In the Year of our Lord of COVID Issue #5: Deep in These Woods
Days in quarantine: 185
Brain status: Awake and possibly manic
It’s was 5:52 AM when I started. This is all you need to know about my brain right now.
Note: The original version of this piece was becoming book length, so I chopped it up to be succinct. I’m manic and while I could follow all the threads, I do not anyone else can.
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We’re at Throbbing Cabin.
The decision to come up here was not made lightly. While Big Gretch (MI’s guv’ner) gave the all clear for out-of-state property owners to come back in late May, we waited until my MIL got the all clear from her most recent PET scan (all clear!), the status of my work from home, and of course, how the pandemic was faring up here. The cases in Leelanau county are pretty minute and the area is very stringent on controls. We went into Traverse City (TC) yesterday to drop off MIL’s scripts and Target heavily controlled who was coming in and out. Bunting’s Mafia (the gas station / deli / pizzeria / grocery / meat processing / alcohol and tobacco store located in our village of 93 residents) has very intricate pathways and signs to navigate the store. It’s been a relief of how people are taking the goddammed pandemic seriously up here with masking up and social distancing. Sure there are some shit heels, but that’s everywhere. It just doesn’t seem as fraught it is in Louisville.
(Note: This area is heavily red so imagine to my great surprise and delight to see “Biden (and ByDon)/Harris” and BLM signs everywhere, especially in our area, along with signs thanking the guv’ner for keeping the state safe. I did see “Hail Whitler” (comparing the guv’ner to Hitler) and “Beekeepers for Trump 2020” stickers but few and far between.)
We’ve owned Throbbing Cabin for nearly a decade and while we’ve made some improvements and updates, it hasn’t been much. We still have the original 50-year-old stove, which, by the way, is puke brown and a fucking champ! The septic and water heater need to be replaced at some point and they, too, are fucking champs. The cabin, an A-frame, sunk by ¼ inch in the front and the back deck is rotting. With property, you overlook the quirks because you know how to deal and work around them. But that thought process has started to change as we’ve now put on the table the thought to move up here at least ½ year. The plan: we’d come up in the spring and stay through the summer and go back to Louisville when apple cider and cake donut season starts, or mid-late September. It would also be between 20 – 30 degrees cooler up here. Win for everyone.
And if that works out well, try a winter up here. If that works out, then move up here full time. (Pending my work from home options that is.)
Not fixing the quirks has never been a thought as we’ve toyed with the idea for years to contact property managers and rent this place out in the winter since we’re in prime winter sports area, but we’re ultimately lazy. But stuff does need to be repaired, updated, or removed. We created a list, organized it on a spreadsheet (of course) and I started calling contractors. The list of things to be repaired, updated, or removed is over 40 items long. Some of it is as simple as getting a new well cap and as extensive as renovating the kitchen, but keeping the stove!, and putting in a new HVAC system.
The cabin is about 1100sqft which is roughly the same size as the condo but the master bedroom is in a loft, so two floors, and there are two guest rooms, one of which TEH has turned into an office with a door so we’re not up each other’s ass. Up here, I have a desk and a proper office chair as opposed to a dining room table and chair where I’ve been sitting in near same spot for so long in Louisville, the chair’s feet have rubbed straight through the carpet. Up here I bought a laptop stand, keyboard, and mouse along with my 30” wide screen monitor and I’m in love with my setup against the mobile laptop monitor at home where I have to jack everything up to 140%.
Among the quirks is lack of clothes space so I have my things in neat piles on the floor sorted by the items. TEH is living out of his duffle bag. We have to go to TC to do laundry and major shopping, which is about 30 minutes away, but since we can knock out five loads in an hour, it doesn’t seem to be that awful. Kitchen space is very limited but we akin to what it would be like living in Europe. The upside is we can get UPS/FedEx delivery, we have a PO Box and soon a mailbox, 100Mb internet, we’re on ½ acre of property and don’t have to deal with rude neighbors in our condo building, and Lake Michigan is three miles away.
I love it up here. I feel at peace here. There is enough of a city nearby that I don’t feel so isolated but we have enough space so I can spread my wings. Living up here would obviously be an adjustment but the only advantage of being downtown Louisville was to eat at all the places but that’s all we did. Coming up here would not be a big loss to high end entertainment
Truth be told, if I had to choose between bears and getting threatened and harassed on a daily basis, I’d take the bears hands down.
Appurtenances:
Doves new album dropped on September 11 and it is sublime
We started watching Alone, a reality show where people are dropped off somewhere remote and have to survive until the last person is standing to win $500K. In the beginning of the seasons, it’s highly interesting watching people McGuyver two bamboo rods and a tree stump into a working washing machine but after the first few episodes, it’s about their calorie deficit and how hungry they are which kind of loses the appeal
I’ve been big into audio books recently and I started listening to Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett on my drive up and it is WAY better than I thought it would be. I had an inkling in the prologue when the narrator read Ken’s introduction of walking into a cathedral, I forget which, reminded him of the opening to a vagina. Follett is having a virtual festival to celebrate his new book this week in the Kingsbridge world and I am here for it
We pass Gallagher’s Farm Market on the way to the cabin from TC and it is a must stop for their chocolate milk, pies, and donuts. Their produce and apple selection aren’t that bad either. Inf act, after I send this, we’re going to get our morning donuts
The Michigan wet burrito is a tortilla stuffed and rolled with beans, meat, cheese, tomatoes, and lettuce. Enchilada sauce is poured over the top as well as 10lbs of cheese and then baked. It is goddamn delicious. When I’m at the cabin, I hit up Sugarfoot Salon (two minutes from the cabin) or Hayloft Inn for my fix. While the term "Mexican food" is used loosely here, it is such many find the wet burrito a pox upon food but they know nothing
As always, don't be an ass. Wear a damned mask.
lisa x
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Image depicting the black death in a book by French chronicler
and poet, Gilles Li Muisis (1272 - 1352). Artist unknown.