iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

2026: the year that realtors and sellers thought they could ask wildly inflated prices for existing houses, but that did not pan out.

Graphs for listing count, price per square foot, asking price, and days on market in Petoskey, MI. It shows a huge spike in listing prices starting in January 2025. Prices are coming down precipitously to the historical average. (realtor.com)

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

the ornamental garden outside of where the visitor's center once stood at the abandoned trout farm.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Basically a dot over my house. People here talk like they did down state 50 years ago.

A gradient map of the US showing that my dialect is most like Michigan north of Houghton Lake, a tiny bit like the Pacific Coast. The entire South and East Coast are excluded.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

at the edge of a parking lot for a power station/waterfall in the UP. can't remember which one. 6/24/19

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Checked out the scenic overlook on the way to pick up groceries. I did not wear the right shoes for this trail.

Overlooking distant Skegemog Lake from a hill on M72.

A steep, narrow trail into the woods, exposed tree roots forming stairs.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

My latest delivery from www.betterworldbooks.com, a great place to buy library discards and textbooks.

Looking down at the book rack next to my bed:
Larouse Spanish-English Dictionary
Burmese Days, George Orwell
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay
None But The Righteous, Chantal James
A workbook for Spanish study
The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

There are more ravens here than anything. They send out a call in the morning before strutting down the road together. One of them has learned to crow like a rooster.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

post pictures of mountains? this is Michigan's highest point, Mt Arvon. can practically drive right up to it.

A mailbox marked "MT. ARVON REGISTER" containing a guest book. People have added stickers and written on the box with the provided marker.

The view from Mt Arvon. Trees for miles. Unsure if that is water or land in the distance.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

beaver tails are freakish, but also, check out their alien footprints.

Beaver back footprints in a patch of snow. They have 5 webbed toes.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I set out to be eaten by bears, but let the record show that when the opportunity arose, I quickly hiked straight back to the car.

Prints of an adult black bear in the sand. My ladies' 10.5 for comparison.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

missed the memo and mailed a package during the River Days car show.

'80s Chevrolet station wagon, maybe a Caprise, with woodgrain side panels.

Mid '60s Dodge van. Round headlights, 13 windows, green with a white stripe. The front is almost flat and the door hinges are near the headlights.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Conveniently located by the canoe livery.

A flag advertising MARIJUANA, on top of an enormous sign advertising MARIJUANA, with an arrow below that is pointing at an even bigger pile of mulch outside of a dispensary. Greens in the foreground are just weeds.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

I think about this Garuda balustrade ornament in Toledo, OH, all the time. It's one of the most amazing objects I've ever seen, so close I could touch it. Shouldn't be legal and I doubt it is.

Divine creature with the head of a bird and body of a woman riding three nagas, carved in sandstone.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Walked on an ancient trail in my area, chased mercilessly by mosquitoes the entire way. I only stopped to take one photo. No mushrooms, but a huge blackberry crop is on the way.

The upper headwaters, north branch, of the Manistee River. Looking across the river between two small pine trees. Beavers have been working to dam this area. I can hear falling water.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Frogs playing bass guitars, I presume.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Cloud Master, from the standpoint that I've co-owned this cartridge since 1989 and have never been more than a few seconds into level 3. Infuriating. I will play it again the next time I have custody of the Sega.

A scene from Cloud Master. We are riding on a cloud to the left, attacking an enemy with a flame-colored arc. The enemies scrolling toward us could be birds, or a dragons, or something like seahorses. They are hitting back with devastating double arcs.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

If you are/know a woman who has recently migrated to Northern Lower Michigan for reasons, I plan to be thrifting, cooking, eating in restaurants of all kinds, swimming, and hiking in abandoned areas all summer. Maybe we could be mauled by bears together or something?

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

I walked to the river hoping to be attacked by a bobcat, but all I found was a cloud of mosquitos and maybe a tick.

At the grassy edge of the river where the animals go for a drink. The open water is barely visible, 40 feet or so in the distance. Everything else is green green green.

a two-track road with short, scrubby trees on the left and pine trees on the right and follows the west bank of the (unseen) river. The ground is flat because the river covered this entire area. The road was once part of the Native American trail system in this area.

a field with few plants besides mullein.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I walked to the lake for the first time this year. The water is high.

The lake, looking north toward the boat ramp. There is no beach. grass is growing in the water.

