When did we start saying “so, this happened” to describe, um, stuff that happened? Don’t know? Well, what does it matter? Anyway, this happened:

That was the Pooch Prance, at the Ford house, formally known as Edsel and Eleanor’s Crib on Lake St. Clair. Has there ever been grass so green, sky and water so blue, a day so fair? Don’t think so. We raised a tidy sum for the shelter pups, and Wendy met her fan club, all the ladies who took care of her before she came to us in June. We made two laps of the estate, watched the raffle and watched the people, who were more interesting than the dogs, frankly. (At one point there was an announcement that whoever left three dogs in a silver Toyota should take them out, and there was an audible gasp throughout the tent. Wrong place to pull that move, whoever did that.)

Thanks to all of you who donated to the cause. We met several dogs who had been adopted through the Michigan Anti-Cruelty Society; they do make a difference, and now so do you.

Also, this happened:

Those are members of the local Hare Krishna temple, venerating the deities. Six times a day they do this. Yes, it was the day of our annual ride to say hello and Hare Krishna to our near-neighbors. This year, we took a tour of the old Fisher mansion, where the temple is located. Quite a place, with its spectacular craftsmanship — Pewabic tile, painted leather walls, carved everything, gold leaf everything else, parquet and inlay and yadda-to-the-yadda — now augmented with paintings of Krishna and flowers and stuff. The place has hardly been lovingly cared for over the years, but the floors have nary a creak, they’re so solid.

Detroit never stops surprising you.

Bloggage:

Mitch Albom, two takes. Local, and Deadspin.

How Syria built its chemical-weapon stockpile under the world’s noses…

…with a little help via the untracked seas.

Let’s have a good week, all.

OK, this is something I’ve never done and hesitate to do, but what the hell, here goes:

When we adopted Wendy, one of the last things the people at the Michigan Anti-Cruelty Society said to us when we left was, “You live in Grosse Pointe? We have our big Pooch Prance fundraiser at the Ford house in the fall, and we expect to see you there, prancin’.”

The Pooch Prance — an up-to-10K walk — is this Sunday. Wendy and I will be prancin’.

If you like, you can donate. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DONATE. i won’t even know if you donate, most likely. But if you would like, you can click the “Pooch Team Donation” button on this page and donate via Paypal. It’s a 10K walk, but I’m thinking we might do half that. (Remember, my dog has a reconstructed leg and I have an ouchy knee.) I’m registering as “Team Wendy.” It’s just us — we are the team.

So, donate, or don’t donate. No judging one way or another. But it’s a good cause. This shelter is in a very rough neighborhood, and has been running on a shoestring since the Depression. (According to our vet.) There are lots of animals who could use some shelterin’ in Detroit. Your contribution won’t go to waste.

What else? How about a picture. Here’s a fairly common sight you see around these parts: A secret vehicle.

I have no idea what this thing is, other than a pickup truck. You run across them every so often in and around the automotive capital of North America, and I always hope they’re some sort of supercool Project X-type vehicle. You know, like the K car. (Kidding.)

And here’s a link to a great audio essay by Jian Ghomeshi, the Canadian radio host, on the idiocy of the bottled-water racket. I like his show, Q. It’s sort of the “Fresh Air” of Canada.

Long hours at work this week, sorry.

I don’t want to venture into the realm of serious TMI, so let me put this delicately: When a lady can’t become a mommy anymore, certain things about her body change. Some of these changes are well-known to the general population, others kept quiet among the crone sisterhood, and still others? Let me put it this way: One day a lady-who-can’t-become-a-mommy-anymore might find herself madly googling “head sweat after 50.” I’m not talking about hot flashes, I’m talking about one day realizing all your schvitz plumbing appears to have been rerouted to your scalp.

It’s very strange. Also not strange. There are medical conditions that can cause this, but I don’t think any apply to me, and besides, when I read medical advice that advises treating cranial hyperhidrosis by avoiding spicy foods and garlic, frankly I’d rather wear a Richard Simmons headband all day. And I don’t walk around dripping, but when I exercise, I’m a veritable sprinkler.

So the other day I was scheduled to give blood. The bloodmobile comes to my gym every major holiday, and I usually roll up a sleeve. I scheduled my appointment at 10:15 and arrived at 9. Lifted weights for an hour, rinsed my face, combed my soaking hair and checked in.

A large male LPN took me aside and asked if I’d just “worked out hard.” Not really, but yeah, I know, I look pretty wrung out. I’m fine. I’m just sweaty. I ate a good breakfast and drank a quart of water this morning, and I’ve never had so much as a wobble after a blood donation. Seriously. Find me a cot and let’s do this.

They rejected me. Rejected! For sweatiness. The LPN said they’d had someone else who arrived in similar dampness “go down” at the last drive, and I guess they didn’t want another one. I looked at him and wondered whether he wanted to hear what happens to a lady when she can’t become a mommy, and decided instead to go quietly.

