One of my spaces anyway. This is a chitchen shelf above the counter where I *mainly* use my MacBook Pro. Standing desk if you will. My work laptop resides by the front window, which is another MySpace. I mostly blahg from the Kitchen Counter MySpace but sometimes I take my MacBook over by the window.

This shelf is decorated for xmas. Sorta. Most of the elements in this “scene” are there year-round. Lemme see:

— The glass bottles at the back were purchased for a blueberry liqueur making session the GG undertook waaaaaay back in the Jurassic Age. The liqueur was fine but he never repeated that adventure. I keep the bottles because I like them (not that they are valuable).

— The “cake mold” (I’m guessing that’s what it is) and the flour sifter are from The Commander’s collection. I remember her using the flour sifter when I was little. I don’t remember her using the “cake mold”. I have never used either of them.

— The teakettle? I’m not sure where that’s from. I *think* from The Commander’s collection but it could be a cFam artifact? I *like* old teakettles. When I was a kid, we used HUGE teakettles to heat dishwater in the Old Cabin and later in the moomincabin. This was before we had hot running water in either of those rustic cabins. Then I met the GG and lo and behold, at the moldy old Hoton Lake cabin, in the winter we used a huge teakettle to heat water for washing dishes. I was all on board with that. “I know how to do this, it’s just like home.” This teakettle looks too small to heat dishwater so I’m not sure I have its story straight. Maybe the GG used it for camping back in the day? I dunno.

— Red ornament: Red tree with the Great Lake State cut out in the middle (embiggen). The Uncly Uncle gifted me with this a few years ago. Embarrassing story is that I posted it on facebook when I first received it. But. I posted it BACKWARDS so the Upper Peninsula was “pointing EAST instead of WEST. I have a lot of FB friends in/from the yooperland so you can guess what they thought🤪 It is correct in this pic and it stays there all year just so I remember where I came from, as if I needed a reminder.

— Green ornament: Frog. He doesn’t stay out year round even though I love him.

— Oh yeah, that white fluffy thingy is to clean out glasses or whatever. It is too pretty to use so I have never used it.

P.S. We’ll talk about the continuing resolution and Trump and his “advisor” Elon’s meddling in the process some other day. Or not… I’m just glad gov’t employees (and don’t forget the contractors) know when their next paycheck is coming. A lot of those folks are living paycheck to paycheck. Been there done that and also through a few gov’t shutdowns myself.

This falls into the category of “looking for something else, I found this”. Looking for what? I wasn’t really sure. December-type images, I guess.

It’s my dad sitting next to the Dillon Street faaaaaplace. My brother’s dog Sam is next to him and my brother’s wife is to the left of the dog. Behind her is the door to the Dillon House kitchen. The pic was taken on December 27, 2001. We must have traveled up there after xmas that year since we NEVER actually spent xmas day there.

Except once. When Lizard Breath was two months old I so wanted to take my infant up to spend xmas with her grandparents and various other relatives. Okay. Freezing rain on the way up so bad we actually got a motel room halfway up. Rain and freezing rain the whole week we were there to the point where it was hard to walk anywhere. Freezing rain on the way back home. The baby was crying in the back seat of our little Ford Fiesta. It was too dangerous to take her out of her car seat, which I have been known to do, so I reached back there and grabbed her feet. That settled her down for a while but the last half hour of the trip was dicey.

I swore right then and there that I would never make a plan to travel to the yooperland specifically *for* xmas again. I only got two weeks of vacation time back then and I would save it for summer. That’s not to say that we never went there during the holiday season again, just that we always spent xmas eve and day in our own house on The Planet Ann Arbor, creating our own holiday “traditions”, willy-nilly as they were (and still are).

The xmas in the pic, that tiny infant was in her senior year of high school. Her granddaddy lasted another five years. My brother (his son) left us nine months before he died.

Not to leave this on a sad note. I am still feeling some random holiday grumpiness but I took the afternoon off, the last four hours of my use-or-lose paid time off for 2024. I can’t say I got a whole lot done this afternoon but I was able to think ahead a bit about menu planning, which opened up some head space.

