And, Finally, Relief...

Ninety-one days. Nine tens followed by a one. That's how many 90°F-plus days we have had in Atlanta this year. The latest one was Friday. We set records on October 2, 3, and 4 for highest temperature in October, and had lunch at O'Charley's with friends on a Friday so hot that the metal door handle was blistering and I had to wait for one of the O'Charley's folks to hold it open for James.

Then, with a click of a switch, it was over on Saturday morning. We rose to a Saturday morning cool and silky, with a little breeze, so that we drove to the Hallmark October ornament premiere with the windows of the truck down.

After all those mornings of having to chivvy myself from bed early to walk the dog before the sun topped the trees in the back yard (and not succeeding really well, as I have been feeling really terrible this summer), this morning was like heaven! It was 62° and cloudy, a nice grey high-perched cloud blanket overhead, with just the tiniest bit of a breeze. It's on these mornings that I feel like I could walk forever—alas, that gives out about halfway during the walk and my back lets me know it. Nevertheless, Tucker and I had a nice long walk, the whole street including the upper cul-de-sac, then out to Smyrna-Powder Springs Road and across the street to the little white Baptist Church and across the front, then back down the street all the way to the daycare center and then across the street again so we could walk down a sidewalk, all the way opposite the home we call "the guy with the pretentious fence" (it's an ordinary split level house, but they have a fence that looks like it belongs around a McMansion in Buckhead, painted steel blue and trimmed in gold no less). Also walked around the parking lot of the daycare center twice. Did 1.7 miles, and I only started to perspire on the inward leg. Excellent.

It's still going to be wavering around 80 during the next few days, but the mornings will be in the 60s, and anything is better than the scorching, blazing, sweltering, smelly 90s.

Crossing fingers and looking forward to the book sale on Friday.

Please Take My Sunshine Away

I tell myself each year, in the spring, that this year it's going to be different. Since there's nothing I can do about summer, I need to at least make up my mind that there will be no whining and complaining this year. If I can't really enjoy the season, perhaps I can just accept it as it is, even as I go dodging from air-conditioned home to air-conditioned car, setting the controls on "afterburner" so I can endure the ride, and then sprint across a parking lot to an air-conditioned store. Acceptance is the answer.

Acceptance to summer is not my speed. I can't help but after a few weeks of high 80s-lower 90s, to start the litany again: Summer sucks. Summer sucks so much it should be renamed "Hoover." (I've been told that that's very old-fashioned. Okay. Summer sucks so much it should be renamed "Roomba.") The sun gives me headaches, or a rash, or both. In rare cases it has given me heart palpitations, but always too long out in the sun I can hear my heart start to beat like the big bass drum in the circus parade: BOOM BOOM BOOM. It shakes me until I run inside and sit under a fan, waiting for it to return to the quiet lub-dub. I'm chivvied out of my bed early to walk the dog before the sidewalks turn into griddles, the asphalt stinks, the air smells of car exhaust. I can't see the appeal of sitting all day on a beach under a broiler whose fire makes my skin burn and prickle. So most of this summer, especially when temps climbed into the high 90s, I kept my head down and prayed for autumn.

Last night a wind blew down out of the north and we woke to mid-60s temperatures. It so invigorated me I walked the dog an extra quarter mile and, while we did keep a brisk enough pace for me to break a sweat, it wasn't the usual one where even my underwear became sopped. As soon as I was inside, I threw open a few windows and opened the door to the deck and turned on a couple of fans.

Out the living room window I saw this. The tulip trees, at least, are longing for autumn. Too, the scuppernongs growing wild out on the main road have grapes swollen to size, and now ripening and falling. The oaks are already host to browning leaves that are dropping. Other bushes have leaves turning yellow, or even drifting off every few seconds, like the down when Snowy moults.

Look at that tulip tree sporting its saffron spots. The plants know summer is waning—I wish the weather would figure it out! I long for cool temperatures and cool breezes, weather cold enough to snuggle in flannel and fleece, wearing a robe and fuzzy slippers, eating gingerbread and sipping peppermint-spiked hot chocolate. Weather where you feel comfortable, not attacked. A chill that keeps the mosquitoes (a big problem this year!) away. Wander off, O summer, where the odd ones want you: down to Florida and all those inexplicable lookalike Caribbean resorts that are giveaway prizes on Wheel of Fortune. Sail away...even better, jet away. Wish you could stay there for good, too.

March Forth

Will you tell me how on earth it is March already? The days fly by since I've retired, even when all I'm doing is listening to podcasts while cleaning house. It's 3:30 already as I write this and I haven't even vacuumed yet.

February was a full month, thankfully without disasters. James did have one doctor's appointment and next week must have a skin cancer removed through a MOHS procedure. We are crossing our fingers about this. Mostly we have watched the weather get warmer and warmer (it was high 60s some days and a couple of low 70s, too) and the trees starting to bud, and the blossoms everywhere: the Bradford pear trees have already turned to white snowballs and are leafing out, and the flowering cherries and plums are bright pink and purple, and the yellow blaze of forsythia here and daffodils there is quite daunting. The purple and white magnolia tree up the street has not only bloomed but is already scattering petals to the strong wind. Ironically we are having another cold front this week—well, until the weekend, when it will go back to 60s, but then it will rain. It seems that it has done nothing but rain, and it always rains on the weekend. We had a cloudy but dry day on Saturday, but had to race a rainstorm home yesterday (and south of here the storms swarmed angrily and formed tornadoes). I'm not sure why everyone wants spring so badly when all it does is make us sneeze and brings alive the threat of tornado sirens heralding disaster.