And this is what my life has become: Being sweat-rejected was the highlight of my holiday weekend. OK, no it wasn’t. We went to the jazz festival Saturday to see Kate’s bass teacher get a big award, along with Dave Brubeck, who unfortunately couldn’t accept. I made steak tacos with fire-roasted salsa and guacamole, all homemade, all delish. I woke myself up at 6 a.m. by rubbing my eyes, my hands still carrying some capsaicin. Rode my bike hard for 30 miles or so. Thoroughly enjoyed the end of what’s been a great summer. In fact, I’m sorta looking forward to fall — new projects, new shoes, long sleeves.

I will miss these awesome peaches, though. Who wouldn’t?

Read this. Commit to memory. Follow its advice. And never risk instilling narcolepsy in your next meeting or memo.

I know this was Diana Nyad’s near-lifelong dream and all, and congratulations to her, but the pictures of her afterward make me wonder why.

So, happy new year to all. School starts today, and my car’s check-engine light went on. Fingers crossed, because we’re well into the nickel-and-dime years with this girl.

A rare (for me, these days) interlude in Lansing today, which means I was up at 5:30, out the door an hour later, driving through drenching showers 20 minutes later, work/meeting/lunch and finally to the office-furniture store by early afternoon. I was there to buy a used Aeron chair, and yes, I’m expensing it, because that’s how awesome my job is.

It’s absurd, how happy this chair makes me. I’m not the sort of woman who lives to string jewels around my neck or Mercedes up and down my driveway, but good, functional design makes me happy in a very fundamental way.

Speaking of which, I wonder how Deborah’s doing at Beaver Brook. I’m looking forward to seeing how the bathhouse turns out.

On the way home, I stopped at a farmers market for some fruit. I was after peaches and blueberries, but also picked up a cantaloupe and, after a little thought, some of the first apples. I always feel a little bad about the first apples of the season. It means summer is drawing to a close, for starters, and because peaches always are my favorite, the joy I take in the first apples always feels a little like cheating. Yes, cheating. I heard an interview with Mandy Patinkin on Q, Jian Ghomeshi’s radio show, and he said he lives almost entirely in an imaginary world. As a person who feels guilty for cheating on the peaches in the fruit bowl, I identified.

Man, those apples were good, though. It’s a bumper crop this year in Michigan. (Cheap ho’s.)

Bloggage? Sure:

Michigan fails to pass the Medicaid expansion. So far, anyway; it’s what we call a developing story. No, wait, it did pass.

Two medical stories to get your blood pumping today: Four Tennessee infants get rare bleeding disorder because parents refuse routine Vitamin K injection, and a Texas megachurch is ground zero for a measles outbreak. Freedom! Natural!

Off to explore my library’s Freegal music site. Have a good Wednesday, all.

What a weekend. High pressure, unlimited ceiling, temps in the 80s. After a delightful improvement over last summer — Rain! Temperatures in the 60s! IN JULY!!! — it seems 2013’s is going out with what everyone expects and wants. I’m watering for the first time this season. But everything is still juicy.

And with that, I’ve once again violated Elmore Leonard’s No. 1 rule of writing. Oh, well. It’s what Midwesterners do — talk about the weather.

Besides, nothing much else happened, other than the usual weekend-y things — farmers market, dry cleaners, grocery, laundry cooking, exercise, sailing. We took the dog:

She has to wear her life jacket until we can trust her not to take a flying leap after a passing flock of geese. Also, it’s easy to grab her by the handle on top when we need to move her quickly.

As I was in aggressive fun-type mode this weekend, I wasn’t exactly trolling for linkage, although I’m pleased to report Mitch Albom had the day off Sunday and did not write anything about Elmore Leonard, which is a very good thing. They’d still be cleaning the brain explosion from the walls.

However, there is this, from the NYPost, not a paper I read regularly. Call it the confessions of a high-dollar college-admissions counselor:

One father requested that my meetings with his son take place in the Midtown offices of his private-equity group. His son would take the train in from Greenwich and meet me there. I offered to meet the boy somewhere easier, but no. It wasn’t safe, the father explained, as he led me into the vast glass space of his office, where his son was sitting; in fact, he had personally walked to Penn Station to meet his son’s train and escort him here.

Then he took out his checkbook and asked me, in front of the boy, what I’d charge to write his essays.

Oh, and I watched “History of the Eagles,” at least the first part of it; my interest in the solo career of Henley and Frey died in a 1980s aerobics class that used “The Heat is On” once too often. Bill Simmons take on it, linked last week, was pretty much dead on.

