• Walked downtown to see Dr. Ralph Stanley at The Ark on Friday night. I didn’t realize I liked bluegrass music but it was great and I only started nodding off about ten minutes before the end, even though I had to sit in a seat for two hours with no computer or beadwork or anything. Dr. Stanley did the music for the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou, which I enjoyed watching (until I fell asleep) once this winter at Houghton Lake.
• I admit that I have thought more than once in the last year, “oh brother where art thou.”
• I suppose since I am a musician, I should do a music post one of these days. But not today.
• Migrated some entries to my “new” blahg.
• VACUUMED the front and back living rooms, even moved some of the furniture and vacuumed BEHIND it. I HATE to vacuum, especially when I have to move a bunch of cosmic debris to find the floor.
• Cleaned the kitchen floor for what little that is worth.
• Started sorting out my fiber arts stuff and making a traveling stash. My fiber arts stuff is still a trenormous rat’s nest of flotsam and jetsam. And, yes, cosmic debris.
• Lemme see. Did I go to the Westgate Kroger uscan or not? I went today but I can’t remember if I went yesterday. grok grok grok. You old bag.
• Had a hilarious telephonic conversation with Lizard Breath about dynamite and guns and anthropology and sightings and octowomen and I forget what else. Life, death, the universe, and everything, I guess. I needed that, kiddo.
• Walked downtown with Jane (not cousin) and Ken and Vicki and Paul and ate on Palio’s roof. Just when we got done eating, it started to *pour*! So we retreated down to the bar for a nightcap.
• I needed female conversation this weekend and I did get some. I don’t always get enough.
• There are advantages to having friends of both genders but lately I tend to prefer female companionship. Probably because I seem to need to talk more than usual. Coffee anyone?
• Planned an all-out assault on the so-called lawn, a mass of moss, dandelions and other weeds. Actually everything but grass. It’s so bad that Chemlawn came to the door one day and asked if I needed help with my lawn “issues.” Yeah, probably, but not from Chemlawn.
• Weeded the “garden” in front of the house with a few close encounters of the poison ivy kind. At least I hope they were close encounters. No rash yet.
• We saddled up the jeep and trailer and braved the roads with dysfunctional tail-lights to obtain some more mulch. I love garden stores. Too bad I kill plants.

“There was enough dynamite there to blow up this house and the two houses on either side of it.” -Bomb Squad guy. My house was one of those “either side” houses.

Yesterday morning, after winning a knock-down, drag-out fight with WordPress, I went outside to get my vee-hickle and go forage for food somewhere. As I drove out of the driveway, I noticed a police car parked at the end of the block. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has had to call the police to our street in the last 22 years, so it is always a little odd to see a police car. What was even odder was that the cops were just kind of lounging around by the back of the car. I couldn’t figure it out. Lunch maybe?

I drove across town to Whole Foods and totally forgot about the police. But when I got back, they were still there. This was getting to be really strange. I fooled around with my hoses and sprinklers for a little bit, hoping they would do something that would give me a clue about why they were there. Finally, I went inside.

A little bit later, I looked outside again and there was another city police car, a state police car, and a big armoured truck with “Sterling Heights Bomb Squad” written on the side. At that, I decided I was done being shy. The state cop was closest, so I asked him what was going on and he said, “There’s nothing to worry about. We’re just picking something up. You’re safe Ma’am.”

Picking something up? Say what? I couldn’t think what else to ask, so I just went back inside. As it turned out, our next door neighbor, who lost her husband in March, had discovered some dynamite and other explosives in her basement. She asked another neighbor about how to dispose of it and he took one look and said, “You really need to get the police.” So she called and the bomb squad came out. They were suitably impressed with the stash and later that afternoon, I saw them in Vet’s Park having a field day blowing up various bits and pieces of dynamite or whatever burning dynamite, which is, I’m told, one way to get rid of it. Boys will be boys and most of the boys I know like to blow things up. Chris was no exception and I’m sure he’s having a good laugh over there on the other side somewhere.

I am okay and the Landfill is still intact, darn it.

“This place is humid!” That’s what Wyle said before he installed central air in the Landfill yesterday. I said, “yeah, this place is a swamp!” This is the first time I have ever lived in a place with air conditioning. Am I using it? No. Or at least not yet. I have mixed feelings about it. I do not like to be hot and sweaty unless I am doing something active enough to make me hot and sweaty. On the other hand, I don’t like to have the doors and windows closed. I like to be able to hear the birds, insects, mammals, and amphibians that inhabit my yard. I feel shut in when everything is all closed up tight.

