September 2005 Birch Pt. Beach Blog
September 2005 Birch Pt. Beach Blog
Thu. September 1: Grok grok. All right. grok. While everybody's arguin' and the old witch (grok grok) is naggin' and complainin' and draggin' people outta bed (grok) before they're awake (grok grok), I'll take over this stoopid (grok) blahg. grok grok. And you go out there and find a spot (grok) in the POC (grok) where we can stow away. grokGROKgrokgrokgrokgrokgrok. ooh ooh ooh ah ah Grok grok bagrawk! Click.
Fri. September 2: Phew! Thanks to Froggy's horrible new habit, I was able to actually escape from the house without him today. All summer long, every time I picked up my keys and headed toward the front door, a trenormous fuss and conniption fit would occur over in the slime-infested frog area of the living room. GROK! grokgrokgrok bagrawk! Take me with you. grok grok. I do NOT want to be left behind. grok grok GROK! And so on and so forth ad nauseam. More than once, I have become so discombobulated by his hissies that I realized a half mile or so away from the house that I was missing my purse or some other important item. If there is no one else in the car with me, he sits on top of my powerbook in the passenger seat. Otherwise his favorite spot is in the back window so he can watch other drivers pick their noses and do other disgusting things. Or else he hops around all over the car, grokking along at the top of his lungs to whatever music is on the radio or making up his own ribald little ditties. Sproing, sproing, sproing, grokgrokgrok. It is a wonder I haven't found myself in the ditch yet. Anyway, today I am free! Froggy was completely passed out when I left. I wonder if he is awake yet? I think I am probably glad I won't be around when he does wake up and figure out that I left him behind.
Sat. September 3: <flutterblahg> I have not been to Houghton Lake for more than a few minutes since June, when all was still right with the world. And now I am finally here again. It is a Labor Day weekend and the weather is beautiful and I am reunited with my green kayak and the blue paddle and there is wireless internet so I can do my homework and blahg and talk to Karen and The Commander et al on email. I love being here. Except for one thing. The flittering and fluttering and random gliding around of danaus plexippus, which, at this time of year, is migrating its way down south to Mexico or wherever. I have a phobia that has got to be one of the stupidest phobias on earth. I know that it looks totally, utterly ridiculous when a species that just about everyone else on the face of the planet thinks is beautiful flutters anywhere within 20 feet of me, I jump about three feet up in the air and run across the street. I am not afraid of non-poisonous reptiles, amphibians, or arachnids. I share my shower with arachnids fairly frequently although I did dispatch that big brown thing before entering the tub the other morning. I like rodents! Even most members of the insect world do not bother me much, including those of the stinging variety. But there are a few species of lepidoptera (The Big Three) that I just cannot abide: danaus plexippus and its imitator, limenitis archippus, and papilio glaucas, which elicits the same response from my psyche. When I was a lot younger, almost all lepidopterans scared me, even those little yellow sulfurs or whatever they are. And once I completely freaked out on my way to the outhouse because there was a luna moth on the path. And I won't even talk about the day the Cecropia moth hatched in my 2nd grade classroom. Honestly, I'd rather tell you about the day John Glenn went up into space and I threw up all over my desk. But really, yellow sulfurs and lunas and Cecropias do not bother me any more. And I don't jump quite as high upon encountering The Big Three any more either. Despite a pretty major setback around 15 years ago, I have slowly and painstakingly desensitized myself to most of them. Even those big Cecropias. I don't really like to get up close and personal with lepidopterans in general but I don't end up on the moon anymore. And I can even sit outside in the yard some of the time. But I am on guard and if there start getting to be too many danaus plexippi in the yard, I will definitely find an excuse to go do something constructive inside the cabin. And make sure the door gets shut tightly behind me. I'll take a snake or a toad or a bat or a spider or mus musculus any day of the week! </flutterblahg>
Sun. September 4: One of my out-laws: "Thanks for being so low-key. You are an oasis of calm." ME!!???! You are talking about ME?? Hey, can I have a tape-recording of that?
