3 Days in One!

I basically had a three day weekend on the first day of a three day weekend.

The plan was for mrguy and I to go to breakfast. Then the call came. It was the rev. Her husband has been going through an awful and supremely painful and misdiagnosed and undiagnosed facial nerve pain. Everything hurts, all the time. A breeze can make him spasm. A neurologist would only meet him virtually, even when told that there were lumps forming in the painful areas. Primary doctor wouldn't refer him. Finally a dermatologist sent him for an emergency visit to a head and neck specialist. They think it's cancer, but the lesions are so hard that they can't get a biopsy. Developing.

My friend is devastated. She called. Nobody does that. I'm glad she did. Unsure of what to do for her, I asked if I could take her out of the house. She had a thing that she'd been invited to do in a neighboring ghost town. It's kinda inhabited, uninhabited, out of the way. I hadn't been there in decades. Well it turns out that there was some sort of art fair and a pop up and it was an embodiment of my friend. She finds the magical. I didn't quite understand where we were going or what we were doing, but I was down for whatever it was.

We drove the back way into town, which was windy and hot and dusty. I wasn't exactly sure where we were, but I figured that we were in the county somewhere. How lost could we be? Then we dropped into the main (possibly only) road. And found parking. 

A one block area had booths and tables set up. No crap. Only weirdness. Vintage and remade clothing. Garlands for sale that consisted entirely of jute string and the occasional old plaster baby leg. And the pop-up store that rev was looking for. 

In the back they were making Belgian waffles. In the middle were tables with a wine tasting area (we had n/a sprintzers). There was a woman with the most gorgeous hand dripped candles, and molded ones that were in the shape of chanterelles. There was a craft table for kids. And a woman who makes Polish chandeliers. They were gorgeous.

Then there was a store with cool old and new stuff. Ornamental items that looked like things you'd find in a general store in a German-American town in the 1930s.

and otherwise weird witchy stuff. Tis the season. She bought Abba-Zaba and Bottlecaps at a vintage t-shirt store. Then we went to a crystal store. What an amazing day.

I took rev home, and she gifted me with some figs for the way home. Green ones. Their flower ends were so devoid of flowery remains that I asked her if they'd gotten a Brazilian, which is usually the kind of joke that my friend of 46 years would find witty, but that shows you how dire the day's circumstances were. 

Then I headed to m.junior's open house to see if I could drop off some egg cartons. Her real estate partner said that I would find her at home. I've been hoarding egg cartons since m.junior's romantic partner posted on Insta that they needed some. Did I give them any in May? Nope. So they piled up in Tiger Brown. I was determined that this was going to be the day.

But first, REI. We are going to Ireland and I don't have a rain jacket. And I need a sling purse that will fit an iPad that can go under a rain jacket that I don't have. REI. Deep breath, people! It was a challenge, but I did what needed to be done, coming home with a plain black rain jacket and a sling purse that is in not-my-colors (goldenrod and lavender. what monsters came up with that combo?).

But we're not done. M.jr was home, so I went to her place and gave her many many egg cartons. She and her family have a wild compound. A guy lives in an airstream on her property. Her mom usually lives in Mexico but bought a huge RV to take down there with her. Many cars, many people pass through. They are a wonderful family. And then there are the chickens. They used to do Instagram stories about the chickens, building the coops, rehabbing furniture, welding. Aquanetta is the best-named chicken of all, and I'd never met her in person, so I asked to see her.

Here are the chickens being summoned with grain:

And here's Aquanetta, in the flesh. Her feathers are short and curl away from her body. Cute little bird person.

We are still not done. Our friend was coming over to hang out. So I made chili while those guys looked at maps, discussed Ireland, music, elderly parents, and life.

Then mrguy and I watched Derry Girls, episode 2.

A Final Layoff Post?

This past few weeks has been really sad.

