires are fine… But fingers crossed.

And I figured out my CSV problem. All I will say is I was working with ANCIENT excel files (1997-2003 application version). You don’t wanna know anything more. Now I have to go through and convert them all to a newer version. Busy work for times when my brain is taaarrred.

Tomorrow is gonna be a three-ring circus around here as I work and pack and try to endure whatever rummaging the GG gets into. I’m already being asked what I want to do when I’m up at the moomincabin and when I want to come back. Other than work and do chores, I want to beeeeee at the moomincabin. Walk the beach, talk to my cousins and friends, pot some impatiens, sit on the bench and watch the boats go by. Come back? We’ll see. It doesn’t really matter where I am any more and I think I feel brave enough about entering stores to buy grocks, etc.

That’s one of the things my old coot used to say when he was told there would be chicken for dinner. “Shit” was another thing he would say and one of the beach urchins was within earshot of the second when she was about 10 and I don’t think she has ever forgotten it. That was the day my dad took us (she and me) to the mall. The KINROSS Mall, that is. Not a bit like Briarwood and her nose was totally outta joint. It’s just a grocery store with boring little stores and offices around the edge. Nowadays? Who the heck goes to any mall? The last time I was at Briarwood was a few years ago to buy an iPhone. (This event did NOT diminish her love for her granddaddy one iota.)

Anyway, the title is just about how today went for me/us. At work I re-engaged in an ongoing technological struggle where Excel refuses to load CSV files properly. Instead of putting all of the comma-delimited fields nicely into different columns, it puts all of the fields into the first column, commas and all. I have some clues about what’s going on but no happiness. I may have to consult the dev guys. They are wizards.

Cygnus is a great car but her tire monitoring system continues to have a mind of its own. No matter what we do, the light (and a little beep and a big square message box) comes on randomly. She’s going in tomorrow but the fix may not happen then because they may need to order parts. The taaars are fine and so is the vee-hickle but man oh man do I hate driving with dashboard lights on even if I know they are false.

For about a split-second, I was thinking maybe I shouldda bought a Honda CRV or a second RAV4. Both of those were considerations. But then a beach urchin bought a Crosstrek and I liked it. And I remembered that my first Honda (Accord), my fave vee-hickle ever, lit the check engine light about three months after we bought it AND it was FLASHING and there were electrical issues that I don’t exactly remember. Bad alternator. We never had another problem with that car except for the regular wear and tear crapola. Stuff happens.

This has stressed out the GG, who has been bird-dogging the issue to try to fix it himself. Another minor stress issue was that HE COULDN’T FIND MY SLEEPING BAG! We take sleeping bags to the moomincabin so we have less laundry to deal with when we’re there. This started waaaaay pre-pandemic. I’m more comfortable in my own little bag anyway instead of tugging covers back and forth. I couldn’t find it either. Since one possibility was that it was already UP there, I told him to bag looking for it. There are about a gazillion blankets up there and I’m taking my Smartwool leggings and I will NOT be cold. Nevertheless, he persisted and found my sleeping bag. And again, if we had less STUFF, things would be easier to find.

Oh yeah, all four robin eggs have now hatched.

It’s a cute pic if a little fuzzy but we want to disturb our feathered neighbors as little as possible. This nest is on the security light just outside the window in the Upstairs Lair. And no we don’t turn the light on when there’s a bird nest on it. The GG waits until the mooma bird is off gathering food and uses a selfie stick. 6-8 feet away a birdhouse is abuzz with chickadee hatchlings and house wrens are fledging (we think) from a birdhouse out in front.

At least it’s a good use of the selfie stick. It was a gift for me a while back and a very thoughtful one at that! Alas, I had little patience for learning how to use it properly. When I tried to photograph myself, the result made me look like I was trying to fend off a bear with a big stick. Also I don’t like to haul a whole lot of stuff around. My laptop and iPhone plus their various charging cables are more than enough.

