Le Sigh

 

The smell of burning leaves is indelibly printed on my brain as the enduring memory of fall. As a kid you had to be careful about riding your bike through the piles of leaves beside the curb, lest the bottom of the pile was smoldering. Alas, for decades  burning leaves has been outlawed everywhere I’ve lived. It’s probably a good thing. But I can still smell it in my brain. 

This is my front lawn this morning. It was 100% clear if leaves yesterday. I spent the afternoon raking and bagging.  Now I have a new carpet of leaves. 

Most of the tree is still covered, so this exercise will be repeated. Besides neither of my adjoining neighbors ever rakes their leaves so I often think clearing the leaves at all is a waste. 

In the back yard it is the same story, but the three Bradford Pears won’t drop their leaves for a month. 

Saturday music

 How about some more by The Romantics?

Yeah? You don’t get to vote. My blog, my rules. 

Enjoy it anyway.

The post is done. I have no title

It looks like we will have a wet weekend. A bit of rain is supposed to pass through this morning. If it dries out this afternoon I might run the mower over the lawn to chop up the early leaves. That is fewer leaves to rake later. 

The weather forecast calls for cold to start the week. We might even see a few flakes of snow. 

Christmas decorations have sprung up on a few houses in the neighborhood. The wife mentioned we could put up our tree Sunday. Rain will keep me from doing the outside lights. I have long experience translating wife speak. “Maybe” means definitely (unless it relates to nekkid wrestling, then it means ‘nope’) and “we” means I will do it. The current tree is not hard to put up, it is pre-lit and pops open in three sections. If she wants to jump into Christmas season I don’t care. The house is beautiful when she gets it decorated. 

In any case, go forth and survive your Friday. 

When you close your eyes and go to sleep

I’ve had somniloquy most of my life. Don’t worry, it is neither contagious nor fatal. It simply means I talk in my sleep. Apparently I mumble gibberish for the most part. I remember my college  roommates jarring me awake by trying to engage the sleeping me in a conversation to discover what I was talking about. My wife has done the same thing over the years. Apparently it is great fun. 

The wife was downstairs Tuesday night watching TV (she goes to bed late) when she says she heard me shouting something. She could not tell if I was angry or scared, just excited about something since she could hear me over the TV clear from the bedroom. 

I don’t even remember dreaming Tuesday night. 

I have always told the wife I remain on the straight and narrow out of fear I will confess in my sleep. 

Bread and Circuses Indeed

 Has everyone in New York gone nuts? Are there stupid pills in the drinking water? Are history and economics not studied in school? 

What the heck is wrong with you people?

Oh noes

 People are showing up on the news crying they are starving after one day without SNAP benefits. 

The government has warned for weeks that if the Democrats do not vote to reopen the government then this would happen. Did any of those people set aside money or food to get through the temporary shut off?

Look, a few years ago I found myself out of work. Unemployment was a fraction of my previous salary. My mortgage and car payments and other bills were at a level to match my previous take home pay. Things were tough. 

What did we do? We ate pancakes. We ate biscuits and gravy. We ate frozen pizza. We ate grilled cheese or peanut butter. Is that what I wanted for dinner? Nope, but it is what we could afford. We cancelled every streaming subscription we cancelled cable. No more beer. No movies. No more visits to the expensive hair salon. 

If you need food then sell your designer purse. Pawn your tools. Sell your cell phone. Do what I did, go get a job, even a crappy one in retail. 

Loss of your SNAP benefits doesn’t mean you are starving. It means you need to change your taxpayer supported life style. 

Can we just stop with the clock changes already?

 Here we are on a Sunday morning. I don't know what time it is. I haven't finished the stupid change the clocks routine (I deleted a 500 word rant on that subject here).

You are welcome.

I stayed up on watched last night's MLB game seven. What an epic baseball game. I did not care if Toronto won, but I sure was rooting against the Dodgers. The pitcher Yamamoto was the man. He went out there after pitching the day before and threw another couple of innings to close out the game. His arm had to feel like a painful wet rag but he got the job done. The dude truly was the MVP.