Steven Harper Piziks

A large chunk of the family this year couldn't be at a Thursday Thanksgiving, so we had ours on Friday.

This turned out rather nice, actually.  I had all day Thursday for Thanksgiving prep. Much better than cramming it all in on Wednesday after work! 

I also picked up my sister Bethany from the airport that evening.  She reported that if you want to travel over Thanksgiving, the best time to do it is on Thanksgiving itself. No crowds at the airport, and everyone was in a low-key, mellow mood.  She helped with Thanksgiving prep, too!

We had about twenty people, all told, including three small children.  It was a full house!  But our new condo was up to the task--it had all the room we needed for everyone.

I had an addition to the Thanksgiving festivities: drinks! 

A while ago, I took an online class in the basics of mixology from Tammy's Tastings. I really didn't know anything much about mixing drinks, and I thought it would be a fun to learn. Adds to my interest in cooking.  The class taught the basics and gave us recipes for a margarita, a Manhattan, and a mojito.  As it happens, margaritas are a favorite drink in my family, so I decided to add them to the rotation.

The margaritas were a big hit. I made them with fresh limes and tequila with agave and glasses rimmed with kosher salt.  Good stuff. My brother Paul also likes Manhattans, so I made him one of those, and he said it was wonderful.

Big piles of food were consumed, grandchildren played with, so much talk exchanged.  It was our first family gathering since the pandemic began, but we've all been vaccinated, so we felt safe about getting together. There was a lot of pent-up socializing!

Afterward came the epic cleanup.  But now it's all done--until Christmas...

The last kitten was proving crafty.  Every time I went down to check, the two traps were open and the gray kitten was nowhere in sight.

Finally, I went down and, from a distance, saw the gray kitten perched on top of the carrier with its mother and litter-mates.  It was showing no interest in entering the trap.  Could I maybe catch it?

The problem here was that we were under a time limit.  Jen, the cat rescue volunteer, had a function this evening, and we had to get the cats corralled before that. Otherwise, the cats would have to stay in the trap overnight, which would cause all kinds of problems.  We couldn't leave the occupied trap out at night.  Other animals would certainly find the kittens interesting.  We couldn't bring the carrier with assorted cats into our condo.  So we had to get this sorted quickly, within the hour, in fact.

I slipped closer.  The breeze was with me, blowing my scent away from the cats.  The kitten hopped down from the trap and wandered back toward the shed, around the corner from me, which meant it couldn't see me.  I sneaked up and peered around the corner.  The kitten was sitting just in front of the gap beneath the shed where the cats had been living.  No way I could move fast enough to grab it.

The mother cat caught sight of me from the trap, and she growled.  The gray kitten, hearing her warning, backed up, but didn't quite go under the shed.  It didn't want to be alone.  It still didn't notice me.  I waited, and waited, and waited some more.

Eventually, the kitten wandered back toward the traps.  I held my breath.  It tottered toward the middle trap, the one with its family, and I again wondered if I could move fast enough to snatch it up.  Problem was, a mistake or miscalculation would let it escape and also freak it out so much, it probably wouldn't emerge from the shed for several hours.  I tensed, ready to move, hoping I could pull it off.

The kitten abruptly turned and sauntered into one of the open traps.  It stood halfway in, halfway out, nibbling on some of the food in the entryway.  I was going to move on it, then changed my mind and waited a little more.  The kitten took one step, and then another, and it was fully inside the trap, though it hadn't gotten to the trigger mechanism.  I jumped out of hiding and smacked the trap's door.  It fell shut with a clank.

The kitten totally freaked out.  It hissed and spat and attacked the door, but the door wouldn't move.  The other kittens turned into a squirming, spitting mass in sympathy.

I set the kitten's trap against the other occupied trap, lifted both doors, and managed to shoo the gay kitten in with its family.  All the kittens were captured!

I called Jen, who was thrilled to get the news.  She said she would come right over.

Meanwhile, one of our neighbors came down to talk to us.  She was a very nice lady with a thick accent, and her name was Hoshi.  She told us she'd been watching the cats and was hoping someone would help them.  We were talking with her when Jen showed up.

Darwin and I helped load the traps into Jen's truck.  Hoshi was concerned that the rescue group would put the cats down, and Jen assured her they didn't ever do that.  Darwin and I made a sizeable donation by check to Feral Kitty Trappers, and when Hoshi saw that, she said, "Wait!  I want to give money, too!"  She dashed back to her unit and came back with some bills for Jen, who was happy to have both.

