Category Archives: Family

regardless, there are always highlights

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No one really wants to hear about the weather in a blog post, unless it’s raining grasshoppers or something else unusual, but it’s stupidly hot in Michigan. I always forget that September really is still summer, despite my dreams of frost on the pumpkin.

I’m grumpy because of the heat and what felt like a short weekend mostly spent, it seemed, preparing for another work week. Nobody tells you that once you’re a grownup, a 40 hour work week is just the tip of the iceberg. You also need to count hours spent commuting and doing laundry and grocery shopping and food prepping and all that other stuff just so you have your shit together just to spend all those hours at work.

Regardless, there are always highlights. Brandon and his cousin got his shelves installed, and Emmett promptly had to crawl all over them to investigate.

Saturday night we walked down to our local 1920’s-era movie theater, which is a thriving contributor to our little Main Street, offering live music out front on summer weekend evenings and $5 shows for not-quite-second run films. We saw “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”, Quentin Tarantino’s reimagining of the Manson Family murders. It was a bit bloated, but I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed a movie more in the past year or so. I’ve done a lot of reading about that timeframe and being able to see the Spahn Ranch, Cielo Drive, etc – or at least reasonable facsimiles thereof – was fascinating. I loved both Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in their roles, and seeing faces like Timothy Olyphant and Bruce Dern in cameos was fun, too. Sharon Tate was miscast, and although Tarantino admirably restrains himself from his usual penchant for gratuitous violence during 98% of the film, the 2% in which he lets loose and indulges himself is pretty stomach-churning. Despite that, a very fun film, and we stopped off at our local corner bar to have a drink and decompress before walking home. I love that about our little village- Main Street’s bars, restaurants, movie theater and library are just a short walk away.

We went for a run that was supposed to be 10 miles but only ended up being 8, just due to our schedule, and Miss L and I hit up the season’s first vintage toy & collectible show. I love these things. The people are awesomely geeky and there are always treasures. I snagged a couple of vintage horror comics and a print of the Creature from the Black Lagoon for my retro horror mantelpiece display.

Pot Roast had another visit to our neighborhood vet last week and after a vitamin shot and another mega dose of probiotics, and another round of antibiotics (“time to pill the Roast” is a common evening statement in our house), she’s on the mend. Pooping in the litterbox is a vastly underrated skill in a cat that you don’t admire as much as you should until they don’t.

Hope you’re all enjoying your early week thus far.

xo

dow gardens

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Brandon’s parents are retired and relocating to warmer climes soon, and, as always seems to be the case before one leaves a homeplace, they have a short list of Michigan things to do and see before they go. We helped them cross one of their items off their list this weekend, with a day jaunt to Dow Gardens and the newish Whiting Forest canopy walk. I still have a bit of PTSD from living there after graduating from college, when I worked for the Evil Conservative Chemical Company empire that rules the roost up there, but for Brandon I suppressed my shudder of distaste.

We loved the gardens, and they had an origami sculpture event going on, too, so the whole afternoon was really enjoyable. The canopy walk was a little less than I expected, but Miss L really enjoyed it and so did Brandon’s folks. There isn’t any significant color change in the trees  to notice yet, but it can’t be far off.

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I’ve been knitting baby mitts for the asylum seekers in Maine, and watching “Outlander”, and listening to a great book on Audible, “The Stranger Diaries” by Elly Griffiths. It’s perfectly gothic and creepy for early autumn. Miss L is collecting bits and pieces for her costume to visit the Renaissance Festival in a couple of weeks – an Elfin warrior queen – and we had a supremely enjoyable girls’ day on Saturday, shopping for shoes and new outfits for middle school, and a sushi lunch. Pot Roast is still periodically afflicted, but seems improved and we’ll ALL be glad when the nightly “pilling” sessions of antibiotics are over – she has a follow up visit on Wednesday and hopefully all will be well.

The next six to eight weeks are my favorite time of year. We have Ren Fest for Miss L to look forward to, and vintage toy show season is starting up, too – I’m hoping to find some good Halloween collectibles. We have long runs at Kensington to prep for the November Rock & Roll half marathon in Savannah and we just signed up for the Detroit Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day before the big parade (we’re doing the Drumstick Double event, both the 5k and the 10k). Lots to look forward to, life is good.

