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.

The neighborhood was aswarm with women in neon pink construction-type vests today. I couldn’t for the life of me figger out what they were doing until one of them approached my door and knocked.

I am not crazy about solicitors. I do NOT want replacement windows and I am not going to show some random solicitor my gas bill even if they tell me they could reduce it🤪. As if I could show them a bill, since I have been using auto-pay for at least 20 years. Vacuum cleaner? I’ve lost count of how many of those we have. Seven maybe? Vintages from 1950s (still works) until the last few years. There are two identical purple Dysons because the one at the moomincabin resides here for the winter, otherwise the battery freezes and we have to buy a new battery.

So who was the pink person at the door? A Planned Parenthood gal! I am TOTALLY in alignment with Planned Parenthood but I didn’t really want to talk so I tried to stave off the spiel by immediately saying I make a MONTHLY donation (on auto-pay, like the gas bill). Also that I grew up during the “coat-hanger” days and I didn’t want to go back to that although many backward (yes, backward) “red” states already have and who the hell knows what Trump will do. And don’t ask me if I ever knew anyone who had a “coat-hanger” abortion. No I do not (that I know of). I am using the term to refer to illegal, unsafe abortions. Because that is the reality for many women right now, TODAY. And ALSO don’t talk to me about “state’s rights”. That particular decision had nothing to do with state’s rights but we’ll go there some other day.

She gave me the spiel anyway albeit a bit nuanced to acknowledge the fact that I am a Planned Parenthood SUPPORTER. ALL stuff I already know because I follow reproductive issues pretty closely. I did let her go on for a while, again, because I am a SUPPORTER and felt like I wanted to stand with her in solidarity. The Planet Ann Arbor is a “blue bubble” but who knows what she has to deal with going door to door. She found a friend in me.

I’m not gonna go on and on (and on) tonight, even though I could (and have in other posts). I expected Trump’s packed Supreme Court would strike Roe v. Wade down and of course it did. As soon as I saw the news (probably on my phone), I panicked a bit. I stopped that PDQ and redirected to, “What can I do that might be positive?” Oh yeah, I am old and baggy and gainfully employed so I can put my MONEY where my mouth is. (What money I have, that is. Warren Buffett I am not.) I IMMEDIATELY hopped over to Planned Parenthood and set up a monthly donation.

I still don’t understand what people see in Trump. He isn’t going to “fix” *anything*, “the economy”, “immigration”, “grocery/gas prices”. Nothing. He isn’t going to “end wars in a day”. At least not in a way that will make our world a better place. He is in this game of thrones for ONE PERSON. HIMSELF! No matter what he says, he isn’t a friend to women, that’s for damn sure.

Signing off, Kassandra

This was the one year since the beach urchins were born that we had NOBODY coming home for tday and no other guests. Just the two of us. Mouse was in Dakar for study abroad and Lizard was living out in San Francisco. I’ve never understood Thanksgiving travel that involves planes. It’s such a short holiday. Why go through all that airport pain? They agreed with me and anyway, you don’t just fly home from Africa for Thanksgiving unless you own a private jet. Lizard spent the holiday with her family of friends in California, and it was probably a regular day in Dakar.

Anyway, we packed up the smallest turkey I could find and all its friends and took off for Hoton Lake for the weekend. This was also the year (2007) I started working for my current employer. I was a student intern at that time and only worked a day and a half each week so we were able to leave Wednesday morning (the GG was still working but had tons of PTO). Soon after this, my employer approached me with a full-time job offer and it wasn’t an easy decision to leave my carefree lifestyle (which also included community college web design/dev courses just to keep me on my toes). The job obviously worked out well but that’s a topic for some other day. Or not.

We’ve had snow for the last two days. Just a sniggly bit of snow, slowly but persistently flurrying down. The northern Great Lake State? Lemme see, has Sault Ste. Siberia had two or three feet? And it is still coming down. I get weather alerts for that area since it’s my hometown and I am still a property owner in the area. The local authorities are pleading with people to stay off the roads so they can quickly and efficiently plow them. And then plow them again. Ad infinitum ad nauseam. They do have heavy duty snow removal equipment up there and they are ON IT PDQ. Sometimes here on The Planet Ann Arbor it takes a few days before our street gets plowed.

I’ve personally seen snow in the yooperland in every month except July and August and it is NOT early for an extreme snowstorm there. Or even here although that’s not what we have been getting.