The kittens and the mother will spend the night at Jen's in a room in her house, and tomorrow they'll go to a foster caregiver.  So we have a happy ending for all.

Our condominium complex has a small storage shed. It sits on blocks in a corner of the parking lot.  About a week ago, we residents noticed The Kittens.

Kittens spilled out from underneath the shed like popcorn from a popper.  One, two, three . . . seven in all.  We have a calico, two blacks, a gray, two tabbies, and a tuxedo.  They're completely adorable.  They play under the nearby trees and chase each other across the grass.  Best estimate is that they're five weeks old.  Their mother watches. She looks haggard. Nursing seven kittens is a lot of work.  All of them vanish under the shed when any human gets too close.

The condo association Board was wringing its hands.  Woe is us!  What shall we do with Teh Kittehs?  We can't think of anything!  All we can do iz tell residents not to feed Kittehs, 'cuz if we don't feeds dem, dey not stay anymore and will move away and be problemz for someone elz.

Seriously?  THAT was their solution?

Darwin and I went down to the shed with some cans of cat food.  We cracked open a can, scattered the contents on the grass beside the shed, sat down a few feet away, and waited.

Within a couple minutes, kitten heads poked out from under the shed.  Something sure smelled good!  Finally, two of the braver ones crept out and found manna from humans.  Their success encouraged the rest to come out, and the mother finally joined them. 

This told us that the cats weren't feral.  The mother acted more like a shy stray than a feral.  The kittens were wary, and they wouldn't let us get close enough to touch them, but they didn't act like wild animals, either.  They were probably rescuable.  We think the mother was dumped when her owner learned she was pregnant.

We left the cats more food, against the hand-wringing Board's order, and went back inside, where I revved up the Internet.  I Googled and I posted notices on local bulletin boards, searching for groups that rescue such cats.  In a short time, I had the names of several organizations.  I looked up their web sites and started sending emails.

The next day, I was chatting with Jen from Trapping Feral Kitties, a volunteer rescue group in nearby Pontiac.  She agreed that the kittens could probably be rehabilitated, and possibly the mother, too.  She came out today, the same day I talked to her, with a set of traps for us to set tomorrow morning, when the cats are likely to be active.  The plan is to do our best to catch the mother, because the kittens will follow her anywhere.  We're not above using captured kittens as bait for the mother, either!

After they're captured, TFK will put them up with fosters and see if they can be trained to accept humans. We'll see what happens.

Meanwhile, I printed up flyers explaining what's going on and telling everyone to stay away from the traps, even if they see a cat in them.  I posted them around the complex.

See?  That wasn't so hard.

Meanwhile, we're keeping our fingers crossed for Teh Kittehs.

My sister Bethany recently moved to Colorado. It was a difficult move that involved packing up a house she'd lived in for more than 20 years, along with her two horses, all their gear, and even an outdoor riding pen.  Then there was the unpacking.  You may gape in awe!

Eventually, she got out there, but still felt nervous and unsettled.  She only knows a couple people out there, and they're mostly work-related folk.  So my brother Paul organized a family trip for him, my mother, and me to go see her.  Plane tickets were reasonable and Bethany has plenty of room for guests, so no need for a hotel. It was a win!

Mom drove down to Paul's house, and they drove together to Detroit Metro Airport, where I met them.  My mother has some mobility issues these days, and we discovered that this is both a minus and a plus at an airport.  Minus in that arranging for and maneuvering a wheelchair through an airport is a bit of a trick, plus because a person in a wheelchair goes straight to the head of the security line, and so do the people traveling with her.  I guess it was a wash.

The flight itself was boring, which is just how I like it.  We landed in Denver and dealt with a wheelchair bobble--there was supposed to be one waiting for us at the entry gate, but it turned out THREE people on the flight had requested wheelchairs, and only one chair actually showed up.  This caused some back-and-forth, and in the mess, I got separated from Paul and Mom.  But we all managed to find each other again through the magic of cell phones.  Mom co-opted a skycap to wheel her out to the car rental company shuttle bus (we tipped well), and we found ourselves at Hertz.  Here we had more bobbles with memberships and credit card numbers, but it was finally all ironed out.  Paul and I each got a rental car--the advantage of mature adulthood--so we wouldn't have to coordinate miscellaneous driving.