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the short week

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Why do short weeks always seem the longest? I think because everyone has to fit 5 days of work into 4. Plus, although Labor Day is a sort of secondary holiday in the pantheon of US holidays, it marks a big seasonal change for those of us far enough north to experience it, and it’s also sort of the unofficial “New Year” for everyone in school or with school age children. So in my house, the short week after Labor Day is summer end; it’s back to school, back to a different schedule, more routine. Which translates into getting up earlier – Miss L’s school starts an hour earlier, she is riding the bus, so her mornings are early and now mine are too. I actually really enjoy this – I’m most productive in the morning hours and getting to work at an earlier hour means I just get more done, I feel better, etc.

So last week’s short week was also stressful because as a mom, I was full of trepidation and anxiety about Miss L’s transition to middle school. I remember middle school as an absolute horror show. I was miserable to the point of feeling sick every day when I had to walk into what felt like an absolutely chaotic zoo full of mean kids, the horrors of gym class and lockers with combinations, and teachers who didn’t care about me because I was just one of many. This of course was not true, but it took me a solid year to find my footing and feel even a little bit comfortable there, and I was terrified that Miss L would have the same experience. However, she is a different kid than I was, more confident, independent, and resilient, and although I know it won’t all be smooth sailing (understatement of the year), her first week was better than I could have hoped for.

Pot Roast’s tummy troubles continued and necessitated a vet visit. She did not enjoy this one bit and was so grateful to be home with us when it was over, even forgiving me for sprinkling her food with probiotics and forcing antibiotic pills down her throat once a day.

Anyway, it’s Monday again and let’s hope this normal-sized week feels better than the abbreviated one, for us all! I’ll be back tomorrow with a quick update on our weekend dining adventure in Detroit.

bountiful

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And now, Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. I worked from home for a few days last week to finish out Miss L’s last week of summer holiday and the windows were open, the breeze is cool and the skies are so very blue. The cicadas grind in the trees and it’s my favorite time of year.

Brandon has been working in Miss L’s old room to paint and put up his map collection in preparation for it to become his new study. He’ll be building shelves next. We hit up the hardware store for some supplies and I stocked up on finch socks because the little golden birds have already stripped my coneflowers.

The cooler temps have meant that the windows are open for sleeping, and on Sunday night I was awakened twice by a loudmouthed little owl in the yard – I Googled the call in the morning and identified it as an Eastern Screech-Owl. I’ve had them in the yard before, but I don’t usually hear them at night, so it was kind of a treat for geeky birdloving me.

Sadly, our girl Pot Roast has had some digestive issues – we think related to the cheap wet food that Emmett and Sarge feel absolutely passionate about – so there have been some messes to clean up, mostly in the middle of the night in the most inconvenient places. I’ve switched her to a Royal Canin for sensitive tums and hope that will help, otherwise it will be a trip to the vet for the littlest gangster.

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We rounded out our long weekend with a Tigers game on Saturday night and wonder of wonders, they actually beat the Twins and we got to see a couple of home runs! Before the game, we had burgers, beers for me and Brandon, and a milkshake for Miss L at Lovers Only. I tried the Impossible Burger for the first time and probably would not have known it was not beef, except then I tried Miss L’s Classic Smash and there was a difference. We agreed that for convenience and proximity to Comerica and ease of in-and-out, Lovers Only can’t be beat, but the milkshakes at Royale with Cheese are much better. And I will always rank the olive burger at Checker Bar highly!

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I did some meal prep for the shortish work week – overnight oats with some frozen blueberries and a quinoa & white bean skillet for lunches. Also a sweet potato which I’ll pair with black beans and kale later this week.

Sometimes it’s nice to go away for a long holiday weekend but I like this kind, too, where we just stay at home.

I am hoping that everyone in Hurricane Dorian’s path is safe and sound and if they’ve chosen to evacuate, that they’ll be home again soon.

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in which the best thing is a birthday

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The big thing this past weekend was Miss L’s birthday. I cannot believe my little one is 11 and entering middle school this year. It goes without saying that she is the light of my life and I could devote endless pages to her, except that is a little icky because, you know, her safety and privacy. I usually keep her off the blog, except peripherally. However, I will post a pic of her cake, which Busch’s kindly personalized with our favorite dragons.

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And Emmett didn’t quite understand WHY he didn’t get any presents.

