Mid-Michigan Style for Mid-November. . .

"The Young Master warning ol' Dad before the school bus arrived, "No skiing, tobogganing, or other fun in the snow ever!"

The Young Master, who is in the 3rd Grade and turned nine three weeks ago, has discovered that he can make people laugh. A lot.

A great reader, and highly talented with pencils, paper, and paints, he has created a series of book covers and story text since the early summer, which is divided into chapters, all about the misadventures of one put upon small boy who is made to do a million and one household chores by his mean father (actually just one task a day Monday through Friday plus feed the fish and cats daily) in the name of helping around the house and learning responsibility. The mean father in these highly detailed illustrations, naturally, looks like yours truly. Imagine that.

The various related narratives committed to paper always seems to be about arduous things like bath times, homework, feeding the fish and cats, swiffering the kitchen floor, tossing a basket of laundry into the washing machine, organizing his bedroom bookshelves, practicing the piano, bedtimes, and the like. And, of course, eating unpopular foods he has been served for dinner, for example homemade ravioli filled with cheese and asparagus tips.

Boyish perceptions and tendencies toward overstatement aside, The Young Master has already asked several times about skiing this winter since we have been having light snows here for the last week. With slightly colder temperatures and just a bit more on the ground we should be ready to schussss-schussss-schusss through the woods and down some hills together. In the meantime, it's like living with Steve Martin and Martin Short around here. Bizarrely madcap. There are days when our sides almost hurt from so much laughter brought on by our son.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

The woods beyond our backyard this morning just after The Young Master climbed aboard the school bus this morning.

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Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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