Bethany lives in a small town about an hour outside of Denver.  Her house is incredible.  A sprawling two-story ranch with a walkout basement floor that's basically a house all by itself.  This is where Paul and I stayed.  It has an enormous, luxurious barn for the horses, too, complete with a warm-water washing station and self-filling water stations and lots of pasture.

Paul and Mom and I, of course, first noticed the air.  Not only is Denver arid, it's also low pressure.  Bethany's house is actually higher than Denver's famous mile-high stature, and we noticed the difference!  I didn't quite struggle for breath, but I got winded way easier--a flight of stairs got me panting--and I found myself having to concentrate on my breathing.  Every so often, a wave of "a little hard to breathe, here" would hit me.  And I was thirsty almost all the time!  It was a strange experience.

On the first day, we helped Bethany do a bunch of finishing work on her house, mostly hanging pictures (she has a =lot= of pictures to hang, and many of them require multiple people) and arranging furniture.  We also went out to eat at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in the town.  Here we had the Dreaded Pepper Incident.  My order came with a roasted jalapeno the size of a sausage.  I can handle a fair amount of spicy, but I knew that this would be a Pepper Too Far, and said so.

"I'll take it!" Bethany said, and took a big bite.

It was like watching a cartoon.  A flush crawled up her face and she lost the power to speak.  Then the hiccups came.  I swear steam whistled from her ears.  She slugged down water and margarita in equal portions.

Paul couldn't quite believe the hype.  He snatched up the pepper and gave it test chomp.  Flush, mute, hiccups.  Mom and I were laughing so hard, the tears salted our margarita glasses.

I also impressed everyone with my gaydar by spotting two gay guys among the wait staff.

The next day was more touching up the house, but in the afternoon we went exploring.  Paul, who loves trail riding on a motorcycle, really wanted to try some mountain riding. He rented a motorcycle, found a trail that looked interesting, and persuaded us to follow him in Bethany's mega-truck so we could all have a look around.  This we did.

We weren't technically in the Rocky Mountains, but in some foothills that form a state park.  The trail started off as a fairly decent dirt road that climbed and curved steadily upward.  The scenery was wonderful.  Colorado's ranches and woods and meadows spread out far below us.  House-sized boulders and chunks of granite stuck up like giant's bones.

Paul zoomed ahead of us, then came back to find us, then zoomed ahead again.  Bethany gamely followed in the truck.  The road devolved into a rutted trail, and we were moving up and down like a drunken ship.  We came across truly rustic campsites and signs warning us about bears.  The scenery continued to amaze, and we stopped every so often to get out and admire it.  I came around a mega-boulder and discovered a cliff.  Yeek!  Several times, the family remarked that Darwin, who is acrophobic, wouldn't handle this trip well, but we found it lovely.

Eventually, the trail degraded too much for the truck to continue.  Paul decided to keep going and see where the trail came out and we agreed to meet up in a nearby town.  Bethany careful turned the truck around and we began the descent, with another pit stop at the parkapotty.  (Seriously, go Team Parks Department.)  Going down, I was, of course, sitting on the other side, so I got to see stuff I missed on the way up.

We made it safely to the bottom and headed into the town, where we stumbled across a brew pub and decided to eat there.  It turned out to be a great choice.  I'm not sure what it was, but I really liked the place.  The food was good, and so were the drinks. A live duo played guitar and sang, and it was just . . . perfect.  Paul found us, and reported a breathtaking ride down the other side of the foothills.

That evening, I ran on Bethany's treadmill and did my plank work.  I totally impressed myself--I did the full workout and didn't have breathing trouble. Go me!  Then I drove into Denver to see what the gay district was like. (Yes, Denver has a gay district.)  I wandered through a couple bars and struck up a conversation with a nice gay couple that fell just short of, "The next time you're out here, you can stay with us."  It's always fun to see what the LGBT scene is in another town.

Somewhere in here, I also made . .  The Pavlova.

I had come across the recipe for pavlova only recently and was dying to try it, but it's a HUGE dessert, and I didn't want to waste it on just Darwin and me. I decided it would be fun to try it out at Bethany's.  To make a pavlova, you whip egg whites, sugar, and vinegar into a meringue and bake it flat.  Then you make whipped cream and cut up whatever fruit you like. (I used strawberries and peaches.)  When the meringue cools, you spread the whipped cream and fruit on top of it, then roll it up and slice it for serving.  It turned into a big project, with everyone helping.  When it was done, we tried it.  Delicious!  The meringue was crispy outside, chewy inside.  The fruit and whipped cream were both tangy and sweet.  A great summer dessert, and fun to make.

