HOT TOPIC

 The reason I come to Michigan for the summer is to escape the heat of South Florida. I am a "Sun Bird". Snow Birds come to Florida in the winter to be warm.  I go to Michigan in the summer to be cool. I do not do well with Hot and Humid. I have too much natural insulation to withstand excessive heat, I generate enough of that on my own. So when the humidity starts to build in the Florida oven I am more than happy to leave town.

Likewise, The Man does not do well in Hot and Humid no matter where it is. There are a few days up here in the great northern reaches of his home state when the temperature AND humidity go berserk and it feels like we are back in my home state. But for the most part those days are few and far between. 

What it comes down to is we will travel four days in a car to get to a place that is warm but not HOT for The Man and cool but not COLD for me.  (Personally I could travel twenty minutes by plane to the Bahamas to experience the same perfect weather and ALSO have the benefit of sitting on a beach all day but The Man is not a beach person and he loves his farm, isolated though it may be. ( I know! I DO love it here too but the Bahamas has Pina Coladas and Rum Punch!)

Anyway . . .  Todays issue is not with Michigan or Florida but with the body temperature of the reptilian creature that I live with. No, I did not bring a lizard or alligator with me to Michigan, I am talking about, (No surprise here), The Man.   Once again !! And forever more !!

Yesterday was a warm and beautiful day. "WE" kept the windows closed because it was "too" warm and there was pollen in the air. (That fact is quite true). OK, so the house COULD have stayed cool except for the fact that SOMEONE who wasn't me turned on the heat in the morning when he got up. Now the house has "warmed" but too much so that by the time the heat is turned off by someone other than The Man it is also hot outside so we are living in a sweat box.  No problem for me, I just head outside and sit in the shade of my big old Maple tree. By evening when I am coming in it has cooled off so I can open the windows to cool off the house. (All that being done in Ninja Mode while The Man is distracted or in the bathroom.) 

Let me mention here that I love and NEED to sleep in a cool room. If the room is too warm I get a killer sinus headache while creating pools of sweat in the bed.  Not a good combination or a pretty sight. On the other side of this relationship The Reptile would sleep in a pizza oven with a temperature of 5 thousand degrees.  

This topic has been discussed here many times before. It is being revisited this morning because last night I went to bed with a killer sinus headache and this morning I woke up with a killer sinus headache.

Last night The Man had put on the AC in the bedroom because, and I quote, " It is a little stuffy in here".  If we had just cracked the windows it would NOT have been stuffy but that is not a suggestion I will make. Problem with The Man putting on the AC is that he sets the temperature at 82. Now in my world the point of turning on an air conditioner is to COOL the air. The Reptile just wants to DRY the air. Meanwhile BOTH of us are sleeping with CPap machines so the air is DRY coming from the machine. If The Man would just THINK about it, put on more clothes and get under the covers he can be DRY AND WARM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

And so whenI woke up with the headache from hell and I staggered out to the kitchen I was not a happy camper.  The Man sitting at the kitchen table IN HIS UNDERWEAR happier than a pig in poop because he was nice and toasty warm.  The alarm bell in my head went "Ding Ding". so when I got into the bathroom I felt the heating unit and sure enough THE HEAT WAS ON !!!   Air conditioner in the bedroom set at 82 and the heat in the house set at 80 !!!!

Please tell me if I am crazy or is this truly INSANE !  I am standing in the spare bedroom with the door shut and the window open.th It is wonderful. 

AND bonus . . . there are two BIG male turkeys strutting around on the side lawn with their tail feathers all puffed out trying to impress two female turkeys who are completely ignoring the two strutting idiots.   I guess the female turkeys are about as impressed with men as I am.

TICK WITHOUT THE TOCK

 Just when I thought I had life under control, (pause here for thirty minutes of hysterical laughter for even thinking I can be in control ), the Big Guy Upstairs quietly dumps something on me to remind me that I am NOT in control of ANYTHING ! It doesn't have to be anything major like cancer or brain bleeds or falling out of a plane without a parachute. No, the gentle reminders can be so small you might very well not notice them at all, until there are a million of them crawling on your clothes. 

I am speaking here about the most vile creatures that God ever created. T I C K S . . .   UGH !!!!!!

I HATE ticks !!!!  The little blood sucking bastards freak me out. Always have, always will. I am going to take a leap here in saying there isn't a person on this planet who likes ticks. They have lots of nasty little legs that allow them to crawl up your body at an incredible speed. They can be minuscule or massive, either way they are NASTY !