I didn't even get a Rudolph Day post done for February (I was reading Emlyn Williams' Southern Christmas which is full of the flower blooms that are traditional of southern holiday decorations, perfect for the springing of spring, but I never finished it), it zipped by that quickly. It's almost time for this blog to go semi-dormant. Heck, next Sunday is the annual travesty of turning the clocks forward, which drives me bonkers. All winter when he's gone to work James has had to use the floodlights on the driveway to be able to see when he mounts the power chair on the truck. Now that it's finally light enough in the morning for him to see without the lights, we're going to push the dang clock forward an hour, meaning it will be pitch dark at seven in the morning again. The sun won't rise until almost eight, which is stupid.

I pray for a happy March.

Our Autumn "Social Season" Begins

The first of our autumn events arrived today: the annual Yellow Daisy Festival. We arose early to eat a quick breakfast and so Tucker could have his dog walk before we set out on the 37 mile drive to Stone Mountain Park. Traffic, of course, was minimal for a Sunday morning, and we got there at nine o'clock with our early pass. It was nice and quiet for a while, but it was already warm and very sticky. I was perspiring profusely before we were halfway through. It was harder walking than DragonCon for me, and I almost missed one farmstand that we really wanted to buy from.

As always, the crafts are a mix of everything: cute kids' clothes, toys, lots of different types of jewelry (the person who I got the Doctor Who headband from had a Walking Dead headband this year), homemade clothing (one lady had beautiful hand-woven sweater/shawl type items I would have loved, but they were very expensive, and worth every penny of the work!), pottery, food items of all sorts (jams, maple syrups, soup and casserole mixes, nuts, sauces), tools to work with foods (barbecue forks, hand-carved wooden spoons, bread knives), metalwork items, the occasional furniture items, hammocks, textile crafts—well, name it, it's there. As usual, there are lovely things we'd like, but can't afford: weathervanes, yard decorations, hammocks...but we must pass them by. However, James did get a new leather wallet, and then we stocked up on food goodies for the rest of the year: Smack Yo' Mama barbecue sauce; MeadowCroft Farms sweet onion relish (we love this stuff on steak and pork and even lamb!) and also sweet pepper and onion relish for James and some blackberry jam for me (till we can get to Ellijay for the blackberry spread I love); First Sergeant products (bourbon pineapple and brandy cherry sauces for us, and medium hot salsa for his burritos); and the first of our two fudge dessert indulgences. I also bought another bar of dog soap.

I was exhausted when we got done and we'd only been there two hours. We are usually there longer, but I did not buy anything from Country Pick'ns this year. It made me a little melancholy, but I've kind of mined them out for my interests. I have Christmas, winter, fall, seashore, kitchen, and pet elements all over the house at various times of the year, and I made fall and Hallowe'en items into a Thanksgiving theme. Her other themes are camping (which I used for a wedding gift), beach, gardening, sewing, and cooking, and I don't do any of those. Would have loved to have seen them do art/painting, writing, etc. But it's sad to have to "abandon" them.

We came directly home, getting caught in a short shower which quit the minute we got the power chair in the house. Spent the afternoon enjoying the air conditioning. I even fell asleep.

James made pork chops for dinner with the bourbon pineapple sauce with a cucumber side, we caught up on Mad About You, and now we're watching stuff off the DVR. It's almost as "high" as the to-be-read piles.

Christmas in the Air

As I mentioned, James volunteered to work today so he wouldn't get drafted, especially on New Year's Day. Plus it was double time and would make up a little for his three doctor's appointments last week. So this Christmas morning James was up at seven to work. I got to sleep in a bit.

James was twiddling his thumbs when I got up and had breakfast. I was changing channels looking for something Christmasy, and stumbled over Come to the Stable on FXM. I wish I'd known it was on. I hadn't seen it in years. It's not really a Christmas movie, but begins in winter when two nuns arrive in New England to try to found a children's hospital. I'd forgotten how funny bits of it was, especially Sister Margaret driving the jeep.

Tucker was very patient and waited for me to finish with the movie to go out. It was very cold out, in the high 20s with a sharp wind snapping the St. Nicholas banner and the flag. It felt good! There were high clouds and bits of sky showing as we strolled the neighborhood. Someone down the street was having company for dinner. The cars filled their long driveway and spilled out to the street.

James took a break before lunch and then we had presents! O, what a haul! Four books and two DVDs, the books all from my Amazon wish list: World War II in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Radio (with a photo of Jack Comley, my favorite radio talk show host ever), Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Britcom FAQ.  The DVDs were both Rick Steves: his new episodes for 2017-2018, and all his specials (even the Easter special). I gave James two military nonfiction books, Andy Weir's new book Artemis, the second season of WKRP in Cincinnati, and a Jethro Tull concert DVD. And of course the chair he was sitting in! (We discovered Tucker sleeping in it last night, and it looked so sweet, the little dog curled up in the big red chair next to the Christmas tree.

Put on The House Without a Christmas Tree while we had lunch: our turkey leftovers from West Cobb Diner on Friday night, a clementine, and Terry's dark chocolate orange slices. Tried not to snack too much so we could save the calories for the feast at the Butlers!

While James waited for someone to call, I also washed some towels and unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and made the bed.

Spent the later afternoon watching The Homecoming and feeling very drowsy, so took a 45-minute nap (well, I tried to; I really didn't sleep much), then took Tucker for a walk, fixed him a special Christmas dinner with a little chicken broth and beef and carrot dog-food puree, got dressed and washed my face, brought James his shoes (otherwise he was ready to go) and a hairbrush, and put the gifts together.