Yesterday was my 26th anniversary at the forklift factory, and it was also the last day that laid off employees had their keycards. People were doing things for the last or first time, like using their newhire free lunch coupon that they had never used, or buying things at the company store, or asking the commissary to make their favorite cookie or dropping things off on the free table or selling a million things that were in their office. On Thursday while I was eating lunch with some friends, there was a young woman openly weeping at the table next to us and being consoled by her tablemates. On Tuesday and Thursday we did oral histories with 5 people. Despite the advance notice that layoffs were coming, so many people were caught unawares. My teammates especially. We are still in a state of shock.

We took our affected teammates to a very fancy lunch on Wednesday, which felt good, when it didn't also feel shitty. We met at the rose garden, and then lunched, and then I went for a walk with my old boss and caught her up on everything. She knew some stuff that I didn't. Anyway, it was while walking with her that I realized that I've outlasted all of my bosses and all of my enemies. Except one.

As I said, yesterday was my 26th anniversary and also the saddest day I have felt at the factory. I've been through the deaths, all but one of the layoffs, metoo, Covid. People have left their goodbye messages on Slack. And because Slack is ASS and doesn't have an archiving function, and since all of our goodbye messages in the past were sent by email, I am cutting and pasting every single goodbye Slack into an individual email message which I send to myself, with the subject line "Employee Name Slack Goodbye" with date sent. Then I move it to my Terminations folder so we can archive all of the contact information, past and present, in the same place. This means that I read every single one of those goodbyes.

One person said that she'd be sitting on the lawn near the front gate playing the theme song from Top Gun until she was disconnected from the company wifi. I will miss her.

After work, clam and I went to a bar to sew. Her husband was part of the layoff and stayed home with the rest of the champagne bottle they were working on when I arrived to pick her up. We quickly had a distracting moment on our way to the bar when we saw a guy in cream colored shorts and a lemon yellow golf shirt, facing the busy street. He was holding his phone pizza box style and talking to someone while simultaneously battering a tree with the force of his tremendous stream of urine. We started pointing at him and yelling, while I flipped him off. I don't need to see that. My people just got laid off!! Clam and I later agreed that he must have been drinking 40 ouncers because of the volume and light color of his flow.

That really was an interesting way to change the subject from sadness to outrage and observation. Then we sewed and drank beer and caught up on several weeks of news.

Today is another day.

Friend Stuff

I reconnected with an old friend last week. Neither of us is quite sure why we haven't been in touch.

I do better with scheduled togetherness. Otherwise I'm sure I'm bothering someone or it would be an intrusion. Setting our zoom schedule today.

In other news, on Sunday I went out to lunch with one of our bandmates. I had Chuchitos, in honor of our friend's Uncle Chooch, who I have never met but whose name I adore. Friend had fried chicken.

Then I went to a friend's house and took a walk with her 88 year old dad, who is recovering from a fall. Afterward he told her I was a "force of nature". I was on my best behavior! She said that he meant more like I'm a good egg. Whew. 

Then, back to the house where the man's son-in-law was having a beer with mrguy. I cooked pasta shells with beef marinara while the guys talked, and we ate together. It felt like a weekend.

This week's viewing:

• Renovation Aloha, Home Town, Sweet Magnolias (these are things we can watch while chewing). Then How To Get To Heaven From Belfast. Man, that's a great show.

Ingrediments for Sumo

Miss clam had a double bunionectomy. The viewing of last day of the basho was over at her house. I made mackerel mousse and risotto. It was delightful.

By the way, I am so in love with this lady. An admin in one of the sumo fb groups threatened to expel me for asking who she was. Reddit is a little / lot more promiscuous on the matter. Someone says that she's the head of one of the fan groups. For which rikishi or for which beya I do not know. She reminds me of my mom -- judging me through the screen.

Bonus sumotori armpit for y'all!

Freedom and Determinism

Hey. It's me! Waiting for pathology in the offices of the world's tallest Mohs surgeon. I think this will be a quickie. But while I'm waiting, with a bandage on my face and a drippy nose, might as well catch up on the weekend.