And so today when The Man's grand daughter cam running up to the house with her cousin screaming that they were COVERED in ticks my first instinct was to say, "Call your father". But being the "good" person that I am I calmly met the girls outside the back door to assess the situation.  It was NOT GOOD!  These girls were not kidding when they said they were "COVERED" in ticks.  They had ticks on their shoes, socks, pants and shirts. 

Welcome to the woods of the UP in the Spring.

Yesterday began quietly as is usual for our summers on the farm.  Being Sunday I went to church, came home and had breakfast with The Man.  I believe I wrote more about the rest of the morning and our picking up the girls. If I thought that was worth writing about I had no idea what was in store for me later in the day.  When we FINALLY got the girls back to the farm and The Man went in to take his nap, (being the smart man that he is and realizing I was in a VERY piss poor mood) With The Man out of the mix things settled down. The girls got set up out in the parlor where they welcomed my presence. They got out the checker board that GD4 (grand daughter #4) had discovered last summer.  I taught her how to play checkers so she was anxious to try playing against her cousin.  Cousin did not know how to play but caught on very quickly and it was an entertaining time watching the 2 of them try to out play each other. After that they moved on to "resting" with their phones in hand. I left them alone and all was well with the world. 

At some point after The Man woke up the girls showed their faces and asked if they could go outside. DUH!       OF COURSE YOU CAN GO OUTSIDE !  Out they bounced only to return a short while later complaining that it was TOO HOT !  (76 degrees with a breeze. But the sun WAS hot.) So back inside they went to continue doing what ever pre teen girls do. There was a short attempt at beading, (The Man has a treasure trove of beads that his wife used to craft the most amazing things.) At first The Man resisted allowing GD4 to even look at the beads but he finally gave in and chose a small array of things for the girls to work with.) Naturally that interest lasted all of about 5 minutes. As all this was going on I was preparing dinner. 

(Side note . . . are all kids this picky?  Everything I mentioned was met with. . . "I don't like that" until I TOLD them I was cooking burgers. They didn't even like potato chips with their burgers. ??????)

Dinner finished, dishes are done, (not by the girls for sure) and The Man is ready to crash. (All this change of routine is very upsetting to him) Little did he know what was about to happen.  It was at this point the girls asked if they could once again go outside. Again "OF COURSE" ! Five minutes later they are at the door asking if they can go into the woods by the drive way.  Without thinking I told them to go have fun. I never gave a thought to the multitude of creepy crawly flying critters that occupy this space in the spring.  The mosquitos are the size of Boeing 757's and travel in swarms that cover an entire field. Bug spray is a MUST up here.  And so out went the girls, The Man and I sat down to watch some TV and all was well with the world . . .  for about 5 minutes.

My phone rang . .  . I answered it . . . There is an hysterical girl on the phone screaming something about doing a wash, ticks, woods, covered, help help help !!!!!!  It seems that the girls went walking in the woods until one of them realized there were ticks all over her and her clothes.  GD4 had on black sweat pants and a black tee shirt. She could not see the ticks but little cousin in the tan shorts and white tee shirts could.  I told them I would meet them outside on the back patio.  All this while The Man is listening to my side of the conversation and saying, "WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?  THEY ARE NOT DOING A WASH!!!!I DIDN'T HAVE THEM COME HERE TO DO LAUNDRY!!!"  As usual I ignored him and went on out to access the situation. 

The girls were not kidding. Freaking ticks everywhere !!!!  I had the girls strip as much as possible and we put their tick laden clothes in a basket OUTSIDE.  They then went STRAIGHT to the shower leaving their clothes in another basket that I took outside and started to TICK PICK !!  Delightful game that I would rather not EVER play again.  When I thought I had all or most of the little bastards picked off I did a load of HOT HOT HOT water wash.  Good bye ticks !  Grandpa took a few hours to calm down and he did nothing.  

Today The man and the girls may have recovered but I am still scratching and looking for little black dots with legs. 

 

DON'T DO IT !!!

 If and when I should ever find myself in the position of being single again and a random man walks into my life and a friend says, "Oh sure you should go out with him. He is so nice" would you PLEASE tell me to run for my life and don't look back.

Lately I find myself thinking back to the year between Husband dying and The Man entering into my life. I remember how HAPPY I was to be "FREE".  Forty seven years of marriage, the last three of which I was helping poor husband deal with lung cancer.  It was not easy nor do I ever want to do it again but I don't regret a single moment of it.  When Husband finally lost his battle I was relieved.  Not relieved that he was gone but relieved of all the pressure and endless days of exhaustion trying to keep everyone OK.  (If you have gone through this you know what I am talking about.  If you haven't I pray you never have to experience it.)   