P.S. On the long-ago trip up north with the infant, when we FINALLY arrived, The Commander (her grandmother) was sitting in a chair next to the front door. I put the baby in her lap and… The baby, who hadn’t seen her grandmother in six weeks, looked up and immediately broke out in a HUGE smile! Did she remember her grandmother? Who knows.

xmas that is.

I don’t have gifts for *anyone* beyond the items they specifically requested. This always feels odd to me because I used to shower my kids et al with gifts. But we are all in the same boat with tooooo much crapola and the last thing I want to do is load them up with stuff to re-gift or take to the Kiwanis sale. BTW, gifts I do give come with no strings attached, meaning they can be re-gifted or donated without guilt. I would never visit their houses and ask, “Where is that ugly gewgaw I gave you three xmases ago?”

I am feeling really disorganized about xmas-type meals. Shopping must be done and at multiple places and I am… Well… Discombobulated. A bit of a reprieve came when the GG corrected me that the cFam party is on Sunday, NOT Saturday like I was thinking. One or two of the places I need to shop are only open on Saturday and the party is 45 minutes away. And and and…

We are having the cFam party this year for the first time since 2019 (pre-covid of course). It will be hosted by the hostess with the most-est. I mean she has a spacious house with multiple bathrooms. Plus she is a good hostess.

This can be a difficult time of year to throw a party here in the Great Lake State because weather. Fingers crossed that we don’t have to traverse a frickin’ ice storm like the year I was getting over the vomiting virus from hell and sat in a chair ALL NIGHT. No mingling for me. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t contagious by that time but post-covid I sure think about communicable diseases differently than I used to. Like even if I am a disease warrior, others may not be so I keep my distance if I have cold symptoms, etc. Or stay home.

The pic is of a setting moon. Waning gibbous from a couple years ago. The moon right now is also waning gibbous (but 10 days or so later). We can’t see the moon because cloud cover. And probably snow but I haven’t looked outside in a while.

Actually it’s an old pic. We still have some lights strung on the back of the “puano” (toddler-speak) but a lot of them are burnt out these days. Actually I would like to get rid of the piano…

I had a very grinchy morning. I get like that every xmas. Feeling behind about getting things done and are there enough gifts for everyone? Etc. I started to take my grinchie-ness out on the GG but then I realized what it was and backed off.

Giving (i.e., making a donation) this afternoon put me in a better mood somehow. I got serious about philanthropy when The Commander died and I took over a few of her causes. Sault [Ste. Siberia] Historic Sites, etc. (In case the GG deigns to read this entry, my disclaimer is that I *know* we are NOT “Warren Buffet” and I consider my donations carefully.)

Today an email came in from the Washtenaw Community College (WCC) Foundation and I made a donation. This is an organization that changed my life, even though I wasn’t exactly looking for a change.

I have a college degree (music) from long ago but instead of working in that field (I had no clue where to start), I fell into a tech job. Always an autodidact, I taught myself the BASIC computer language on our original Apple II+. At my job, I figured out FORTRAN. When Al Gore invented the internet [that’s a joke], I figured out how to code html PDQ and made my own (crappy) website along with sites for the middle school science fair and the youth theatre guild my kids (and I) were involved in.

I knew that I wasn’t coding html using “best practices”, so back in the early oughts (2000s), I took myself back to college. To WCC. There I found some of my people. Their web design/dev program was highly esteemed and I found the profs to be absolutely EXCELLENT. As luck would have it, one of my profs decided we needed to do internships as a part of an advanced class. The internship he assigned me to was the only PAID internship. $12 an hour was more than I was making at the time ($0) so with some trepidation, I did the interview and took the drug test. And wow has it paid off as I was hired full-time with a good salary after a couple months.

Community college can be a great opportunity but it’s worth noting that many of the folks who attend are just scraping by and don’t all have the background or support to be successful. I often sat next to a young man with learning disabilities (?) and although he was sincere about learning, I don’t think he could read well enough to succeed and I sometimes wonder where he is now. I would never let anyone copy any of my homework that was for credit (got busted for that in 7th grade in an attempt to be “popular”) but when we did in-class group activities that were not graded, I did let him copy. Laboriously, sigh.