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After her celebrations with us on Saturday, she went to her dad’s house on Sunday to celebrate with her family there, and Brandon and I were off for our last long run before next weekend’s Crim. Unfortunately I slept in until almost 9 and Brandon was afraid to wake me up.  I heard him tiptoe in, put his running shorts on, stare at me hopefully for awhile, then leave again. At some point later, I smelled a mug of coffee being put by my head, and after clearing his throat and whispering, “It’s getting really hot out”, he wisely retreated quickly. I was grumpy about it from the very beginning, having no time to wake up gradually and enjoy the morning and my coffee; and he was right, the weather was atrociously hot and humid and as a result it was one of the worst runs I’ve had in months.

Our plan was to do a 3-mile out to our local nature park, do a couple of miles on the trails, and then 3 miles back the same way; however, we got there and spent a long time in front of the bottle-filling water station, and I just wanted to lay down in front of it, continually filling and swilling my hand-held, and Brandon maybe realized that things were going downhill (NOT literally). So we decided to try for more distance inside the park, where it was at least shady, and a shorter 2-mile route back. Of course, inside the park is steep trails, so what we got in shade we lost in hills, and I was basically baked for the 2 miles back, which I spent staring at Brandon’s back as he charged up hills like the engine that could. I pulled the pin at 7.5 excruciatingly slow and frustrating and painful miles and walked the rest of the way while Brandon chugged away ahead of me. He chirpily fist-bumped me and enthused that it was a great sampling of what the Crim will be like next weekend – “MUCH hotter and MUCH hillier” – and I tried not to vomit and pass out at the thought.

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Anyway, I’m looking forward to a week of catching up at work (although “looking forward to” is not really accurate, should maybe be “have no choice about”), and Workplace Violence training in which I apparently learn what to do in case of an active shooter on-site. I am already prepared for this, as my plan is to hide in someone’s locker, although come to think of it I last checked that I could fit into one of those lockers when I was 20 lbs lighter, so maybe I’d better re-validate that as an option.

Pursuant to the 20 lb comment, I’ve been tracking my calories and water intake with Lose It! for the last four weeks, and staying away from wine (this after aforementioned Lose It! documented Cabernet Sauvignon as my top caloric expenditure, with grilled chicken a very distant second, which I felt was WRONG somehow and should be addressed. However, there’s still cake in the refrigerator and ice cream in the icebox so I have to figure out my plan relative to those things, which may just be f- it, I deserve it since I’m not drinking any calories, and I have a horrible death run on Saturday in FLINT, and if the Workplace Violence training is all it’s cracked up to be, maybe I don’t even need to worry about fitting into a locker after all.

late summer

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Miss L and I were up north for several days last week visiting my awesome parents and had a lovely time on the beach. My folks are wonderful and we love spending time with them and the extra benefit is we can fish and enjoy Lake Michigan and the Sleeping Bear while we’re there, too. We spent lots of time outside in the sun getting brown and bug-bit, we ate ice cream and had dinner at Dinghy’s in Frankfort, we visited Fishtown (where I was supposed to run a fundraising 5k in July, but due to the timing of a scheduled trip to Cedar Point with my brother’s family, I had to scratch. I feel sad that I didn’t get that t-shirt. But next year).
The water levels are very high and we watched a small boy drop his fishing line in the channel and pull out fat fish as the tourist crowds milled past. And we had breakfast at the local eatery in the village where friends of my folks were providing live music – they’re a married duo with a guitar and a flute and they did music for beautiful and popular children’s book called “Paddle to the Sea”. I will confess to getting a little misty at some of their songs invoking Paddle’s journey via the Great Lakes and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean.
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I read three books – my Charles Manson beach read, which ended up feeling a little scattered and not satisfying, “The Immortalists” by Chloe Benjamin which I read quickly but also did not enjoy, and a book by the daughter of the BTK serial killer which only stood out to me because of all the times she mentioned Arby’s and Taco Bell. I’d be a serial killer, too, if that’s all I ate. (I’m a grump with my summer reading, I guess, but just wait til I post my thoughts on the book I’m reading NOW – “My Lovely Wife” by Samantha Downing, which may be the most grump-inducing of all).