Anyway . . . I was sooooooooooo relieved and happy to only have myself to worry about for that way too short 13 months until The Man arrived in my life.  I tell everyone that God put me where he needed me to be. And I DO believe that but honestly, some days, I think I should have looked the other way. This is not to say I have not enjoyed the past 7 years with The Man. Because of him I have taken several exciting road trips to Alaska, gone Halibut fishing way off the coast of Alaska, spent many enjoyable summers living on the farm here in the UP, taken a cruise to Cuba and a few smaller cruises around the islands of the Caribbean Sea.  Wonderful adventures all.  

BUT . . .  I AM TIRED of once again being the care giver of an ailing man.  You know my stand on the male gender and my lack of faith in their intellect. When Husband was ill I blamed his lack of smarts on chemo. For The Man I blame it on his lack of oxygen getting to his brain because of his COPD.  But quite honestly I think both of these men have the same problem.  They just DON'T THINK !

Today is the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.  I got up at 7 AM to go to 8:30 mass.  Mass was wonderful, 7 AM was not.  It was 42 degrees this morning when I left the house and The Man was all warm and cozy under the covers.  When I got home from mass the sun had warmed up the world to almost 70 which felt wonderful.  Until I entered the house to find The Man sitting at the kitchen table in his underwear and the thermostat set at 80.  I should have just turned around and went back outside but I attempted to explain to The Man that it was LOVELY outside, warm and sunny. Perhaps he should turn off the heat and open the windows?  I won't even tell you how THAT suggestion was met.  So I went into the spare room to change into shorts and tank top and to open the window.  The next discussion was about picking up his almost 13 year old grand daughter to bring her to the farm for an over night stay, along with her 11 year old cousin.  These 2 young ladies have extremely crappy lives and so I encourage The Man to invite them out here. (Grand daughter LOVES the farm and when she is here she is no bother at all.) (At least I don't find her to be a bother.  It's another story for her grandfather.) The "production" begins with The Man's" question of . . . "How is she getting here?" Damn stupid question since her dad is a looser and her mother, (The Man's daughter) is not in the child's life.  (Super Crappy life for this kid)  So naturally when dealing with this child I ALWAYS pick her up and drop her off yet The Man ALWAYS has to rant and rave about why HE ALWAYS has to be the one to drive. (He doesn't drive, I do!)  

Moving on from that idiotic discussion we now get into The Man's plan. He will drive to get the girls and we will stop at his brother's house on the way home for a "short" visit.  These 2 girls no more want to visit more grownups than I do BUT this is The Man's plan.  When I suggest we make a stop to get the girls a burger so they can have something to eat while we "visit" that idea is met with much huffing and puffing and reasons why we shouldn't.  I slowly explain that we are picking the girls up at noon and they WILL be hungry. ( Teenagers are ALWAYS hungry) and this will give them something to do while we visit.  I also say I will pay for their lunch because that way I didn't think I would have to listen to the rants about their choices of food items.  (GOOD GOD . . .  was this man ever a kid???)  

Once we arrive at our visit it is about 300 degrees out in the yard where everyone is sitting and at the mosquitos are having a feast on all of us.  BUT . . . The Man, who never goes anywhere, is now seated by the CAMP FIRE and is loving life.  Everyone else is dying of heat stroke.  The girls eat their lunch, the mosquitos continue to eat their lunch and I am ready to pass out. After about 45 minutes I  suggest we should get going home and I am met with resistance on the part of The Man.  I let it go for another 15 minutes and then finally say, "WE REALLY have to go. I am melting here." (All the other parties involved in this visit are moving into the shade and drinking tons of water.) I walked over to the car, turned it on, opened all the windows and said, "Lets go!"  Mr Grumpy shuffled himself to the car, grump grump, grump . . . said good bye and as we are pulling out of the driveway he comes to a full stop. I look at him and he is bright red, trying to catch his breath because he is overheated and exhausted.  DUH !!!! DUH !!!! DUH!!!!!  I swear to God I could have wrapped his oxygen hose around his neck and strangled him.  As he is sitting there catching his breath and cooling down he says, "Wow, it was really hot there. I was ready to go a half hour ago".       Like I was the reason we stayed as long as we did !!!

I'm not sure if I am living in the same universe as The Man but I do know that I will NEVER EVER live with another man !!!

TIME TRAVEL

 Back to my trip to Atlanta  .  .  .  Which is something akin to "Back To The Future".  