This young man is one of the reasons I donated (and will continue to donate) to the WCC Foundation. And people like him are one of many reasons I do NOT support the Trump party. That party cares only about Trump and all of his billionaire friends. What does he know about a kid who has a learning disability, a disabled wife, a beloved cat, and no car (just a few facts that I know about this guy). Some of these folks do not have the bootstraps I (and Trump) grew up with.

This photooo is from last year and I can’t remember what got sent with dry ice then but TODAY’s delivery was LOBSTER POT PIE! The Mad Scientist did some of his usual dry ice shtick stuff but today’s pics were not as good as last year’s although I posted them on Instagram *anyway*.

I have two and a half days of work and then I am off until January 2. And that is about it.

G’night. KW.

These Santas were part of The Commander’s Santa collection. I think she believed in Santa Claus in the sense that he spreads good will throughout our increasingly war-torn world (not that our world has ever not been war-torn). In any case, The Commander had a Santa collection and I have informally inherited it.

The pic is from when she was living in the Freighter View assisted living facility. 13 years ago. We set up her place with xmas lights and decorations, including these Santas. You can’t see but out the window is the Soo Locks. I thought Freighter View would be a good place for her (and she could afford it plus keep her Dillon house aka Command Central). As it turned out, after a couple of trips to the hoosegow and a long stay there, The Commander succumbed to c.diff and its aftermath, a disease I had never heard of.

These little Santas were last displayed (for The Commander) on the window sill at her apartment at Freighter View. I do a small Santa display here at the Landfill and they were included in my display for years afterwards. Except there are only two of them left now. A couple years ago, someone besides me put away my little Santa collection and the next year, two of them were missing. I have not seen them since.

I am sad but life goes on.

It may have been dreary but I didn’t really feel very dreary and it couldda been WAY worse.

Freezing rain was predicted for over night and although temps were in the low 30s, I don’t think we actually had the kind of rain that hits the ground and immediately freezes into a sheet of ice. I did appreciate receiving my own personal weather/road report this morning. Everyone who had to work this morning got to work safely and the roads were pretty okay. These folks are not far out of town but they traverse dirt roads which have been going through a freeze/thaw cycle over the last few days.

Nevertheless, I put off my grock and post office runs for a little while and by the time I left for those, Cygnus proclaimed it was 37 outside so all was all fine on our city’s paved roads.

Once I got to the Plum, I was sighted by a co-worker of my beach urchin so she sought me out in the frozen food aisle, where I was getting frozen peas. I seem to be a minor celebrity at the plum🤪 A very minor one, I might add.

The extra fun part of the day was meeting my *other* beach urchin for lunch. Now that my covid cowardice has significantly abated, I am branching “out” back into my old fave restaurants. I told her I was thinking about either Conor O’Neill’s or the Jolly Pum(pkin). She said that we shouldn’t go to Conor’s without the GG so I said, “The Jolly it is!” We split a small pizza and a lovely kale salad with dried cranberries and I fergit what else. As I was walking back to Cygnus, I passed Conor’s and it sounded noisy in there so I think the Jolly was a good choice for us.

P.S. covid is NOT over yet. One of my co-workers had it last week. He did not (that I know of) need hospitalization but he felt like crap with fever and body aches and cold symptoms. I hope he is recovering from it now. Since we telecommute, of course, I have not been exposed.

That’s what the radio has been telling me off and on all day is the vision for Syria’s future. I know zilch about Syria except that a madman took over a decade or so ago and has been killing a lot of “his people” ever since. Madman is equivalent to dictator in my book. He’s in Russia now. Let’s hope he stays there.

I want a non-sectarian country too. Alas, I feel like we are heading *away* from our founding fathers’ vision. Flawed human beings that they were. I am at the top of the pyramid here. I am a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Ever hear of a WASP? That’s me. (Well, I am a woman, so there’s that.) I would substitute Celtic for Anglo Saxon and I went to a Protestant church but I haven’t believed in a “god” since I was about three.

The Central United Methodist church was not a bad place to go to Sunday School and early release Wednesday classes (that was actually fun, we got outta grade school early and walked downtown with friends). When I was 16 I asked my dad if I could quit Sunday School and he readily granted me permission. I had always suspected he was a non-believer and although we never discussed it, I think I am right about that. But whatever he thought about the Christian god and church, he was a small town banker who grew up going to that church and he voluntarily balanced its books every month sometimes having to call and “beg” the electric company etc. to give the church a little more time to pay its bill. I can still remember him clacking away at the typewriter.