I can’t remember how long it takes for robins to fledge. Last year when we came home from our Memorial Day trip, the babies in the nest on top of the light were fledging. I mean literally the minute we walked in the door. A couple weeks later, I was sitting feet away from a different nest when a baby plopped down right next to me. Robins built a nest in that location this year too but somebody pecked holes in the eggs so that family was unsuccessful. Nature is cruel.

Exhausted (in a good way) today. My ears were burning this morning until our daily defect meeting. Our QA “boyz” (young men on the Indian subcontinent) were ready to pounce on me with language-type questions. I LOVE this little corner of my job and I LOVE that they are SOOO good at English grammar, syntax, and punctuation. They catch all kinds of American English sloppiness and that makes our product better. The day continued in that kind of vein plus my brain multi-tasked as I put together Amazon Prime orders, added to my Plum order, made mental notes for an Argus order, and OPENED delivered Amazon Prime orders, stashing them in my staging area – the Landfill dining room table.

P.S. Three out of four eggs have now hatched 🧡

Oh, not here. These are my Mother’s Day impatiens (some of them). My beach urchin was worried that they looked a little sparse when she delivered them. To be sure, there were not a lot of flowers but they often look like that at first and there were BUDS EVERYWHERE. I potted them last weekend and have watered them diligently every morning and they are going like crazy (I couldn’t get an adequate pic). I only had trouble with them one year and it turned out that was because of a virus. The ones I got in the yooperland to pot at the moomincabin that year did not have the virus.

Sunday but not really Funday. I didn’t feel like I got much done today but I was trying to organize my brain to pack for a week or so at the moomincabin coming up. The idea is that I don’t want to spend a lot of time shopping in person up there and curbside is okay but not as robust as it is down here. Meijer does it through a third-party source and while the people are fine, you can’t exactly schedule it for say 9:00 AM and actually GET your grocks at that time. I finally figured out how it worked last summer when I realized (duh) a shopper has to commit to picking for your order. I have used Meijer delivery down here on the Planet Ann Arbor and it works MUCH better, probably because we are a much larger population center. Plum curbside and Argus delivery remain my faves though.

Being vaxxed, I am not as nervous about in person shopping as I was last summer when I DIDN’T DO IT AT ALL! But I still want to limit my time in stores. So I ordered some stuff (cleaners and a collection of small jars of herbs/spices) from Amazon Prime and have an order started at Plum to pick up later in the week. I couldn’t be bothered wandering around Meijer getting that kind of stuff. I’d rather be on the beach! I also have my eye on the park store and Neville’s market for any kind of onesy-twosy things I might need food-wise. There’s always something!

So this summer’s trips to the moomincabin SHOULD be less stressful than last summer. Before summer 2020 even started our governor BigGretch actually ordered that people could not travel to northern cabins that they owned unless they could quarantine for 14 days when they got there. Make no mistake. I am a huge supporter of Gretchen. She had some horrendous early-pandemic decisions to make without anything approaching adequate scientific information and then a bunch of yay-hoos plotted to kidnap her! Dump her out of a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan or execute her in Wisconsin? Something like that. I had prepared myself for the idea that I might not be able to spend time on my family’s beach for the first time in my life. It was not to be because she rescinded the order before Memorial Day. So I got there. It was just harder than usual and we couldn’t pack the moomincabin full of daughters and nieces and cousins and all manner of friends and SOs.

Also? It’s Bear Season. Our Northern Correspondent reported on fb that a black bear visited her deck last night. Did he knock? Someone wanted to know. Nope. His MO was knocking stuff off the deck.

Back at the beginning of “all this” when I first started working from home full time, the GG looked around the living room one day and asked something like, “Think we could do some good around here [The Landfill]?” What he meant was what can we get rid of? At the time I was dealing with a constant state of low-level anxiety and about the only thing that kept me sane was my job, thanks very much for that! I was paralyzed about moving forward on flinging. Anyway all the donation centers were closed.