I actually kind of became the self-appointed cook during this trip. We ate at restaurants in the evening, but I made breakfast every morning--scrambled eggs one day, pancakes the next.  It was fun cooking for a larger group.

The next day, we decided to hit Pikes Peak.  Pikes Peak is Colorado's most famous mountain and is 14,115 feet high. It's also a park. To get there, you have to drive through the town of Bust, Colorado, which, legend says, was formed by people who couldn't make it to Pikes Peak and they took the town's name from "Pikes Peak or bust!"

We packed a picnic lunch of thick sandwiches, chips, and pavlova, and headed out.

This time, Paul was driving his rental car.  We went past the entry tollbooth, got the rules explained to us by a very nice park ranger ("Stay in low gear. On the way down, use your engine to slow the car instead of the brakes. Stop here for a brake temperature check"), and wound our way upward.

The road up Pikes Peak is well-paved, but narrow and twisty.  There are several sets of hairpin turns.  You find yourself leaning back in your seat. Your ears pop several times, and you can FEEL the air thin out.  Meanwhile, the road beside you drops away.  You can see miles and miles.  Eventually, you can look over the edge and see far below you the road you just came up.  It twists like a snake.

The vegetation thins out the higher you go, and it gets chilly.  At the bottom, it was 80s and warm.  Up on the Peak, the sun shone ferociously and you could feel its heat, but the air was cold, a strange sensation.  Eventually, you get past the tree line, and the bare mountain top looks like Mars, with great piles of red rocks.

We stopped about halfway up at a park rest station and had out picnic lunch (pavlova!).  We were careful--it was easy to get winded.  Seriously.  Walk too fast, and you were out of breath.  Bethany was starting to feel nauseated and Paul was feeling anxiety.  Both are common symptom of altitude sickness.  We talked about turning around, but ultimately decided to keep on going.

At the very top, we found a startlingly-large parking lot, complete with several school buses. (!) How they got them around those hairpin turns I'll never know.  Paul wanted to head right back down--the altitude sickness was getting to him--but I persuaded him to stop for just a moment at the top.  "It would be a shame to come all this way and not at least get a couple pictures," I said.

The road follows the peak's ridge for quite a ways, and there are lots of places where you can say, "I'm at the top of Pikes Peak!"  Paul decided it would be okay to stop for a little bit.  I hopped out and picked my way across the martian surface to the edge for some photos.  Paul and Bethany and Mom decided to join me, and we found a piece of cardboard with "Pikes Peak 14,115 feet!" written on it in black Sharpie.  We posed with it, then tucked it back into the rocks for someone else to find. 

Being up there is definitely strange.  It's beautiful and literally breathtaking.  It's also pointedly hostile to human life.  It's cold and difficult to breathe, and one wrong step will send you to a messy, painful death.  This makes the Peak both exhilarating and frightening at the same time.  But we climbed the Peak!

The drive down was more than a little harrowing.  It took all of Paul's concentration to avoid burning up the brakes.  Some guy in a yellow car tailgated us for quite a ways, and Paul finally pulled over to let him by.  He zipped down the mountain until he caught up with the next car, which wasn't so accommodating. Yellow Car's brake lights were on all the way down the mountain, and we started smelling scorched brake fluid.  Not good, dude!

When we got halfway down, we encountered the brake check booth.  A park ranger stops you and checks the temperature of your brakes with an electronic thermometer.  Our windows were down, and when Yellow Car arrived at the booth, we heard the conversation with the park ranger.  The ranger checked the brakes and scolded Yellow Car for riding his brakes down.  His car was deemed unsafe for further travel, and he was directed to a special parking lot to wait for at least half an hour for his brakes to cool down.  Yellow Car tried to argue, but the ranger was adamant.  Finally, Yellow Car wrenched himself over into the parking lot with bad grace.  We were laughing at him as we approached the ranger, who gave us a clean bill of health and permission to continue.

We made it to the bottom safely (whoo!) and finally made our way to an Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed yet more good food.  We also agreed that the trail ride and Pikes Peak trips were extremely enjoyable experiences that we never wanted to do again.

That night, Mom and Bethany went to bed early, and Paul and I ended up having a long brother-to-brother talk that went on for hours, something we haven't done in a long time.