I think that a non-sectarian country means that people are free to practice whatever religion they choose, including none, like me. With the Trumpian take-over of the GOP (this is NOT your parents’ GOP), I don’t think that’s where we are headed with the Trumpian party. I think the only religion he believes in is himself. My thoughts on that are a-swarm at the moment so I won’t go any further tonight.

I wish Syria luck on creating a non-sectarian country. We all need to live in non-sectarian countries. Alas, I am not optimistic. Especially since I see my own beautiful country drifting away from accepting people who practice all religions including none.

Sorry. I didn’t mean to get off on this tangent tonight.

Love, Kayak Woman

I am on The Planet Ann Arbor. We have gotten a few wimpy little snowstorms here this season. The last one was Wednesday overnight. It *maybe* dropped two inches but that was enough to cancel the local schools on Thursday. It was an amount of snow that wouldn’t have canceled school when the beach urchins were students and it DEFINITELY wouldn’t have canceled school when I was a child in Sault Ste. Siberia. If memory serves me, I remember something like THREE snow days growing up there. I’m sure there are many more now that there are a lot more school buses.

So, we didn’t have a lot of school buses back then. Those of us who lived in town (like meeee) walked to school or got driven (meeee occasionally but only in high school and only because my moom was a teacher there so she was going there anyway). But usually I preferred to walk. Even when it was 32 below zero (yes really) and I was wearing a mini-skirt and nylons (yes really). Why I never got frostbite, I do not know.

My high school served a large rural area and many kids got bused in. When the buses couldn’t navigate those roads, the “country” kids didn’t come to school. This was not probably a good thing for the “country” kids who didn’t have a whole lot of support at home but I am here to tell you that many of those kids have become very successful adults anyway. Some of them a lot more successful than I (a “snooty” town kid (not really)) have become🤣

The pic is from the GG. He’s in the yooperland but I am not sure which part of the North Country Trail this is.

I am NOT a blasted door mat but that is one of the things on my xmas list this year. The door mats we have are probably 20 years old and you can’t even tell what the picture on them was when they were new.

What I don’t want: 1) Anything with “Welcome” on it. The people who are welcome here know who they are and they don’t have to be greeted by a door mat, unless of course it is meeeee. Or the GG, who usually answers the door because he knows how much I hate answering the door unless it’s a neighbor. 2) Anything cutesy. No cats please and I greatly love small birds but I don’t want chickadees on my door mat.

<digression> Once when teenagers called the Landfill home, we were imminently expecting their friend from around the corner to arrive, known as “Shuggy” at the time. Doorbell rang. I answered it and Luke of Perrynet was on the porch. My immediate response was “You’re not Shuggy!” Oh, oops… Hilarity ensued. </digression>

Anyway, I have this kind of stoopid vision for a new door mat that includes a large aminal or bird (y’know, bear, moose, eagle, whatever) and maybe some astronomical things like moon and stars. And a pine tree. I texted this “vision” to the folks who WANT me to make an xmas list and somebody responded that my yooperland blood might be surfacing. Yes, it is.

I am just a poor boy but my story must be told… Simon and Garfunkel

This is the Back Light. Also my brother and his dog Laker, meaning this pic was taken a looooong time ago because my bro’ died in 2005 and Laker years before that.

Yes, this dilapidated lighthouse is in the middle of the woods. It is not the kind of lighthouse that alerts ships to rocky peninsulas or islands or whatever. It is a “range light”. Range lights come in pairs, one behind the other, which means the “back” light of the pair may be in the woods depending on the terrain. Range lights show boats traversing the shipping channels when to turn. When the back and front lights are lined up, it’s time to turn. Nowadays all kinds of sophisticated navigational systems exist but some range lights are still in use, including the Birch Point range lights a half mile or so to the west of the moominbeach. The Back Light in the pic is down the beach (and back in the woods) to the east and is obviously not used any more.

The next pic is npJane standing in front of the Back Light’s ruins after it collapsed. It collapsed in the middle of the night and the sound woke Radical Betty up in her moominbeach ski chalet.

