Random bits of my so-called life.

How it started, how it’s going

July 3rd, 2025 by kayak woman

43 years ago it was a nice day for a white wedding. Or maybe it was just a beach wedding. Man oh man, my beloved mother was bugging me up the wazoo to wear shoes. On the beach? No mom I will not. She had been brought up “properly” in the Detroit area but she had also lived for umpteen bazillion summers on the beach by that time. Us kids always went barefoot here so I was puzzled about why she wanted me to put shoes on for my beach wedding. To hell with that. I went barefoot ANYWAY and when my dad joined me to walk with me down the “aisle”, he was barefoot too. I don’t really miss my parents all that much normally but I am tearing up a bit at that memory.

We have spent our anniversaries many places but usually we are with family, my fam or the GG’s fam or whoever, at home on The Planet Ann Arbor, Hoton Lake or the moominbeach. This year was a quiet one. We are at the moominbeach and the GG spent the morning in the Lyme Lounge reporting his 522 hours of volunteer time on the North Country Trail so far in 2025. We drove over to Barbeau for lunch at Cozy Corners, not to be confused with the Cozy Inn in Brimley. Both are good places.

Upon returning from lunch, the GG took a pretty straight trajectory to a nap. I did an audio book for a while, then dozed off a bit until my earbuds fell on the floor. That woke me up.

We finished off the day with a porterized happy hour on Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench. And so good night.

Salty in the parking lot

July 2nd, 2025 by kayak woman

It’s the Alicia G with a Portuguese flag. If you do not know what a “salty” is, it is an “ocean-going bote”, as my parents taught us when we were kids. Ocean-going botes can “sail” in the great lakes if they can navigate all of the canals, rivers, and locks. Like you won’t see big container ships anywhere near here because they can’t get through all of that stuff. On the other hand, lake freighters are not really suited to the oceans. Long story about length and width and ocean style waves although I don’t remember the details off-hand. Ocean-going botes require a “pilot” aboard to navigate the locks and rivers in the Great Lakes (and probably other places but I live on the Great Lakes).

I got this photooo last night as I was heading up to the moomincabin to put myself to bed. Dominion Day faaarworks were just starting in Canananada, which is a mile or so away from the moominbeach (as I’ve said a few times before). I didn’t see any of them but I enjoyed listening to them as I settled in for the night. I don’t like loud sudden noises (like smoke alarms that screech for no good reason in the middle of the night). Fireworks have never bothered me but I do empathize with people suffering from PTSD or other mental health conditions. I mean, most of us suffer from some sort of mental health condition or other. For instance, I have a very weird phobia (but oddly, not all that uncommon) against a couple of completely benign insects. And some basic social anxiety. And some OCD, although I try to keep that over in the corner where it belongs. And probably some other crapola.

Fin Family Moominbeach

July 1st, 2025 by kayak woman

Our beach doesn’t have a formal name. It has been called many names over the century the family has owned it. Mostly it’s just “the beach”. My dad would sometimes call it Sunset Beach and it certainly *IS* a sunset beach, at least in the summer. It faces northwest. Some people call it Birch Point Beach after a small peninsula a half mile to the east. And there’s Round Island Point Nature Preserve, which is adjacent to us on property we once owned.

The [moomin]cabin’s official name is The Veteran Greenhorn Society, LLC. And that’s fine. The Veteran Greenhorns were my dad and about six of his friends when they were in high school back in the late 1930s. They would tromp the woods in the area, packing pistols to pose for gunfight photooos, etc. (I have posted those before.)

At some point I informally started calling this place the moominbeach (moomincabin, moonindeck, whatever). Sometimes when I post photoooos on facebook I use the prefix “moomin” to indicate where I am. Beach, cabin, deck, garage, outhouse… Well, we don’t have an outhouse any more. If I need to use an outhouse I use the Old Cabin outhouse.

I posted a sunset on facebook last night and said I was at the moominbeach. A facebook/high school friend wondered where it had gotten that name. Well. It is a combo…

First, when I was taking classes at community college and I had a 9:00 o’clock class, I would get to the college library at 8:00 AM, cuddle up in a chair and watch the sun come up, study a bit if I needed to, and check my email. I had a lot of YAG emails in those days but, at that time of the morning, I often got emails from Lizard Breath on her college study abroad program in Spain. Once, one of us (can’t remember if it was me or her) mistyped me as “moom” instead of “mom”. “Moom” stuck and we still often refer to female parents as “moom” or “mooma”, i.e., mooma duck, mooma turkey, etc.