One of the many unique things about the UP here in the great northern reaches of the state of Michigan is the fact that not only is the peninsula not actually attached to the state of Michigan but IS attached to the state of Wisconsin, but this great mass of land is cut down the center from North to South by a time zone. Half the peninsula is on Eastern Standard time and half of it is on Central time.  This always proves interesting when someone from Iron Mountain calls and says they will see us at 10:00. We then have to decide if they mean 10:00 OUR time or 10:00 THEIR time.  This thought only occurs to us after we have hung up the phone. Fortunately our time is ahead of their time so if we prepare for the call at 10 our time and no one calls we now know they meant their time so we just wait the hour for their call. It is also fun when we have an 11:00 appointment in Iron Mountain, which is an hour away,  but don't leave our house till 11:00.

The difficult part for me was trying to figure out just how much time I REALLY had for a lay-over between Minneapolis and Atlanta.  You see I left Escanaba at 10:42 AM and arrived at Iron Mountain at 10:15 AM.  (Having experienced going back in time.) We arrived at Minneapolis at 11:30, only one hour from when I left Escanaba even though I had been flying for two hours.  

It is at this point that my brain starts to hurt.

I am now in Minneapolis ready for my 2 hour flight that takes off at 1:30 PM yet arrives at Atlanta at 4:45PM three hours after I left.  

Is your brain starting to hurt yet? 

The trip home is more of the same confusion of times just in the reverse.  But none of this matters because I get there when I get there and The Man is at the airport to pick me up. Even though he apparently can not tell time.  His lack of being able to tell time did work in my favor last night when my plane arrived in Escanaba a half hour early. BUT . . . it did not work for me this morning when I asked The Man to wake me at 9:00 AM.  Fortunately I had woken up by myself at 8:00 so I was awake when he came into the bedroom at 8:15 to wake me.  FOURTY FIVE MINUTES BEFORE I ASKED HIM TO WAKE ME !!

This is not uncommon for the poor man.  He will tell me we will leave the house at a particular time and sure enough 45 minutes before we are "due" to leave he has his jacket on, car keys in his hand and is standing at the door ready to go.  DRIVES ME NUTS !!!!  

But you know I don't play that game. As he is standing at the door I will come into the room with the surprised look on my face while asking, "Oh My !  Am I late? Is it time to go already???"  Works every time.  He then has to come up with reasons why he is standing there like a cigar store Indian,                   (A reference our younger generation will not get.)  There is a lot of scrambling for why he is ready even though he had told me we would leave later and a litany of reasons why we really should get going earlier.  None of which make much sense to me.  

As a result of all this I no longer wear a watch. I just follow the crowd and get there when I get there.  

DRIVING TO ATLANTA ———- ON A PLANE

 Good morning Mary and Carol and all three of my other faithful followers.  It has been a while, which is proof that I am alive and well and too busy to write. A good busy, living life in Florida, enjoying all my friends and family who are there. But once again I have returned to the frozen fields of Upper Michigan for a lovely cool summer. (I hope). Spending all that “ALONE” time on the farm with just “The Man” , a herd of deer, wild turkeys, bald eagles, sand cranes, geese, birds galore and a whacked out squirrel who is in competition with Chippy the Chipmunk to see who can steal all the bird seed that lands on the ground leaves me with a lot of free time. It also provides me with a constant flow of materiel for blogs so hopefully you will hear from me more often. Sadly we did loose one of my most faithful followers just this past week.  My cousin Ann, who was 3 years younger than me passed away rather suddenly. Even though she was forever correcting my spelling and grammar I will miss her a lot.  Say a prayer for her please.

BUT . . . on to the topic at hand.  My trip to Atlanta to see my oldest grand daughter graduate from high school.  My little Abby is graduating !!!!!!  How the hell did that happen ? She was just born yesterday, or so it seems.  I vividly remember meeting her for the first time just days after she was born. My heart was over whelmed with love for this little person. I remember every precious visit we had with her these past 17 years and this past Tuesday I shared this momentous occasion with her and her family. WOW ! This is blowing my mind !  In a good way.  I can’t wait to see what she will do next!   

