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I took my walk on the Planet Ann Arbor this morning but it felt like I was on the shores of Gitchee Gumee on a day kind of like this one. Cool. Okay, cold. Windy. Maybe a few more clouds than in the pic and a bit of a threat of rain. If I closed my eyes and imagined the sounds of wind pushing the tops of pine trees around and waves crashing against the shore, I could almost be there.

The wind in the pine trees is just about my first memory. I think it goes back until I was not even one year old. Six Mile Road was gravel in those days, so we would clunkity-clunkity-clunk down it. When I got a little older, I thought it took forever but when I was a baby I prob’ly didn’t much care. Although I’m sure there were days I might’ve been upset about something *else*. Hungry or mad at the world or whatever. Anyway, I always knew when we turned onto Birch Point Road because I could hear a big swhooooshing noise up in the treetops. The sound of freedom, although I didn’t know it those first few times. After all, I couldn’t even walk yet. One of my first memories. I wonder if someday it’ll be the last thing I think about.

Anyway, we are now here at the Luxurious New Courtois Cabin at Houghton Lake, aka The Group Home. There are no significantly tall pine trees here or even a proper beach. It rained all the way up. When we were almost here, the GG mentioned that we would be arriving at a cabin with a dry kitchen floor. And we both reminisced about all the years when we would arrive here after a rainy trip, or even a not-rainy trip, and there would be 3-6 inches of water sloshing around in the kitchen. Those days were fun in their own way. I loved it then. I love it now. There is no water sloshing around the kitchen floor and there is waaaaarless internet. Party on and chuck cabbages when you get the chance.

You guys? If you catch me sticking an apostrophe into a word where one doesn’t belong (“it’s” instead of “its” is the main culprit) will you please HIT ME or something?

I consider myself a pretty good grammar nazi. I know I’ve blahgged this before but you cannot grow up with The Commander as a mother without turning into a grammar nazi. If you wanted to say something like “I ain’t got none,” you had better darn well be over in the school yard or the gully or at Aunt Marion’s corner store or the Pingatore house or somewhere. Any place where she couldn’t hear you.

The proper usage of “lay” and “lie” was beaten into my brain at an early age. I still don’t understand exactly when to use “bring” and “take”. I mean, it always seems to me that at some point in the process of schlepping something from point A to point B, “take” morphs into “bring”. Doesn’t it??? Exactly where is that point?

If there was anything that The Commander missed, it was surely drilled into my head in junior high by Pratt & Loye. They were no-nonsense English teachers — sisters, if I remember accurately — who dressed in that old-fashioned style that allowed a woman to place a handkerchief down the front of her dress for (hopefully) convenient retrieval. A classroom with Pratt or Loye at the helm was a tight ship. No fooling around. Once in seventh grade, Loye caught me cheating, i.e., letting someone copy my answers. Never again!

These days, I occasionally encounter words that I don’t know how to spell or can only vaguely define. Like lassitude, for example. But I know how to look them up so I *do* look them up. If I write something like “gonna” instead of “going to”, I do it on purpose. I’m not a trained writer but if I write in sentence fragments or start a sentence with a conjunction or commit any number of other grammar/syntax crimes, I do it more or less consciously. Proper use of commas, I sorta know. Proper use of semicolons, I am darn froggy on. grok grok And I do not even pretend to control Froggy. grokGROK! In the end, this is just a blahg, and it’s my blahg and I can do what I want and y’all can just deal 😛

But when I stick an apostrophe into “its” when I’m using it as a possessive pronoun, not as a contraction for “it is,” it’s not intentional! Substituting “their” for “there” or vice versa is another frequent error. I don’t know why I keep doing this. I guess bats are scrambling my brain! grok grok. Just lemme know if she screws up. grok grok. I’ll schlurrrrp her! grok frookGROK!

You guys? If you catch me sticking an apostrophe into a word where one doesn’t belong (“it’s” instead of “its” is the main culprit) will you please HIT ME or something?

I consider myself a pretty good grammar nazi. I know I’ve blahgged this before but you cannot grow up with The Commander as a mother without turning into a grammar nazi. If you wanted to say something like “I ain’t got none,” you had better darn well be over in the school yard or the gully or at Aunt Marion’s corner store or the Pingatore house or somewhere. Any place where she couldn’t hear you.