Second, there are Tove Jansson’s moomintroll books, a children’s series of novels that began in 1945. The beach urchins loved the moomintroll books. When I bought the first one I was thinking I would be reading it aloud and I think I even began reading it that way. But the beach urchins, quick green lizards as they are, were long-time independent readers by then and they absolutely took off reading every moomintroll book they could get their hot little hands on and left me completely in the dust. Okay then.

So somehow I started calling this place the moominbeach. I think it’s only my branch of the FinFam that calls this beach the moominbeach. Just our thing.

P.S. Well, also we are the *Fin*layson family, although unlike the author, we are not Finnish at all.

I can see Canananada from my house but not today because fog banks

June 30th, 2025 by kayak woman

We had a mix of weather today, ending with fog banks obscuring the Canadian side of the Upper St. Marys River (No there isn’t an apostrophe in Marys.)

I did a quick grock run to Meijer at 7:30 or so this morning. It was mostly hot all day but thunderstorms rolled through in the late afternoon. After that, we sat om Bill’s Birch Point Beach Bank Bench for a while.

There is a big fog bank where Canada usually is. It’s less than a mile away from our American beach. I can (and have) kayaked over to Canada but we know better than to land on the Canadian shore. Sadly, since me and my beach cousins are descended from immigrants from Canada, who came from Scotland. All that said. I think us Scottish waspy type people were probably treated a lot better than those who don’t have pale skin. I have light skin but I always tanned to where a friend once said I looked “black” but we’ll go there some other day (or not).

Some people in younger generations don’t like us putting the American flag down on the beach. As much as I hate what our country is doing these days, I am not unhappy about the flag being there. I HATE the crapola going on in our country but it IS our country. We need to take it back from those who would usurp the constitution our fore-fathers crafted. They were not perfect but they had the right idea.

The other reason we put the American flag in front of the moomincabin is to let Canadian folks know they are approaching an American shore. Landing in our country can be very dangerous these days and Canadian shores are only about a mile away.

Long day

June 29th, 2025 by kayak woman

I woke up at something like 3:30 AM and never totally got back to sleep again. It happens sometimes and I try not to stress about it too much.

Today was our second trek to the yooperland for the summer. Two cars and The Lyme Lounge. Lots of crapola including probably a whole bunch of chainsawing gear.

Driving was smooth sailing until we got an hour or so south of Grayling. A line of severe storms was in the pipeline so we opted to have an early lunch at Dead Bear until the storms rolled through. It turned out that the storms didn’t materialize at all. But lunch was good and the second half of the trip was uneventful.

It was 81 degrees when we got here and a part of me wanted to get inside the moomincabin and open all the doors and windows. Uh, no. It is cooler inside here than it is outside. We did eventually open some doors and windows but not right away.

npJane is here and we spent time with her on the moomindeck and beach including dinner on the deck. Mini-filets, wild rice, salad, garlic bread, and peas from the farmers market which I did my best to ruin by putting them on HIGH instead of low. Somehow they survived.

The sunset was a bit iffy tonight but I utilized my iPhone’s optical zoom capability and a bit of an app to get this photooo at an opportune moment.

I’ve had just about enough for today so g’night, KW.

Shifting gears (again)

June 28th, 2025 by kayak woman

The photo is from 7:00 AM at the farmers market. I thought it would be the last day I could get shelling peas but Donahee’s said they’ll keep having them. We’ll see though. Other people also had them but Donahee’s takes a plastic card for payment. The gal who took my plastic card remarked (in a friendly way) on “you and your tie-dye”. I refrained from saying something like, “tie-dye is post covid biz-caz.” I can only guess that they might be calling me the “pea woman.” It’s okay. Shelling peas and tie-dye both float my boat.

