Sometimes, this works for life, too—you bob your head a bit to the side (or up or down), and change the angle (or even the focal point), and pufffft, life is better.

…spotted first by the Guru (but my photograph).

Wonder how these would look on an aging Ford Explorer?

…has dry skin and is itchy.

…in the order I discovered them…

Garrison Keillor, in his opening monologue tonight, a brief one I think was a setup for this, suggested that the two leading Republican Presidential candidates…um, could be described as…a Mormon…and…a polygamist.

Then, a few minutes later, I belatedly checked my email and discovered a special me-no-tube video from the Great White North—of a 1500 snowmobile race (1500 minutes? not sure what the units are), made personally for me by the great videographer, KW!

My chuckling had just died down from the first, when I saw the second. Now, if the idea of a snowmobile putt-putt audio doesn’t trip your tickler, I also offer a creative imported Bird of Paradise photo from a Left Coast correspondent….

And none of this has anything to do with the house on the hill that leads this post….

Even after reflection, I’m not sure how to take this. I listened to the commands, and this was a tactical exercise in how to move across the terrain if your group was under fire. I found it just plain creepy. Not the training, but that it was going on in the park.

The Guru and I came up with two theories we leaned toward about this exercise: 1) ROTC group from the HS across the street; or, 2) movie training.

He said: “(evocative of) the Bridge.”

She said (with a nauseated back note): “Barca-lounger trio.”

You say…?

Long story, but sometimes the best version of reality comes from…an unexpected locus—here, it’s under a park bench.

These are, at present, my two favorite coffee cups.

Gotta wash one for tomorrow….

Very happily, we attended a quickly organized family luncheon over by Chelsea (thanks so much, Cuz). Riley was the four-foot star of the gathering, tussling here with a cousin-husband….

Today the Botanist proposed we visit the Michigan Women’s Historical Center and Hall of Fame, in Lansing, as a way to honor Mom and the equal-rights and conscientious-voter values she embraced. Specifically, he proposed we look at this display, which shows Michigan’s governor, Albert E. Sleeper, signing women’s suffrage into law in May 1917.

Behind the Governor, officiously seated at his high-top desk, among the assembled witnesses, is Mom’s grandmother, her mother’s mother, Belle Brotherton. (We differ on which one we think she is; I’m guessing she’s facing the camera behind the slope of the desk-side, with a good view of the Governor’s hand and pen.) Belle, along with many others, worked hard for this change, and, in 1919, she became the first President of the Michigan League of Women Voters. Several suffrage organizations joined together after the law was enacted and formed the League, so Belle must have been respected by her peers to become the Michigan League’s first President from, no doubt, many capable contenders.

After Mom had been a member of the Michigan League for fifty years, they conferred upon her a lifetime membership, in honor of her long participation. When I was in HS, she spent many elections at our township hall as a poll-watcher. She also was active with voter-information outreach efforts, although I don’t know exactly what that involved.