The next day was a lazier day, and we mostly rested.  In the evening, Bethany and Paul and I ended up with cocktails on her deck, looking up at endless stars and talking about nearly everything.

In the morning, we packed up and headed for the airport.  The plane ride home was equally dull--yay!  And when we landed, we immediately noticed the difference in the air.  It was so much easier to breathe!

It was a fine trip to Colorado, and we're looking forward to more of them.

Right at the beginning of the pandemic, Darwin's brother Shawn passed away in Arizona.  Darwin and Shawn weren't super close, but Darwin was still upset, and, worse, the pandemic prevented us from traveling down there.  On top of it all, Shawn's family down there ended up pushing most of the arrangements onto Darwin.  From a distance, he arranged to have Shawn cremated and his ashes sent up to Michigan.  Darwin wanted to have Shawn's ashes buried up in Onaway, Michigan, where his family has a burial plot, but the pandemic prevented that.  And so the ashes waited in our house in Commerce, and then the house in Albion, and then the condo in Waterford.

Now, though, the pandemic has calmed down, thanks to the vaccine, and I told Darwin that this would be an ideal time to bury Shawn.  We both had time now, and things are going to become extremely busy for us very soon.  He agreed.  We decided to head up to Onaway on Friday, inter the ashes, spend the night, and come home on Saturday.

I called the village and explained the situation to the clerk.  There was some back-and-forth while she checked records and such, but in the end she said everything was arranged and could we meet at the cemetery on Friday at one o'clock?  We could.

Meanwhile, the cremains were still in their original cardboard mailer.  Darwin very much liked the rosewood box with a tree carved on it that I'd found for my dad's ashes, so I ordered another one just like it for Shawn.  When it arrived, we transferred Shawn's ashes and sealed the box.

We made the three-hour drive in good time and arrived in Onaway.  It's a tiny town fairly close to Mackinac City that seems to depend on tourists for its living.  The graveyard is also tiny, and Darwin easily located the family plot.  It helped that someone had already dug a hole and left a traffic cone to mark the spot.  We were about half an hour early, and Darwin examined other family graves and shared stories about the people.

Eventually, the clerk arrived with a Department of Public Works worker in tow.  Darwin handed over the burial paperwork that had arrived with the ashes from Arizona, and she accompanied us to the site, where Darwin placed the box into the grave.  He wasn't up to saying anything, so we had a moment of silence.  Darwin couldn't bear to watch the actual burial, so he and I took a walk while the worker handled that part.  And so it was done.

Darwin wanted a marker on the spot, and the clerk had told us that the best (only) place to get one was the funeral home in Onaway.  So we headed over there.  The funeral home was right across the street from village hall, in fact.  We entered the place, and eventually a woman in a black shirt and slacks came up from the basement stairs to ask how she could help us.  When we explained we wanted a gravestone, she said that the funeral director was the only one who could help with that, and he wasn't available just then.  Perhaps we could make an appointment for next week?  We said we lived three hours away and were only in town until tomorrow morning--Saturday.  Could we make an appointment for then?  She laughed this off.  "Saturday?  No, never."

"Is this something we could ultimately handle over the phone?" I persisted.

She thought about that, then laboriously went down the stairs to the basement again.  When she came back up, she said that we could indeed do it over the phone.  She gave us some pamphlets and catalogs for headstones, and we left.

"That was weird," Darwin said.  "The director couldn't meet with us on a Saturday?  Do people not die on Saturdays in Onaway?"

"You know why he couldn't meet with us now and why she kept going into the basement to talk to him, right?" I said.  "The embalming room is in the basement.  He was . . . occupied with another client.  The funeral is probably tomorrow, which is why he couldn't meet."

"Ah," said Darwin with a nod, and we drove off.

There was no place to stay in Onaway itself, and I had found us an Airbnb in the unfortunately-named town of Indian River, about twenty minutes away.  We'd driven through Indian River on our way to Mackinaw, in fact, and had even eaten at a restaurant there a couple times, but had never spent significant time there.

The Airbnb turned out to be a studio apartment that had once been the host's attached garage, and it was very nice and exactly what we needed.  We explored the town a little and got ice cream at a charming ice cream and candy store on the main street.  We also stumbled across Burt Lake entirely by accident.