Mon. September 5: "Is the water cold?" Well, that's a darn good question but you might want to consider very carefully whether I am an appropriate person to ask. I have been swimming in Lake Superior (or if you want to get persnickety about it, the Upper Saint Mary's River) my whole life. I can remember being told not to go out past the second sand bar. I can remember having it beaten into my head that you didn't EVER go swimming without getting a parent or an aunt or uncle to come down to the beach and be the lifeguard. I can remember being about 5 and learning how to swim with my whole head under water and then going for a walk down the beach with my two 5-year-old cousins and egging each other on until we were swimming with our whole heads under the water. WithOUT any parents or aunts or uncles to lifeguard. Fortunately, we didn't drown. We went swimming EVERY day of the summer. If it was warm outside, we would get up in the morning and put our bathing suits on and leave them on ALL DAY. If it wasn't warm outside, we would swim anyway. Even if it meant that the parent or aunt or uncle doing lifeguard duty had to wear a winter jacket or carry an umbrella or whatever. One memorable Labor Day, there were snowflakes in the air. Everybody was down on the beach *anyway* and all of us kids were swimming. I am not *quite* as much of a fanatic these day. I do not swim EVERY day. I admit, the fact that there is now a shower with hot water in the Fin cabin has something to do with that. But I do still swim a LOT. There is nothing better on a hot day than standing in Lake Superior up to your neck. So, y'all can ask me how the water is if ya want to and I will give you an answer. But before you do, you may want to consider how my own personal water temperature sensor got calibrated.
Tue. September 6: I wasn't sure how well I would like having two night classes but the only time these classes were scheduled was 6-9 on Tuesday and 6-9 on Wednesday. I am a *morning* person (*early* morning) and sometimes dragging myself out of the house in the late afternoon can be just excruciatingly painful even though I do almost always get a second wind once I am out doing whatever it is that I have to do. I have only had one of each class so far but I *think* it is going to be okay. When I take classes during the day, I get home and it is almost impossible to settle in to do any studying that afternoon or evening. There is either YAG stuff to do or I have to go to the grocery store or the amount of rubble in the house has reached the point where I absolutely HAVE to start shoveling and dredging or somebody will suffocate. So, I feel like I get behind on my homework and then I have to spend 2-3 whole days around the weekend chained to my books and papers and computer. Reading, writing, coding, drafting charts and diagrams, processing images. And things go to hell in a hand basket around here and there's even more shoveling and dredging to do. I wonder if attending classes at night will give me more time for studying during the day and therefore, be a more efficient use of my time? We'll see... Anyway, so far so good! I will miss hanging around in the WCC Library early in the morning. But although my classes are lots of work, they are also lots of fun! (knock on wood :-) For The Commander's benefit, I am only taking two classes this semester: Web Design I (project management stuff) and Web Coding III (javascript and related topics).
And it's one week until Kalamazoo! Make no mistake, I will miss Mouse. But YAY!!
Wed. September 7: Oh-dark-thirty, approximate words (like I can *remember* the exact words. Roight!): "Mom! There's a big, ugly bug in here. It's jumping around! I can't find it now. Could it be a spider? What if it's a brown recluse? I'm afraid to go to bed. What if you wake up in the morning and I'm dead because it bit me?" Etc., etc., for about 20 minutes, or so it seemed. She didn't die. She still can't find the bug. I'm not allowed in there to look. Jumping? It sounds like a grasshopper to me. Six days >:->> I love you, Mouse <3 <3 <3 Gro-o-o-k! Hey, I'm the protector around here. grok grok. I'll find it. grok. Lemme at it! grok grok I love bugs! shlurrrrp! grokGROK! ooh ooh ooh ah ah
Thu. September 8: Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!! An iPod alarm clock and speakers. And *we* (Mouse and Fin Mama Moomintroll) found it. The resident Male Geek seems a little surprised to see such an aminal. Hee hee hee! >:->> But he's playing with it anyway. Who could resist. Well, I can. I'm cooking and writing my blahg and trouble-shooting The Commanders new iBook with her on the phone and cogitating why I am only at about maybe 9.2 (out of 10) on my first coding III homework assignment.
Uh, the 9.2 is *my* assessment, not the teacher's. He'd prob'ly give me about a D if I turned it in now. I do love programming! Yes I do! Almost as much as playing the flute. Or driving. Or kayaking. Or whatever. You know the drill ;-) 40-hour days! YES!
