Musette’s Musings and a Draw and Winnahs!

SO many things to discuss today, so let’s get started.

Winners~  okay, I am instituting an expiration date for WINNAHS because I have too much ‘won’ stuff still sitting on my desk.  This is for MY draws only – other posters’ mileage will vary.  I alternate Tuesdays with March so: once I announce a winner you have 2 weeks to gmail me per the ‘winnah’ instructions to claim your prize.  If I don’t hear from you by the time my next post goes up (which is two weeks) the prize goes back in the hoppah!   I’m still awaiting PJ McBride to claim her Atelier Bloehm samples.  This starts the 2 week notice!

Water. A LOT of WATER.  I’m sure you are all aware of the term ‘petrichor’ “a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.”   I love that smell – but even more than petrichor I love the smell of air that is laden with moisture following heavy rains and in anticipation of even more rain.  I Googled the term ‘rain-laden air’ and omg, so many beautifully evocative essays feature that phrase.    Alas, I couldn’t find anything that defines it – but that’s okay, y’all know what I’m talking about.  It happens most beautifully in late Spring and early Summer (any other times it’s  just scary AF).  Flooding is often involved but usually it’s a mild flooding, like my photo below of the Fox River at Oswego.  For me, this ‘scent’ isn’t actually a scent as much as it is a feel, more like the brush of heavy, warm, wet air on skin.  Most effective if you are near a river or a creek, which is moving swiftly – this is not a lake-feel to me, though ymmv.

that treeline is where the shore (with picnic tables) is

Livin’. Speaking of rivers and their ilk, what is it about living along those bodies of water that attract a type of laissez-faire/pirate mentality – and why do I love it so?  I confess to drooling over gorgeous waterside mansions, just like everybody else – but while they are gorgeous they don’t warm my heart the way a slightly ramshackle collection of cottages does.  I HATE ‘ramshackle’ in my own home – but love the notion of it, when it’s somebody else’s house along a river or creek (okay, even a lake).  I think it may be because I was madly in love with the ‘Tammy’ movie series and the idea of living on a riverboat (though that probably would’ve lasted about 10 days) …and even today, get a little tug when I see folks sitting on a deck (or a dock) sippin’ on an iced tea, droppin’ their gerunds and the dogs passed out on the worn wooden boards.  Maybe I think of them as outliers/off-gridders/pirates, living by their own code and stompin’ around to their own tune, in a community of like-minded pirates.  Yes, there is a bit of envy, there, even if they only have 4 teeth between them.  And I’m making all this up, including the 4 teeth (blame Beulah Bondi and Ken Curtis (Festus on Gunsmoke) they could do ‘toothless’ like nobody’s business!)

blame Festus!

– these river people are probably sophisticated AF, teched to the gills and checking their day-trades!

I think I love the idea of that warm, wet wind along a river because it evokes all the best parts of Summer for me, that I am usually unable to experience – that laissez-faire feel (yeah, try it whilst owning a machine shop.  I guarantee you that the moment you think “oh, I’ll just make a pitcher of lemonade and so sit in the garden” your phone will blow UP! with drama.  And since you make your simoleans off fixin’ that drama, it’s off to work you go!)

 

and…hey!  On that ‘houseboat’ thing?  I just saw this boat on an episode of Good Karma Hospital.  Um.  I think I could do this for a whole lot longer than 10 days…

karmakerala

 

Okay – I’m OUT!  But not before I announce the All Summer winnahs!  Mim & Jennifer S.  Gmail your evilauntieanita, remind me what post and we’ll get stuff out to you pronto!

 

 

  • Jennifer S says:

    Oh I could go for a nice long riverboat cruise for a day. One of the old paddle wheel boats. Complete with meals and the most comfortable deck chairs. Ahhh. I can feel it now!

  • rosarita313 says:

    I love love love your posts, always.
    When I was growing up, my parent’s best friends owned a couple of lake cottages and we spent a lot of the summers with them and their kids, swimming and canoeing and boating. The houses around the lower coast of Lake Michigan are very fancy schmancy and fun to drive by and gawk but I wouldn’t want to live there. Now a little cabin on Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan? That I could go for. The river thing reminds me of my husband’s family in backwoods Louisiana, where life is just a mosquito infested, beer soaked, hot sticky hazy daydream, seriously. I REALLY wouldn’t want to live there but when my daughter was little, I loved thinking of how different her childhood was from my own, with crawfish boils and the occasional alligator sightings and gallons of sweet tea, with everyone calling her “precious.”

