When I was probably in second or third grade, my dad had just moved to an apartment that had a dishwasher, previous apartment was all hand-wash and I mean like just moved probably within a week or two. And I was there visiting and his girlfriend lived with him at the time A.K.A. soon to-be-fiancé. I can't remember where they were in their progress there but, my dad was gonna go out and run some errands with my brother and before he left, he turned to my stepmom and said one way or another basically was like, "All right. Heading out. Do not use the dishwasher. We don't have the right soap for it. You can't use dish soap. Don't. Run. The dishwasher." So my dad left and almost just like a, like a, was gonna say like a movie but almost like a Curious George book in a way. The minute he left my stepmom was like, "You, you want to try the dishwasher?" And second or third grade me was like, "Yeah let's see if it works. That sounds fun." And so we went over to the island where the dishwasher was in the kitchen you had to the walk around the edge and you know dishwashers on the opposite side, from the living room, facing the opposite wall so you can't see the dishwasher from the television. And she went ahead and made sure that thing was loaded up, put a little bit of dish soap in there and let it loose. And came back over and we watched television for a bit. And then she's like, "I'm gonna go ahead and uh, I probably should check and see how things are going. Make sure everything's okay."  And she went over, around the island to the opposite side to check on the dishwasher. I don't remember what she said, but there was, she was aghast. Probably something like, "Oh my God," something very similar. I was like "What?" and I came skittering over. And there were like, bubbles waist high just forming in this very narrow kitchen between the island and the opposite wall. We found out really quickly why you don't use dish soap in the dishwasher. We had a real problem on our hands. We didn't panic but my stepmom's like, "Oh my God, I'm so dead. This is a problem."  And so we tried…

And I'm going to talk about hats, I love hats! I'm so glad you thought of that subject because that's one of my favorite things is hats. I have lots of hats, in fact, after I saw that, I wonder how many hats I have, and I went around and counted my various stashes of hats, and I have between 40 and 45 hats and I love wearing hats. And right now, I'm wearing my winter hats. I have about eight winter hats, some of them are dressier than others but there is no stocking caps among my winter hats. Oh I take that back. There is one stocking cap. I do not wear it but it is one that was made for me by a friend, probably fifty-some years ago and I call it my life saving hat because I was wearing it on a dark stormy night. It was January 2nd of 1973. I was walking home from work in Eaton Rapids and crossing the street and I got hit by a car, but he said that he swerved at the last minute because he saw my yellow hat, and that he didn't hit me full on because of that and I was I was not killed obviously because here I am, I was injured but not killed. And so, anyway, that's the only stocking cap I have. 

So, I’ve made a lot of hats in my life. When my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002, I learned how to crochet beanies. And I gave her some and I donated a bunch to people who lost their hair because of the chemo. I did that for a little while. And then my mom's hair grew back and I stopped making hats. And then, I stopped doing any sort of -- I didn't really do any crochet for years and years and years and years and years.  And, fast forward to must have been 2021, I learned how to knit. And one of the first things that I made, when I learned how to knit was a beanie, and then I remembered that I had made beanies crocheting. And I had no idea how to crochet at the time, but I started making hats, knitting them. And one of my favorite books that I got was -- or is called “Knitting the National Parks” so, there are 30 -- no -- 63. This is my dyslexia coming in through right there, 63 patterns. One for each of the national parks. And they're very cool hats like really, really cool hats. So I went through and I picked out some that I liked and I gave it -- the book to my sister, or she got it from her library, and she picked out some that she wanted and her husband picked out one that he wanted and I've given some to friends and I’ve donated some and have made lots and lots of these “Knitting the National Parks” hats.

So actually, funny story. Last week, I went to go get the car and per usual like our apartment doesn't have like a good place to park your car. So we usually just like keep it idle behind the -- or in front of our apartment doors. Um but last week, unfortunately, little to my knowledge was the big MSU vs U of M basketball game. And so everyone was trying to like be on our street and the parking police were like out on a craze. And of course, right when I need to start moving again, the car didn't start. So, I had to go up to the apartment to get like our jumper. And by the time I got back downstairs to the car, we had a ticket on the car. And this is really stupid, like I really hate East Lansing for this because MSU is like the perfect place. We're right in between the MSU parking police wrath and then also the wrath of the East Lansing parking police. So we get like double whammied with the amount of parking tickets that I get. And I have like an employee permit. So, it's not like I'm just visiting and trying to get out of like paying the parking ticket. Like I paid over $200 for this parking pass that's supposed to get me into like a bunch of different parking lots and yet I still get ticketed by both parking police. Like it's just absolutely horrible. I feel very devalued as like an employee and student of MSU. And I just feel like in those cases, the basketball games, or like just the games in general at MSU, have more value over me as an employee here, which is kind of sad.