And that brings me to my trip from Escanaba MI to Atlanta GA.  Traveling ANYWHERE from Gladstone or Escanaba MI is an adventure. These two little towns are so far away from the rest of the world it takes hours to get to “civilization”.  So when I knew I would be going to see Abby I got out my credit card,  mortgaged the house, sold my car and most of my bodily organs so that I might afford the plane ticket. ((Not really, thanks to covid I had not traveled much and HAD shopped a LOT so I had plenty of Delta  sky miles to pay for the trip.  What I did not plan on was the convoluted way Delta arranges their flights. Especially ones that begin at Escanaba airport. This “airport” has one runway that is just long enough to accommodate a small jet. The one room terminal does not open its “security” until 20 minutes before take off so there is no need to arrive early. The loading of baggage and passengers takes all of three minutes and off we go.  Our next stop, Iron Mountain, MI. which is West of Gladstone. Dwayne and I drive to Iron Mountain at least twice a month because that is where the closest VA hospital is located.  It is a one hour drive.  It is a 14 minute plane ride.  That is the shortest flight I have ever been on. The one stewardess barely had time to go over the take off speech before she was giving the landing speech. And no, there was no in flight food service!  Once we landed in Iron Mountain airport which as far as I could tell is maybe slightly larger than Escanaba but still only one room half the passengers got off and just as many got on. (That would be about ten people. This plane is SMALL)  Now we take off going further West to get to Minneapolis Saint Paul airport. ( I would like to mention here that Atlanta is EAST of Gladstone while this entire time I have been in a plane that is flying WEST! )  After about an hour we arrived at Minneapolis.

And this is where we get to the driving part of my story. Minneapolis airport is just slightly larger than Escanaba and Iron Mountain by about 12 GAZZILLION times !  I have been to this airport just once before in my life and it is huge and spread out in all directions. Last time I was there I almost missed my connecting flight because I only had an hour to get from one gate  to another.  So when we landed and taxied for 20 minutes I knew I was in trouble again.  I swear to you that from the time the plane touched down to the time we got to a gate we drove at least twenty miles.  Runway after runway passing terminal after terminal.  Sure enough I get off the plane and look at what gate I am at.  GATE A 17.  I start walking till I can find one of those wonderful screens that will tell me where my connecting flight will be leaving from.  The screen is one that displays about 25 flights at a time and then every 7 seconds scrolls on to the next 25 and so on and so on. The first time Atlanta rolled around I missed my flight number because there were at least 10 Atlanta flights. Second time around I found my flight listed but missed what gate it was departing from. Third time was a charm and I got the information I needed . . . Gate G 18 !!  ALL the way a at the other end of the airport.  So I started walking and walking and walking. Finally I came to a tram station that would take me from gates “A” to gates “G”.  Or so I thought.   Funny joke . . .  One stop later at gates “B” there was the announcement to "depart here for gates B AND G”.   WAIT ??  WHAT ??? Did that just say “get off here for gate “G” ???  But I only went one stop ??  I stuck my head out to look at the signs in the terminal and sure enough there were arrows pointing to gate G. At the last second before the tram doors closed I jumped off and started walking again. Up the escalator and turn right and walk and walk some more.  Three days later (not really but it felt like it) sure enough I arrived at gate G18. It seems that gates G are on the other side of the road from where I got off the last plane.  This airport is weird!

I did make it to my connecting flight with plenty of time to spare but with sore feet and an elevated blood pressure along with the need to pee.  

Once I was on the plane to Atlanta we taxied another half hour before taking off.  Arriving at Atlanta brought me to another marathon walking to the train that will take me from what ever terminal I was in to baggage claim.  Good thing I had my Wheaties for breakfast.  (If you find my picture on a cereal box you will know why.)

Lucky for me my wonderful son drove all the way down to the airport to pick me up and drop me off so at least I wasn't walking up and down the Marta station waiting for a train to take me to and from the airport. 

My trip home from Atlanta was just as crazy as the trip there.  Thankfully the flights were all ON TIME but once again I ran the Airport Marathon 2023 trying to get from the INSANE security check in Atlanta at terminal G to the total opposite end of the airport terminal T where my plane would leave from.  Then arriving at Gates C in Minneapolis and hiking to Gate A to catch my flight back to Iron Mt. and Escanaba.  (It doesn't sound far but take my word for it, IT IS !)   I must have looked pretty haggard by the time I got off the Flight at gate C because I hadn't gone far when a very nice gentleman in an airport "golf cart" called to me asking if I wanted a ride.  HELL YES !!!  After I stopped hugging him I climbed on board and off we flew driving miles and miles through this endless terminal.  And again, once on the plane we taxied for about 15 minutes before the plane actually took off.  (I actually timed it and it was exactly 14 min and 37 seconds of "driving" before finally getting around to flying.)

But now I am home and I do not plan on driving or flying ANYWHERE for at least a week.