The lake looking west. Cement for the boat ramp extends about 8 feet into the water. Pine trees line the shore in the distance.

The lake, looking north. The stump of a long dead tree is at the water edge. The beach is underwater. This is where locals swim and hang out in lawn chairs.

Looking south from the boat ramp, I can see the weeds, normally at the edge of the water, where the frogs and fish are.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

I don't know whether to offer this new neighbor a pile of cookies or add a layer of locks to my doors.

An American flag and a don't tread on me snake flag that are covered in mud and tattered like they've been dragged behind a truck. The flags are posted by the road in a rotten tree trunk and wedged in with rocks. Rocks surround the stump. A forested lot is in the background.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Believe it or not, researchers in the past concluded that an entirely different animal was responsible - a type of lizard.

"The word tarantula is apparently the same as terrantola, a name given by the Italians to the stellio of the old Romans, which was a kind of lizard, said to be poisonous, and invested by credulity with such extraordinary qualities, that, like the serpent of the Mosaic account of the Creation, it personified, in the imaginations of the vulgar, the notion of cunning, so that even the jurists designated a cunning fraud by the appellation of a "stellionatus". Perotti expressly assures us that this reptile was called by the Romans tarantula and since he himself, who was one of the most distinguished authors of his time, strangely confounds spiders and lizards together, so that he considers the Apulian tarantula, which he ranks among the class of spiders, to have the same meaning as the kind of lizard called <in greek>, it is the less extraordinary that the iunlearned country people of Apulia should confound te much-dreaded ground-spider with the fabulous star-lizard, and appropriate to the one the name of the other. The derivation of the word tarantula, from the city of Tarentum, or the river, Thara, in Apulia, on the banks of which this insect is said to have been most frequently found, or, at least its bite to have had the most venomous effect, seems not to be supported by authority, So much for the name of this famous spider, which unless we are greatly mistaken, throws no light whatever upon the nature of the disease in question."

excerpt from "The black death and the dancing mania" by Hecker, J. F. C.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

“Tsutsumimono” by Japanese ceramic artist Tanaka Yū.

Yellow ceramic glazed stoneware in the shape of a bowl wrapped in a knotted cloth, a traditional way of transporting objects in Japan for hundreds of years. On display in the glass pavilion at the Toledo Museum of Art.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Telling the kids that ancient Egyptians invented the Rosca de Reyes.

Egyptian funerary statues of many sizes in a display case at the Toledo Museum Of Art. An overturned box contains at least thirty 2" figurines.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Calder's "Stegosaurus" at the Toledo Museum Of Art.

An orange metal sculpture with 5 arching legs and 5 triangular spikes on top on a brick plaza in front of the museum. It's a sunny day with few clouds.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

I have a file on all of my computers titled "tutti frutti". This one is from "Canning, Preserving and Pickling" by Marion Harris Neil, M.C.A. , c. 1914. If you come across a recipe for tutti fruitti, please send it to me.

AMBROSIA or TUTTI FRUTTI

1 pint (2 cups) brandy Sugar
Various ripe fruits

Put the brandy into a large stone jar, and add the various fruits as they come in season. To each quart of fruit add the same quantity of sugar; then stir the mixture with a wooden spoon each day until all the fruits have been added.
Raspberries, oranges, currants, cherries, strawberries, bananas, pears, plums, apricots, peaches, pineapples and apples are the best fruits to use.
Apricots, peaches, pineapples, apples, bananas, pears and plums should be cut in small pieces.
Keep covered with a cloth and a tight fitting cover.
This ambrosia is delicious to serve with ice creams, frozen puddings, sauces, corn starch puddings, and jellies.

Canning, Preserving and Pickling by Marion Harris Neil, M.C.A. , c. 1914
https://archive.org/stream/canningpreservi00neilgoog#page/n163/mode/2up

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Everything I posted yesterday was true. Please enjoy this artwork that represents me being trampled by a horse. www.andykriegerartist.com/2010.html

Waiting For A Stallion - 32" x 32" x 6" Andrew Krieger - 2011

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

the pinecone i bring to the pinecone fight

Thyrsus staff tied with taenia and topped with a pine cone.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thyrsus.jpg

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

practicing my Jim Jones voice and keeping this note by the phone.