At five o'clock James signed off having had nary a call, and we loaded up the car with presents and chocolate cake and were off to the Butlers to enjoy three hours of friends, food and fun. People had just sat down to dinner and we availed ourselves of apple cider basted turkey, spiral-sliced ham, pot roast, mashed potatoes, noodle kugel, sprouts, and carrots. Dessert was two homemade pies, fruitcake cookies, our chocolate cake and a coconut cake, and some Andes mints we also brought. Once the feasting was complete, we gathered in the living room for gifts. We got many lovely things, too numerous to list.

Journeyed home about eight, stopping at a housing plat along the way to see their decorations. One end definitely had a "glitter gulch"! Yet another lawn was covered with inflatables: two Mickey Mouses, a Minnie Mouse, a Minion, Olaf the snowman, Santa in an airplane, Santa with his sleigh, and about a dozen more.

Once home we watched the Call the Midwife Christmas special—very interesting story based around "the Big Freeze," the cold winter of 1962-1963. Will the actress who played Barbara not be in the new season? They have sent her and her husband the curate to another church for six months. I've always loved Barbara and will miss her.

Rainy, With a Chance of Kringly

The forecast of rain precluded us going to Chattanooga today, so we had an alternate idea: we'd go up to Books-a-Million for a hot cocoa and a look at the calendars, and come back by MicroCenter to return something we'd bought that we didn't need. Well, the weather report seemed to indicate the rain would start at noon and end right after three, and we didn't want to rush, so we put off the book trip. Since we don't have to cook for Christmas Eve (much), we can go up there tomorrow.

Instead, after breakfast we returned the item to MicroCenter, then, because we were halfway there, made a quick trip to Trader Joe's for a tea James liked, got a little more peppermint bark (the Peppermint JoJos were completely gone), and then headed for Ollie's Bargain Outlet, as James was looking for new bungee cords to hold the tarp on the power chair. We picked up a gadget that is supposed to air fry in the oven (and if it doesn't it's only $10 wasted) and I found the same three-calendar set as I did last year, so I can have a small calendar near the computer. It has become so hard to find calendars smaller than 7x7 anymore. There used to be several sources: Michaels, Kmart... We got home right as a few specks of rain tapped the truck window.

Had lunch to M*A*S*H Christmas episodes, then did a spate of vacuuming while James was making more breakfast burritos. This will get him past Twelfth Night before he has to do any more. Once he finished, did two more M*A*S*H episodes, and finally The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, after which we left for supper, timing it just as the mailman arrived, with another Christmas card from a friend, and two Christmas packages from two different friends. And the rain? The few specks of rain went away until about one, we had about a half hour of hard rain, and then, whoosh, it was gone. We even saw a brief gleam of sun until the clouds closed up again.

Oh, well, I can't say I wanted to drive up to Chattanooga two days before Christmas...

Supper was at Fried Tomato Buffet (it's barbecue rib night) and we came home by Kennesaw Avenue to see the decorations on all the big old houses, and then went past our old neighborhood to see if they still do luminaria in Dunleith. If they do, it wasn't tonight. We did go past one of my favorite houses; among all those modern designs, there is a house that looks like a colonial saltbox, complete with a period door, etc. They still just use plain white candles and plain green wreaths and red bows, although the white electric lights on the big pine tree out front kinda ruins the period effect. 😃

More Christmas specials tonight: Father Christmas, The Snowman, The Night Before Christmas, "Christmas at Plum Creek" from Little House on the Prairie, and finally The Best of the Andy Williams Christmas Specials. Snowy sang blithely to all of them!

The only sobering part of today is waiting to hear about James' mom. She and his sister went to visit his sister's daughter and husband and their little boy up in New Jersey, and Mom was not feeling good, so they went to the emergency room. She is not critically ill, but she's stuck in the hospital while they are doing tests to see what is causing her shortness of breath, and who wants to be in the hospital at Christmas, even if it's the best hospital in the world?

Third Sunday of Advent: Hygge and Hard Drives

Our original plan for today: go to McKay's in Chattanooga and then eat at City Café. I love going up to McKay's before Christmas; they have the Christmas CDs and Christmas books right out and easy to find. And City Café has a brilliant chicken soup that they put broken-up spaghetti in instead of noodles. Every Italian kid remembers his mother doing this for a quick supper. It's like suddenly going back in time: to grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles speaking Italian (I miss people speaking Italian), and torrone squares in with the Christmas cookies, which weren't sugar cookies with thick colored frosting or gingerbread boys, but almond bars and molasses bars and wine biscuits and pizelle, and even hard fruit-flavored Italian candies in the candy dishes, and always a dish of nuts in the shell.

But it was supposed to start raining in Chattanooga by 10 a.m. and in Atlanta by two. The power chair isn't supposed to travel in the rain, and you can't carry cardboard Xerox paper boxes in a pickup truck's truck bed in the rain. Life happens and rain happens. I've driven home from Chattanooga in the rain, chair or no chair. It's not pretty.

We spent part of the morning swearing because yesterday we'd pretty much had to wedge the new hard drive into James' old computer (everything is riveted in) and since it didn't work, we now had to take the new hard drive out, and the old hard drive, too, to get the files off it. It took James about a half hour, and I had to use a wrench to bang part of the strip of housing that was holding the enclosure with the hard drives in it so it would come out (and he still had trouble). But he got the old drive out, put it into the enclosure, and prepared to copy the files off.