We woke up to a wee bit of snow this morning. Did we expect that? Maybe. Sault Ste. Siberia (home city and near the moomincabin 350 miles north of here) is in the midst of a MASSIVE three-day storm and the municipal authorities up there are urging people to stay home so they can plow the snow without obstructions.

What did I do today? It was a meeeee day. I was always transparent about that. I did the remaining dishioshios and cleanup from our Thanksgiving dinner. This was EASY to do in part because the beach urchins did a BANG UP job of pre-cleaning last night. The chitchen is cleaner than it was before Thanksgiving. Who raised these (adult) children. I don’t think it was me…

I do NOT do Black Friday but I did schlep over to the Plum for a few ingredients for Turkey Tetrahedron (actually tetrazzini) tonight. Sorted out some xmas gifts and ordered a few personal items for meeee. Like I am not gonna ask for underwear or tights on my xmas list. Those are intimates and it’s up to me to buy my own. The GG did a bit of Black Friday and he was annoyed that our fave xmas tree vendor had RAISED THE PRICES! Ya think? I wasn’t ready for a tree yet and I made that known LOUD AND CLEAR but it turned out that he was just going to buy one and keep it outside for a couple weeks, which I was okay with. He didn’t get a tree but he did make some successful purchases.

Rabbit Hole: I’m not sure how I got out to the Missioned Souls YouTube channel today. I was looking at the triangular girl song on YouTube and over on the sidebar was something like “ska version of Wooly Bully” (which was originally by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs). My best memory of hearing that song was in the Old Cabin on the moominbeach. So, I had to click over. And there is this family, the Missioned Souls who do covers of all kinds of songs. (I think I have encountered them before.) I listened to Wooly Bully (I was too young to drive when that came out) and then a Bon Jovi cover and a couple others. It was Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” that brought the GG running from his lair into the kitchen to see what I was listening to.

The Missioned Souls are good. Check out that wee drummer.

Our family Thanksgivings always begin with The Gobbler, an audio file of turkeys gobbling that makes its way around the world via text message to wherever our loved ones are.

After that and some eggs benny, the GG was in his lair and I heard him playing frogcasts. I wanted to yell, “Don’t play those!!!” but I sucked it up and eventually I kind of got into the spirit of things and it actually ended up being fun. So, what the heck are frogcasts? They are when Froggy (in the pic) commandeers my computer and Garage Band and sings ribald little ditties or recites poetry or whatever.

With a bit of trepidation, I will post a link to the old frogcast page. If you dare to go there at all, and I won’t blame you if you don’t, don’t try to listen to all of them. You won’t understand them all. I don’t even understand them all, particularly “Mr. Security”, which features The Mean Old Grunchy Old Grinchy aka my loverly cuzzint and I was right there front and center in Radical Betty’s house at the time. She was my aunt and I think she is also in the frogcast. She was providing breakfast for the Grinchie and coffee for me.

My fave (if you dare to listen to one) is “Cloopin’ Gloppers”. It features a reading from Dr. Seuss’s book “Happy Birthday To You” that has always been a fave of mine.

At a minimum, if you navigate to the frogcast page, note the little “thermometers”. That is what The Commander called the thingies that play the frogcasts. (They don’t work very well in my current browser, like they don’t let me rewind.)

To end this, we are listening to music on our Home pod and we have no clue where it’s coming from. Nobody here is playing “Triangular Girl Stuck in a Round Tubular World”. I don’t think anyone here has ever heard of it before. Although some people are thinking that *I* might relate to BEING a triangular girl stuck in a round tubular world. I am processing that🤪

The last thing I did yesterday afternoon was have a catch-up meeting with my boss. In the course of the conversation, he asked if I was taking any time off this week. He approved my time-off request for this week and through the end of the year on Monday but I’m sure he didn’t pay attention to what I was asking for. That is a good thing. Not because I would try to cheat, Workday wouldn’t let me cheat if I tried. Just that he doesn’t micro-manage.

I told him Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday is a Cooking Day and Friday is a Meeeee Day. So today was a cooking day. Lemme see… Cranberry sauce (quick and dirty), make-ahead mashed potatoes, the decadent kind with cream cheese and sour cream, Chex mix (with FRESH sesame sticks, thank you very much), What I didn’t get done? Hollandaise, haricots verts with almonds (but these haricots don’t look like they need extensive trimming), dressing but the bread is torn up and drying out and that’s the hard part. And I cleaned up some VERY messy multi-color carrots that somebody else is going to cut up and cook. The GG will take care of the turkey.

