In a mofuckin' mulberry jam!

After soccer (Sundays and Wednesdays at 6 in Frog Island, people! All welcome!) last night I decided to check out the mulberries in front of the Thompson Block. I've lived in Depot Town for three years now, have been frequenting the area for as long as I've lived in Ypsi, and only just noticed that bush last week.

Mulberries are nothing new in my Ypsilanti. I've spotted several trees (bushes?) in various parts of town over the years but never have known what to do with the fruit except pop the odd handful in my mouth. However, word has come from Adster's lady friend that they make great jam. So I spent and hour filling up a few water bottles worth.

But the recipes in my cookbook all call for at least as much sugar as berries (four cups to four cups!) and discussions with more experienced cooks than I have confirmed this. So screw it. I gave a jar to Kitty Cutts, mixed some up in my oatmeal this morning and plan to smoosh more into my peanut butter sandwiches this week. Any other suggestions for their use are welcome. In days of yore I would have stirred them into a legendary KD2 smoothie but these days I lack a mechanized blending device.

Whilst picking said fruit I was greeted by a woman who lives in the apartment building adjacent to the T-Block. I had heard that she frequents that bush and was afraid that she might view it as an incursion onto her turf but she seemed quite happy to share. In fact, she directed me to a tree where I can find free tart cherries.

Construction on the T-Block is finally underway for real and given the gentry-friendly aspirations of the remodelers I can't imagine that a crooked bush that craps stainy berries is long for this world.

So get them while the getting's good!

Even without reading the text . . .

. . . you know why I posted this picture.





You know who I hope to remind you of.

I haven't seen Ypsi's own "No Face" in a couple of years. Asking around, it seems that no one else has either. I remember when he started walking around on crutches and people said he had thrown himself in front of a bus, tried to kill himself again. Last time I saw him he was in a wheelchair. He was slumped forward and the hole where his faced used to be was full of black shadows. I assume he's dead now.

How come he didn't get facial reconstruction, like the guy above? Would it have made a difference?

I think the painter dude saw me naked

So I come home last Friday to find my maroon building spotted randomly with pink paint, looking rather like it had developed a case of the chicken pox and been daubed with calamine lotion.

"Ah, it seems that they will soon be changing the color of my residence!" I thought.

I was wrong. The plan was to repaint it, but to renew the regular color as opposed to replacing it. The odd pink spots turned out to be primer. I know this because the painter dudes explained it to me this morning.

I was able to sleep in a bit today and woke to the sounds of FM talk radio and dudes talking about Tiger Woods.

"Ah, it seems that today is the say that my residence will be painted!" I thought.

I got out of bed and walked to the bathroom to get the day going, commando style because that's how I sleep in the summer. I did not occur to me to look behind me. When I came back into the bedroom I saw that one of the top of a ladder framed in one of my windows. A painter dudes was working on the wall immediately outside my bedroom. He broke eye contact as soon as it was made.

"Didn't know you were right there," I said.

"Sorry," he said.

"It's cool," I said.

Then I sat down and meditated.