The front range light was up on the edge of the bank above the beach. Building a permanent structures ON a sand beach is usually a losing proposition. When I was a teenager, the front light was vandalized by “classmates” of mine. By “classmates”, I mean some juvenile delinquents who attended my high school. Their parents had rented the Stevens’ “cottage” for a week. Maybe they thought getting the kids out in nature would be a good thing? Instead, those kids destroyed an important piece of history. I was maybe 14 but I understood this. It was part of MY history too.

Dreamscape? It’s what I sometimes think of when I remember all of the landmarks we “expotitioned” to as beach urchins. The Back Light was one particularly interesting destination. We could walk the beach to “Dolie’s” and cut up past the old lighthouse keeper’s house but I think we usually took the old overgrown two-track down to “Dolie’s”. Past the “fox holes”, over the log bridge, then over the “cement” bridge, then we would hang a right and head to the Back Light. The path started out the same “cement” as the bridge but quickly deteriorated to dirt and moss and whatever.

Back when my cousins and I were beach urchins, we went INSIDE and climbed the staircase up to the top, from where we could see out to the beach. I’m not sure when that was deemed unsafe. Maybe it was even back when we were climbing it but that particular expotition always required an adult chaperone.

I’m not sure if this made much sense. It seems higgledy-piggledy to me. What prompted me to write it at all is that a couple weeks ago the GG ran into a North Country Trail person who knows a LOT about the light houses surrounding the moominbeach, including the one on Round Island. He has a picture of the Back Light when it was in much better shape but I won’t share it because it’s not my photo. But it reminded me of my childhood expotitions. We can still walk to the location of the Back Light but for uncountable reasons, it isn’t anywhere near the same. It’s like a dream to me now.

I am neither a hippie nor a highlander. I was a hippie wannabe as a teenager but I would not have been able to live on a commune and go without bathing for long periods of time. Some of my ancestors were Scottish highlanders and probably went without bathing for however long they had to. That’s about as far as that goes.

When we were eating at Metzger’s German restaurant last weekend, I realized that I was wearing clothing that clashed like crazy. Tie-dyed skirt and a plaid scarf. Not sure if it is a Scottish tartan but it is similar. My fam does have a tartan, Farquharson, which has nothing to do with my scarf.

But looking at the pic I took, I’m not sure I clashed much at all. The colors are similar although the tie-dye has a few more colors in it than the plaid (hello blue and purple). But in both cases, jewel tone colors sink into BLACK. So maybe it all works? I dunno.

I’m not sure I’m making sense so I’ll sign off for now🤪 I just now got a notification that season 2 of Severance is out! Yay! And we’ll talk about lighthouses some other day…

P.S. Season 2 of Severance comes out in mid January…

After a looooong two-day drive from Boston, a couple of our cousins visited their dad (My Dear Uncle Harry, age 97) for dinner and still somehow had the stamina to cross The Planet Ann Arbor to have a ‘hattan at The Landfill.

I was concerned that they might not want to do ANY MORE DRIVING! I wouldn’t have wanted to. We could’ve met them downtown somewhere and we could’ve gotten ourselves a snacky dinner. It all worked out and we were able to provide them with a faaaar in the faaaarplace. This arrangement allowed us to warm up leftover food in our oven for an eventual dinner at home. We usually eat pretty late anyway so whatever.

I am blessed with cousins of many degrees that I love and get along with. It all began with our Grandma Margaret’s 11 grandchildren. I am in the middle with two female cousins. We are sixth, seventh, and eighth, all born in the same year. “Triplets.” I am personally EXACTLY in the middle of all the cousins, as the 6th, five older and five younger. The middle cousin? Of all things, two of us “triplets” have the same name. I am the first Anne (in birth order). I don’t like my name but that would be a topic for another day😵‍💫

The second Anne (who was here tonight) was born in a distant state and her parents never expected us to spend much time together so they gave her the same name (probably a long story short). But then her parents moved back to Michigan and we spent summers together at the moominbeach throughout childhood and forever more. That is, her mom Bubs moved back to Michigan. Her dad Harry was from The Bronx so The Great Lake State was new to him but he galumphed along to the occasion and is still vibrantly hanging around on The Planet Ann Arbor, his chosen home as a young married adult with children. If I have it right, he is currently helping direct traffic around new construction at his chosen independent living facility among other things.