I remembered to take the route home that would take me by the gas station. Cygnus was not dangerously low but I’ve been putting it off for a couple weeks. There was a minor kerfuffle at home in which I had expected to have Cygnus at my service all morning. Not so much, even though I could swear we talked about it last night. The GG had it all loaded up with stuff to take to FlaMan’s place in Flint. I was pretty darn cranky for a few minutes but then I decided to apply one of the mantras I use for adult children to male partners with selective hearing. “She’s apparently talking but I can’t hear the words.” The mantra is “go with the flow.” I mean, Moooon Yooonit was available but she is ALWAYS filled with all kinds of crapola, including a “monster” in the passenger seat.

To be fair, my daughters, all “three” if you include my bonus daughter Pengo (niece), are well capable of taking care of their own business and do not need any advice from meeeee.

It was busy on our block today. The neighbors across the street held their annual garage sale. We did not attend but a few years ago we picked up a cute mid-century modern style cocktail clock from there. “It’s five o-clock somewhere.” It now hangs outside the moomincabin bathroom.

They wrapped up their sale mid-afternoon but then the street started filling up with traffic AGAIN. I wondered if all the new folks knew the garage sale was over? But they were going to the next door neighbor’s house, not across the street. Struck as if by lightning, I realized it was L’s birthday! L is the daughter the next door neighbors had approximately a year ago. It was touch and go for many months because she was born with genetic abnormalities and needed oxygen and a feeding tube at first and I dunno what else. She still has a long road ahead of her but from what little I know, she is getting excellent care and is thriving. Lots of happy noises from the neighbors’ back yard today.

High summer or maybe just hot summer

June 27th, 2025 by kayak woman

Actually it’s pretty comfortable out in the Landfill back yard at this point. We ate dinner (leftovers) outside tonight and communicated with a couple of the GG’s siblings and my cousin npJane.

npJane drove up to the moominbeach today and reported that it was 40 degrees cooler there than when she left the Planet Ann Arbor this afternoon but it is not sleeting. She is staying at the moomincabin for the night before opening the Old Cabin tomorrow and managed to get the frickin’ water heater going (fugly old fashioned fuse box involved) and also the propane heating stove. I was like, “why did you need the propane heater?” Well of course it was because it was 55 degrees up there, not 95 or whatever it was around here today. Crapola in any case and we had the central air on all day here at the Landfill. And I am happy that npJane got the propane heater going. We are fam-i-ly. I’ve got all my cousins and me.

I made the GG talk npJane through the procedure for turning on the water heater. Me, I am wishing we had regular old circuit breakers like I have in my house. But I am a wimpy sort when it comes to lucky shucky. I knew the GG would be able to explain this to npJane and I knew she would be able to understand it. And actually I also understand it. I just hate doing it.

The GG is lighting a ceegar in the pic, not trying to blow himself up.

Your ballot is on the way, da dum da dum da daaa

June 26th, 2025 by kayak woman

Sing it to the tune of “You’re in the army now.” My dad’s version from when WWII interrupted his college studies.

You’re in the army now.
You’re not behind the plow.
You’ll never get rich, you son-of-a-bitch
You’re in the army now.

I have posted these lyrics before. My dad? Forestry student, mechanical engineering student, WW2 flight instructor, automotive factory worker in Detroit while restarting his college career, hay fever (?), tannery worker, banker. I don’t think my dad ever had hay fever except maybe as ruse to get The Commander to move to the yooperland to get out of living in his in-law’s house in Garden City (near Detroit). This was you-are-my-wife-goodbye-city-life Green Acres style without the penthouse in New York. Or penthouse anywhere. My mom adapted to the yooperland with bells on and lived there happily until her death in 2012. My dad never finished college despite every advantage but he became a Successful Failure *anyway*.

My dad did his time behind the plow as a kid. His dad (my grandfather) was not a farmer, he was a banker. But if I have it right, he crawled his way up from manual labor as a teenager into the banking biz. He was an immigrant (Scot, born in Canada) who became successful at banking and was greatly respected around town. I’m not sure he graduated from high school? I could be wrong.

My grandfather made sure his children graduated from high school and sent all of his children to college and one to med school. He also wanted his children to know what it was like to work HARD for a living, especially his sons. So when they were kids he arranged for them to walk 10 miles out to Dafter on non-school days where my great-aunt/great-uncle Alice and Alec lived on a farm. The brothers helped with whatever farm work needed to be done. There were probably a few automotive vee-hickles around Sault Ste. Siberia at that time but not too many and I don’t think the family owned one until a few years later. But I could well be wrong.