We’ve been diligently getting rid of “stuff” for years, albeit it on and off. We encountered a BIG setback when The Commander died and we inherited her stuff. Disclaimer: she was NOT a hoarder and had spent a lot of time after my dad died getting rid of stuff but still.

After the Mother Ship decided our local office would close for good and I became a permanent telecommuter, I did get rid of most of what passed for biz-caz [except for my fave skirts] and more recently there was a Closet Prodject in a beach urchin’s old room. I can’t call that one successful yet. (That is only a semi hint 🐽)

Today. We took our old beeceeclettes and some other stuff on a little Jackson Road tour. There are three re-use centers on Jackson road. Who wants our stuff? Kiwanis was closed to donations (which I KNEW so not sure why we even went there but I wasn’t driving). Habitat took our kitchen items but were full up with old bikes. They told us Sharehouse wasn’t accepting donations but it turned out they WERE and YES they wanted our bikes and it was otherwise overflowing with stuff and people buying and donating. Sure wish I had taken a pic of that because it was pretty amazing.

We bought those bikes when Lizard Breath was a baby. They were Schwinn “mountain” bike 10-speeds. I was an Olympian bike rider as a kid. I could do tricks like riding no-handed and standing up on the SEAT with one foot, sticking my other leg out in the air behind me. Alas, I entered adolescence and back in the day in my town, girls who wanted boyfriends didn’t ride bikes. Or so I thought. Not riding a bike did NOT get me a boyfriend 🐽. Until the “mountain” bikes, I never learned how to ride a bike with more than one speed and got out of practice in general. Because of that, combined with being terrified of TRAFFIC, I haven’t been much of a bike rider as an adult.

The bikes were fine but the baby seats we bought did NOT have shoulder straps, which meant that when my baby fell asleep (and she ALWAYS did), her helmeted head would flop forward into my back and I was constantly worried that she would fall OUT! The second baby also did that but had an additional annoying habit of repeating, “Up the hill, up the hill”, over and over whenever we were going uphill.

The GG asked me if I thought we should ask so-and-so and so-and-so if they wanted the bikes before donating them. NO NO NO NO!!! These bikes need a LOT of repair/refurbishment and I REFUSE to saddle somebody else with a bicycle they don’t have time to repair. That just becomes a burden to them. There are people who ENJOY refurbishing old bikes. Better they go to somebody like that.

He refused to get rid of The Comm’s bike. It is a Collector’s Item? We’ll see 🐽

Yeek! I JUST NOW realized he wore his Mohammed Bombhead shirt throughout all of this… And we both FORGOT masks! That was okay for me as I didn’t plan on getting out of the car. The first place we stopped he went inside maskless and somebody handed him a mask PDQ 🐽. Jeesh!

Today marks my first actual in-person *shopping* trip since you know when. I’m not counting the car dealership or the quick walk into the Plum Market to return an extra bag of grocks I didn’t order.

I drove Cygnus down to Kerrytown today to score one of the GG’s fave whole chickens and some lamb stew meat from Sparrow and Copper River salmon from Monahan’s.

How did it go? It was fine except that my nervous system was all over the map. Thinking I would have to pay for parking, I logged on to my A2 parking app early to make sure my payment info was up to date. Thursday morning I woke up to texts from my bank about possible fraudulent activity on one of my cards. And yes, there was fraudulent activity. So that card is canceled and it takes a while for a new one to come. Fortunately the parking app is using a different card and all was well.

Then. Dun dun dun. I. put. on. my. mask. and. The doors opened! And it was fine! I will do it again. I might even venture into Plum sometime next week. And if I have to do Meijer up at the moomincabin, I think I can manage. (Note that I am fully vaxxed and ALWAYS wear a mask inside stores, etc.)

One of the things I fergot to do was take a pic. So I navigated back around to get this crappy pic of Kerrytown and the empty parking lot. It kinda looks like a deserted mall or whatever. Not! Out of frame to the left are a couple of big trucks being unloaded. It was EARLY in the morning so no cars but the stores were well stocked and there were a couple of customers besides me. ALL MASKED as is required by these shops. Also, this place on farmers market days is FILLED with booths overflowing with all kinds of produce and other foods and products.