I had a kind of a meeeee day in which I mostly read and tinked around with my xmas list (a weeee bit) and some apps.

I am trying out a different book tracking app, StoryGraph. I stumbled upon this recently. I have been using Goodreads for a number of years and it works fine for me so this is not a “dig” at Goodreads. But I am intrigued by Storygraph, which seems to offer a lot of “web 3.0” features (if I can call them that). Also, apparently a Black woman is behind this site? That’s based on my sometimes faulty memory and I’m sorry but I am not gonna fact check it tonight.

My sometimes faulty memory is not due to dementia. It’s more due to how much crapola is packed into my brain at this time of my life. I’m pretty much snap on most of the time which is why “we” (the GG and I) often use my brain.

Disclaimers… 1) I haven’t switched off Goodreads (and probably won’t) and 2) I didn’t download Storygraph only because it (maybe) has a Black woman at the helm. But I do in general like to support female tech entrepreneurs. I am not a entrepreneur but I do work in tech. My company treats women well but I know that not all of them do.

If you decide you want to check StoryGraph out, you can import your Goodreads history. This won’t work on your phone. You have to log in to both Goodreads and StoryGraph on a computer web browser. Goodreads allows you to export your books into a csv (comma-delimited) file and StoryGraph can then suck it into their database.

While I am on apps, I just renewed Plan-to-Eat for, well forever, I guess. When I first bought it a year ago, it was $49 a year (there are other price plans). When I renewed it yesterday, it was $24.50 and I selected to have it auto-renew. So here’s a plug. I can suck recipes into this app from anywhere on the web. I can copy/paste my old MS Word recipes into it. I can type recipes into it one character at a time. I can access it from my laptop and my phone. So if I am at the grocery store and suddenly think of something to cook, I can look up the recipe and get the ingredients. (If it’s in Plan-to-Eat.)

Yes I am a nerd 🤪

Oh don’t worry. I was talking to my Roomba. I dunno whether she got unplugged or knocked off her charging base since the last time I gave her any marching orders but she was NOT connected to wifi.

Okay. Delete long rant about meeee rebooting her and getting her running even though her error messages didn’t go away… … … She completed her job. Or so I thought. She didn’t send me a happy “I’ve completed my job” message though and wouldn’t you know, an hour or so later, there was something “running”. The GG was working outside putting together a couple of his xmas gifts so I wrote it off at first as “The GG is doing something.” But then the “something” rolled into the chitchen. So Rooomba had decided she wasn’t done yet. I let her run anyway but when this happened a SECOND time, I had to figure out how to make her go home. I think she is home to STAY for now (until I tell her to run again, at least). I hope she doesn’t decide it’s time to vacuum in the middle of the night because I’ll be going “What IS that noise?.” Robot amok.

The pic is at White Lotus Farms where I buy fancy goat cheese spread. Today the “seasonal flavors” were strawberry jam basil reduction and provencal herb. I bought both. I can get this stuff at the farmers market but I didn’t really need anything else from there today and at the moment, due to all kinds of construction downtown, it was easier and calmer to drive out Liberty to the vendor’s market than downtown.

Metzger’s is a looooong-time Planet Ann Arbor restaurant featuring top-notch German cuisine. It used to be downtown but at least 20 years ago it moved out to Zeeb Road.

Tonight was my second time eating at the “new” (Zeeb Road) location. The first time? January 25 (or so) 2006. I received a call from The Commander that afternoon. My dad had fallen and smashed his pelvis while walking down the escarpment to the post office. He was going to be air ambulanced that night to the Henry Ford hoosegow in downtown Detroit.

For whatever reason, we decided to go out to eat that night and tried Metzger’s new location. It was WONDERFUL. For whatever reason I didn’t feel like any of their German entrees that night so I ordered salmon. It was LOVERLY. I was like, we need to come back here again! Soon!

We didn’t… I spent the next few weeks schlepping down to the hoosegow where dad went through a couple surgeries to rebuild his pelvis, then another month or so schlepping back and forth to Sault Ste. Siberia where he was in rehab. Until his final trip to the Sault hoosegow for palliative care and death. Sepsis. Ugh.