It all went too fast, as it always does. Still, I managed to do some productive things done besides reading – I had a work conference call AND I pounded out 8 miles on the Betsie Valley trail to fulfill my “long run” obligations. It felt better than the 8 miles Brandon and I did last weekend at Kensington, which was an excruciating miserable slog.
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And yes, for anyone keeping track, I’m still running. I mean, I’m not running *well*, but I’m doggedly logging the miles. I’ve gained weight, I am very slow and lazy, and I don’t feel good about my times. I’m running for the finish line, not the finish time, which makes me embarrassed to tell people that I run, because if the person I tell is another runner, they inevitably ask about my paces, and I have to tell them that my average pace (which used to be between 9 / 9:30 per training mile and under 9 for race miles) is now a solid sub-12 minute mile (barely) for training runs and between 10 & 11 for race miles. And I know what other runners think, because I used to think the exact same thing, which is are you really running if you’re running 11 and 12’s? I hate to say that because it sounds so condescending and snotty now but runners care about their times and now because I’m a slow runner, there are no more gleeful post-run or pre-run selfies to smear all over social media because I know I can be modestly proud of my finish time.
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As previously mentioned, Brandon and I are running the Crim 10-mile in Flint next week and are going up for a romantic (haha) evening in a hotel the night before so we don’t have to get up at 4 AM to drive there and pick up our packets. (I booked our room on Expedia and received an email confirmation “CONGRATULATIONS YOU’RE GOING TO FLINT” which, if you’ve ever been to Flint, is hard to view as anything other than cutting sarcasm on Expedia’s part.)

I’m a little concerned as my last run had to be cut short because of shin pain. I’m very leery of any kind of shin pain because of the terrible shin splints I had several years ago, which resulted in a stress fracture that cut short my fast running days, which will likely never return. Brandon and I are planning another long run this weekend so I’m going to lay off until then, wear my compression sleeve, and hopefully see improvement. I made it through a half marathon training cycle in February and March without shin issues so that’s something I’m clinging to.
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Anyway, that’s the update from late summer here in suburban Elysia, where the days are fading in some ways and brightening in others, and the roads smell like sun-baked fields and a few tired, dusty leaves are beginning an early drift to earth. This time of year will always invoke a pleasant melancholy that is pure nostalgia for my childhood days when I knew summer was growing old and back-to-school clothes and pencils were right around the corner.

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melting snowdrifts

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I was more than ready for a break when Miss L & I headed up north last week. I have a great flexibility with my job that allows me to work from home when I need it, but it’s still work. First quarter was a long slog without any real time off to speak of, trips to Japan and Mexico, a book fair, a half marathon, Girl Scout cookie sales, and the usual juggling of house, Miss L’s activities, work, etc. So a few days without any responsibility was just what I needed to refill my well a bit.

The weather was sunny one day, rainy the next, and we planned our activities accordingly. We went shopping in Traverse City and Glen Arbor; we got coffees and went to Interlochen and had dinner at Dinghy’s in Frankfort. Miss L learned to knit (!) – I finished a book – Kingdom of the Blind by Louise Penny, the latest Gamache mystery – and my mom’s Tokyo Sunrise socks in the Jaywalker pattern (unfortunately they rushed off the needles and I didn’t get a picture and they may be too big but knit happens).

I got one nice 4-miler in along the Betsie River bike path, and went out with Miss L another day to do a Couch to 5k workout with her, at her request.

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Later that day, my mom & Miss L & I went out to the Pierce Stocking scenic overlook in the Sleeping Bear. The roads and the scenic overlooks are still closed for winter, but you can park by the guard shack and hike, if you don’t mind lingering snow pack, remains of winter storm damage, and the uncanny echoing emptiness of the big woods all around you. It goes without saying that we didn’t mind, and the feel of the warm spring sunshine on our faces while we picked our way over melting drifts was wonderful. It’s what makes living in Michigan so amazing – spring takes so long, but it always comes, inexorably, with dripping drifts and small snowmelt rivers running downhill and a warm breeze in the pines, speaking.

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We came home downstate to nearly 70 degree temperatures, but a promise of snowfall later in the week. I always miss my parents and being up north, but it’s also time to be home, pay bills, sleep in my own bed, do the laundry, and get back to work. I hope you all had a lovely break, if you took one, and feel ready to go back to your regular life. xoxo

day late and a dollar short (hello 2019)

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josie aka ‘pot roast’ has settled into our home beautifully

Hello, my name is Sara and I used to blog here. My blog friends will understand that I am less than disciplined and regular about my posting and it’s always hard to sit down and write the first few sentences after one of my absences. Yet somehow I always do and here I am again.