Alas. One of the things I MISS about the pandemic is the absence of door-to-door solicitors. Other than a couple of [masked] folks interested in various vee-hickles in our driveway (Ninja and Lyme Lounge), nobody has rung our doorbell in forever. Today! An UNMASKED (I think, I was too flabbergasted to really register his mask status) person RANG THE DOORBELL asking to sell something. I dispatched him PDQ (albeit politely) and said that no I did not want to take his phone number (also politely BUT FIRMLY).

For many years I have had the NYT xword app on my phone. For many years, I did the xword religiously every day. People would be talking (at work) about video games and I’d snicker and say my game was the xword.

And then, a couple summers ago, I kinda stopped. Abruptly. I had discovered OTHER xword apps, the New Yorker and I fergit what else. I escalated into doing them all! Xword addiction! But then. I had an iPhone XS and the keyboard started acting intermittently wonky. Xwords started being frustrating but I lived with it for a while until one day I realized that my phone was kinda swelling. Oh this is not good.

I was at the moomincabin at the time and there is no Apple store there but there IS an AT&T where you can buy iPhones. I got the only iPhone XS in Sault Ste. Siberia (I still have it). It was the weirdest phone buying experience ever. We were the only customers in the store and the woman was distracted from the get-go and apparently didn’t understand that I WANTED TO BUY AN IPHONE NOW and that I was prepared to PAY FOR IT NOW. I dunno what she was thinking, that I was some stoopid old bag or what. When she started asking about payment plans, I said, “Well, I was planning on PAYING FOR IT TODAY. Can I DOOO that?” And things started moving along right quick. (I was politer than that, just that I felt like I was banging my head.)

Somehow that marked the beginning of a hiatus from my xword gaming. Until today. One of the beach urchins texted a pic of today’s (unfinished) xword with a Commanderism in it. “If you catch my drift.” Except it didn’t fit. I immediately asked, “It’s Thursday, is there a trick?” Because Thursday puzzles always have some kind of trick. And then suddenly I was tapping away, solving the puzz on my own.

I was a little rusty at first but then I somehow caught the drift trick in the puzz and got it solved. The trick? Six of the clues for words that end at the bottom have “FT” (foot) as the last two letters and those are beneath the bottom boundary of the puzz. So “IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT” is “IF YOU CATCH MY DRI”. The other part of the trick is “SIX FEET UNDER”, which apparently was a movie.

I’m not sure if The Comm ever shortened “If you catch my drift” into “drifterino” but she may have coined “catcherino” but it’s all kind of the same thing. What the beach urchins may not know is that crossing “IFYOUCATCHMYDRI” at the very very top is “ENID”. The clue for that is “Seat of Oklahoma’s Garfield County.” It took me longer than it should have to get that one. My parents LIVED in Enid part of the time they were rattling around the American southwest when my old coot was a WWII flight instructor. ‘course that was a long time before I was born so I don’t remember it 🐽

I have always described myself as a centrist. You know, fiscal conservative, social progressive. I don’t think “we” should spend more than “we” earn. I think people should earn their own living if they can. I don’t care what color/religion/gender identity/whatever anyone else is.

I think I am still a centrist but some people seem to think I’m one o’ them thar libruls. Actually it’s complicated. The Orange Bombasty was difficult for me from the get-go. It was almost unendurable during our pandemic year (which may or may not be winding down). I don’t really think of the OB as any kind of political flavor except Himself, Head Narcissist.

I still think that people should earn their own living if they can. BUT. I AM SICK TO DEATH of the ubiquitous facebook memes complaining about how businesses are struggling to find workers because people would rather live off the [limited] stimulus.

On my facebook feed, most of the people who are posting this bullcrap are wealthy. Well, good for you that you could ride out the pandemic with plenty of cash on hand, working from home (like me), or retaarred and traveling around in fancy self-contained RVs.