So my ballot is on the way. Hopefully I will get it before we leave for the yooperland but probably it’ll get hung up in held mail. But we’ll get there. VOTE VOTE VOTE.

Feeling a bit like I’ve been in a car for 10 hours or whatever

June 25th, 2025 by kayak woman

Not that I was. The GG and Joan drove from Interlaken (long a), NY to The Planet Ann Arbor.

When they got here, the GG almost immediately turned on the Landfill A/C. I’m sure he was thinking I was batty living through five days of 90-plus temps without it. But truly, it was mostly not that bad, probably because it was windy most of the time. Today? The temp was 10 degrees lower but the air was mostly still and it felt hot and muggy INSIDE the landfill. I did not complain about the A/C being on. For one thing, Joan is spending the night and a guest’s comfort is more important than my little foibles. For another, I am enjoying the relative cool in spite of myself.

We took Joan out to eat at our fave Dexter’s Pub. It was louder than we expected. I dunno why we didn’t expect that. Usually we reserve a booth, which is a little quieter, but we were winging it tonight and it was too late to make a reservation so we got seated at a table, which was in the middle of things and noisier. It was still good.

And now we are home and the GG is chilling out in bed and Joan is having Joan time (blogging) and KW is having KW time (blahgging). I’m sure Joan’s blog entry is a lot more interesting than KW’s blahg entry.

At any rate the GG’s Adirondack NCT adventure is a wrap. It was very successful, a good time was had by all, and the GG has once again widened his circle of friends. G’night, KW.

Locks and stresses

June 24th, 2025 by kayak woman

npJane came over today to get a key to the moomincabin to make a copy of it so she could have her own personal key. There’s a key next door at the Old Cabin but she needed her own key and I totally agree. Like why are we only now getting around to this? Not that there’s anything crazy going on in the fam (there isn’t), just that this is a good thing for her and for us for various logistical reasons that are too boring to go into.

The course of the conversation brought up memories of the doors and locks on the moomincabin since it was built. In 1960. I was six. My (late) brother was three. Yeah, okay, do the math.

The photo shows the front door (to the right) and the back door to the left at the back of the photoooo. Both doors have a little lever that locks the door. The front door also has (or had) a sorta traditional lock that you had to unlock with a key. So even if you had a key for the lock, if you had locked the levers, you couldn’t get into the moomincabin.

I’ll never forget when this kind of thing happened to my me, my mom, and brother, after a trip to town. Somehow both levers got locked and there we were on the deck not being able to get inside. The Comm was a bit stressed out about this but with a few bits of good luck, the kitchen window (unseen in the photo but to the left of the refrigimatator) was open a bit. We pushed the window screen into the kitchen and I was enough of a monkey at that time of my life that I climbed through the window and over the sink and unlocked the levers on the doors. I could NOT do that now🤪

Eventually, after many many years but while The Commander was still alive, the front door lock broke and after many *more* years of multiple people trying to find a replacement without success, we went with “door 3”. The problem is that the doors on this ancient cabin are not a standard size (eeet eeez a cabin, roight?) and cannot be replaced easily. I mean we could replace them but that might require more renovation that we might want. What to do? I dunno. I’m just musing, not looking for advice🧡

Look ma, no purse

June 23rd, 2025 by kayak woman

I’m not talking about the bird. We’ll get to that. I’m talking about how extreme heat is interfering with my “purse” strategy.

I hate carrying a purse. I’m sure I thought it was cool when I was a tween/young teen. A purse! Just like the teenagers (and our moms except their purses were not “cute” or “cool”). They were functional. Except when they weren’t. When a purse is NOT functional it is because there is too much crap in it and you can’t find what you need when you, uh, NEED it. Like your wallet. A whole ‘nother issue. And then there is when crumbs or sticky things are in your purse. How long have those things been in there? Months? Yes, maybe. Cleaning that stuff up is kinda like cleaning out a grade school kid’s backpack after the last day of school. Does it move? Don’t touch it! Is it slimy? Handle with care.

Since the onset of covid, my “purse” has become a Patagonia polarfleece vest. I own several of them at all times so if my daughter tells me my vest is dirty, I change to a clean one and throw the offensive one in the laundry🤪 She’s always right!