The old disk was completely blank. The update hadn't corrupted Windows, it had wiped everything!

James had done a backup of his main drive to a portable disk in June, so we were able to extract his Eudora mailboxes from that. I turned on the Christmas tree and the Christmas village and put more Christmas cassettes on and we had Christmas hygge as he loaded Eudora and WordPerfect and Paint Shop Pro and other necessary programs, and we restored his mailboxes. We even cleaned out the spinner full of program discs on the top shelf of his computer desk. We found some relics up there, including some disc that could be booted in DOS and a WindowsXP operating disc! He threw out old stuff, kept discs of images, e-books, and manuscripts, and kept any games he was still interested in. The next step will be to see if all the games (mostly military, a few fantasy and some arcade) still open in Win10, and if they don't, if compatibility mode will make them work.

For supper we had half of the four-pound pork loin I found at Kroger, slow cooked in barbecue sauce, with a cucumber salad chaser. It was delicious, and there's leftovers for lunch for both of us.

To finish out the night, we watched the live performance of the Broadway play version of A Christmas Story. It was super, especially the little boy—Andy Walken—who played Ralphie. What a voice on that child! He made it all real. Interesting bits added to the story, like about Schwartz being Jewish (he isn't in the movie and apparently the Hanukkah scene was written for the television production), Miss Shields having OCD, etc. I loved how they worked adult Ralphie, played by Matthew Broderick, and his narration into the action, and really adored the songs "Counting Down to Christmas" and "Just Like That" (also nodded vigorously to "What a Mother Does"!). But what brought down the house for me was the ending narration provided by Broderick, about how sometimes parents didn't say they loved you, but they worked for you and nagged you and kept you safe, which was the same thing. It made me cry. Thinking about it still makes me cry.

And the Bumpus hounds were played by rescue dogs to boot!

The Christmas Tree Distraction

Well, it certainly was an interesting day. Not in the Chinese sense, just...different.

The original plan for today was that James would go off to his club meeting Christmas party, and I would have my annual orgy decorating the tree. Well, Atlanta had about eight inches (at least) of snow yesterday. This is nothing in New England and Michigan and Minnesota and up in the "great white north" over the border in Canada. But the folks up there have snow tires, snow plows, snow shovels, snow blowers, plentiful sand trucks, and enough snow yearly that they know how to drive in it. (Well, judging by the accidents on the news, at least they should!) Your average Atlantan has no experience with snow. He may have all-weather tires but no snow experience. Plus the ground always starts as warm, so there is always ice under the snow. I don't know about you, but my car is not Sonia Heine or Michelle Kwan, and neither is any other vehicle in the metro area.

So we had been snowed in yesterday and it snowed more during the night, and we woke up to a beautiful white world. It had snowed so much the bird feeders were blocked with snow and there were 7 1/2 inches of snow on the deck. James' party was canceled. Instead he continued working on his computer, which died in the middle of a Windows update. It's just...stuck. So I set up an account for him on my computer, in case he needed it.

My project began when James and I cleared the rocking chair and other things out of the corner, I vacuumed, and then I commenced bringing the four parts of the Christmas tree upstairs. After a brief gaffe when I put the wrong part into the stand assembly, I got the tree together and plugged it in.

Arggh! Half the string in the center section was out! Now what would I do? This is our practically brand new tree, the one we got at Kmart in 2014. It didn't look terribly awful, but there was a dark spot around the "waist" of the tree, and this has never been an overly bright tree. I supposed I could have tried putting light colored ornaments (the white and pink satin balls, for example, the snowman ornament, the unicorn in a stocking, etc.) on that dark section, but I was pretty upset.

In the meantime James noticed he was down to six of his homemade burritos. He had meat and beans, but needed wraps and cheese.

By this time it was noon, the sky had cleared and turned a brilliant blue, and the snow was melting rapidly in the streets and was falling in blobs from tree branches and other tall structures. People were out walking. We called Hobby Lobby to see if they had a gadget called a Lightkeeper Pro; they did, and we had them hold it for us. Then we got in the truck and drove there via the main roads, which were pretty clear. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but what there was was brisk.

We picked it up and then went to Publix, where we did the shopping, including ingredients for the burritos and the twofers. We were starving by the time we got home because it was wayyyy after two, but I only cut off a little of the loaf of French bread before I girded my courage and tried the Lightkeeper Pro.

I've been hearing about this gadget for years in various Christmas groups, and most of the time it's positive. It looks like a plastic gun with several parts, runs on included batteries, and has a couple of different ways of correcting Christmas light string (only miniature lights) problems, the most common being the "quick fix trigger method." There is a socket connector at the front of the LP. You pick out any light socket in the part of a light string that does not work, pull out the light bulb, and plug the LP into that empty socket, then you press the trigger. It works by overriding a burned-out filament and fixing the shunt that make electricity flow through the string. If it doesn't work after thirty presses, there is an alternative method called an audible voltage detector, which reads like voodoo to me.

And it worked! It needed only about three pulls of the trigger to fix the string. There were also two burned-out bulbs which I moved to the back of the tree.

I spent the rest of late afternoon decorating the tree, interrupted by some supper between the ornaments and the tinsel. I watched Christmas Is, The City That Forgot About Christmas, For Better or For Worse: the Bestest Present, For Better or For Worse:The Christmas Angel, It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special, and finally, Raggedy Ann and Andy in the Great Santa Claus Caper. And then about four or five episodes of Rehab Addict during the tinseling.