Burt Lake has been a resort area since at least 1910.  It's an enormous lake that connects to another lake, that connects to yet another lake, which finally connects to Lake Michigan.  Burt Lake is large and clear, with a delightful public beach just a few blocks from downtown Indian River.  Darwin and I got there as the sun was setting in a spectacular blaze of red and pink and orange.  A quay juts out into the lake, and we walked down it, enjoying it very much.

Cottages and vacation homes of all sizes ring Burt Lake, and you can see by the architecture that most of them went up in the 1910s and 20s, though they've been meticulously maintained and updated.  Back in those days, it was the thing to board a steamer and chug around the network of lakes, as many publicly-displayed photos of women in long skirts and tiny hats and men in high collars and tweed jackets attest.  It was also common to tie a string of rowboats behind the steamers for the more daring among the vacationers.  As a result of all the boating and of the river that divides the land into a series of tiny islands near the lake, there's a series of little canals and eddies and streams (both natural and artificial) around the area that are crying to be explored on a kayak or canoe.  Darwin and I were completely charmed and we both agreed that our next trip to northern Michigan would be to Indian River so we could swim and boat and explore to our heart's content.

We conked out hard at the Airbnb, and in the morning we had a delicious breakfast at a very nice café, where we people-watched an elderly Amish couple, a group of good-old-boys, and a breathtakingly handsome young man who looked like Clark Kent in a ball cap.  He arrived alone, ate alone, and left alone.  We wondered what his story was.

And then it was home.  For all that it was for a sad reason, the trip was a fine one.

Darwin and I like to visit a gay-oriented campground in western Michigan over Memorial Day weekend. Campit Campground is a fun place to hang out and is also near Saugatuck and South Haven, two cities we like very much.  This year, with the pandemic restrictions lifting, we were especially looking forward to the trip.

Cue the evil music.

Darwin and I headed out just as cold snap swept into the region.  The daily high barely broke 60, and the overnight lows were in the 30s.  It made for a difficult trip.

Arrived we arrived and checked into our cabin on Friday, we explored the campground a bit--it had been rearranged--and then started shivering.  As the sun sank, it got colder and colder.  We tried starting a fire, but it had rained all morning, and the damp wood only gave up a feeble flame.  We finally gave up and went into the cabin, which wasn't in any way winterized and was heated, if you could call it that, with a portable radiator that put out a heat equal to a small kitten.  The floor was ice cold and almost painful to walk on in socks.  Darwin and I spent the night huddled up close under the blankets.

In the morning, I had planned to make breakfast on my camp stove, but it was just . . . too . . . cold to cook outside, let alone eat there.  Instead, we drove into town and had breakfast at a little restaurant that had on the tables these odd salt and paper shakers. They had flip-top lids that you levered up with your thumb.  They made me think of puppets, and I started doing little dialogues between the shakers for my own amusement.  In the end, I propped up my phone and made videos of them.  Darwin kept cracking up, and the other diners stared.  I'll post some of the videos later.

We headed into Saugatuck for the day. The sun grudgingly warmed up to the low 60s, and we had a very nice time.  My recent weight-loss has put me out of my clothes--an XL hangs badly on me now--and I discovered that a Large fits me very well!  So I did some clothes shopping and bought some nice summer shirts.

Which I couldn't wear because of the cold.  Yeesh.

We enjoyed a great lunch and we admired the boats in the harbor and we did all the other nothing-much tourists without children get to do.  We also stopped to buy a space heater (it was one of two left in the store) and a pair of slippers for me.

That evening back at the cabin, the temperature plunged into the 30s.  It was just too cold to be outside doing the usual fun stuff that goes on around Campit Campground.  Usually they have shows and group cookouts and other events, but this year everyone was hiding in their tents and cabins and campers.  Darwin and I huddled inside the cabin again, and the new heater did a much better job of keeping the space warm, but there wasn't much to do in there, especially since that particular area of the campground had no WiFi, and satellite signals were so weak that there was essentially no Internet. I read on my Kindle app on vacation, but it wouldn't function properly on the bad signals, so even that was denied me.

In the morning, we went to breakfast again--I made more silly salt and pepper videos--and headed into South Haven.  Wow, it was crowded!  The Michigan holiday weekend was in full swing.  Though everyone was uncertain about masking.  The official line from the state is that masks aren't required for anyone who is vaccinated, and almost no one wore them outdoors,  Indoors was a different story. This store required masks for everyone. That restaurant didn't require them for anyone. This shop had no sign--or policy--either way.  It was a confusing mishmash of government regulations and private business requirements.