It rained this weekend, which was glorious. The boy kitten thanked me for putting his favorite blanket on the sofa. Mrguy has been consulting Key Ideas in Human Thought, one of our best pre-Internet reference sources.

Saturday was Irish genealogy club day. Two hours of good times, hints, things to pursue. 

And then, a little jaunt with the rev. We went for a rainy ride and some hot tea in Sugar City, where mrguy and I got married. That's her fetching elbow on the right, and the bridge in the distance on the left. We drove past the old old place. They've painted it blue. In the window? One of the many neighborhood cats in windows in that town that are distantly related to our old cat, nose. Nose and eyes were, themselves, spawn of a neighborhood ragdoll, mrbrownballs. We didn't get nose until we moved into the house next door to this one, so it's nice that it's now populated with one of his mishpoche.

I totally forgot to mention that our friend from the extinct ukulele band came over on Saturday night. What a treat! He just moved to our town and we're excited.

Sunday was a bagel and lox feast at the house of that nice guy's brother. We got to talk a little bit by ourselves, but mostly the day was spent in stories of their close-knit community. They were so lucky to have one another, and it seems like that nice guy's mom was one of the neighborhood's adhesives. She drove the kids, she edited the newsletter, she was the person who connected and networked, before that word existed. I wish I'd known her better, which is the desired achievement of every memorial.

Her friend had a psychic connection with the livingroom carpet.

The spreads were divine. I even ate my first chopped liver.

And now...we wait.

Feuerzangenbowle 2026

We finally did it. The feuerzangenbowle dinner. I bought the feuerzangenbowle set in 2022, then we had to wait for the pandemic to be over, and our friends to stop traveling for a minute. Then mrguy got cancer and then he got better, then our friend came over last month and he and I started talking about spaetzle and schnitzel. It was ON!

We had a couple weeks' notice. I was going to make chicken schnitzel. Couldn't remember what sauce I served with it last time, but I saw a recipe for chicken schnitzel with mustard sauce and I just so happen to have purchased a very large bottle of Bautz'ner senf (mittelscharf) that would just plus the whole thing.

Then I went to an estate sale the week before and bought a german cookie form for ten bucks. I have always wanted one! So I was going to need to make cookies. And during the week we did a bread baking class at a brewery, and I had amazing fresh bread to serve. And of course I made a compound butter to serve with it.

The first step in making feuerzangenbowle is to make mulled wine. I got all decorative with that sh$t so I could take a picture for readers of mrsguy. The leaves are from our allspice tree, purchased from fastgrowingtrees.com during the pandemic. The tree is not fast growing. It is still only four feet tall, but the leaves are delicious and I use them in applesauce...and flaming punch, now, I guess.

The cookies turned out great. I made a Dutch speculaas cookie dough and watched some YouTube videos on how to make the cookies. Should have made them the day before, which I will do next time.

Our friends brought sides and different kinds of spaetzle and accoutrements and we had a great dinner. One friend took over the making of the mustard sauce, and it was delish.

And then we made the punch after dinner. You take the heated punch and put it in the bowl. Unwrap the zuckerhut and put it on the metal thingie that is suspended over the warmed punch. Pour a ladle full of 58% rum over the sugar. Turn out the lights. Set it on fire and watch the melting, rum-soaked sugar drop into the punch. Although the guys started a quiet drone-chant of "feuerzangen, feuerzangen, feuerzangen bowle", this is not traditional. 

It was so fun!

3 Movies, 3 Days

Last Saturday I took Rev to see the new forklift movie. Then I got to show her the forklift archives, and I posed her for photos with forklifts so that she could show her mom.

On Sunday mrguy and I went to see the new Paul McCartney and Wings movie in a theater. Everybody in the theater was really old, and I felt younger than 50% of the audience and mrguy informed me that I was wrong about that. The pre-show music featured some of the worst Wings music ever made. You know how a Paul McCartney song starts out strong and then has a B part that is super squizzy? Those songs.