So vest/purse. Left pocket? iPhone. Right pocket? Cygnus X-1 key fob, credit card, debit card, drivers license, and occasionally some cash if I think I might need it. I sometimes need it at the farmers market although many vendors now accept plastic which is really handy. I know some folks are not comfortable with a cashless society. I am not one of those except when something doesn’t work.

The problem with my vest/purse is that a polarfleece garment is not compatible with 90-plus degree temperatures. Since I am an early morning shopper anyway, I wear my vest on my early morning grokkery dashes and take it off as soon as I get home. We’ll talk about the related issues with that undergarment of FLINGING some other day. OR NOT 👀

Back to the birdie. The GG and Joan did their last hiking day in the Adirondacks yesterday and I *think* that’s when he got the pic of the bird. They are on their way back to the Great Lake State but are visiting friends of Joan’s in New York (state) tomorrow so they will not land on the Planet Ann Arbor until sometime Wednesday.

P.S. Thanks to longtime bloggy friend Margaret for inspiring this post👏

From today

June 22nd, 2025 by kayak woman

The GG sent this pic of today’s mud hike.

Liz sent this pic of the dinner in progress that I will get to eat some of. She stopped by for a ‘hattan this afternoon. We had thought about lunch somewhere downtown but neither of us felt like going anywhere near downtown during the heat wave. Cement City in the middle of Tree Town.

Mouse sent this pic of her return from a looooonnnng drive from South Carolina to SE Michigan with stops along the way.

Another hot day but I never felt unwell throughout it all. I slept well last night and my house stays relatively cool and I dunno. I still haven’t needed to turn the A/C on. If I need to I will.

Tick collecting

June 21st, 2025 by kayak woman

As opposed to tick collection. The GG has a tick collection. He puts all of the little buggers he finds on his skin into little vials filled with alcohol.

I don’t know who the person is but she works for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. She is collecting deer ticks if I have it right. The ones that cause Lyme Disease. That’s the disease our Lyme Lounge is named after. On the trip to pick that thing up out in Minnesota, the GG and mouse were inundated with ticks every day. When they finally landed at the moomincabin, the GG was sick enough that for a quick minute, we thought he might need to head to the urgent care to get checked out for Lyme Disease. In the end, he decided it was probably black fly bites. And yeah, it probably was. I know from experience how nasty those are because they make me feverish. Same for Radical Betty. The GG did recover and has never showed any subsequent signs of Lyme.

Weather update? It got up to 89 today (not 92). I snagged some shelling peas at the farmers market at 0-skunk-30 and was home by 7:20 or so maybe? A cloud layer kept Mr. Golden Sun from keeping us hot most of the morning along with breezes. Persistent winds allowed me to keep the Landfill doors and windows open all day. I felt cool as I shelled my peas in the back yard.

I am glad that the local NPR stations didn’t broadcast those BEEP BEEP BEEP weather alerts for a 92 degree day three days before it happened. They did that a few years ago. It kinda freaked my daughters out, like will mooom be okay. Yes. She will. 92 is not allll that hot and there are many ways to keep cool and if all else fails, moom can turn on the central A/C. Which she may have to do on Monday when she will be working.

What annoyed me about the radio this time was all of the suggestions for how to keep cool in hot weather. There are many ways for Michiganders to do that on our extremely few 90-plus degree days and most of us know how to do it if we have the means. Dunking into Lake Superior water will cool you off quick but most people don’t have access to Gitchee Gumee, including me when I’m on the Planet Ann Arbor. There are people who don’t have access to air conditioning in their homes. I didn’t have A/C in my home until about 20 years ago. It was horrible when the beach urchins were small children and we had a heat wave.

We were lucky to have a big backyard with a plastic kiddie pool. And a cool breeze just rolled through so I am ending this blather now.

G’night. KW

A last little whiff of cool-ish air before the heat dome descends

June 20th, 2025 by kayak woman

Which is cutest, the black widow spider from a couple days ago (South Carolina) or this red eft from the Adirondacks?