The tinsel took forever. I hope I never have to put icicles on a tree at night again. Even with the lamps on it was hard to see to layer the branches and the static electricity was appalling. It's bad enough that these modern icicles are so thin. They kept whipping around and attaching themselves to everything but the tree.

But finally it was time for the final touch: the manger scene under the tree.

It became immediately apparent that we were going to have no more luck keeping Tucker's tail away from the tinsel than in previous years, so the baby gate is back up in front of the tree.

As a reward for creating colorful sparkle, there was gingerbread with whipped cream for dessert and a viewing of Mercy Mission: the Rescue of Flight 771, followed by a John Denver and the Muppets chaser.

Operation Christmas, Part 1

In the past I have taken Thanksgiving week off, which has been nice. However, this year I thought I would get a leg up on the Christmas decorating by taking off Wednesday through Friday of Thanksgiving week and then today and tomorrow.

It was a busy, busy day. I was up at 7:30, had breakfast, and was listening to BBC Radio 4X for the remainder of the day. I put away all the Thanksgiving items from inside; unfortunately I couldn't put the box away because it has been raining all evening and several of the items on the porch were still wet. I went out during a break in the harder rain to take in the banner, the mailbox cover, and the wet things from the porch and put them into the garage to dry. Then I cleaned off all the surfaces in the dining room in prep for decoration; got the table in the hall as well, and cleaned out the foyer until it was a blank slate, down to polishing Mom's tier table and the horse lamp.

I did put up the wreath on the door and the Christmas banner, put up all the window candles and the wreaths on the interior doors, placed the bird wreath on the door out to the deck, and, because I already had the rocker and the Laz-Y-Boy pulled out to clean the divider, put up the decorations on that portion of the room.

The weather has been interesting today. It was warm enough this weekend to wear short sleeves, and was 61°F this morning when I woke up, but a cold front was coming our way. Around noon I had a sandwich and got dressed and went out to Lowes to buy more blue bulbs for the candles. I keep all the Christmas lights on timers, and have been frustrated in the past few years by the older timers I have that are worked with removable pins that tend to get lost. Lowes, I remembered, had smaller timers with pull out clips instead of pins. So I bought three to replace the pin timers.

On the way home, I decided to stop at Home Depot to see what type of Christmas items they had this year. As I walked in the door, I was surprised to see two packs of timers. Not only were these two-packs less expensive than one timer at Lowes, the timers themselves were even smaller. I bought two two-packs and put them on the window candles; they appear to work fine. I have put all the pin-operated timers into the donation bin.

Anyway, in the little over an hour I was out the temperature dropped ten degrees, from 60 to 50, and just as I got in the door, it ticked down to 49. With the wind having picked up, it was a bit "airish" out—I loved it! The house was still so warm from yesterday's weather that I didn't have to change out of sleeveless working clothes until after supper.

James took some chicken strips we had left over (there weren't enough for salad) and combined them with some Classico pasta sauce and sausage tortellini from Costa's Pasta. It was quite good if it did come up on me all night.

My gosh, now they are talking about snow flurries tomorrow morning!

Fall Creeps in On Little Cat Feet

Unfortunately for me, my favorite season arrives just as our busiest season at work is winding down. Sometimes it seems that there's little time for me to lift my eyes from my monitor or from the myriad of things I must do on weekends to note the seasons slowly shifting gear.

We could hardly credit it, but it seems Tropical Storm Lee, for all the damage it did other places, here "broke the back" of summer. We'd had 89 days of sizzling 90s during the summer (one more did turn up to break the record) and there seemed no end of it until Lee flipped the switch. Oh, this didn't mean it automatically made it cool. Temps are still, on average, hovering in the low 80s, which is common here in September. However, there have been odd days where the clouds have triumphed and it's been in the 70s, with a nice cool breeze coming from the north or northeast, and one golden day where it never got out of the high 60s.

In the end, the body knows when you need to slow down and it's given me a bit of a whack today: stuffed nose, lightheadedness, feeling as if I didn't sleep even when I did. So instead of at a desk, I am wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, heeding the brake imposed upon me.

Outside I can see what's been happening while my mind's been elsewhere: one of the trees in the yard is dotted with yellow leaves. There are other, crackled brown, strayed on the deck, and some bright red leaves on a tree in the yard next door. When we went shopping on Sunday, I marveled at how the trees lining the parking lot had changed: the tips of the maple leaves—indeed some of the whole leaves—have turned scarlet. Everywhere the dogwoods, which are the last to bloom and the first to turn, sport reddish leaves. In the parking lot at work, the roof of my car has been regularly thumped with falling acorns, which lie brown (and occasionally squashed) in clusters on the tarmac.

The last of the baby birds have fledged and gone their way, except for one young cardinal who sits on the feeder (and even occasionally feeds) and clings to his childhood, begging his mother or father to feed him (they oblige, with resignation it appears). Very soon the bluebirds will return to provide a piece of the sky on earth.

And, oh, the sky!—after a summer of insipid pale blue overlaid with a thin yellowish coating of smog and pollen, the sky is once again bright blue, painted with a feathery brush of ghost-white cirrus clouds. It's a preview of cool autumn days to come.

3 Days Before Christmas

Goodness, it was warm when I got up this morning; I thought I had been suddenly transported to Florida during the night (now there's a nightmare for you). When I looked at the temperature it said it was 60°F!