The proper usage of “lay” and “lie” was beaten into my brain at an early age. I still don’t understand exactly when to use “bring” and “take”. I mean, it always seems to me that at some point in the process of schlepping something from point A to point B, “take” morphs into “bring”. Doesn’t it??? Exactly where is that point?

If there was anything that The Commander missed, it was surely drilled into my head in junior high by Pratt & Loye. They were no-nonsense English teachers — sisters, if I remember accurately — who dressed in that old-fashioned style that allowed a woman to place a handkerchief down the front of her dress for (hopefully) convenient retrieval. A classroom with Pratt or Loye at the helm was a tight ship. No fooling around. Once in seventh grade, Loye caught me cheating, i.e., letting someone copy my answers. Never again!

These days, I occasionally encounter words that I don’t know how to spell or can only vaguely define. Like lassitude, for example. But I know how to look them up so I *do* look them up. If I write something like “gonna” instead of “going to”, I do it on purpose. I’m not a trained writer but if I write in sentence fragments or start a sentence with a conjunction or commit any number of other grammar/syntax crimes, I do it more or less consciously. Proper use of commas, I sorta know. Proper use of semicolons, I am darn froggy on. grok grok And I do not even pretend to control Froggy. grokGROK! In the end, this is just a blahg, and it’s my blahg and I can do what I want and y’all can just deal 😛

But when I stick an apostrophe into “its” when I’m using it as a possessive pronoun, not as a contraction for “it is,” it’s not intentional! Substituting “their” for “there” or vice versa is another frequent error. I don’t know why I keep doing this. I guess bats are scrambling my brain! grok grok. Just lemme know if she screws up. grok grok. I’ll schlurrrrp her! grok frookGROK!

<laundromat_blues>Sitting here in the Super Suds Coin Wash watching filthy, musty old sleeping bags agitate in big front-loading “Texas” washers. There’s only one guy in here that might’ve made me feel a little nervous back in the day. Most of the rest are just typical laundromat characters, older guys of various ethnic backgrounds, kind of sad and lonely looking. Or maybe just tired at this early hour of the morning. The kind of guys that look the other way the minute I take out my powerbook. A woman with a computer? Yikes, stay away from her! And that’s good because I can hide behind this thing, typing and watching people while I’m at it.

Now there is a mom with a couple of little girls. I used to spend a lot of time in laundromats with little girls. Sometimes they would whine or complain or fight. One time Mrs. Piche, who used to run the now-defunct Soo Plaza Laundromat, took it upon herself to break up a little scuffle between my then two- and four-year-old daughters. Mrs. Piche was much more effective at discipline than I was. I used to think I couldn’t wait until those kids grew up enough that they might actually be of some reasonable help. Either that or I could leave them home and just rip through the laundry by myself. Now I see that other mom and I miss them.

The weird guy that used to bag groceries over at the Westgate Kroger is not here. I think his problem was probably Tourette’s. He used to blurt things out randomly. Usually it was just monosyllabic nonsense but one day he got stuck on “paper or plastic?” and was asking every customer that over and over and over and over. Arlene the cashier and I rolled our eyes in unison. Who wound him up, I wondered. Anyway, I used to have a POC-style washing machine, so I was at the Super Suds a lot for a few years and I used to see him over here sometimes. He would always try to strike up some kind of strange, unintelligible conversation with me. Like, say what? I’d probably talk to him nowadays. What the heck, potential blahgging material maybe. But that was back when I was a young mom with a couple of little girls and he just kind of creeped me out. I haven’t seen him in forever. I wonder if he’s dead.</laundromat_blues>

Mouse: “Happy You Gave Birth to Me 19 Years Ago Today Day.” I had been a little slow to call and sing the birthday song, so she called me and we both sang at once.

Yup, it was 19 years ago today. Mouse was a couple weeks or so early. Knowing her as well as I do now, I figure she had just about had enough. “Get me out of here!” And that was fine with me. Given that everybody is healthy, the earlier the better. And I sure was ready.