I’m not sure what a “heat dome” is but it seems one is heading our way. It is supposed to last five days. I will probably have to turn on the Landfill’s central A/C to get through this one. I hate turning on the A/C. It means I have to shut everything up and can’t hear the birds and insects and whatever is going on outside. But I’ll do it if I need to. Of course, the stuff going on outside today was garbage/recycle/compost trucks thundering through the neighborhood and a neighbor getting their house power washed…

I don’t really have much more to say today. On hot nights like this weekend promises, I remember filling a KMart type kiddie pool with cold water in the back yard and bathing the baby beach urchins and washing their hair in there. Almost like bathing in Lake Superior but a whole heckuva lot smaller. My (late) brother observed an episode of evening beach bathing one time and asked why his kids were not included. What can I say? Ask your wife. (She thought the water was dirty… Not.) Okay, I am riding my blahgging edge posting this.

G’night. Randomly watching Murder Bot episodes. Wonder if the GG would be interested. They are short. Kinda like Joe Pera but not anything near the same content.

Why are there two cars in the driveway?

June 19th, 2025 by kayak woman

The GG was looking at the Landfill driveway via a webcam last night and the title is the question he posed to me when we talked on the phone. Um… We danced around that a little bit and he couldn’t figure it out. I finally said, “I WANT YOU TO USE YOUR BRAIN TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION FOR YOURSELF.”

Answer: Oh, it’s Joan’s car😵‍💫 Ding ding ding, you win the booby prize.

Yes. Remember? You drove Joan out to the Adirondacks in Mooon Yooonit and she left her car in our driveway. (Men🤣)

I then told him that what I should’ve said was, “It’s my boyfriend’s car.” He replied, “But that would be a pickup truck.” Um, how long have you known me? I have never had a boyfriend with a pickup truck. I am not really attracted to men with pickup trucks (the GG knows that) although who knows, maybe I’ve just never met a pickup truck guy with the right chemistry for meeeee.

My second high school boyfriend used to sometimes pick me up in the Blue Goose, his family’s ancient “International”. I think that’s what it was. I think I even drove it a short distance once or twice. It wasn’t a pickup truck. It was a behemoth. Seven kids in that fam, six beautiful girls and BF, right in the middle. His dad more often drove his Toronado and BF owned a little Gremlin that he usually drove. It had an 8-track tape player and we used to play Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen” as we drove around Sault Ste. Siberia. “Arguing” (don’t ask) about which one of us was closer to 18. I was 17. He was 19.

But I have no boyfriend and am not interested in one at this stage of the game, pickup truck or not.

So it rained a lot overnight and a few more times today. After a few hot days, I was chilly enough this morning that I put on a polarfleece vest and I’ve had it on all day. This weekend is supposed to head up to the goddamn 90s. I am not a fan.

Sole survivors

June 18th, 2025 by kayak woman

And no the picture doesn’t go with the title.

I’m talking about the Air India plane crash except I’m not really even talking about that, not exactly. I’m remembering the 1987 crash of flight 255 here in southeast Michigan. It crashed shortly after takeoff from Detroit Metro. A 4-year-old girl was the sole survivor. My daughters at the time were two-and-a-half and a few months. Was I freaked out? Yes yes yes yes.

If you live in my area, there has been a lot of talk about that incident since the Air India crash. And a lot of it is incorrect. For instance. When the girl was found alive, a woman (strapped to her seat) was found on top of her (something like that). Everyone jumped to the conclusion that her mom had positioned herself that way to try to save her child. Nope. When things got sorted out, it turned out to be a random stranger. When something like this happens, my brain, despite me trying to get it to shaddup, usually tries to imagine the chaos of the interior of a plane going down. I don’t think the people on that plane had any more than even a few seconds to think about anything, even pray or whatever they do. I think it was sheer bedlam and total panic and who knows how that woman landed on top of the young girl. (I know the girl’s name but I’m not going to name her. Y’all can do the google if you want.)

Also, I’ve seen multiple comments from people who say there have been THREE catastrophic plane crashes at Metro in 30 years or so. Nope. I’m sure there have been incidents in which smaller aircraft have crashed or whatever or individual people have died. Those kinds of incidents are tragic but they don’t take up the news cycle for multiple days. I don’t remember anything else where hundreds of people lost their lives and the google doesn’t turn anything up either.