I went to the Plum this morning before it got crazy (although I have NEVER had to wait long in any line at the Plum, even the day before t-day, and there was nobody at “my” U-scan today). Then I went out to a farm to pick up some fancy goat cheese spread I had ordered online. I hadn’t been able to figger out from their website what the “seasonal” choice was so I just ordered it, thinking there was only one and knowing I would like whatever it was since I have NEVER disliked any of their spreads. (I’ve been buying stuff from them at the farmers market for years. This is the first time I’ve been out to their farm market.)

Turns out there were TWO “seasonal” choices and they couldn’t figger out what I wanted so they kindly set aside both for me. I said I had been fumbling with the website a bit and that was embarrassing because that’s what I do for a living (I was laughing at *myself* when I said this). The gal whispered, “It isn’t a very good website” and then she intimated that she’d told me that because I mentioned my occupation. Oh dear. If I had been wearing my on-line banking user experience hat, I could’ve given her a critique of that website. But I was wearing my Ann Arbor moom hat and I TOTALLY understand that a small farm doesn’t have the cash to pay for a professionally designed website. Instead, I reassured her that it was all okay. And it wasn’t even all THAT bad. I was able to order and pay for my product with ease even if I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting🤪

So what did I do? I whipped out my VISA card and said, “Y’know what, cranberry orange was my choice but I’ll also take the shallot herb!” Win win!

The pic: Nothing is wrong with Gertrude (knock on wood). Her ovens and glass windows are just getting a pre-Thanksgiving deep cleaning. The GG has his flaws (political🐽) but he rocks Suzy Homemaker. Today he vacuumed. Ignore all the clutter. Nothing to see here…

Characters: Kayak Woman (KW) and her daughter Lizard Breath (LB)
Setting: The Landfill as KW walks in the door, returning from a trip to Hoton Lake (this was back in the day)

LB: Moom can you use your super nose to figger out what that smell in the refrigerator is?
KW: [sniff] Old Dead Broccoli

THE END. (Except for the trip to the compost heap.)

There are two bad odors in the Landfill this afternoon.

One bad odor emanates from the chitchen garbage. I usually try to get through a whole week with one kitchen bag of garbage. This week, there will be two. This one will go out tomorrow and there will be another one the day after Tday. We normally take our garbage, etc., out on Thursday night for Friday morning pickup but because of the holiday that’ll be delayed a day. Plus, we’ll have more garbage than usual.

I won’t go into a lot of detail about the other bad odor but I am going to do a load of laundry tomorrow. Hint, hint🐽🐽🐽

Here we are driving to our 2021 Thanksgiving destination. No, we weren’t going to grandmother’s house, it was mouse’s (then) house.

When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was usually at my grandparents’ house but sometimes at my uncle’s and maybe once at my parents’ but our house was really small. My grandparents’ house was approximately ten blocks from our shabby little Superior Street bungalow in Sault Ste. Siberia. We didn’t have to cross any rivers to get there or go through any woods. We had woods at the moominbeach.

When I was a kid and my parents went out of town to attend banking functions or whatever, I would stay at my grandparents’ house and I could walk to my school (Lincoln) from there. With my friend Helen, who lived a couple blocks away from my grandparents. My house was directly across from the school and that was cool but I also loved the long walk with my friend Helen, who lived near my grandparents’ house.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at mouse’s house that year but in general, I like to host it here at The Landfill. Yeah, it’s a lot of work but at the end of the evening, I can be Home Alone (with the GG of course) in my own little house so I can chill out a bit. People are always very helpful with dishwashing but if there’s something left for morning, I have much more energy for cleaning up then. Please don’t tell Fly Lady.

Although we were all vaxxed by that Thanksgiving, lots of people were getting breakthrough covid cases, so our kids tested before the event. The next morning I remember waking up to the news that a new covid strain was going around. Omicron. I was devastated (we’re all vaxxed!) but after I GOT omicron (probably) and didn’t get sick, I slowly lost my fear of covid. This virus was doing what many viruses do, which was mutate into a milder version that didn’t kill its hosts. I still masked in public for a really long time but I don’t any more.

The last few Thanksgivings have been at The Landfill. And that’s where it’ll happen this year too.