There are people who are undoubtedly looking for a handout. There are others who are not looking for work because they are taking care of children or afraid (still) of getting COVID (it’s not gone yet, check out India) in a job that requires them to greet the public. I have never been in this kind of position but we have certainly had periods of low cash flow (government shutdowns anyone?). This is an extremely complicated set of issues and deserves a critical analysis, not just people unthinkingly sharing stoopid memes on facebook.

I have harped on this before. Facebook crapola today reminded me of it. We won’t get into abortion issues today. That is an even more complicated issue (I am and always have been pro-choice but know I have readers who are not). But no writing chops for it today (or maybe ever).

I only ask that people STOP before hitting share on some dumb meme. THINK about the issue. Fact check it. Do you REALLY understand the issue? Or do you just agree with the “headline”. Does the issue affect your life? What about others? Are some of the folks who it might affect unable to tell their stories? Like do they have access to the internet? Can they read and write? Who cares? I do.

You can go on and live your nice life, traveling here and there, eating out and whatever. I will definitely be doing that albeit slowly. But I will not forget those who have fewer resources than I do.

Yes! This is the kind of pic I want people to send me from the moominbeach, as long as they are being safe. I’m talking about rock safe, not COVID safe for once. The GG is somewhere near Cedar Point, which is the point to the east of the moominbeach. There are all kinds of BIG ROCKS under the water in the whole Cedar Point area (which is actually a series of small un-named points and mini-beaches *culminating* in Cedar Point). I’m puzzled about what bote he is piloting. That doesn’t look like a kayak paddle. It looks more like one of the Motor Bote oars. So maybe he cut the motor and lifted it so he could *carefully* navigate the rocks? Or maybe he’s just messing with me. That’s Canananada in the background by the way.

Our sugar sand moominbeach is at the “bottom” of a bay between two rocky point systems, Birch and Cedar, from which we look straight out into Whitefish Bay/Lake Superior. When I was a kid, my dad used to take me out around our bay pointing out some of the interesting underwater features. I can’t remember what bote we used. The only bote I remember my fam owning as a young child was a Sunfish sailboat and I’m not sure that bote would’ve been easily navigable in rocky areas. OH! I’m sure it was a canoe! Jeebus.

Anyway in the late 1800s or so, the land that became our land was lumbered and there were big docks all over our bay and boats came in to get the lumber. I am kinda making this up. I wish I knew more about it but there were definitely big rock docks in various places in our bay. Some of the ruins are in plain sight at each end of the beach. Some are underwater and I can only find one of those these days. My dad called them “cribs”.

And then there’s the other weird underwater stuff. My dad always talked about an old car somewhere to the east of the island. Model A or T? I can’t remember and I’ve never seen it. Whatever it was, I’m guessing it was an ice fishing accident. And my [late] brother claimed to have encountered a “cylinder” somewhere between the island and Doelle’s. It spooked him a bit and I share his spookiness about weird objects underwater so whenever I cut across the bay from the Cedar Point area to Home in my kayak, I sorta don’t look down in that area. It is a good memory of my brother though since I laugh every time I think about the blasted cylinder.

There was no way I could get a decent pic of this activity but there is a man at the top of that cute Red Doodly. LofPNet was having a big old dead tree removed from his back yard and it provided most of a day’s worth of entertainment here at TeleCubelandia.

LofPNet is one of those neighbors who sees EVERYTHING. He was looking out the window at 3AM back in 2000 and saw the top third of a tree in our front yard fall on our house (in a storm) and it was the PNet fam that notified us about the next door neighbors’ tree falling on our house in, what was it, 2009? Something like that. We were in the yooperland in Penny’s Kitchen with my moom when we got the email. Maybe those experiences have made him more proactive about getting rid of deadwood than others or maybe he is naturally more proactive.