Some summers are hotter than others here in southeast Michigan. Most summers have at least a few days when I feel like crawling into the freezer. But my favorite way of cooling off is in cold water. When I am on the Shores of Gitchee Gumee, I can just walk into the water until it’s up to my neck. As an added bonus, hanging around in Gitchee Gumee also makes you feel clean. I suppose some might say it freezes all the dirt and sweat until it cracks off your body. Here on the Planet Ann Arbor, I don’t have easy access to such a large body of clean, cold water. I used to use the kids as an excuse to truck over to KMart and pick up one of those little plastic kiddie pools. I would put a canoe chair in it or just hang my feet over the edge. Nowadays, I just suffer in the swampy landfill.

One summer back in the day, the Twinz of Terror took Lizard Breath and her identical cousin, The Beautiful Renée, off on a road trip to the Badlands and other points of interest. While they were enduring death marches and buffalos in the road and tornados dropping trees on their tent, Mouse and I were stuck here on the Planet in 90-100 degree heat. One night it was particularly hot and sticky and I decided there was just no point in either of us even trying to go to bed until we were so dead tired that we couldn’t keep our eyes open any more.

We filled up the kiddie pool and I sat there with my feet in the pool watching vigilantly for skunks. Mouse had a tricycle parked so that its front wheel was *in* the pool. I’m not sure why she was riding a tricycle because, at seven or so, she had long graduated from those beasts. But we never throw anything out, so she found one and was riding it around the yard. Froggy had learned to drive the Little Tykes Coupe that day, another long-outgrown vee-hickle. He was careering and careening wildly all over the yard and I guess that was the beginning of his descent into delinquency. Naw, actually, he has always been trouble. grok grok. Whaddya mean, you old bag? Anyway, I think we finally went inside and crashed on the fold-out couch in the back room.

I suppose there will be times when I do turn the a/c on here in the Landfill. I have to admit that when Wyle was testing it yesterday, I was sitting at my powerbook and the feeling of *cold* air coming out of the vent next to my feet was pretty darn nice. Actually, the heat that usually comes out of that vent has turned a large area of my ugly kitchen floor into a horrible orange and black mess. I wonder if having cool air coming outta there will reverse that. Hmmmm.

<uuhhhh>Heat. Humidity. Mosquitos. Biting flies. Bad dreams. Not nightmares exactly. And no shoreline stuff for once. Instead, I was frantically and frenetically putting together a play program for YAG at the absolute last possible nanosecond, as usual. As if I didn’t ever have anything else to do at the last possible nanosecond before a play went up. I had to go down about eight flights of stairs to get to the copy machine and I was kind of surfing down them, like my feet were not exactly touching the steps. And you know what it’s like when you get a song stuck in your head and can’t get it out? Every time I woke up during the night, I had a certain song stuck in my head. grok grok. Can ya guess what song it was? grok grok. Bet it was one o’ my little ditties. grok grok. Grok grok yourself, you old green rag. Yes, it was a frog song. It is still in my head. If you don’t know what song I’m talking about, you are welcome to click here to hear it. I am not gonna click. It is an awful little ditty and I need to get it *out* of my head. grokGROK! Whaddya mean? Garbage woman, indeed. Anyway, I did not want last summer to end. Now I do not want this summer to start. Too many people who were here at the start of last summer are not here now and uncertainties about the future abound. Life is going on anyway. I guess I am going with it one way or another and this is just one of those mornings. So after I banish a certain raccoon from the grounds here, I am gonna find *something* to do to make a positive contribution to the world. I just don’t know what yet. Well, I have called Howard Cooper, I guess that’s a start, albeit a small one. grok grok, yeah, get off yer butt. grok grok Let’s go get that raccoon. gork grook</uuhhhh>

Hose nozzles. Candle holders. A debit card. Keys. Those are some of the things that are missing around here. This is starting to feel like an octo house. I know I put the hose nozzles away last fall. I remember putting them in some logical, obvious place down in the landfill dungeon. I cannot find them. Anywhere. The landfill dungeon is a dank, dark, spidery place. It is really not fun to look around down there for stuff. I think that octogenarians are sneaking into my house and gleefully squirreling my stuff away into odd little nooks and crannies. Either that or a certain ol’ man out there on the other side somewhere is trying to mess with my mind. Where are my nozzles? I need my nozzles.

Yaknow? Those popsicle boxes are boxboard and they go in the *recycling*, not the trash. There *are* some freezer packages that do not get recycled but those popsicle boxes are fine. And random plastic packaging for I do not know what, windshield wipers maybe? Naw, couldn’t be windshield wipers, we don’t ever buy new windshield wipers around here. Anyway, whatever they are, they do *not* go in either of the recycling bins. They go in the trash. Okay? Okay. Sigh.

Sincerely yours, Garbage Woman.