Alan is on vacation, and we are going sailing today. (Psst. Don’t tell Kate. She thinks sailing is TOTALLY BORING and will run away from home if they thinks we’re going to force her to go.) People laugh at Detroit, compare it to Beirut and Baghdad, say, “Wow, you’re moving up in the world. What’s next? Fargo?”
(Many of these people live in such garden spots as Indianapolis and Dayton.)
All I can say is, it’s 10 minutes from my front door to our dock, and 10 more from the dock to the lake.
“Which lake?” they ask, puzzled.
“Lake St. Clair,” I say.
“I don’t know that one,” they reply.
No one knows Lake St. Clair, it seems. I often see newspaper graphics of the region — the last one was about watersheds in the Great Lakes, of all things — that leave it out entirely, and just show a river running between Michigan and Ontario. And this was the New York Times.
True, it isn’t a Great lake, but it’s not exactly a subdivision retention pond, either. It’s very shallow — essentially a very large river delta — but 26 miles across, capable of handling freighters and about a zillion recreational boaters. And yet, it gets no respect. You know what every single person who has visited us this year says when they see it? To a person: “I didn’t know it was that big.”
Lake St. Clair — the Rodney Dangerfield of lakedom.
In other boring news at this hour, we (which is to say, Alan) painted Kate’s room this week. It is no longer pale celery, but Northern Cascades, a rather cool lavender. Darker than the kitchen, paler than the purple plum she was hoping for. But she likes it. She has a new ceiling fan, a white closet door and, soon, new details that will take her decor further from little-girlhood and closer to insufferable-tweenhood. I cleaned out her closet and hauled out a garbage bag full of crapola, weeded the dresser drawers and swept off the top of her desk. She’s ready for school, and I’m ready for fall.
(Cleaning out Kate’s room is my new fall ritual. The passing of years in childhood marks more than it does in adulthood, which is to say, I ought to clean my own closet, but it’s too depressing to face pants you have, ahem, “grown out” of.)
We were discussing what to hang on the walls. I suggested some framed posters; she agreed. Alan suggested Wallace and Gromit; she wanted Puss in Boots making the big eyes. Kate considers the lack of a real cat in her life child abuse. We get those eyes a lot.
I should round up some tasty bloggage for you, but I haven’t the time — I’m off to DetNewsLand to talk about current events. Probably something on the twin fatwas of Mullas Robertson and Wildmon. Stop by later; I’ll try to think of something that hasn’t been said a million times already.
Oh, OK. Here’s Jon Carroll on how complicated it is to enjoy dinner these days. Later.