You know what goes on this week. I did successfully make gravy today. As a safeguard against another disaster, I left my colander INSIDE a big bowl on the counter overnight. I was lucky in that the Plum had turkey parts this morning. The Plum is an upscale store and is *always* well stocked but I doubt there is a huge market for turkey parts, at least not year-round, so it only carries them for a short duration during winter holidays. So I was prepared to head out to Meijer if I had to but was really glad not to have to do that. I did have other things on my list so it wasn’t a “special” trip.

I’ll probably be at one grock store or another every morning the next three days. I’m picking up a turkey tomorrow. Not sure about Tuesday, maybe Meijer. Wednesday I’ll get the rest of whatever it is we need to get through turkey day. And I’m picking up some goat cheese spreads from White Lotus Farms that morning. I used to buy those at the farmers market and they still sell them there. But I haven’t been going there that often because meal planning has been a bit nutso for a while here with Michigan’s Main Helper in and out of town a lot. Also, it’s difficult to GET to the farmers market because of road construction. I mean, I can GET there, but what the heck, I ordered it online directly from the farm and I’m picking it up there.

Tomorrow and Tuesday are work days. Wednesday is a Cooking Day (day off) when I will get almost everything I can think of cooked as much as possible so as to do as little as possible on Thursday. But there’s always stuff left to do on Thursday.

Axe-throwing? What could go wrong? Well. A few years ago the GG took a cue from the male counterpart of the family triplets (young cousins of mine) and asked for a BLOWGUN for xmas. That was all fun until he shot it into the back doorwall, which shattered. In a very controlled way but still. After a moment of horrification, I burst out laughing. After all, no one was hurt and the doorwall was replaceable (and was *eventually* replaced). Still, we will not be setting up an axe throwing area in the Landfill. I don’t know the people in the pic but I’m sure they are now “first buddies” with Michigan’s Main Helper.

Aaaaand… Lunch at the Griz with Lizard Breath and Michigan’s Main Helper. This time, I did NOT follow the sheeple and get stuck in the parking lot 🐽

Make no mistake, he didn’t earn this shirt by being named Michigan’s Main Helper. One of his daughters dubbed him that. Long story. But he won it at a North Country Trail (NCT) Bawbeese Chapter raffle today.

I was just thinking about getting out of bed this morning when he hopped into the bathroom and got ready to leave. To… 1) Help with a boardwalk building project with the Chief Noonday NCT chapter and then… 2) Attend a meeting and have lunch (and throw axes) with the Bawbeese Chapter. I know where these places are but I won’t bore you with Michigan geography today.

So he was gone ALL DAY and that gave me a chance to do some things (or try to do some things). I sewed one of Vandegriff’s missing buttons back on and since there are a few other missing buttons that we don’t have replacements for, I measured that button (5/8ths of an inch) and ordered some replacement buttons so I can replace the others. And labeled a ziplock bag “Vandegriff” so as to store future buttons with him.

I organized the family xmas “gimme pig” lists onto the iPhone Notes app (except for one beach urchin but I’ll do that tomorrow). Note that none of us are “gimme pigs” in any way shape or form. We ALL have to be DRAGGED into providing xmas lists. None of us need anything.

And then I ruined the make-ahead gravy I tried to make today. I won’t try to explain this in detail but in one of the penultimate make-ahead gravy recipe steps, I have to strain the liquid broth out of the chopped up veggies. The problem was that I needed to drain it into a CONTAINER, like a big bowl. Unfortunately, I managed to drain it into the SINK, meaning all of the broth went down the drain. Crapola.

In a moment of magical thinking I was wondering how I could retrieve the broth. Not. I will have to repeat the whole thing tomorrow. If I can find turkey parts. It’ll be okay. It’s easy to do and if I did it every week, I couldda done the whole thing without thinking.

I didn’t blahg about this yesterday because 1) I didn’t want to jinx myself and 2) by the time I got around to blahgging, I had kind of forgotten about it.

Except for the one time I got covid, I have not had a respiratory illness since December 2019. In fact, the virus I got that December (actually it seemed like two in succession but who knows) was so awful that when covid finally did land on our shores, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had already had it. I’m still not 100% sure what I had wasn’t covid. Probably not but there was sooooo much we didn’t know about covid in the early days. And so much we still don’t know. I will say that I was a lot more sick with that virus than I was when omicron finally caught up with me a couple years later, since my one symptom was a mild cough. Oh yeah, two symptoms, the second being extreme annoyance at the person who brought the virus home.