So. The girl, according to all accounts, doesn’t remember the crash. She was raised by her aunt (mom’s sister) and uncle and they WISELY kept her completely out of the spotlight. A few years ago (can’t remember how many), she was included in a documentary featuring sole survivors of plane crashes. I believe she did talk about some of the emotional stuff involved in losing her family all at once and I don’t know what else because I don’t really want to watch it. The important point is that, as an adult, she could make the decision to participate and control her own narrative.

Here on the west side of The Planet Ann Arbor, the Landfill is under a Metro flight path. I can hear a jet as I write this. At this point in the flight (arriving or departing), planes are very visible but far enough above that if you aren’t outside, you usually can’t (or don’t) hear them. I enjoy watching them pass but not as much as I enjoy watching lake freighters thrumming along up and down the upper St. Marys River in front of the moomincabin.

The pic is a black widow spider and her babies. I did not take the pic. Although it might be a simple point-and-shoot, it feels artistic to me. I just hope the photographer didn’t tangle with it. If they had, I’d’ve heard…

Back at the lodge

June 17th, 2025 by kayak woman

A text sometime mid-afternoon alerted us (me and beach urchins) that the GG and Joan were back in an internet service area toward the end of their three-day backpacking segment. They begin a second backpacking segment tomorrow, two days this time. After that it kinda sounds like smooth sailing with friends (trail angels) hanging out at their campsite cooking and whatever.

It is hotter than Hades here on The Planet Ann Arbor albeit only in the 80s or so. I’m seeing predictions for 90s on the weekend. I may have to turn on the central A/C for some of that. At least we aren’t getting weather alerts. It’s summer. It gets hot. Some summers are hotter than others. The summer of 1988 was 90s and 100s for days on end. My then baby mouse picked up the roseola virus that summer and there was a day when her temperature (104) matched the outdoor temp. We didn’t have central air in those days (we don’t usually need it) and I actually sat in a kiddie swimming pool with her in the back yard. Counterintuitive but it somehow cooled her off without making her sicker. (104 is a high temp but typical for roseola, which is not normally dangerous to healthy children.)

Quite randomly, my brain dredged up the old Tom and Jerry Ice Mice cartoon today. Click if you dare.

It’s only the first part of three and it ends abruptly. After some exploration, I found where I could download episodes (and whole seasons). I downloaded ONE episode – Ice Mice. I do not need every episode of every season of Tom and Jerry.

One of the beach urchins was totally enamored with Tom and Jerry (mostly Jerry). I’ll let you guess which beach urchin. I had an uncle Jerry and at one time we were going to a party with the MacMu relatives and when I said something about “Jerry”, she was amazed. “His name is JERRY?” Like how could there be somebody in the world besides a cartoon mouse whose name is Jerry?

Of course, when I sent a link to the nuclear fam, a beach urchin replied wondering if there was something going wrong at the Landfill. A flood of mice or water in the Landfill Dungeon perhaps? No no no no no🤪

MOTS outhouse

June 16th, 2025 by kayak woman

Like I said, I am getting some outhouse pics.

I have an overnight guest tonight, if you can call the GG’s identical twin a guest. I was idly chatting with my new colleague today and mentioning to him about the overnight guest. His wife, like me, is shy about house guests. I replied that I totally understood that because I get angsty about overnight guests sometimes too but not the UU. I have spent so much time with the GG and the UU at Hoton Lake, both at the Moldy Old Cabin and the new place. At his house or our house and the moomincabin.

We sat outside for a ‘hattan and then for a very simple dinner, which was chicken thighs, wild rice, asparagus, and salad.

This is one of the moments I am missing my parents a bit. When we bought this house, we made sure there was a place for them to sleep during their frequent visits from the yooperland. At first it was a double bed in what became the first beach urchin’s bedroom and then when there were two beach urchins, we bought a fold-out couch in the back room for them. Full circle, now we have a bed in what we now call the spare bedroom. It’s from my parents’ house and we can pull a second bed out from the main one to make a double bed of sorts.

All I get are outhouse pictures 🤪

June 15th, 2025 by kayak woman

You know those stupid t-shirts that say “Grandma (or whoever) went to Florida (or wherever) and all I get is this stupid t-shirt.” The GG is in the Adirondacks and all I am getting is outhouse pictures. This is actually a very cool outhouse, a personal camping outhouse. I bet no vampires or werewolves are hanging around outside with blood dripping from their fangs. Like they did at my childhood outhouse.