And we found our way to “Beware of Mr. Baker,” another rockumentary, but amusing where the Eagles thing wasn’t. Ginger Baker — what a wild man. At first I thought we were going down a path that would lead to another great musician robbed of his treasure by a trick of the copyright laws. He’s broke, he makes no money off the Cream catalog, what an injustice, etc. Later we learn he received $5 million for the Cream reunion, enough to take care of him for the rest of his life — if he hadn’t immediately gone out and spent it on 38 polo ponies and an endowment for a veterinary hospital.

Musicians. Go bloody figure.

Anyway, good Monday to all and a good last week of summer.

When it comes to Mitch Albom columns, I’m getting harder to impress. I’ve become numb to week after week of hastily dashed-off I-was-just-thinkin’ or join-me-in-my-outrage-over-something-dumb or weren’t-the-good-ol’-days great, etc. I believe it’s been three consecutive Sundays that he’s been peeved about something having to do with the Internet, because the Internet is baaaad.

Sunday’s column, however, was beyond the pale. Couched as a ringing defense of celebrity privacy, pegged to Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder’s recently revealed divorce filing, it is positively Grandpa-Simpsonian, whining about “Internet morsels” and “cyberspace monsters” and how-dare-we (which is to say, you), and a truly bizarre section about the abuse of the Freedom of Information Act, which is weird, as the mere fact of looking up a person’s divorce filing has nothing to do with FOIA. You just go down to the courthouse and check the file. Never mind the irony of a guy who’s invoked his status as a professional journalist (as opposed to those wicked bloggers) who went to professional journalist school not knowing this.

But never mind all that. I read it and decided to just let it all go, or at least wait and see if I still thought he was full of shit after I went for a long bike ride. Fortunately, by the time I got back — 22 miles — someone else had taken it on. Very satisfying takedown. I’m glad he could do it, because 22 miles in the direct sun takes it out of you. Although I felt so good that I sprinted the last half-mile or so home. The pavement on my last leg was like glass, and I just felt like it. The app on my phone said I hit 19 mph. Take that, Lance Armstrong.

What a glorious weekend it was. Lovely weather, not too hot or cold, sunshine all the way. I failed to mow the lawn, but it’s stopped growing anyway. August. The driveway is covered with acorns, the markets are tumbling with peaches and tomatoes, and the light is coming in at a new angle. I want to enjoy every final minute.

So, bloggage:

I know lots of people run hot and cold on Bill Simmons, but when he gets rolling, I’m there for every word (if I understand what he’s talking about). His examination of a Showtime documentary on the Eagles is a great specimen. If you grew up in the ’70s, you will like it. Whether or not you like the Eagles.

Guess what I made for dinner last night? Corn and tomato pie. With a biscuit crust. Yum.

Forgive me, pals, but I had a long day and a long evening and I have very little to show you today. So, open thread? Or perhaps you’d like some cheesecake first.

I didn’t realize until yesterday that it was the 10th anniversary of the great midwest blackout, which I am not going to capitalize and you can’t make me. The Free Press headline writer asked where I was, and OK, I’ll bite:

I was at the pool at Veterans Memorial Park in Ann Arbor, enjoying some idle time before my Knight Wallace Fellowship commenced at the end of the month. Kate and her buddy were enjoying the water slide when suddenly the water stopped sluicing down the chute. There were a few moments of confusion, and then the lifeguards started whistling everybody out of the pool. Power was out, pool was closing. This was around 4 p.m. or so.

So we went home, just a couple blocks away. Power was out there, too. I turned on the battery-powered radio, and learned power was out in a whole lot of places. The NPR reporter’s voice was shaking; just two years after 9/11, it was plain she feared this was a terror attack, and if the terror was lacking for now, it would surely be on its way.

Alan came home, and we assessed the situation. We’d been intending to go back to Indiana in the next couple of days anyway, and with no juice for the foreseeable future, we packed up and hit the road, already low on gas. We pulled off the freeway in Jackson. No power, and hence no working gas pumps. Tried again around Marshall. Nope. On I-69 we dropped our speed to save fuel and crossed our fingers. There’s a truck stop just over the Indiana line with enough gas to fill an ocean. As it hove into view, it hove into view — we could see the lights and the warm glow of civilization.

We coasted in on fumes and filled ‘er up, then filled ourselves with Wendy’s. I reflected that Indiana is out-of-step with its neighbors on so many things, but I’d finally found something I could get behind — it’s even on a different power grid. But that time, it was one that worked.

Most people’s stories of how they weathered important events are boring, and I am no exception. Man, those Wendyburgers tasted good.

Bloggage:

So today, the same guy who did the Crisco Fist art prank pulled another — putting For Sale signs on street lights, public statues and other buildings around the downtown area. As jokes go? Pretty lame, but you can see how the media covered it dutifully. It went a little like this:

(God, I loved that movie.)