Yesterday, my right nostril dripped almost all day. I felt completely well in every way except I had to keep blowing my nostril. Yes, just the right nostril. As the day wore on, I worried that I might have to cancel my participation in our dinner date the next night (meaning tonight). I didn’t really think it was covid but since covid, I have become hyper aware of infecting others with contagious diseases. But then all of a sudden, I realized I had not had to blow my nostril in several hours. It was dry throughout the night and did not start up again this morning. I used one Kleenex all day today (typical daily usage). I can’t count how many I used yesterday.

So yay. We went out to eat and my nostril continued to stay dry.

And so, to answer a friend’s rather rambling question, I do not blahg on a clockwork schedule. Last night I was “late” because the GG was on a North Country Trail zoom meeting and then we watched an episode of Bad Monkey. Tonight I am “late” because dinner at a restaurant with said friend. But “late” isn’t really applicable because I don’t have a set time to write my blahg. I’ll answer the question about what do I do if I can’t think of anything to blahg about some other day. It’ll be a rambling answer🐽

The GG purchased a digital picture frame for me a few years ago. This was a fine gift but I didn’t really need it because I have about a gazillion photos. But it’s still fun. Mostly because he loads photos onto it…

The Trump party (I’m sorry but it is not your parents’ GOP) is not benign but the GG pretty much is. We totally disagree about politics but we’ve been hanging out together for a long time. I’m not sure we talked too much about politics when we first met but given that he had waist-length hair (before I knew him) and, well, we won’t got down that road too far but given the stuff we did talk about, I thought we were pretty much in line politically. And maybe we were back then.

Things have changed a lot since then in ways I couldn’t have dreamed up if I had tried. The Commander completely disavowed the GOP and became an Obama fan. Other people (old hippies, etc.) have embraced MAGA for reasons I will never understand. (The GG was not a hippie albeit I think he looked like one for a while.)

But bizarrely, I get a kick out of the photos that he loads on to my anti-woke digital picture frame. Hillary Clinton picking her nose. I mean, really? This is a reason to hate Hillary? I think EVERYONE picks their nose. I certainly do. Do you? And there was something today about living in a sexist temperature house? Like the MAN decides what the temperature will be. That doesn’t exactly happen here at the Landfill, although sometimes I quietly let him have his way for a while. The funny thing was that the GG couldn’t even remember what “sexist temperature” meant or even understand the word “sexist” so I was like, “Then why did you put it on my picture frame?” (LOLOLOL)

I know that he’s just trying to harass me. Younger family members have been known to delete objectionable photos off my frame. That’s fine but I don’t really care that they’re on there. I know who I am. And so does the GG.

The term “woke”? Hmmmm. A lot of people have been throwing that term around without providing a comprehensive definition. Y’all, I don’t think it means exactly what y’all think it does. Not that I know exactly what it means either. Just that, like many words and phrases, I think it has a very complicated history and most people are not taking the time to research that.

Love y’all, KW. Cygnus X-1 was covered with our first snow of the season this morning.

It’s xmas time (almost) in the city. And that’s always a good time for things to go wrong. Last year, it was the Friday after turkey day when we realized our furnace wasn’t quiiiiite putting out full heat. We hired somebody to come out. HE WAS REAAAALLLLY GOOD. Got here exactly when he promised and determined that there wasn’t any real problem, except leaves and other detritus were blocking some ducts or whatever. And cleaned it all up. Under the fascinated eye of the GG who was probably figgering how to DIY it the next time…

Today it was clogged plumbing associated with the bathtub. The GG was up to that task, whipping out his snake (*drain* snake, I mean🐽) and the job was done in a jiffy. The culprit? My hair… It needs cutting (long story) but he actually likes my hair long, shaggy, and fugly so I guess he doesn’t mind snaking out the drain every once in a while?

I did not get a pic of today’s operation. This pic of the GG and mouse was taken on XMAS MORNING 2013! We argued about the year a bit. He thought he had snaked the drain in the current (renovated) bathroom. Obviously not. This is the old Blue and Only Bathroom and my brain won. Isn’t this bathroom fugly? Honestly, I could still clean the “porcelain”, etc., but the tile, etc., was beyond cleaning by that time. We limped along with this bathroom for another year and a half and then we gutted it.