Demolition also began at Cubelandia today. It won’t be finished in a day. Oh, they aren’t tearing down the building. It was a lease. They are just tearing up the cubes and removing them. Building Mom sent pics and people expressed sadness. I have rather mixed feelings, mostly too complex for throwing into a quick blahg entry. I schlepped over there on my Zen Commute for a good many years and that place had its perks. Ponds and wildlife and nature walks – with TICKS in the last few years, YICK! And Farmer John’s lunchroom produce stand. I did most of my commuting purring along in the Ninja. I bought it a year or so after I started working there and sold it a few weeks ago.

In other news, via the facebook Swanfriends group, *eight* cygnets have hatched at Swan Corners. Alas, some of those probably won’t make it. Turtles grab them and sometimes automotive vee-hickles hit them if they are resting at the side of the road. There’s a four-way stop there. SLOOOOOW DOOOOOWN!

The GG is at the moomincabin and I am not. I expected to be happier about that than I am. I mean, I love to be at the moomincabin but I also like a lot of SPACE. Since COVID and permanent teleCubelandia have forced me to co-exist with The Pensioner 24/7, the old saying, “I married you for better or worse but not for lunch” takes on new meaning. Mr. Bear thought that saying was funny as all getout, evidence that he has a humorous side.

So if the GG goes to the moomincabin, I have SPACE. The problem is I wanted to be more productive this weekend than I ended up being. I wanted to get jump-started on de-hoarding. The problem with that is that I have gotten rid of (over many years) almost everything I WANT to get rid of. For now. I am now faced mainly with OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF. I need OTHER PEOPLE to go through their stuff and make hard decisions about it. At some point, I will draw a line in the sand and get rid of it myself…

It doesn’t help that donation centers are closed or not taking donations because you know why. Are we done with COVID? I have been watching the Great Lake State’s numbers like a hawk and although they are FINALLY going down fairly significantly, every morning I am afraid to look. Even when (if) the virus actually gets under control, I think it’ll be a while before the donation centers have space to take new stuff. And what do you do with engineering textbooks from the 1940s anyway? Who wants them? I GET that they’re better than more recent ones but we aren’t using them so why keep them?

And then… Dun dun dun… Cygnus’s taaaar light came on again. I dunno why people keep OVERFILLING her taaaars. If the recommendation is 33/32, why fill them up to 39? This time it was not the dealer, it happened in our driveway. So as I was driving (Swan Corners and River), they got up to 40 and just as I expected, the taaaar light came on. This time it eventually went out but why can’t we just set it a BIT above the RECOMMENDED setting (which I GET because NINJA!) and KW can drive without dashboard lightups? I mean, I bought a brand new top-of-the-line vee-hickle because I didn’t want to watch dashboard lights come on. grump grump grump. At least I figgered out (finally) how to turn off the thingy that tells if you are drifting outta yer lane. If I am EVAH OUTTA MY LANE IT’S FOR A GOOD REASON!

I wanted the GG to send me some pics from the moomincabin and THIS is what he sent. It wasn’t really what I was expecting but I guess it’s okay. It shows Froggy and Green Guy, Turnstile and Bucky Beaver. Is Softy Beanbag in there somewhere? Where is Softy?

The “midnight” sun is shining in.

Lemme see… What did I doooo today… 0-skunk-30. Curbside pickup at Plum. Can I just keep doing that? I *love* it and the Plum folks are soooo good and friendly. As I have said (many times 🐽) before, I will probably do a hybrid of curbside/delivery and in person shopping going forward. Maybe I’ll set up curbside at Plum for larger orders and walk over for smaller things. Farm Stop delivery for whatever they have available and farmers market for what they don’t.

Roooomba and refrigerator cleanout. Not that it was that dirty or overfilled but with the GG going in and out of town constantly, the contents of the refrigerator constantly fluctuates and I have to keep on top of it. Not to mention that *I* will start traveling back and forth to the yooperland soon.

I potted my Mother’s Day impatiens today! I disturbed Mooma Robin with going in and out but she seems to be getting used to my presence, which is totally benign.