Or, hmmm. Maybe the alarm set button doesn't work on the iPod alarm clock. We'll take it back tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Fri. September 9: Debugging. Or maybe defrogging would be a better word. Anyway, do not disturb.
Sat. September 10: It is now only 3 days until we drop Mouse off for her first year in and even though we have been through all of this before and should probably know better, we are spending these last few days shopping until we drop. And compared to some others out there who are sending their little darlings off to spread their wings, I am gonna guess we are minimalists. TV? With 600 pages to read a week (or is it more, Liz?) who has time to watch TV? So, no, she is not taking a TV. Heck, she doesn't watch it anyway. Or a DVD player (there's one on her computer). Or a fancy stereo set-up or a bunch of furniture. The furniture in her dorm is bolted down so there's not a lot of opportunity for improvisation anyway. She's taking a microwave that The Beautiful Renee used when she went to college a few years back and a refrigerator that Lizard Breath bought freshman year from one of her friends who needed a bigger one for some reason. Yes, of course, she has a computer. A computer is an absolute essential! Parents, PLEASE don't make your kids go to school without one! The 21st century is here. We are in it! Just because you are a computer-phobic dinosaur doesn't make your kid one too. What else? Her iPod, cell phone, a few dishes, food, toiletries, needles and thread, office and cleaning supplies. Decent garbage bags. I think about the only luxury we splurged on was the iPod alarm clock, which we hope doesn't fail since we've already exchanged it once. Oh, and a nice orange, narrow-mouthed Nalgene bottle. Y'all know what a Nalgene bottle is? Neither did I. I don't *think* it'll fail...
We passed on all of that gimmicky "dorm decor" stuff that all the big-box home decor stores push every summer. Liz had one of those collapsible laundry baskets that are everywhere. "Oh, that looks cool and useful too!" we exclaimed. It promptly went into a failure mode only to be replaced with the plain old Rubbermaid variety. Never again. And there are all kinds of kitschy looking lamps and chairs and shelves and storage boxes, etc., etc., ad nauseam. All in whatever set of colors the "industry" decides are gonna be THE colors of the year. This year that's orange, kind of an olive green, purple and I forget what else, probably some kind of pink. But K college is just about the last college in the whole country to get started, so we are really at about the bitter end of the season and all that dorm crap is starting to get the bum's rush and be replaced by Halloween and (eek) Christmas garbage.
This is all kind of fun in a way except for the screaming of the debit card. Especially the trips to the grocery store. Usually, I am pretty darn direct about the grocery store. If I am organized, I have a list. If I'm not organized, I am usually buying only what I can take through the u-scan. I do not spend a whole lot of time rubber-necking around. Grab and dash. I get irritated when I have to wade through ten different kinds of tomato sauce cans (for example) to find "plain." I get even more irritated when I make a grab for "plain" and get home only to discover I have grabbed "Mexican" or whatever. But Mouse has decisions to make these days. How much macaroni and cheese? What size boxes of soy milk? 6-pack of ramen noodles or individual packs? Mint-chocolate cocoa mix or plain? And that takes time. Which gives me time to stick my head up and discover all of the wonderful new varieties of Oreo cookies and whatnot that are out there that I will probably never buy.
Anyway, I think we are done. My debit card can breathe a few sighs of relief. I keep telling myself that once she's gone there'll only be two people here and food'll cost less. We'll see. We're taking tomorrow off. No shopping. Monday is left open for anything we might possibly have forgotten. I do not know what that could be. And then we get up early Tuesday morning and take off. That's enough rambling for now. I'm going for a walk.
Sun. September 11: Omigosh!! I totally forgot about the yarn hamper or "yarn bottomless pit" as one of Mouse's friends calls it. What did *you* all do with your yarn stashes when *you* went to college? Uh, y'all *had* yarn stashes when you went to college, right?
Mon. September 12: "If I had a pokit if it wus big anuf I wod pot my mouse in it if I had more I wod pot mor mis in it" -- Mus Musculus, 1993
One more day. Septuple-tasking.