He did another wee prodject today but that wasn’t to fix a problem unless you count an oven rice spill a problem. I mean, it is a problem but it’s just a cleaning problem. But. I have been noticing for quite a while how dirty the glass in the oven doors is. I can clean an oven. But I do not have the technical chops to take apart the doors in order to clean the glass and other hard to get at parts. So he took the oven doors apart and cleaned everything. BTW: I found an oven cleaner product that is MUCH better than that Easy-Off oven spray we all grew up with, which is NOT easy-off in my experience.

So, are our appliances, plumbing, and HVAC, etc., ready for the holidays? I’m not holding my breath but we’ll manage. If worse comes to worst, we could stay at one of our kids’ houses. “We have our sleeping bags🤪” Just kidding but the sleeping bag quote relates to a LONG AGO story about Radical Betty and Uncle Dcuk that I should write some day. Or not? We’ll see.

That’s what my father-in-law said once back when we were all young and gay. The Twinz of Terror were launching a motor bote at Houghton Lake and they had not put the PLUG in the bote. The Gumper was yelling, “PUT THE PLUG IN” from shore and they were merrily waving good-bye, unable to hear him over the motor noise. Neither of my beach urchins were in the bote (maybe they weren’t even born yet?) or I’d’ve been yelling and SCREAMING. (I don’t EXACTLY remember the details of this story so I am riffing a bit.)

So there was a minor (and I mean MINOR) panic this afternoon when the Twinz of Terror could not figure out what had happened to a fancy bottle of bourbon (Woodford Reserve) that they’d had on their trip to Asheville. Did they leave it in a hotel? At first I was flummoxed too. Then. I remembered a functionally empty bottle of Woodford Reserve that had made its way into the Landfill Chitchen. I poured what little was in there out, washed it out and threw it in the ree-cycle. “Did you drink what was left?” I was asked. Nooooo. There wasn’t enough left to drink!

At that point, I remembered the rest of the story. The Twinz arrived here at the Landfill in the late afternoon the Monday they returned from Asheville. The UU needed to continue on up north to his home but he rested long enough to join the GG for a wee snort of bourbon. And it was weeeeee because there wasn’t even enough for meeeeee.

Did either of them remember any of this? No they did not. Throughout our long relationship, the GG occasionally says something like, “let’s use your brain because it’s more efficient”. Yes. Yes. It usually is. (So are my hyper-sensitive ears and nose.) It didn’t work when he came at me this afternoon with my “Mexican” blue glass pitcher, asking me what the white “deposit” on it was. I’ve been wondering that too. He uses it to water the xmas tree. Did he put something in the water last year that made that happen? I did not know. My brain may be more efficient but I am not INSIDE his brain, at least not usually.

Alas, xmas is coming up way too soon but at least I know all the conic sections if the Gumper is somehow tuned in from wherever he is 🤪

This is not a pit orchestra although I have played in more than a few of those and they are FUN! But this is The Interlochen All State band in concert. I am actually in FIRST SEAT, which a lot of people didn’t expect a yooperlander to ever achieve.

And it was tricky to get to that seat as a yooperlander because usually I did NOT have any kind of a decent teacher. It wasn’t like I could take lessons from Detroit Symphony Orchestra flutists. They were five hours away. In the beginning, I had the band director and a senior in high school. Um, not. But. In 8th grade I hit gold. A professionally trained flutist moved across the schoolyard from me while her husband was at the Kincheloe Air Force Base and she was a WONDERFUL teacher and remembering how sweet she was to me after all these years, I think she realized how much I would be on my own when she moved on. Knowing she wouldn’t be there to mentor me for long, she loaded me up with standard flute repertoire pieces including a lot of virtuoso works. Knowing The Commander, she probably paid more for my lessons than the asking price plus she was more than willing to buy music. (We were not rich…) I am actually tearing up remembering and writing about this little period of my life, and I don’t tear up often.

What brought this on though was that yesterday on facebook, somebody posted a YouTube of a high school friend singing. How to make this short? Because it isn’t really. Mark was a good friend of mine in high school when a bunch of us were auditioning to attend the Interlochen All State program. I got in. I can’t remember if he did or not. I know he did not get into the college I started at (long story). He auditioned on piano, which he was good at. But. He auditioned with a splashy piece that is not part of the standard classical piano repertoire so he was rejected and kind of laughed at.