I also contemplated the meaning of words like “liberal”, “socialist”, and “communist” a lot today. What do these words really mean? In our current political season, I have been called a liberal and a “socialist” MANY times. I don’t get it and won’t try to describe it tonight but I will be continuing to take a break from family members who don’t agree with me and won’t try to talk to me about why in a rational way.

Finished a good book today. “Careers for Women” by Joanna Scott. It is NOT a self-help book or whatever. It is a novel. It has a number of wonderful characters including the World Trade Center, the Port Authority of NY and NJ, and the element AL aka aluminum or aluminium if you are a Canuck.

I’m thinking back to when I subscribed to the Wall St. Journal, the paper version. My 3rd grade beach urchin at that time was eating breakfast and reading the journal and I asked what she was reading about. She was reading a blurb about aluminum production on the front page. Did she understand it? I dunno but prob’ly more than I did.

Yup, this liberal used to subscribe to the Wall St. Journal. I still read it online whwn I can find the damn password.

The moomincabin is open for business! Thanks to the GG!

Mayor Pete has scheduled road work on the cabin road this weekend. It’s a two track road and here is one of the vee-hickles involved.

Here is the GG on the beach at the end of the day. Canananada is to the right of the island.

Status? The trees have leaves? Yes. Early/mid May they don’t always. Even Memorial Day weekend. Snow? No snow. Usually there is at least a bit of a raggedy snow pile on Memorial Day Weekend. Not this year. Refrigimatator? Hmmm. Working for the moment but may be in a failure mode. Twitter play?

GG: Do you remember when your parents bought that refrigimatator?
KW: Nope.

Which means it is OOOOOOLD. We’re on the alert for buying a new fridge but I’m wondering if we can find a new one that’s small enough to fit in that space… If we have to buy a new one, it will DEFINITELY have a light in the damn freezer!

Onward.

I am referring to the latest mask-wearing updates by the CDC. So, vaxxed people can go without masks just about anywhere? Really? How the f*ck can you tell whether any random un-masked person has been vaxxed or not? In my neighborhood, if I encounter a neighbor on the sidewalk, we still do the COVID Dance but we also provide our vax status. “I’m vaxxed but I’m still following the ‘rules’ and I have a mask in my pocket.” And we still social distance from each other. I rarely encounter anyone outside because I’m usually out there at 0-skunk-30 but it’s the neighborly thing to do, roight?

But we are in one of the bluest of blue pockets of a state that, well, I can’t really call it a blue state because there are waaaaay too many Trumpers throughout but we did THANKFULLY put Big Gretch in as governor and helped with Biden’s presidential VICTORY. (I have relatives who disagree with my opinions and they can just deal with it.)

I could write a “book” about the miscommunications we’ve all received since COVID but I won’t. The highlight would be Trump pontificating about drinking hydroxychloroquine and shining lights inside human bodies and injecting disinfectant up the you-know-what (that last bit is probably not what he said). This latest guideline is only going to cause more confusion. It will give un-vaxxed COVID deniers license to “fearlessly” enter crowded stores and restaurants and potentially spread COVID to others and and and…

When I (soon) enter (small) stores again, I will be wearing a mask, even fully vaxxed. It isn’t because I am fearful although maybe I am and I think I SHOULD be. COVID is only somewhat predictable about who it kills. And it does kill people, even children. I will continue to wear a mask because I CARE about other people and want them to know that I, as a random person who may or may not be vaxxed, don’t want to spread the virus to others. What is so hard to understand about this? And I didn’t get this from anything Biden has said. This has been my stance since the beginning of the Bad Old Trump COVID idiot days.

Happy ending? First local asparagus of the season! I sure miss Farmer John’s Lunchroom produce stand over at Cubelandia. What a work perk that was! 🧡

After the last couple days, which were very stressful even for those of us who were somewhat peripheral to the stress, I was hoping for caaaaaaalm. Oh, it’s okay, it’s some vee-hickular issues that are not currently blahggable. They don’t involve Cygnus and both vee-hickles are fine.