Life was complicated for a while as I schlepped up and down to spend time with The Commander and then got a JOB (surprise!). For various non-reasons, we never got back to Metzger’s. Until tonight.

They don’t take reservations for parties of fewer than six people so it was with some trepidation that we porterized ourselves over there tonight. OMG! Why has it taken me so long to revisit this place? It was crowded but we were seated PDQ considering that it is a FRIDAY in DECEMBER, which brings all kinds of people out. And the food? Fantastic! It’s kinda funny that AGAIN I did not order German food. I got a swordfish “special”. Why? Because the beach urchins are coming over for dinner tomorrow night and we are having beef shish kebab and I had to have something non-“meat”.

My fave cocktail is a Manhattan but I don’t often order them in restaurants because they are often “wimpy” and I have encountered bartenders who don’t even know how to make them. I had a hunch Metzger’s would make a decent ‘hattan but I was still gobsmacked when our server handed me one that rivaled a Knight’s ‘hattan. (Knight’s is @strongdrinks on Twitter.) I even said something like, “That looks like a Knight’s drink”. Yikes. Did her silence indicate a possible rivalry between the Metzger and Knight families? 😵‍💫 Friendly or not, I do not know. It’s okay. She treated us well and I tipped her well. And we will be back. SOON! I mean that this time.

I got space-i-fied today while the GG and the beach urchins went down to Ohio to hike along the Maumee River on the Erie-Miami tow path. (There is a city named Miami in Ohio in case you didn’t know.)

The mice attached to the GG’s mouse’s backpack are Stowaway and Tagalong. MAGA that the GG is, people are complicated and although I don’t agree with his politics, he is a good life partner in many other ways. When I received the pic of Stowaway and Tagalong, it reminded me of the day the GG served as a 2nd grade field trip chaperone. He fastened Softy Beanbag to a backpack in such a way that she was looking out at the children.

I encountered one of the 2nd grade teachers later on and she said something like, “I was having a really rough morning but when I saw him with that mouse, I knew things would be okay.” The GG is good with things like that and I am not exactly although I did put in my time on field trips, etc.

The Boss? At the end of the day, well after the sun had set, a Big Truck pulled up in front of the Landfill. It backed up a bit and didn’t seem to know where the delivery was supposed to go. I knew that the delivery was to the Landfill and I knew what it was (and so the the GG although he kept quiet). Eventually with help from us and other people, they found our house. This was a HEAVY item and it took two young guys to schlep it up the driveway to the porch. Fortunately, the driveway was salted.

I can’t tell the rest of this in detail but we managed to get the delivery inside and by the end of it all, they were all calling me The Boss. Sign here… Etc. They were very hungry and thirsty and weren’t shy about it. I had Thanksgiving-purged the fridge and freezer earlier today so we didn’t have any good snack foods but they happily accepted apples and lemon-lime LaCroix water.

We’ve been watching Derry Girls. It’s fine but I am wanting the next episodes of Outlander and Silo to drop (I’m watching those alone). Tonight Derry Girls was exploring “differences” between Protestants and Catholics. This cracks me up. I was brought up “mainstream” Methodist (as opposed to holy roller or whatever) by parents who weren’t religious but went along with our extended family’s small-town culture. One of my “lots in life” is large Catholic families. I married into one (the GG doesn’t participate, at least not that I know of) but I also grew up with beloved Catholic friends.

Were us Protestants all that different than our Catholic friends? Not in any ways that matter as near as I can remember. But then we grew up in America, not Ireland… I sure hope our country can continue to be a place where people of different cultures can get along together but I am not all that optimistic at the moment.

Oh, it’s not my mood, not exactly at least. I had an uneasy feeling about the weather this morning that only intensified throughout the day. To be clear, the sidewalks and roads were dry as a bone today but Mr. Golden Sun deigned to make even one sniggly little appearance today and by my sluggish time of the afternoon (three-ish), I felt a wee bit chilly.