The movie itself was great. No repellent songs, because Morgan Neville has good taste. The film was more about the people than the music, I'd say. I didn't realize that Denny Laine was a stalwart of the Wings band while others came and went. There were cute animals. Mrguy is really moved by cute animals.

Then we grabbed felafel at the place across the street and went home. It was a perfect day.

On Monday, clamdip2020 and I went to see "Homecoming: the Tokyo Series" about Japan and baseball. What's not to like? We got there early, which allowed us time to go to the new huge Japanese supermarket. And then the movie. It was so good! It centered around specific games held in Tokyo, but told the stories of various people who follow baseball. Americans who came to Japan for the games, athletes who were born in Japan but playing for MLB teams, a mom and son who run a baseball program for little kids, a place where you can rehab your vintage mitt, a guy who is a hair stylist and also keeps a museum for one of the players. It was great. Highly recommended.

Vacation -- A Saturday

Ask me about Twix Head Spa. You can find their videos on YouTube. Also ASMR. And autism.

And now that you did, yesterday was rough. The murder of Alex Pretti happened. Multiple eyewitness videos documented the incident including, presumably, his own. That's the second ICE murder in Minneapolis in a week. It's easy to feel helpless in these times. Also guilty, because it's the first day of my vacation and we are going to Hawaii. But I located the scheduled protest locations in Honolulu, and am bringing cardboard and some markers in my suitcase.

I was too depressed to do much. I worked on my vacation list of things to do. Then I went to get a mani-pedi because I knew the result would make me feel more human. My usual place (the place where I've been a time or two) was busy so I picked a larger place that I'd never been to before. It was very nice.

I mostly like mani-pedis when they're over. There's the question of whether or not to interact with the stylist. There's the scrubbing of the bottom of the foot (I warned her that I might scream, and I clasped my face the whole time). Then there's trying to fiddle with your purse to pay without ruining the manicure.

All success! But it was a sensory extravaganza. There was soft female music playing. A song about a sweater that was polyester. And the world's longest ASMR video where they do things to a lady's head and hair. Endless, endless treatments. Steam, water, ointments, soaps, halo contraptions that are suspended over the hairline and shower you with tiny jets of whatever. Then the neck massage with a thin, smooth rock, and an arm massage. At one point I asked the manicurist if the treatment ever ends. I guess my expectation was that you'd dry off.

Occasionally she'd press a button on my chair and the uncomfortable lumps would move around on my back. Massage. I did try to lean into the experience, because you should.

As usual, I felt really good after the mani-pedi was over. But getting to that point is a sensory overload.

When I got home our dear friend was there. We hung out until late in the night (for us!). I fell asleep watching an autistic comedian and doing online tests about autism. She had me at clothing tags being too scratchy. Also I think her tone has affected the tone of this post. But I feel somewhat seen ; )

I woke up and told mrguy about the salon experience. It made him anxious. Maybe I'm making you anxious as well.

Is Minnesota the place where our next civil war will take place? I would not have guessed.

Things That Tickled My Fancy on Christmas Eve

Yesterday cack and blick came over for the end-of-year visit. It was deeelightful. We ate mole and caught up on 6 months of news and laughed our butts off.

Today I had two different video appointments for a doctor procedure in January. Should be a small thing but they have to put me under in order to do it. Then I finished up a work project, sent an explanatory email to coworkers and made a big old batch of twice-baked potatoes.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, mrguy had chemo today. Scheduling is scheduling, and there you go. My joke was that Cancer Santa brought him chemo. Here's what that would look like:

In other news I very much appreciated this warning from the weather channel the other day.

A few days ago I made apple and otherstuff sauce from my own elder hoard: apples, pears, persimmons, allspice leaf. I have deemed it delicious. It also made the house smell really nice. I watched Shop Around the Corner (1940) while I cooked, and that was downright Christmassy. You know it's that backlot Budapest that made me want to go to the real one all those years ago.