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it’s been a mild winter so far…

I’m tempted to write up a 2018 Year In Review post but it’s a day late and a dollar short on that one, as we’re now well and truly into 2019. Suffice it to say, my 2018 was one of my best years yet. I didn’t knit that sweater, but I did read 52 books as planned and ran more miles than I’d forecast (most of them dramatically slower than I’d have liked, but oh well). I took on new challenges, projects and teammates at work, and although I didn’t travel during 2018, next week I’ll be on a plane to Japan. Miss L continues to grow as an intelligent, funny, lovely, caring young lady who is my absolute favorite person in the world. As always, one of my proudest accomplishments is the way that her father and I have continued to work together with respect and consideration to raise her.

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there’s been a lot of hygge knitting. check me out on ravelry (sixtenpine)

B.’s job has brought him home to Michigan and fingers crossed, he will spend at least half of 2019 here, living with me. Our life together is a happy one. Sometimes I think of life as a road and if the rough patches of my prior troubles, bad relationships and poor decisions had to happen to travel to a place where I can him in my life, they were all worth it.

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hosted b’s family for his birthday dinner on christmas day – last year’s cake was elvis, this year he wanted morrissey!

I’m hoping it won’t be so long until I chat here again, but in the meantime, I hope you are all well and happy, and that your 2019 proves to be better than your 2018.

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let the new year in like a snow squall across the lake

 

josephine

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Trust me when I say that I really didn’t need anything else to take care of at this exact moment in my life. The end of summer is always insane. I’m trying to keep up with new responsibilities at my job, I have a summer friend who is coming home soon and no doubt expecting to find a girlfriend who will be able to spend time with him, Miss L and birthday festivities, book club, yoga class, a family wedding and charter fishing trip, and the usual trying to keep a house clean / yard trimmed (“Not the Best Lawn On the Block but Not the Worst”), and two cats. Also trying to carve out self care time. So when L and I rocked up to PetSmart last weekend, it was intended to be a quick pit stop to grab some kitty litter before heading to Home Depot to buy a replacement furnace filter as I realized at some point that the existing filter had likely not been changed since my ex-husband moved out.

The best laid plans.

I wrote on Facebook that sometimes true love happens at the most inconvenient and unexpected times and this was true for Miss L. The minute she laid eyes on the tiny striped ball of fluff in the cage in the adoption room, she lost her heart irretrievably and that was that. I am a pushover and I love animals too and two hours (yes it really did take that long to fill out paperwork with some bighearted but organizationally and administratively challenged rescue ladies) later we walked out with Josephine.

My cats are two big boys and they are not particularly nice even to each other sometimes. So we are taking the introduction period very slowly. We’re also relying on Jackson Galaxy to provide instruction. Josie has taken up residence in a spare bedroom that has morphed over the years from unused business room to unused playroom (and is really just a receptacle for stuff I don’t know what to do with). L and I did a psycho cleaning session to get it kitten-ready. She is an intrepid little thing and hates being locked away from the rest of us so we try to scent-swap,and let her explore rooms when the boys are elsewhere. We do feeding sessions together with the boys on one side of a pet gate and Josie on the other (the pet gate is not entirely effective unless she’s preoccupied with a bowl of kitten slop, though – she can squeeze through one slat that is just a teeeeeeny bit wider than the others). And we’ve done some play sessions, and the boys have generally been very good. There have been some hisses and growls, but not nearly what I expected – and when it happens, it’s sort of understandable as Josie is quick and tends to charge at the boys (tiny tail straight up) and try to rub against them and Sarge will have NONE OF THIS. I think it’s mostly just them figuring out their hierarchy and she has to learn manners and learn the pecking order, so I’m encouraged and pleased by their progress.

I know that school starting isn’t necessarily going to put an end to the feeling of being overwhelmed and I certainly did myself no favors by getting a THIRD CAT but sometimes you just have to roll with it and realize that life doesn’t always go according to plan. Wish me luck as I navigate the next few weeks and try to keep all the plates spinning.

xo friends and happy weekend.

check in part three: entertainment

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ann arbor art fair – a summertime staple

I gave up my cable television several months ago because the only thing I tended to watch was the 6:00 news – I haven’t missed it. I’ve had a very lucky summer in terms of great books, podcasts, and original series on Prime & Netflix – so here are some of my favorites!

Books 

I’ve read several “just meh” books this summer (One Thousand White Women and I Was Anastasia spring immediately to mind) and yet in strokes of good fortune, these were balanced out with two of the best books I’ve read this year so far – Flat Broke with Two Goats and The Punishment She Deserves.