But caaaaalm? Noooo. Mid-morning, just about the time of the daily stand-up, the GG was running frantically throughout the Landfill, rummaging through drawers and cabinets and whatnot everywhere. I kinda did NOT wanna know. All of a sudden he was headed to the hardware store. Now, he is ALWAYS running to the hardware store, sometimes multiple times per day, and all I could think of at that moment was GOOD RIDDANCE!

Alas, as soon as he was out the door, I had a little “twitter play” with my mouse via text messages, something like this:

Mouse: Sorry if I triggered a storm of rummaging 😂😂😂
KW: That was YOU who started all that? 👀

It turned out she and the raccoon wanted to borrow the GG’s old Pentax film cam and it needed batteries so he was rummaging to find the camera and then rushing off to buy batteries. I told her that. She said that the raccoon had batteries. I called the GG and he cut his trip short, meaning my hoped-for peace was curtailed.

I managed to find the GG a couple other little missions. One was to walk down to the farmers market and snag some local asparagus. The second was to organize a garden hose and other supplies for me so I can water my impatiens now and when I pot them. They are about the only plant I don’t seem to kill. This ended up requiring a trip to the hardware store of course because my fave hose watering attachment apparently kicked the bucket last fall and “we” finally remembered that after yet another bout of rummaging.

I had a busy work day that culminated in re-creating some COMPLICATED old Visio diagrams that we only have images of because the originals reside on the long defunct laptop of a mentor/boss/friend who retaaarrred a number of years ago.

Slice o’ life here, nothing more, nothing less 🐸

Cygnus? Cygnus is fine. But. I was driving her around Saturday and the TAAAAR LIGHT (or should I say TAAAAR SCREEN) came on! Say what? She has maybe around 250 miles on her. What gives? After MUCH futzing around with taaaar gauges, we determined that her taaars were *overfilled*. After much more futzing around, “we” (aka the GG) got the light to turn off.

We had some help with this via a previously scheduled call with Michelle, a Subie dealer support person who follows up with new car buyers to answer questions. We didn’t have the usual kind of questions for her but certainly asked about the taaaar light. She was VERY knowledgeable and the GG is good at automotive vee-hickles, having worked Hamtramck Assembly as a kid plus general driveway repair experience back in the day. Among other things, we learned that if we get to the right display screen, it tells what the current taaar pressure is for each taaar. I had seen a pic of that in the manual but didn’t drill down to figger out how to actually find it.

I did a bit of my own research via the google. On one Reddit forum, a Subie mechanic divulged that in cold weather, they typically overfill the taaars because if they don’t, they get flooded with calls about the taaaar light. Indeed. My Ninja used to do that all the time but I never called Honda because the GG just pumped them up. Unfortunately, I got a bit complacent about the light. One day it came on halfway to Cubelandia and I kind of ignored it. “Oh that again” and texted a pic to the GG. I made it OVER there just fine but when I came out at the end of the day, one of the taaars was flat flat flat.

But these taaaars were waaaay overfilled and can I also just say, I have lost count of how many taaaar gauges we have? They are kept in the Key Basket and since many of them don’t seem to be accurate, I think we should weed some out. The pic is what’s in my taaars right now. They are still a bit overfilled but they were more like 42 when the light came on. 33 (front) and 32 (rear) is recommended. Something like that, maybe a bit higher in our northern winters. Listen to me talking about taaars like I actually know something!🤣🤣🤣

P.S. The screen in the pic is NOT the warning screen I got the other day. If I could make a user experience criticism I would say, 1) don’t say “TPMS warning” (what the heck is TPMS?), say something like “Check tire pressure”, and 2) if you can provide the current tire pressure, put it right on that screen so I know which tire(s) is involved and if I should stop NOW or if it’s just a little low and I have a little time. Of course, if a taaaar is FLAT, I would KNOW to stop NOW with or without the light. Bumpity clunk.