Tue. September 13: It's after 10 PM. Have you done your blahg yet? bladladladladl or whatever. So, somehow the POC survived having all *four* of its tires go over a HUGE curb today in front of Hoben Hall at Kalamazoo College. Well, 2 things here: (1) the tires are not very old actually, thanks to the fact that my brother would always check out the tires on whatever vee-hickle I happened to be drovening and took great fun in using my debit card to purchase new ones and then we would all wait for the GG to notice that I had new tires >:->> (aside to the GG, I'm just teasing you). And, oh yeah, there was supposed to be (2), right? (2) I can clearly remember Grandaddy, Keeper of All Siberian Fin Vee-hickles Back In the Day, emphatically ordering me to LET HIM KNOW if I ever drove(n) over anything awful. Omigod, like I would actually *tell* him where I'd been drovening? Roight. Anyway, the POC, except for one rather extreme vibrational episode on the way home, did GREAT for this trip. We finally determined it was something to do with the road surface. Jim, wherever you are, the tires were actually OK :-) And does anyone want to buy the POC? It has a colorful history: no accidents but it was hit by a tornado (we were in it) and a tree fell on it (we were not in it but we *were* in the adjacent house.) Relatives excepted. Never sell a car to a relative...
But all of that is not the point. We dropped Mus Musculus off at college today. If you can call it a "drop off" since Kayak Woman did approximately half of the schlepping of things up the stairs. There were a few moments when I almost wished I could also leave the GG there at K with the kids. I wondered if I could live alone with Froggy and his accomplices (grok grok) and whether I would need a new guinea pig or two. But Mouse brought me to reality with a similar gesture to the one she used when I walked her over to kindergarten at good old Haisley School umpteen million years or so ago. GET OUT! So, we high-tailed it back to A2 and then *I* had to go to school over at WCC. And there's a furnace estimator coming tomorrow morning. Life goes on.
Wed. September 14: Okay, now that there are no kids here for the first time in 21 years, I am gonna pick this house up, turn it upside down and shake it until all of the junk, crap, crud, corruption and cosmic debris falls out. And I am not going to put anything back into it unless I *really* want it. Hold on to your hats. Oh wait. I have homework to do first...
Thu. September 15: JHMK! I am sorry but I cannot abide people who know *everything* and feel the need to make sure everyone else knows what they know (or think they know) whether anyone else gives a rat's ass or not, 'scuse my language. Grrrr.
Fri. September 16: I am in trouble today because although I had tentative plans to visit the Westgate Kroger, I got so wrapped up in programming that I never got there. I am addicted to programming and I do not know if it is a good addiction or a bad addiction. And I am trying to pare the kitchen down to the bare basics so I can start over again but that means that there is currently NO snack type junk food here. At this moment, I can actually open the refrigerator door and SEE what is there withOUT moving items around. Unfortunately, it is mostly pickle and mustard products. Who knows why. But the junk/snack food situation is so dire that the GG is making an emergency snack run. I WILL regain control of this house and this ugly frog grok GROK and fruit fly infested kitchen if it is the last thing I do! (Hmmm, Froggy? Does that mean you are talking to me again?)
Sat. September 17: <reading>152 pages of reading this week. Before I actually counted up the number of pages assigned for this week, I was thinking, gee, this is just about as much reading as is probably typical at a small, expensive, private college. It seemed a bit intimidating. But, really, 152 pages is probably more in line with a community college certificate program. But WCC is not your average community college and I am in an *intense* certificate program, and added to the thinking, writing, and coding I have to do this week plus all the other YAG and household stuff that I *should* be doing but am mostly neglecting, 152 pages is a lot!</reading><not />
Sun. September 18: "Do I look like a birder?" Your choice of clothing for today does fit the 21st century stereotype that brings to mind "birder." You have the goofy hat and the binoculars and your clothing is approximately the correct color, somewhere between beige and khaki. About the only thing you are missing is the [insert-favorite-bird-here] t-shirt. I have to say, the "birder" outfit is an improvement over the "visiting my kids' college campus" outfit worn earlier in the week: Shaky Jake t-shirt, shorts, goofy hat, some sort of tennis shoes and beige mid-calf socks.