After breakfast, it was time to get to work. I put on Holiday Pops, lit the "Christmas Wreath" Yankee Candle, and did my chores; washed a load of towels and a load of clothes, vacuumed upstairs and the stairs, swept the foyer and downstairs, finished tidying the spare room, cleaned off the dining room table, and put "sliders" on the dining room chairs, something badly needed because they still had the "furry" ones on from the old house, where the table was on vinyl flooring. Needless to say, they didn't slide very well on carpet with all that friction!

By the time I finished it was one o'clock and I was feeling the need for some fresh air and action that didn't involve a balky vacuum cleaner, so I went out. I didn't take my jacket, but it was definitely cooler than it had been this morning. Stopped at CVS to wander the gift/decoration aisle to get a dose of Christmas, and also went to BJs to scope out stuff for the party. Got some samples: a Red Baron pizza that was surprisingly good, hummus, pita chips, and half a sugar cookie. On the way home I stopped at Borders and ran into our friend Phyllis.

Back at home I folded the towels and sorted the clothes, then sat down to watch Rick Steves' European Christmas. James brought home Wendy's for me, a plain burger and a baked potato. The burger definitely did not agree with me; I was feeling off the rest of the night. Did get to watch "Christmas at Plum Creek," and help James put together a gift for a friend.

The biggest surprise was on the news—they are tentatively predicting some snow for Christmas! Probably mostly in the North Georgia mountains, but depending on how it moves, perhaps a dusting here. We'll see...

4 Days Before Christmas

Since James worked on Saturday, today was his compensatory day off. We slept late because we stayed up last night hoping to see the lunar eclipse. This one was notable because it was taking place at the same time as the winter solstice. By the time it started, I was walking around with my eyes half-open, but nevertheless went out on the deck with a camera to try my luck, luck because light clouds were scudding in ahead of the potentially rainy weather.

As the eclipse began, we had some good glimpses of the moon being "eaten" by a shadow, but my aim was shaky because I had to hold the camera overhead, so I went back inside for my tripod. Of course, now that I had the camera secure the clouds thickened and gaps between them became further and further apart. I did get a few pics, which I posted on Facebook later on, but we never did see the full eclipse. We got into bed about three and fell into deep sleep until 10:13.

After breakfast, we headed out to the hobby shop because James hadn't visited there Saturday, and he wanted to wish Rusty a merry Christmas. James Corley (owner of the store) had his little dog with him, a Lhasa Apso named Leela. What a little cutie, with big brown eyes. He had her behind a baby gate, but when I saw the big eyes I said, "Oh, what a cute little puppy!" and she got on her hind legs and wagged her tail and did cute to perfection.

After we left the hobby shop we went to the Borders at Merchant's Walk to buy the very last of our Christmas gifts, armed with coupons. The store was packed; I've never seen a bookstore that crowded except during a signing or the release of a book like Harry Potter—the line snaked past several aisles of the store!

I also ran into Michaels to get something with my 50 percent off coupon, and then we cut through the back to get to Town Center. We had Barnes & Noble coupons and wandered about happily amongst the other shoppers for a bit before heading to Golden Corral. Neither of us had eaten lunch and by now it was after four, so we had our supper. I was very pleased to find a whole turkey on the buffet so you could get dark meat! Also had some pot roast and a bit of steak, plus some cantaloupe and a small slice of chocolate cake.

James gets small gifts for a few co-workers every year, so he stopped at Hobbytown to pick them up, and then we headed home. I wrapped the rest of the gifts and finally cleaned up the spare bedroom, which has spent time since December 5 looking like the shipping room at Amazon.com, since I was wrapping a few gifts a day. James got his dough out of the refrigerator and baked the Splenda and spice cookies as well as chocolate ones.

And later we watched A Christmas Story.

5 Days Before Christmas

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without an emergency run to the grocery store for forgotten baking supplies.

But that happened later, after I woke up with a "broken motivator." :-)

Trouble is, there were about three things I wanted to do, all of them important. Since one should always start at the beginning, I started with breakfast. :-) Then I finally did something about those wretched coupons that are scattered all over the coffee table. The restaurant ones were hung in the foyer, the grocery ones in the coupon book, the craft ones up front to grab for a trip to Michaels or JoAnn. A couple of trips up and down the stairs worked wonders.

I had never put up the little tree in our bedroom, so next I fixed that up (replaced ornaments fallen off, and re-swagged the gold-star garland), then worked on some Christmas gifts and wrapped them up. Just need to pick up a couple of gift cards now.

By this time I was hungry as a wolf and was spoiling for a headache. I ate the turkey sandwich I made yesterday and read the last of the three small Getty Images books I got a few months back for $2 each, The 1930s (the other two were the 1900s and the 1910s). These are black-and-white photos in different categories (work, leisure, have and have nots, etc.) for each of the decades), chiefly from Europe, but also from the U.S. and a few from Asia.

The headache didn't let up, so I attacked it with some ibuprofin, then fetched the mail, happy to see my Amazon order had come. I now have a nice professional copy of Mercy Mission: The Rescue of Flight 771, and also the DVD "Merry Sitcom," which is a collection of television Christmas episodes from the 1950s and the 1960s (and also a bargain copy of Christietown, the fourth Cece Caruso mystery, which never showed up in any of the local bookstores—I just looked them up; it appears there is a fifth one. I've never seen that one either).

So I didn't start on baking wine biscuits until after three. I listened to Rick Steves talk about European countries getting ready for Christmas as I mixed the dough and shaped the cookies and put them in the oven. So funny: I used the same everything for two batches of cookies, even the same bottle of wine in the same proportions. The first batch of dough was beige, and the second had the pale purple glow. Odd. And the dough smelled odd to me, although it tastes perfect.