    • Musette says:

      you are my Quing! And everything I own is itching right now, thinking of backwoods ANYPLACE – but Louisiana sounds a special kind of skritch. For me, at least. Though I do like the idea of a hazy daydream life, don’t you?

      xoxoxo

  • Tara C says:

    Not really a lake person, what I love is a quaint house on a hill overlooking the ocean, looking out to the horizon with no land in sight. Seagulls, waves crashing, salt air. That’s my dream. Someday.

  • hczerwiec says:

    I love being by the lake at my in-laws’ cabin in Minnesota, which is a totally different feel from being at a beach house in NC! Different sounds (loons v seagulls), smells (slightly fetid algal lake smell v slightly fetid sea smell), and overall vibes. But that kerala on the river is the tits!

    • Musette says:

      isn’t it just? I sweatergawd, you should watch the Good Karma episode (Season 2) just for that damb boat! Wonder how they keep snakes from slithering up onto the boat, though? I worry about that (having been chased out of several bodies of water by snakes tends to do that, y’know?)

      xoxoox

  • DinaC says:

    My maternal grandparents had a second home on a lake in Maine. Very much like the movie “On Golden Pond,” except everyone was happy and loving. In our extended family that place was very dear to us. It has passed out of the family now, but our memories are special. Now, my mom and stepdad have a home on a lake here in Virginia. So the cycle repeats itself. Of course, the water temps are much warmer here in Virginia, but we don’t have the haunting cry of the loons like in Maine. Given a choice, I like the lake, but I love the beach even more.

    • Musette says:

      WHAT IS IT WITH YOU PEOPLE AND MAINE?

      Lol! I really do have to go visit sometime – all I can envision is a pine tree growing out of some rocks. And cold water. COLD.

      I really do need to get out more, don’t I? 😉

      xoxoxo

      • DinaC says:

        The downside to Maine, according to my mom, is being forced to learn to swim in those icy cold lake waters when you’re a kid at Girl Scout camp! Brrrrrrr….

  • March says:

    I think our individual tastes in such things are so interesting. I’m not captivated by the waterfront or creekside like you are, although I understand it. It’s big for a lot of people — lakeside in Maine or the Adirondacks. I find it so picturesque but it doesn’t …. move me? like I know it does some people. Now I’m mulling, trying to decide what my equivalent is. I’d say “oh it must be from childhood fantasies/memories” but my family (gasp!) actually car-camped lakeside when I was a kid, and while it was a blast it doesn’t have its hooks in me as an adult. Dammit, now I’ll have to spend hours thinking about what my equivalent is! Actually…. the closest thing I can come up with is those cabins at a “camp” in Maine — that is, there’s a central mess hall you can retreat to for board games etc and they do the lion’s share of the cooking? And the cabins are tucked hither and thither and they all have water views and kitchens and small wood stoves so you can make the fire in the morning because it’s chilly. That was like playing house for me, so much fun.

    • Musette says:

      I’m not much of a fan of lakes and cabins …..well….I like to look at them, not sure if I’d like to actually spend time in one (can you tell my Cabin Experiences have been few and probably traumatic?)

      and Maine. I have no more concept of Maine than I did Vermont – clearly I need to get out more 😉

      xoxox

  • Portia says:

    Hey Musette,
    Those Kerala boats that ply the backwaters are fabulous. You spend the day going around the canals and the nights moored to a bank. The boatmen cook you three fabulous meals a day and the whole adventure is cheap as chips. I thoroughly recommend a visit.
    Portia xx

    • March says:

      oh THEY do all the work?!?? SIGN ME UP this looks amazing

      • Musette says:

        I actually GASPED! when I saw that boat on Good Karma – it was moored to a dock that doubled as a deck, complete with patio furniture and umbrellas – and the interior of the boat was, truly, gasp-worthy. Fwiw, I learned that GKH is actually filmed in Sri Lanka – I wonder if they imported this boat for the shoot or if they also exist in SL? xoxoxoA

    • Musette says:

      Portia, I might never leave! lol! xoxoxo

      • Portia says:

        HA! There are worse places to end up Musette.
        So I think this particular boat style is Kerala specific. If you go to Srinagar Lake or any other Indian place the boats are all different.
        They may have taken one to Sri Lanka but my bet is that they took a trip to Kerala as part of their show.

        • Musette says:

          omg. STAHP! I cannot go to Sri Lanka right now. And if I do, I will have to take my dog (which probably won’t work because what country in their right mind lets in some 130# Molosseraptor?).