An excerpt from the death tape in which Jim Jones encourages his followers to poison their children. Originally printed in Time magazine.

https://time.com/archive/6850421/nation-hurry-my-children-hurry/

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

I took this color test 3 times and got pretty much the same score. Lighter greens and lavenders (maybe blue?) were difficult. All of the reds were instantly obvious. This reinforces my belief that I have a finer sense of red and therefor you are the blind one. www.keithcirkel.co.uk/whats-my-jnd...

0.0027
You're seeing differences that most colour scientists would call noise. If you're not already calibrating displays for a living, you're leaving money on the table.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Piet Mondrian, a fellow with dancing plague. Having color rectangles on the walls to rearrange between projects is genius. Linear dance seem to be a northern habit for people who don't eat spicy food, men especially.

Mondrian lived alone, survived on coffee and lentils, built his furniture out of fruit crates, and avoided romantic relationships. In the evenings, he liked to go out dancing.

summarized from Piet Mondrian's Wikipedia page under personality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

I gained a number of insights by reading this book, but the important breakthrough has been in recognizing that I have a chloride problem, and this has probably always been the source of my health problems, including asthma, tinnitus, food allergies, PCOS, skin problems and the compulsion to dance.

"Nor should we here pass unnoticed a circumstance which illustrates, in a remarkable degree, the psychological nature of hysterical sufferings, namely, that many chlorotic females, by joining the dancers at the Carnevaletto, were freed from their spasms and oppression of breathing for the whole year, although the corporeal cause of their malady was not removed."

The black death and the dancing mania
by Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl), 1795-1850; Babington, B. G. (Benjamin Guy), 1794-1866, translator

https://archive.org/details/00338041.9352.emory.edu/page/157/mode/2up

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Pileated woodpeckers are my favorite.

Pileated woodpeckers always travel in pairs and are the largest birds at the feeder. One bird is hanging from the feeder while the other waits patiently on the trunk of tree. The landscape is covered in deep snow.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

Details in the ALT, but in this book dancing plague is common to people with red colorblindness who enjoy having the soles of their feet beaten. Also, bloated stomach (timpani). They clearly believed it was a type of epilepsy, but I think the "oppression of breath" is important.

pages 157 and 158, "chlorotic" is highlighted.
The black death and the dancing mania
by Hecker, J. F. C. (Justus Friedrich Carl), 1795-1850; Babington, B. G. (Benjamin Guy), 1794-1866, translator
https://archive.org/details/00338041.9352.emory.edu/page/157/mode/2up

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Jays are hard at work, digging for seed under the suet feeder.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

It's -4 outside and a murder of blue jays has taken up residence at our bird feeder. There are six all together. The other two are hanging out with a different woodpecker.

A downy woodpecker eating seed from a suet feeder under the supervision of two blue jays who are puffed up for warmth. Pine trees in the background are caked with snow.

A downy woodpecker eating suet from the feeder with two blue jays looking on from above and two jays on the ground gathering fallen seeds.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

"... but protecting the dust with his hands, said 'I beg of you, do not disturb this.'" - last words of Archimedes recorded by Valerius Maximus, 30BC.

The Death of Archimedes (1815) by Thomas Degeorge

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Getting my ass kicked daily by the trans-coded computer on playscrabble.com.

Ending score of a game in which Zoey has beaten me again, 332-292. She is hard.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

going through my social media accounts with an axe. might deactivate my other accounts. It's been so long since I've posted elsewhere that I doubt anyone will notice, but if you know me from a past life, please don't tell the others I'm here.

People walking toward a heavenly shining light in the distance.
"SOME WILL BE LEFT BEHIND"

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

The blue jays and the squirrel are working together.

Four blue jays under a suet feeder that is being ravaged by a black squirrel.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

I picked this up in the foyer of Abe's Coney Island in Ypsilanti, c. 2001.

A fuzzy photocopy of a copy of a collage, pieces of text and pictures with handwritten notes, concerning WWI, Jekyll Island, and how Clinton and Bush were Torys who were trying to give the country back to England.

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Mother of Vinegar @abbess.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Surprised that I had not heard about the hundreds of windmills dotting the landscape along US127 in mid-Michigan. Unexpected and beautiful.

A dozen enormous windmills dotting the cornfields of mid-Michigan. About half the fields are harvested.

Fields, houses, and more giant windmills.

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