It is excellent to have nothing to do for the rest of the day. I forgot to trim the tree, so I'm not doing that. I did put some solar lights on the three lumps of the topiary mugo pine, so we're not entirely unfestive. I am very much enjoying their subtle colored blinking.

OK, one more thing to like. I was going to take some shredding to the shredding place and they updated their holiday hours on the interwebs so I know that they are closed until Friday. So thoughtful!

What? Genealogy Breakthrough

Today we cracked the code. Mrguy and I have been trying to figure out what happened to his grandfather's first wife for decades. Last week he picked up the search again, and today he had an out of the box idea. He researched one of his half aunts in a local paper that is only found in a local history library. It listed one of her survivors as a mrs somebody of Los Angeles.

I took that and found her in the census, under that name, with a grandchild whose name we recognized. It was her. Mrguy's grandfather was a traveling shoe salesman for a while, and his first wife divorced him for desertion. We learned this years ago while researching his second marriage. In the marriage application you had to confess your previous marriages and he stated clearly that he had been divorced. I asked for the divorce decree, and they couldn't find it. Thanks, Doug-who-was-going-to-call-me-back-the-next-day-a-year-ago-and-didn't. At least Doug didn't cash the check.

Anyhoo, we would have never known about his step-grandmother's next life if he hadn't found that obituary today. We spent the whole rest of the day doing genealogy.

I'm headed to the land of my birth tomorrow afternoon, to go to the funeral of that nice guy's mom. Such a lovely obituary. Really interesting. And I know obits. It got me thinking, again. So I spent the last half of the afternoon researching that nice guy's family. Sooooper interesting. On his mom's side they come from Ukraine in the early 20th century. Excellent Eastern European surnames. Fantastic job titles.

That surely cheers a person up. The ability to dive in and imagine the past, retrieve the information?

Love it.

Cussing.

The prompt: write about cussing. About whether or not you cuss, and when and why. About whether that has changed over time.

I grew up in a non-cussing household. As a young child I was not allowed to use the word "butt". As a teenager my dad dragged me into the bathroom and forced me to bite down on a bar of soap after he heard me softly complain with a "shit". It was really humiliating. He later joked about my "teeth of Ivory", because zingers fixed everything, in his point of view. It was the last week before I left for college, and he was struggling with the idea of losing me. He shouldn't have worried. I continued to make mistakes and offer him opportunities to shame me for years to come.

We didn't start swearing around the house until he died. And I didn't really break free with my mom until I was far beyond her grasp monetarily and emotionally. I knew swearing bothered her, so I did it. Gave me a little thrill.

Over the years, she started using an occasional cuss word herself. The first was "bitch" and I think that says a lot. Not shit. Not asshole. Not fucker. Bitch. Her strongest words were saved for female Democratic politicians that she hated. Diane Feinstein, Hillary Clinton and, most of all, Nancy Pelosi.

As her dementia kicked in, the words were released. She used all of them. It was the one of the few sources of power she had at her disposal. That and put-downs consisting of the words she still knew could hurt you. One Christmas she told me that I wanted her dead so I could go in the fields and "fuck boys". In our last conversation she threatened me without using profanities, and I was half-impressed!

By the end, my mom, who was once really proper, who was remembered as a mom who shushed you at a sleepover, had taken to using an F-bomb as often as she pleased. She often embarrassed her caregivers, who were nice church ladies, to the point at which one of them chastised her:  "Mama. We are married ladies and we know what that word means. Please do not say that word!!"

I, over time, have come to love a blend of something deeply and creatively vulgar (mostly to the amusement of my husband and friends) and the random "Poopy!!" or "Holy cow". I like the mix, just as I like wearing something I got at Goodwill alongside a piece of nice jewelry.

One final word on swearing -- I had a friend whose greatest expression of tenderness was the words "Shit, Fool". It took on various meanings, depending on her inflection. These conversations usually took place on the phone.