Second somebody-explain-this-guy request of the week: I don’t read sci-fi (with a few exceptions), and so know nothing about Orson Scott Card, but I thought he was a generally respected author in the genre, albeit one with a problem with gay people. Now it appears he is, instead, actually nuts. Do these crazy ideas get passed around in a newsletter or something? This is the second or third time I’ve heard the Obama’s Band of Urban Gangs theory.

Over and out. I’m thinking it’s Oberon time.

Not a terrible day. Got approval today to buy a new desk chair for my home office, and expense the sucker. Yes! This is the working life I always dreamed of. (Used) Aeron store, here I come.

Seriously, I have the worst office chair in the world, and I can usually last half a day before I have to move to the chaise in my bedroom (Ikea, not appreciably better) or our shameful recliner, or — even better — a stand-up rig at the kitchen table I do from time to time. Of course, I should be shoe-leathering it on the streets, but you have to write the damn stories sometime.

That was good thing No. 1. I also had time at the end of the day to take Wendy to our dog park, the Nancy’s Office Chair of Pointe dog parks. It seems every household here has a dog, but when it comes to welcoming them to the places you expect to take a dog — city parks — they all have NO DOGS ALLOWED signs posted. In order to take Wendy to our remotely located designated dog park, I had to first get her licensed, then present proof of at least $100,000 household liability insurance and pay $20 for a separate, bar-coded pass to the main park. It is four miles away. So to let her run, I first have to drive her there.

Needless to say, it’s not a very popular place:

Where are my friends?

She sorely needed some romping today, though. She got it, playing the Crabapple Game for the better part of an hour. By herself. Even the lame Labrador, the only other dog who’s ever been there when we were there, didn’t show today.

It’s a dog’s life.

So, any bloggage? A little:

The case for punishing parents — via charges or lawsuits — who refuse to vaccinate their children.

Why do peahens dig peacocks? Now we have an idea.

Watch the video, and tell me if “Jesus Christ” is an appropriate reaction.

And I’m thinking I’m going to catch up on “The Newsroom,” so over and out.

Someone is going to have to explain Elon Musk to me. I know the basics — founder of Tesla, fighter with New York Times auto writers, etc. — but beyond that, all I have to go on are a few clues. I’ve noticed he seems to be very popular with a certain sort of young libertarian male, who believes all we have to do is cut the chains that keep our young geniuses from soaring, and man, will they ever soar! Etc.

But I read this the other day, and I have to say…well, you tell me:

Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk is announcing his plans for the “Hyperloop” Monday — a high-speed transportation system that, ideally, could take passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles for a fraction of the cost and faster than the $68 billion high-speed rail system scheduled to begin running in 2028. Musk has said the Hyperloop, as he envisions it, could get you from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about 30 minutes, traveling at about the speed of sound.

As exciting as all of that sounds, the key word here is “ideally.” Musk described the Hyperloop at the D11 conference in May, and the outline was less than scientific.

“It’s a cross between a Concord and a rail gun and an air hockey table. If they did a threeway and had a baby somehow,” said Musk, you’d have a kicking, screaming Hyperloop.

O rly? There are other buzzwords in the piece, including my fave (“he is publishing the plans as open source”) and my other fave (he “requested ‘critical feedback’ from the general public via Twitter”). It’s all very something-something-and-then-a-miracle-happens, although I suppose there is room for people like that in the world. In the Henry Ford museum, you can walk through Buckmister Fuller’s Dymaxion house, which he envisioned as a sort of metal yurt that could be easily collapsed and transported to another site, should you want to move but not necessarily live in a different house. It was all very futuristic, except that reality intruded and the miracle never happened.

Ninety minutes from New York to Paris, why by ’76 we’ll be A-OK…

So, I needed to get out of the house for a while today, and chose to work at the library. What’s this, the American Spectator? God, it’s been years; the editorial page editor used to subscribe, and I used to read it regularly. Let’s see how this once-proud journal of the conservative movement is attracting the next generation. OK, the cover:

Yep, that’s a paean to AM radio, and that cover says so much, doesn’t it? Gathering around the console in some fantasy of the past — how old do you have to be to even get the cultural reference of a living-room radio? (My age at the absolute youngest.) How old do you have to be to give a fat rat’s ass about a radio band you only subject yourself to if you’re…well, that you never subject yourself to, because who cares?

But that was just the cover, which could be excused as a nostalgia piece. What else is in the July/August issue? This:

Those are the movie reviews, by the way. “Reminders of America’s decline.” OK, so, anything else?

And this:

Yep, that’s Ben Stein, taking his Diary column into its 4,821st year. Because the life of a Hollywood whatever-he-is is nothing but fun. Finally, Taki, also a contributor of many years, winds up and takes a swat — because that’s what he does, slaps like a little bitch — at that menace to society, Barbara Walters:

I used to read this rag and get angry. Pity is a new feeling.