By late afternoon, though, we were done.  We went back to the cabin and I conked out in a world-class nap for an hour.  When I got up, the temperatures were heading back down again, and it was supposed to be the coldest night yet.  Darwin suggested we just go home now.  I agreed to this proposal.  We swiftly packed up the car, checked out of the campground, and fled back home.

I'm filing this under, "Oh well--we tried."

On Sunday, Darwin and I went to an actual, honest-to-Goddess movie!

See, the movie GODZILLA VS. KONG came out, and we both wanted to see it.  (Side note: the title pretty much says it all. The human characters are utterly uninteresting, as are their concerns. The movie is unabashedly about giant CGI monsters fighting each other. If you want more than that, you're at the wrong movie.)  And we realized we've both been vaccinated, so we don't have to worry about catching anything.  So we went!

It was . . . strange being back in a movie theater after more than a year's absence.  We bought our tickets online and arrived to find the crowds were light, and the ticket-checkers were off-duty, so we just walked in, bought concessions, and sat down. In our lovely reclining chairs. With movie popcorn and soda.  It was oddly exciting, after being gone for so long.  And it was great to be out in a public place without having to worry about infection.

Yes, there's a lot to be said about watching movies at home. Easy bathroom breaks, cheap snacks, not having to drive.  But these are eclipsed by the giant movie screen, the anticipation when the theater darkens, the booming surround-sound, and the reaction of the rest of the audience.  It's also easier to concentrate at the theater. No one interrupts the video to ask if you've seen his phone. The cats don't make demands that must be met right this second.  You don't feel compelled to send or answer texts.  It's just the darkness, the audience, and the movie.

And the popcorn.

My uncle Dave died of COVID-19 at 7:30 PM yesterday.  He and his wife Joan went to visit a family member and they stayed several hours.  The next day, the family member called Joan to say she was in the hospital with COVID-19, and that she'd had symptoms the day of the visit, but hadn't said anything.  The next day, she was dead.

Dave and Joan very quickly developed symptoms of their own, but while Joan's were mild, Dave got sicker and sicker over four days, though he refused to go to the hospital.  Finally he couldn't stand without help and Joan called an ambulance.  They admitted him to ICU.  That was three days ago.  Yesterday he died.

Now I've lost an uncle on both sides of my family to COVID. Dave was my mother's brother.  Indul, who died in June, was my father's brother.  It's a harsh blow to our family.

Don't let your guard down, everyone.

As I said earlier, my family opted out of face-to-face gatherings for the holidays this year.  Everything was very low-key.

Yuletide was a solitary affair for me, as it often is these days.  (I'm not part of a Pagan group, Darwin doesn't practice, and the boys have drifted away from it.)  But the God was welcomed back as the light grows stronger anyway.  Christmas Day, we set up a Zoom call with Kala, Aran, and Sasha and we opened presents together. (The present were delivered before-hand.)  We did more Zoom meetings with other family later in the day.  It was convenient--no long drives--but it wasn't the same as a regular visit, either.

New Year's Eve was also low-key.  I made chili and home-made donuts and we watched the first Wonder Woman movie.  Toward midnight, we turned on CNN to watch Times Square.  The scene was weird.  A handful of revelers were scattered about the gaudy billboards.  The camera kept coming back to whole pile of people in Planet Fitness gear with those eerie blow-up people, also in Planet Fitness gear, in the background, all standing in front of Planet Fitness. I got the idea the event was sponsored by Planet Fitness.  They also ran an interminably long, dull interview with Mariah Carey.  She talked about her new book (clearly the reason for the interview) and tried to sound sage and wise, but came across as blithering and scattered.  I got the impression someone else had unexpectedly canceled, and they asked her to lengthen her interview or something, because she sounded like she'd run out of stuff to say about two minutes in.

And then the countdown started up.  Instead of a dropping ball, the camera focused on a giant electronic clock that also projected a Kia commercial on its face.  I suppose someone has to pay for everything, but this struck me as gauche, even by American standards.

When the countdown hit zero, Darwin and I embraced, and I surprised myself by getting teary-eyed.  Between the horrors of the pandemic and the awfulness of the presidency, this year has been so awful, and it dragged out so long.  It was a huge relief that it ended.  I went outside onto the balcony.  Fireworks popped all around the lake, and a few a threw sparkles into the air. 

I hope 2021 goes better.