Me: "My boyfriend just broke up with me..."

Her, slowly: "Shit, Fool!" (tender solidarity)

or

Me: "I just got that job I wanted"

Her, brightly: "SHIT, Fool!!" (astonishment, congratulations)

Back then we were so close that she could call me "Fool", and it would warm the cockles of my heart. Not sure if that's normal. Was it too much in the "He hit me and it felt like a kiss" vein? I think the proper response was "Thank you".

Today, if she called me, I would say nothing at all.

The Last Potato Pancake

At one point while I was driving around on Saturday, I got a text from my ex-boss that she was having a really really final day at the restaurant and a final toast. I rsvped yes. Then I got a text from the former GM asking if I was going and whether I'd see if I could rally the ladies. None of them were available, but then a plan formed where a bunch of us who worked together circa 1990-1993 would share a final meal.

But first I had an afternoon date with my girlfriend and neighbor at the wine and dog bar. Very fun to catch up and drink wine and pet dogs.

Sunday was delightful, with a walk with a different girlfriend. It was good to get out in nature-ish. She showed me a beach where we could swim if we have another heat wave. Then I had a bit of a rest and went out to the final meal. It was fun and loud and tasty. The GM and I share a name and he'd brought his daughter and a son who also shares his/our name. It's been so long since I'd been in a room with so many people with our name. Someone would say the name and three of us would turn our heads. Reminded me of Friday nights where there were three of us. I had to change my waitress name on my tickets (usually a letter) because GM had claimed that letter.

Anyhoo, I had my final potato cheese pancake with a side salad. Eaten with my hands, rolled up together in bites. It was a perfect potato cheese pancake. Not because it was the final one, and in fact I had a kinda sub-par one a month ago. It is just that it was perfect.

I took the GM and his kids to public transit. So he heard my latest podcast listen -- a history of women in hip hop. He knows how little I know about the subject and cracked up that I was a) interested b) listening to something so academic about music. I'm back in my own lane now, by the way, listening to the story of people who collect eiderdown from duck nests on an island in Norway.

On Monday, after a walk with my tiny but mighty friend, I had a thought. A good one, not like most of my thoughts. It's been weighing on me that I want to get rid of my 19 typewriters, but didn't know how. Some are enormous and not in good shape. In a flash of brilliance I remembered the reuse / recycle place that's near work.

This is what a dozen-ish typewriters look like in Tiger Brown. And on a cart. I feel accomplished!

While I was cleaning the garage I was inspired to find a home for my clown painting. I put it on the free table, making a lady at work very happy.

And just a few more pictures from the week. Mrguy sent me this photo of boy kitten relaxing on a pillow near his Clayton Bailey jug, enjoying his window.

Also there was a shipwreck at the ob/gyn.

July 2025

4th of July weekend has been splendid. On Friday we hung out and I did genealogy in the afternoon. Then we watched the Toronto Blujays prevail over the Angels. Then the city next door did it's annual July 3rd fireworks show and we watched it from the sofa. It was clear on the holiday weekend!

Yesterday I went to the dog park with a friend. We saw this adorable creature (gopher?) digging up the tan bark outside the dog wash place. 

Then we ate a little breakfast and caught up on life. Then we did a little walking and met some nice dogs. I warned her in advance that I'm super afraid of dogs. Hers are tiny, with one spry dog and one old dog who needed to be carried part of the way. This little girl had too much fun.

We also saw pelicans in the distance above us. Ahhh.

I got to hang out a little bit at home, and then went to see a screening of a 4k remastered version of This Is Spinal Tap. It did not disappoint.

Finally, I went out with ms clam to drink an adult beverage and sew. It was delightful.

This morning mrguy and I took our time but then officially started our garage triage. I bought some stickers (colored dogs) to help us see at a glance what decisions had been made for our various items. Then I made a drop off at Goodwill and did some laundry. 

I'm kinda sleepy.