And so began the Mouse that roared. A small aminal with an imagination the size of the universe. A very early talker and deep thinker. She has always had a habit of coming out into the kitchen when I least expect it to tell me something she’s been thinking about that just about knocks me off my feet. She was always dirty! If it wasn’t food or mud or sand, it was paint or markers or glitter glue or whatever. If she was wearing three skirts, she was pretending to be a water spider, not Britney Spears or whoever. Nuclear powered. Just try to keep up with her skiing or kayaking or walking or whatever. I can’t. And I learned early on that if I really wanted her to do something, it was more effective to recruit Chrissy the Police Mouse or some other aminal to handle it for me. That is, any aminal except Froggy, who inevitably makes things worse. grok grok Whaddya mean? grokGROK!!!

I don’t know. The small aminal Mouse is a highly spirited little rodent and there were times when life could be a wild ride around here. But I can’t think what life would be like without her. I love you, Mouse. Where did the time go? How’d I get so old? Who hit fast forward?

“What kind of aminal is that?” I asked the 2-year-old in the woods. She was intently watching a squirrel as her young parents looked on. I guess I look like one of those scary people who shouldn’t talk to little kids, even when they’re with their parents, because her dad replied, “It’s a squirrel.” grok grok. Scary person? grok grok. She’s the Ugly Old Witch of Ritsema Woods. grok grok. Don’t let ‘er try to fool you. grok grok. She *roasts* children! grok grok FROGGY!!! I declare! I don’t let my tadpoles get anywhere near her! grok grok Froggy, you do NOT have any tadpoles! …… *Do* you??????

Anyway, I know what a squirrel is and I hate when people answer questions for other people, even though I have been known to do it myself. I know there are those who think I am not particularly crazy about little kids but I do sometimes enjoy them. Especially when they seem excited about something and are NOT throwing a full-tilt boogie tantrum in the aisle of the Pioneer High Auditorium or yelling things like, “you’re strangling me!” loudly enough for everybody in the Westgate Kroger to hear.

But that’s okay. It wasn’t really a big deal whether I talked to the kid or not. I was just wandering around in the woods, mindlessly for the most part. But it got me remembering that in our little batch of G4 Fin cousins, quite a wide variety of pronunciations for the word squirrel emerged as the girls each reached the 2-year-old stage. Lizard Breath came pretty close to mimicking adult speech with “shirrel”. Valdemort’s “sirker” was probably about the most creative and it is my all time favorite word for squirrel. Mouse, of course, enunciated “squirrel” with perfect precision. And Pengo would just let out a bloodcurdling scream upon encountering a squirrel. I can’t remember what the reason for that was but it was definitely not fear! I don’t know what that kid in the woods called the aminal she was watching but if y’all ever hear me say “there’s a sirker”, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun
Please shine down on me.
Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun
Hiding behind a tree.
These little children are asking you
To please come out so they can play with you
Oh, Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun
Please shine down on me.

Oooops. I am not supposed to sing that song. I’m sure I’m in trouble now. I promise I won’t do it again. But, you know, it is April and this is Michigan and Mr. Golden Sun has definitely NOT been hiding behind a tree. For more days than I can count, he has been out there shining all over the state, even in the Great White North. This is not how it usually is. I remember one April when we went to the Octohouse and spent Easter afternoon driving up to Whitefish Point and back. It snowed the entire time. And last year, it snowed on Mouse’s birthday, which is coming up again next week. We even had a fire in the fireplace that night. You know, I like the sun. But this is almost getting to be a little too much. It was beautiful hiking around the Eastern UP in the bright sunshine. There were no leaves out and you could see all over the place. But after a few days, it almost started feeling a little arid. And I am just not really used to that, I guess. It isn’t 104 degrees here but other than that it kind of reminds me of the summer of 1988 when Mr. Golden Sun shone relentlessly every day and we had no air conditioning anywhere and the baby Mouse screamed bloody murder every time I put her into her car seat. I felt like screaming too. I am going to do a little rain dance, I think. I have not seen a cloud since sometime last week. We need some humidity here. Moss and mold and mushrooms and a few mosquitos. Rain and snow and black clouds and thunder. C’mon, give us a little gloom and doom here. This is Michigan. What the heck is the deal?