Going in reverse order, Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers are back together in the most recent Elizabeth George British mystery series installment The Punishment She Deserves and they’re as entertaining as ever. Lynley and Havers never seem to get old to me – their interaction is comfortable and funny and also refreshing and touching, all at the same time. I love stories of men and women who work together, will never have a romantic relationship or sexual tension, but truly love and respect each other nonetheless – I think that’s a hard dynamic to write well. And Elizabeth George always does it. Add in a typically convoluted case, complicated by a colleague dead set on bringing down Havers while struggling with her own secret alcoholism – and you have a beefy, satisfying read that ticked all the boxes.

In a totally different vein, Flat Broke with Two Goats is a mostly-lighthearted true story of a couple who lost it all during the 2008 recession and moved to a ramshackle cabin in North Carolina to try to get their finances and lives back in order. I love homesteading stories and by the time they’d acquired their chickens and the titular goats I was hooked. This has led me on a homesteading book spree and I’m sure at least one in the current stack by my bedside will end up in a future post.

Podcasts

My Favorite Murder, Criminal, and Thinking Sideways are perennial favorites that I’ve mentioned here before, but I also want to recommend Slow Burn, which is a Slate podcast with Season 1 about the Nixon Watergate scandal. It’s amazing to listen to the total fuckery that was Watergate and hear how Nixon’s supporters defended him – much the same way 45’s supporters defend him – by deflecting criticism back to Democratic candidates. During a lunchtime walk, I laughed out loud on the woods trail around my office when a scratchy old recording caught an indignant Nixon supporter screeching, “WHAT ABOUT CHAPPAQUIDDICK?” the same way today’s Trumpster might be heard to screech, “WHAT ABOUT CROOKED HILARY?”  Days or weeks before, of course, Nixon was forced to release his tapes and was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a criminal. The more things change, the more they stay the same. This podcast is also equal opportunity! Season 2 will be about Crooked Hillary! (well, okay, don’t get all Putin Passionate on me, my conservative friends, it will be about Bill’s impeachment.)
In the same socio-political vein, The RFK Tapes has been fascinating, too – an in-depth look at Sirhan Sirhan and the response to RFK’s assassination. This one is a bit more steeped in conspiracy theory – why did the actual autopsy not bear out the statements of eye-witnesses? Who was the girl in the polka-dot dress? What role did the Rosicrucians play? Was Sirhan the original Manchurian Candidate? But equally enjoyable and educational.
And Karina Longworth is back with the new season of You Must Remember This – Fact Checking Hollywood Babylon. I love old Hollywood and this season, Longworth deconstructs Kenneth Anger’s book “Hollywood Babylon” to examine the roots of many Hollywood myths. Recently released (and the accompaniment to a couple of my recent short runs) – Fatty Arbuckle and Virgina Rappe.

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street art by david zinn at the ann arbor art fair

Series 

My brother is famous for a few things – his hatred of crockpots, his affinity for chickens and Oreos, and his teenage confusion over states that start with a letter I, to name a few – and one of them is his propensity to drop into my life after a few weeks of radio silence to recommend a new series on Prime or Netflix that will ruin my life. I say “ruin my life” in a tongue in cheek way, meaning my productivity levels and desire to do anything except sit in front of the TV. He did this first with “Narcos” and I lost hours and hours of my life to  Pablo Escobar. Then it was “Bosch”, and I am ignoring everything else from him until I finish season 2 of “Marcella”. Which is good, but she fucks up so much that it’s hard to feel a lot of compassion for her…except when you stop to ask why her ex-husband is such an intolerable douche. And I actually really love her style. Great sweaters, messy-hair-don’t-care-I’m-solving-a-horrific-crime, cropped pants and brogues, great coats…

Honorable mention in this category to The Forest on Netflix, which is originally French, I think, so the subtitles made it hard for me to knit to – but suspenseful and interesting nonetheless, they sold it a bit as a sort of foreign Twin Peaks – a girl disappears in the forest and to find her, all her secrets must be revealed. Not in the Twin Peaks category or even close, but an absorbing diversion.

I hope you are well wherever you are – here in suburban Elysia we received a lot of rain this past weekend, which put a damper on the 5k that B & I ran on Saturday morning (my running shoes are still squelching). It did not, however, spoil our trip to Ann Arbor’s Art Fair on Sunday, as evidenced by the photos above. B is back to Iowa for a couple of weeks, then he will be back with me for a long vacation and to wait for his next assignment.

Summer sweeps past. xo

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