I was almost finished with the second batch when James got home. He had some leftover steak to finish, so I hadn't take out anything for dinner. While he finished the steak, I had chicken soup with rice. We watched Mercy Mission; fab as always, and nice to see the great picture rather than my recorded-off-NBC washed-out copy, and to finally see the credits instead of the Little House on the Prairie nostalgic clip stuck there at the end of the NBC broadcast to promote Melissa Gilbert's lawyer series way back when. We also watched "Silly, But It's Fun...", the Good Life Christmas special.

James started baking cookies and discovered we didn't have any vanilla, so we had to make a quick run to Publix before he could continue. It was a lovely, cold, crisp night, so this wasn't a chore at all. Unfortunately, we won't be able to see the lunar eclipse tonight, as it's cloudy.

He was able to do only one batch tonight, some Splenda chocolate chip cookies (with sugarless chips), as the dough for the Splenda-and-spice cookies needs to chill before baking. While he was thus engaged, I watched some of the shows off the "Merry Sitcom" DVD: "The Christmas Story" from Father Knows Best (the Andersons are stranded in a mountain cabin on Christmas Eve), "A Very Merry Christmas" from The Donna Reed Show (Donna helps make Christmas merry in the children's ward at the hospital), and "Wailing in a Winter Wonderland" from The Flying Nun (Sister Bertrille makes it snow in Puerto Rico as a gift to an elderly Norwegian nun, and ruins the tourist trade). The episodes left are for McHale's Navy, Bewitched, That Girl and Window on Main Street.

After James tidied up, we watched "Merry Gentlemen," the Christmas episode of All Creatures Great and Small. It always makes me feel "kringly." But then it was a totally kringly day. :-)

Autumn Amidst the Raindrops

Dark, dripping, and dreary: today in a nutshell. There were fits of rain, but surprisingly no thunder, and it was necessary to keep the lights on all day.

I kept my own inner light burning with the warmth of music in the morning and podcasts in the afternoon. First things first: I played the copy of "New England Christmastide" I received in the mail yesterday so I could do my feedback. I've had "New England Christmastide 2" on cassette tape for years, and when we were on vacation, I saw it on CD in the Christmas store in Weston, VT, along with a newer album, "New England Yuletide," which I purchased, but not the original album. So when I got home I hunted it up on Amazon Marketplace.

All of the collection are instrumentals, my favorite type of Christmas music, done in a simple style on "folk instruments" like hammered dulcimers, bagpipes, recorders, etc. As I expected, it was quite lovely. These are all from North Star Music, located in East Greenwich, RI.

Following were my autumn albums: George Winston's "Autumn," and David Huntsinger's "Autumn in New England" and "New England by Piano." The former Huntsinger album is my favorite of the two, but I really love a piece on the second. It's a bouncy little tune called "Climbing Katahdin" that sounds as if it could be background music in an Addie Mills story. I can see Addie out on her bicycle or working on an art project when I listen to it.

The afternoon was reserved for some podcasts, a "A Way With Words" talking about things like "olly olly oxen free" and its various regional permutations, and two Rick Steves' Travels, one about misconceptions about French culture and the other about Naples.

During lunch and in the evening I worked on my "Father Christmas" cross stitch. I haven't cross-stitched in ages; the light is not good in my usual seat and the rocker is usually clogged with books and magazines, but I loved the old-fashioned look of the piece. I always think the English "Father Christmas" looks better than our Santa Claus, with his hood and robe rather than the silly tassel hat and the red snowsuit.

[10/28: It was finished during lunch today; here it is on the oval backing board, ready to go in its gold frame. The French knots on the tree are not good, but I left them that way, just to look quirky.]

96 Days Till Christmas

Everything has apparently figured this out except the weather. 90 degrees through the end of the week.

Odd because everything else in nature has been pretty much operating on schedule. Some weeks ago the cicadas quit screaming from the trees in the office park complex. The oak trees are shedding their acorns all over the tarmac to crunch out their lives under tires and soles, and the squirrels' tails are plumping nicely. (I'd wondered if they were sick this year; I've never seen squirrels with such skinny tails as this summer.) Odd leaves are turning yellow, especially on the big tulip trees, and the dogwood trees already have leaves tipped and dipped red, sometimes only one and two to a tree, some with a whole tip of a branch showing scarlet. There's usually a breeze, and it sends leaves spattering down.

We are chatting on one of my Christmas groups about favorite holiday movies, including Hallowe'en films. I'm not a horror film person. "It's a Good Life" on Twilight Zone was about as creepy as I get. Even with Sam Neill in it, I couldn't finish watching Event Horizon. But I do like a few traditional things:

• It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
• The delightfully kitschy The Worst Witch
• Following Fairuza Balk, Fairuza Balk: Return to Oz, deliciously creepy and with Nicol Williamson to boot
• The Haunted History of Halloween from the History Channel
• The even more delightfully kitschy Midnight Offerings, with Mary Beth McDonough (Erin Walton) as a good witch and Melissa Sue Anderson (chewing the scenery) as Vivian Sutherland, a really, really bad witch
• And always the For Better or For Worse cartoon special, "The Good-for-Nothing," in which Farley disappears on Hallowe'en night

100 Days Until Christmas!

Summer always gets on my very last nerve, but this summer has been particular obnoxious. Temperatures sailed up into the 90s at the beginning of June and, except for one or two few days every month, have remained there. Here it is September and they are predicting we won't see 80s until later next week.