Anyway, someone who sometimes kinda wonders if the GG and I need a 5-week vacation from each other called today and asked how we were doing. The implication being, "have you killed each other yet?" Well, no... As a matter of fact, we had FUN today! We went to Hawkfest! It is fall migration season and Lake Erie Metro Park is filled with birders and all their gear. Binoculars and telescopes, fold-up chairs, charts and graphs and prob'ly laptops these days but I didn't get close enough to see. Anyway, we moseyed on down there and had breakfast and I walked the entire shoreline and all the nature trails (10-mile day, yay! I was overdue for one-a those). And I saw Big Uglies off in the hazy distance but I couldn't even begin to read their names even with binoculars. And among other cute birdies, we met Clarence, a 22-year-old one-winged Great Horned Owl who has lived in captivity his whole life after having his wing crushed when he was a baby. The tree his birdhouse was attached to was cut down while he and his sibling were in the birdhouse. His sibling was killed. Clarence is older than *my* oldest baby! "Ancient" as one inquisitive little girl called him. I wish I had a picture but I was lazy and left my camera in the car.
So, yes! We really are doing okay without kids! And that is all! Happy spaghetti! And exclamation points!!!!!!!!!! :-)
Mon. September 19: "Mom, can you send my 9 inch pie plates over?" Hmm, pie plates, eh? All of them? Where are you going to keep them? Next to your yarn bottomless pit, I guess. How many of y'all forgot to take your pie plates to college? ;-)
Tue. September 20: Aaarrrrggghh!!! Shoreline dreams! Totally bizarre ones. Only a globally cataclysmic geological event could do that to the shoreline. Except it couldn't make a new island *with fully grown red pine trees* appear halfway between the beach and Guano Island overnight. Among other things I can't even describe. To heck with those stupid old freighter-coming-inside-the-island dreams. What on *earth* is my brain trying to sort out? Or is it just the full moon? Ow ow ow owooooooh! Yours truly, Volcano Mama, Charter Member, The Sisters of Aaarrrrggghh.
Wed. September 21: The good news? Hmmm. Well, I have a good group for once. I have had some horrendously awful groups during my latest educational sojourn. But other than that, I cannot think of one darn bit of good news. In fact, right at the moment, life is pretty goddamn crappy. It'll get better again. In the meantime, anyone up for a guest blahg?
Thu. September 22: Over and out. End of another career. If I had my druthers, I'd be halfway up the I75 SUV Speedway right now, hurtling toward that fantasy island with the big old pine trees. But instead I am here slogging along through Web Coding III Lab assignment 3. I dunno what I'll do next. All my life, I have been a slacker with an odd little collection of talents and traits. Music. Beading. Mathematics. Running a sewing machine at 100 mph. Computer programming. Writing, sorta. SPELLING! Accounting. Database management. Project management (uh, I didn't know I *did* that until I started taking a class about it, duh). Art, prob'ly, except that I regret having no training. I am hypersensitively perceptive, agonizingly so sometimes. Nuclear powered. Possessed with a sense of humor that can oscillate wildly between silly and sardonic. Or seemingly disappear completely if something important needs to get done. Now, here I am, feeling like 25 but hurtling rapidly toward old bagdom. What is next? What *do* I want to do when I grow up? Guess I may as well get back to my coding homework...
Fri. September 23: Ah, yes. Infinite loop. My all-time favorite computer programming insect :-/
Sat. September 24: After a summer of vagabonding around living out of an LL Bean duffle bag and Honda Accord trunk, this weekend is actually an Event Full weekend where I have to actually wear something besides raggedy shorts, etc. Today's event was a memorial lunch for my uncle Tatsuo who died in January 2005. He was married to my aunt Roberta and I won't say how old she is but there are not very many people who reach her age at all, let alone remain in full control of their mental faculties and look elegant as well. Heck, I am only 51 but I dress like a bag lady most of the time. Anyway, when I was a kid, Roberta always kept me supplied with origami paper and instruction books and I appreciate that more than she probably knows. Last spring when Lizard Breath had just returned from Spain, we spent a day at Roberta's, helping her sort out some esoteric computer issues so she can get down to her latest project, which is writing. And all I've got to say is Roberta, you go girl!! Like you always have!!