My assigned piano teacher actually TOLD ME why he wasn’t accepted. That was not the only reason I didn’t give in to my piano teacher’s “advances”. Can you say “old and ugly”? I learned pretty early how to deflect that kind of shitola. Beginning with him.

The thing is, I remembered my friend as a good pianist but I didn’t remember him acting/singing in Hello Dolly, the musical my school produced when I was a senior. Until I was almost finished with a long boring comment and then a LIGHT BULB lit up. He was a wonderful actor and singer.

He died last year after a long musical career out in the LA area, sounds like mostly teaching/coaching but with some performance. He was very clearly a talented musician. Godspeed Butch.

After the 2020 elections, a cartoon image was floating around of Lady Liberty launching Trump in a slingshot. He was wearing a face mask on his ass, diaper style. I sooooo want to post that pic but I did not create it so it isn’t mine to post and I’m not sure how to go about searching for the original source so you get these beautiful autumn leaves instead. Anyway, he’s baaaaack. The Orange Baboon, I mean.

We (Trump haters and yes I do kinda hate Trump) were so jubilant when Biden finally won in 2020. It was the Saturday after the election when it was finally called for Biden. The Thursday in between, the GG left for a North Country Trail boondoggle. As we were saying our goodbyes, he opined that Biden would not become the next president. (Some sort of conspiracy theory was involved here, I don’t remember what.) I said something like, “I love you and I want to know when you arrive safely at your destination. But I do not want to talk to you. So when you get there, please just text me.” I told this story to my then boss Amazon Woman when we next talked and she (a single divorced mom)… GASPED. But that is what works for the GG and I after 40 years or so. We don’t agree so we agree to disagree and we don’t talk politics. That said, if anyone throws an audible F-bomb at the radio, it is more likely to be me than the GG. But I’m right, roight?😵‍💫

It was a pretty slow weekend for me. Until I put leftovers into Gertrude’s top oven this evening and realized that there was still a mess of spilled rice in there and it was smoking. I knew about the spill but hadn’t remembered to clean it up. Okay, I will turn off the top oven and put the leftovers into the bottom oven. Problem. Some of the rice somehow made it into the bottom oven too. But it didn’t burn because I hadn’t used the bottom oven. So I grabbed my purple Dyson vac (get one!) and sucked up the rice in the bottom oven and moved the leftovers down there. Problem solved at least for the moment. With Tday coming up, I *will* need to clean the oven(s).

Go Li-ons. And “Boofalo” won after an attempt at a Hail Mary (even I know what that is) apparently failed. I waited to end this blahg entry until the final score was decisive.

I thought I would get some things done today but not a whole lot of stuff happened except I went to the grocery store for dinner ingredients (beef stroganoff). And to see my mouse.

I checked in with my mouse to make sure that my response to one of her co-workers last week was appropriate. I was u-scanning and her co-worker asked how I was doing. My answer was the usual quick, “I’m fine”. But I also caught a look in her eye that made me wonder if she was thinking about the election. I doubled back, looked her in the eye and said in a more serious tone, “Yes, I am okay.” And I am… But I had to double-check with my mouse if this woman was in political alignment with me. Yes, she was. I know that people who serve the public are not supposed to display their political views in any way, which is appropriate and is why her question and my response were subtle.

I’m sure people at my place of employment have differing opinions but we don’t serve the public in a direct way. But we still don’t talk about politics. I’m pretty sure I know what the people I have actually worked with in person think. I’m not sure about everyone though and India may or may not care. I could talk to Amazon Woman about politics. We were definitely in alignment but we only talked about that stuff when we were in a conference room or (after covid) on a private Teams call.

The GG installed a new outdoor light today. I’m not sure exactly when he did it because it seemed like he was hanging out on his computer all day. As it turned out, he was watching the Vendee Globe race, which is A-okay with me. Somehow he installed a new LED spotlight for the back yard when I wasn’t looking. See the lit up leaves, etc. on the left. I’m liking it so far.

I soooo hated that old moniker. The Brain of Lincoln School has a new bike! Yes I did! I needed one. A bike that fit my long legs, which had nothing to do with my brain. And my small town banker dad could afford to buy me a new bike if just barely.

I grew into my brain eventually, meaning I decided it was okay for a GIRL to be smart. For a while I tried to hide my natural intelligence. Eventually I learned to ROCK being smart. Except when I am not. Because we are all stoopid sometimes.