There was no way I was gonna turn up the thermostat. It was at 66 and the last time a Window Replacement person knocked on my door, I told her I LIKED my window. She asked me if it was drafty in my house. Well, not really. And it isn’t really but nevertheless, I felt chilly and this evening there has been a discussion about refurbishing the existing window. I am all aboard with that. Xmas gift? Bring it on. But not via a door-to-door salesperson.

Anyway, the forecast is for snow. Not a lot of snow but even a couple inches can majorly snarl traffic at this time of year when people have totally forgotten how to drive in slippery conditions. Or haven’t driven in them ever before as I saw a couple of Florida Men do years ago when I was driving to work (Fla license plate, trying to pass a LOOOONNNG line of cars and ended up in the ditch). Yep, there’s ice on this road.

So, I am not feeling blue at all really but finding this old photo (2007 and probably taken from whatever MacBook I had then) reminded me of the old Cream song Blue Condition. When I was a young teenager, I used to play records in my bedroom and dance to them. (I didn’t have a boyfriend but sooo wanted one.) I did magical thinking that my parents didn’t know I was dancing, which was ridiculous because they were watching TV in the next room and I’m sure they knew exactly what I was doing. To their credit, they NEVER mentioned it. And I’m not even sure how you dance to a song like Blue Condition🤪

We’re still in the Thanksgiving Leftover Era so I put some mashed potatoes and pork tenderloin in the oven on warm. Then. I have no fresh veggies here today but I could’ve sworn I had a baggie of lima beans in the freezer. I like lima beans, I know not everyone does. But I needed a PDQ green veggie tonight, even a frozen one.

When I opened my freezer, I could not find lima beans anywhere. I looked at the door. It was FILLED with ice packs. The kind that arrive when you order cold stuff on line and since covid, we have received tons of these things. And you save them to use in your camping trailer or schlep grocks up north. Nevertheless, I am frustrated that my freezer is overstuffed with these. I *think* that they do not need to be *stored* in a frozen state. Can’t you just freeze them before you pack your grocks for a trip?

I never did find lima beans in the freezer (they’re on the list) but after about eight ice packs got removed (by himself), underneath it all, I found a pack of frozen peas. That isn’t ideal but it’ll work. And, oh. Then. I remembered that there are some leftover lima beans in the fridge so I’ll combine them with the peas and…

Yes, we eat weird stuff here sometimes. 🤪

I for one am happy that Joe pardoned his son Hunter. I’m sure my MAGA buddies disagree with me. “Joe reneged on his promise.” Blah-de blah-de ad nauseam.

I haven’t been closely following Hunter’s crimes or journey through the system but it sounds like tax delinquency at least in part brought on by drug dependency? Not that I approve of either of these transgressions but c’mon. There are plenty of people who manage to find LEGAL ways to not pay their taxes. They call them loopholes, right? I wonder if Trump pays his fair share? Who knows? Only the IRS because Trump won’t release his records. And Hunter has apparently paid his delinquent tax bill? I have not done any serious fact checking on this. And drug addiction is a complicated issue. I am out of words for the moment except that I don’t believe it should be, in and of itself, a crime.

From the beginning this “witch hunt” (to borrow Trump’s oft-used word) has felt political. NASTILY political in true Trumpian style. I think Joe made his statement that he would not pardon his son thinking it might help him win the election. We all know how that turned out. I figure he’s thinking something like, “Why not pardon him?” And maybe, “That’s what Trump would do.” Because that’s undoubtedly what Trump WOULD do. Unabashedly. My kid never does anything wrong…

MAGA will probably scream and cry about the pardon (I haven’t been paying much attention to news today so don’t know). If Trump granted a similar pardon, they would be all supportive and fawning all over him.

I’m not gonna go anywhere near opening up the Pandora’s box containing the J6 insurrectionists (and YES, they WERE insurrectionists). Unlike Hunter’s crimes, people got *killed* at the Capitol that day. I dunno what Trump will do. I always say I won’t move to Canananada (and I won’t) but if he puts the Q Shaman in his Clown Car Cabinet, I may have to reconsider🤪.

After a few dreary snow flurrying days, here is a silhouette of an electrical company contractor trimming branches in our neighbor’s back yard in front of a blinding Mr. Golden Sun, who is rolling around to the south of us at this time of year. He’s at the top of the pic. Embiggen.