Sun. September 25: Another Event Full day! Stone School Co-operative Nursery celebrated its 50th birthday and burned the mortgage today and we were invited to the party! We were actively involved in Stone School for 5 years. Each of our kids were enrolled there for 2 years. Plus there was a year in the middle of all that when neither of our kids were involved (Lizard Breath went to kindergarten and Mouse was too young for the co-op) when the GG was somehow shang-haied into serving as the co-president. Today is a happy day. Over the years, the co-op has experienced many brushes with death. During the GG's tenure as co-pres, the building was owned by that champion of education, The Ann Arbor Public Schools. In the infinitely superior wisdom of the board and administration of the public schools, it was decreed that our little co-op's rent would be increased by a factor of 10! Yeah, you read that right. 10 times the current rent. For a historic building they really didn't want and hadn't the slightest idea about how to manage. I believe one board member said something like, "it scares the bejabbers out of me that we own a historic building". Many meetings and long nights at school board meetings ensued. I won't go through all the what happened nexts because it would be long and boring to read and I don't have a good grip on the facts anyway. But eventually, the co-op had a chance to purchase the building, raised the funds for the down payment and now, not too many years later, the mortgage is paid off.
And so we went to the party. Meg, the ex-pres who tapped the GG for the job, was there. The teachers that Mouse had were both there, still teaching at the co-op after 17 years. A city council member brought some sort of official document of praise. And the woman who was a founding member of the co-op and driving force in the push to buy the building. And lots and lots of young moms and dads and current students at the school and their siblings. It was noisy! I wished I could've heard the speakers better. But it felt great to know that for once, something that we were involved in as volunteers had a successful, happy ending. I needed that. It should be obvious that the building in the pic is Stone School. And y'all might guess that the little pink and purple persons are Mouse and Lizard Breath. An enlarged and framed version of that picture was inside the school today. I bet I was the only person in the room who knew who those kids were :-)
Cheers to Stone School. We'll be there in 2011 when the building turns 100.
Mon. September 26: Rrrrg. Locked inside javascript and can't get out. And, no it isn't that infernal infinite loop insect. I swatted him to smithereens in pretty short order. Now I am into the nitty gritty of the ifs, fors, ands, whiles, buts, and what have yous. And although I have (I *think*) won a battle this morning, the war is not over. Plus I have to read umpty nine hundred pages and create a persona. And I'd hafta look up what else.
Tue. September 27: Well, I have been a pretty spaced out klutz lately and totally ragged around the edges and I have done some rash things that may have been necessary in the cause of preserving sanity in the long run but are certainly not making me very happy in the short run. I plan on continuing to live anyway. I do not like to brag about grades, well maybe it's fun in front of my kids >:->> but I think it is in bad taste in general. But I needed some good news tonight and I got it. If I read the grades from my project management class accurately, I have perfect points so far! May they stay that way!!! And I *think* I am actually getting a handle on how to add behavior to web pages by using externally located javascript to access xhtml elements via the Document Object Model level 1. Did y'all understand that? ;-) And just for the record, my kids are very hard workers and they earn good grades too and I am proud of them :-) Y'all won't hear a whole lot about grades on this here blahg. If'n ya do, just hit me and knock some sense back into me, please!
Wed. September 28: How the heck do I write about such a boring day:
Well, that was actually quite a lot for a boring day. And it WAS boring. But y'all'll get over it! :-)
Thu. September 29: Let's see. Froggy grokGROK and Smokie ooh ooh ooh ah ah are aboard and strapped in, along with Clammy, Orange Baby and New Mouse. Original Mouse has moved to Kalamazoo and where she is hard at work as a muse, so Froggy grokGROK and I now have custody of New Mouse. My polartech socks, gloves, ski band, scarf and ski jacket are packed in anticipation of whatever the heck The Great White North decides to throw at us. Back onto the I75 SUV Speedway. Clunkety clunkety clunk. See ya on the beach!
Fri. September 30: <grrr>You are acting like your dad. Or maybe it's my dad you are acting like. Or both? And, while I'm at it, I DO (!!!) know that urushiol oil is not an element, therefore, I DID change "atoms of urushiol oil" to "particles of urushiol oil". DAYS AGO!!! Because *I* noticed it and I KNEW it was inaccurate! Fer chrissake, I even know all the conic sections! Engineers. Sheesh!</grrr>