My brain hurt today. People wanted to go out to eat. I did too but… It is Friday night and we are on the Planet Ann Arbor and even though it is a football bye week, there is a basketball game and so it will be crowded EVERYWHERE and WE DO NOT HAVE A RESERVATION ANYWHERE. I did GooMaps and Artificial Intelligence (or whatever) told me it would be a half hour wait time for just about any restaurant anywhere. No thanks. Why do y’all think it would be fun to go out to a restaurant on a Friday night without a reservation?

In the end we did VOT (meaning we zoomed with our friends of porterization). We agreed to make a reservation at a restaurant for next Friday. Somebody else can pick which one. I don’t really frickin’ care at this point.

The pic is of me riding my big black tricycle. I was five? and that’s my little brother there. I don’t remember that basket. I HATED those rubber boots.

P.S. Lincoln School is out of frame to the right. I Red Queened over there to kindergarten every morning.

With blahggy friend Pam’s admission that she freezes stinky garbage, I now know four people (including me) who freeze (or have frozen) garbage. There must be more. [Looking up past tense and past participle, etc. here. I had that stuff down cold in in GRADE SCHOOL. Sigh.]

I was a young-ish gal when Radical Betty was freezing her garbage. At the time, the moominbeach community took turns picking up everyone’s garbage to schlep it up to the dump. Radical did not want people to ride with her stinky garbage when it was their turn. She could not keep a can or cart or whatever outside because bears. And she owned a garage that could be locked but I will not describe why she couldn’t access it to put garbage in it. That is un-blahggable. I used “frozen” because Radical Betty has been dead since 2009. I so miss her.

My friend Greg? I can’t remember exactly why he freezes garbage but I think it was something about being a landlord and not wanting to stink out his tenants. I love Greg.

Me? Here at the Landfill, I almost never put out a garbage cart with more than one kitchen bag full of garbage. Unless there’s something like a holiday going on or we are dumping whatever was leftover from the moomincabin or wherever we have been.

It wasn’t always like that. Once upon a time, we were at Hoton Lake and the UU tried to foist some Hoton Lake garbage on me to take home. At that time, there were more people living at the Landfill and we didn’t always have room in the Landfill Garbage Cart for Hoton Lake garbage. Nevertheless, I think I did take the garbage home that time.

Later that night, I got an email from my then sister-in-law that my brother (who had health issues) was having trouble breathing. He was transported to the hospital that night. I drove up there the next morning and he died in my arms that afternoon.

That is a whole long story but I long ago decided that I would never argue about garbage with anyone ever again.

When MMCB and I zoomed on Tuesday, we were all mostly out of words about the election but one question we tackled was “How did we get HERE?” MMCB₂ suggested that our educational system is failing to teach children to do critical thinking. I don’t disagree with that but before I go any further…

MMCB have BOTH worked in the schools. One as a teacher, the other as an aide (she has a scientific degree).

We ALL have always been strong public school supporters and volunteers, holding important positions or just field trip chaperones, etc. I was (among many other volunteer jobs), parent teacher org treasurer for MULTIPLE schools and I was on the short list with a lot of people for treasury jobs. I think this was because I had an HONEST reputation to transparently provide information. I’m not bragging. Just that if I could hold down a volunteer position that involved spreadsheets instead of field trips or Room Mother (arrrgh), we’d all be happier. Not that I didn’t do those other things. I did I wasn’t very good at it.

MMCB₂ served a term on the school board. It was long ago but she was recently pulled (a bit) out of retirement to work with an organization trying to replace some really awful current school board members with new ones. This effort was largely successful. Will the new school board rise to the occasion? We shall see. As MMCB₂ well knows, it is a crap shoot.

I sort of agree that the schools are not effectively teaching students critical thinking skills although I know plenty of young people who ARE capable of that. What I jumped in with was “I think social media has a role to play.” Memes of misinformation, disinformation, and whatever. Who ever reads past the “headline”? Who digs into the details? Who is this person running for office and what is he/she actually about?

I’m kinda done so let’s do the garbage dance. Yesterday I cooked salmon. I put the wrappings in the garbage container in the Landfill Chitchen. It stinks to high heaven today, like I knew it would. Tomorrow is when I have to take out the garbage for the Friday pickup day. Can we last another day with the stinky garbage? Yes, I think we can. Man oh man, garbage and recycling never ends.

G’night, Garbage Woman