Not to mention they are predicting a warm fall and winter this year because of La Nina. Last year was so cold and lovely, from October though March, that I was sure we'd pay for it somehow. Well, summer has made that abundantly clear, the wretched brat, smotheringly, suffocatingly hot from one end of her iron reign to the other. I wish she'd take a long walk off a short pier...and not know how to swim.

I have been taking pleasures where I can get them: the Hallmark Ornament Premiere in mid-July, the appearance of fall garlands and then picks and things in Hobby Lobby in late June to early July (I can't help burying my face in them and giving them a hug), the Christmas crafts dotting the pathways at the Yellow Daisy Festival, the appearance of October dates on upcoming events calendars—and now the joy of the Christmas issue of Early American Life, the fall issue of the Vermont Country Store catalog, and Christmas craft magazines in the stands. And as a bonus an "it's like Christmas!" visit from a friend. When end-of-fiscal-year mania was at its peak—and this year with the recovery act funds in the mix it's been particularly egregious—I would retreat into instrumental Christmas carols. It's definitely music to soothe the savage "beast" of summer.

So while it's poppin' hot outside and annoyingly aggravating at the office—compounded by the fact we haven't had any hot water there for over four weeks now!—I'm trying to keep it cool and wintry...or perhaps I mean cool and "autumn-y"...in my heart.

It's definitely a hard slog and there have been tears.

Let go, you wretched witch of summer! Begone!

Shadows and Sunshine

Looks like ol' Punxsatawney Phil has seen his shadow, so the Northeast supposedly will have six more weeks of winter, while General "Beau" Lee did not, which means spring is in the offing. Whatever. We're supposed to get gallons more rain on Thursday and Friday, just a normal winter day in the south.

I've been quiet since Epiphany...just nothing to say. My after-Christmas ennui seems to get worse each year.

Couldn't burn a candle today for Candlemas, so will try to do so tomorrow. My "roasted coffee" candles are almost at an end. Must get more, or the cafè au lait ones. Nothing is as soothing as the smell of brewing coffee.

We are supposed to have a game night next Saturday. The Valentine decorations should be up by then and I hope to do a minor Valentine theme. That should be fun. The day before our game night is the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. We missed most of this last time because of moving, so I'm hoping to enjoy all that snow this year!

Farewell, Christmas

It never seems to last long enough—not just Christmas, but that whole golden season that starts with a glimpse of fun to come: DragonCon, Yellow Daisy Festival, even Blue Ribbon Affair, as small as it has gotten. Then the air starts to chill and the real fun starts: the Apple Festival, vacation, preparing for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas, days that go by in a twinkling on enchanted wings.

Our party is Saturday, and of course a few bright lights will shine: Valentines Day, Atomicon, Timegate on Memorial Day weekend, but otherwise it's all downhill from here. First it will get warm, then the pine pollen will choke us for weeks and blanket the landscape with its dirty, gritty yellowness, then the flowers will bloom along with allergies...and then it will be...ugh...summer and then, even worse, end of fiscal year (misery doubled).

Pretty lights. Pretty tinsel. Pretty music. Lights, fun, frolic. Cool, sweet air.

Ah, well, maybe the snow will come through tomorrow...

Gingerbread Weather Indeed!

My favorite kind of day: cloudy, breezy, mid-fifties!

I finally finished decorating the porch for fall—yes, I'm late, I know! The main decorations have been out there: the fall banner, the basket of artificial leaves and gourds, and the autumn leaf wreath. But I had not put out the rest of the things. First it was too warm, then when it got cool I didn't have time, and then it got warm again.

But it was a perfect day for it. I put scarecrows in both rocking chairs and then garnished the chairs with a artificial pumpkin and leaf garlands, then put the signs along the rails.

The autumn basket was partially in bad shape. The leaves and berries were fine, but the Georgia sun had done a number on the pumpkins/gourds, which are just painted styrofoam. They had split so that big white gaps were showing in their "rinds." Michaels had their artificial pumpkins on sale 60 percent off, so I picked out four different colors (a plain orange, a reddish, and a brownish, plus an orange one with a curved stem). I then pulled out the cracked ones, which were fastened into the foam at the bottom of the baskets with sticks. I cut the sticks off, then used the sharp tip of a small scissors to make a hole in the bottom of each of the new pumpkins and put a stick in each one. Then I put the new pumpkins back in the old basket and rearranged the leaves and berries around them. I wasn't sure if I had the proper sizes, but it seems to have worked fine.

I also have the garland around the arch that goes to the hall and the bedrooms, and around the door to the deck. Just have to hang the leaf garland up.

From Lemonade Weather to Gingerbread Weather

All in one fell swoop, too!

Hard to believe that a couple of days ago we needed the air conditioner on, at least at night, because it was almost 70°F out.

Another rainy day today, but chill enough (at this point it hasn't even hit 58 yet) for me to make like Sook in "A Christmas Memory," but instead of fruitcake, I will declare it "gingerbread weather." At lunchtime I went to the Mistletoe Market at the Cobb County Civic Center, wearing a sweatshirt and with my jacket on, and wandered about sampling dips. Several dip and soup kit dealers, the latter welcome on a damp day such as this; much of the remainder seemed to be cute kids' clothing, soaps or lotions, jewelry, or gifts I couldn't afford. Did get a small gift, and some little china/resin things: a grazing reindeer, a cute "Hallowe'en house" that was only $2, a bowl decorated like a pumpkin, and a little Hallowe'en "statue" for James with a pumpkin and a candy corn rhyme (he loves candy corn, even though he can't eat it any more).

It's finally starting to brighten outside; we may see the 63° high by the end of the day.