I am not complaining about the outhouse pictures. I greatly enjoy them. I do not expect to receive a lot of scenic pics from this junket. They are taking a LOT of photos but most of them are of signs. Because they are doing an intense mapping exercise on a part of the North Country Trail that goes through the Adirondacks. Our friend Joan is the brains behind all of this. The GG is pretty savvy with all of it but Joan grew up in the area and knows it well. The GG is a mainly a support person. Other people are also involved as “spotters” (helping them get to and from Mooon Yooonit). These “trail angels” also provide food and shelter (and showers!) and someone is hiking with them today as they embark on a three-day backpacking segment of the trip.

I felt oddly “weird” (lonely?) today so I tentatively reached out to an uber busy beach urchin with a plea. Lunch? She obliged me and we ate at The Griz. I can’t explain the “weird” exactly but I’m okay now and I greatly appreciated the lunch. And. I managed to exit the parking lot without trouble😵‍💫

By all accounts I was not needed at the No Kings Day protest here on the Planet Ann Arbor yesterday. I am glad so many people showed up. Our friends of porterization were there with signs. They sent a pic. I didn’t quiiite understand “uncuff” on one of the signs but eventually I think I got it. JP can be tricky😉

My beach urchin didn’t attend the protests either although I think it’s safe to say on here that both beach urchins are totally anti-Trump, like their baggy old moom. She is uber-busy with her work and other enriching activities. We were totting up all the stuff that was going on yesterday on The Planet Ann Arbor. The protest. Juneteenth (speaking of, do I have tomorrow off? Prob’ly not but I should check). Start of the A-squared library summer program (she had books to return and the downtown library was slammed), and oh, yeah, the farmers market. Every Saturday.

The Planet Ann Arbor is a great place to live.

Pea shelling season!

June 14th, 2025 by kayak woman

Not to be confused with spelling bee season, as some people have🤪 I was up early and down at the farmers market when it opened at 7:00 AM. I was playing a game of chance. Will anyone be selling shelling peas? Or will it just be sugar snap peas, which I don’t really prefer. It seemed a wee bit early in June for shelling peas but I scored some! I will be back buying more for the next few weeks. I may even chance the Wednesday market.

I didn’t really need anything else today since I’m trying to empty out the refrigimatator before the summer boomeranging begins and I have no one else to feed for the next week or so. It’s a never ending battle😵‍💫

I did not go to the local No Kings Day protest even though I soooo hate Trump and his sycophants and acolytes and other random smarmy hangers-on. RFKJR anyone? I don’t really have any words for my absence. Friends and neighbors did go. I just didn’t feel like going? I don’t like large crowded events from the get-go. It was Saturday. I don’t work on Saturday and choose my activities carefully. Shelling peas was one of the things I chose to do today. Zen… Trump et al cannot be gone (again) soon enough for me but I don’t think my presence at a protest will make much of a difference.

I will NEVER NEVER NEVER understand The Orange Baboon’s appeal to all of the unwashed masses he DOES NOT CARE ABOUT. Again. Who does Trump care about? If you answered “himself”, ding ding ding, you win the booby prize. And it is the booby prize because even though you got the correct answer, you still have to live with this asshole wannabe dictator running our country.

A random memory from my childhood *before* the I75 SUV Speedway was built and we traveled from the yooperland to Detroit et al to visit relatives. We were often on two-lane highways and when the National Guard (stationed in Grayling) were on the move, we struggled to pass slow moving convoys of MANY vee-hickles, camo-clad national guard soldiers hanging out the back of the trucks, no seat belts anywhere. It became much easier to pass those convoys when I75 was completed to the yooperland.

It struck me today that the Michigan National Guard issued a statement to inform people that if they saw long convoys of military vee-hickles traveling today, it was not related to Trump’s [stupid] vanity parade. It was guardsmen being transported home from Grayling after a couple weeks of intense training sessions. Those sessions are not new. They happen every year or whatever. Just please don’t jump to conclusions when you see military convoys. Trump is awful but military exercises happen all the time, since way before Trump. Please fact check what you are seeing.

Love y’all, KW.