"October's Party"

In Honor of Fall, I give you George Cooper's "October's Party"

October's Party

October gave a party;

The leaves by hundreds came —

The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,

And leaves of every name.

The Sunshine spread a carpet,

And everything was grand,

Miss Weather led the dancing,

Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,

The Oaks in crimson dressed;

The lovely Misses Maple

In scarlet looked their best;

All balanced to their partners,

And gaily fluttered by;

The sight was like a rainbow

New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,

At hide-and-seek they played,

The party closed at sundown,

And everybody stayed.

Professor Wind played louder;

They flew along the ground;

And then the party ended

In jolly “hands around.”

- George Cooper

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and the forecast for Saturday has already been amended to "around 80"...I knew it...

Channelling Fall

Even in southeastern Georgia we can pretend Jack Frost is just around the corner...

There is nary a red leaf or a brisk wind to be found in my backyard, but I can still dream about crisp nights, blazing fires, needing a jacket to go out...stuff like that...

And I can order Fall in a Box to be delivered right to my front door

I dragged The Bread Bible out earlier today to drool over recipes...and to make plans for the contents I knew would be shortly arriving from The Baker's Catalogue...don't you love how they spell "catalogue"?

My postman, who probably has a hernia from the number of boxes he has to tote across our lawn, through the gate, and up to the door...and who will probably have a cardiac incident from the dogs going ballistic when he does, dropped off my lover-ly Fall Play Boxes today...bless his heart...I will remember his hard work when the holidays roll around...

You see before you:

• poppy seeds
• bread base sample pack
• minced ginger
• a 5 oz. bottle of natural almond extract
• a 2 lb bag of organic white whole wheat flour (and the bag is even autumnal colored! can you stand it?)
• a set of flannel gingham sheets for the bed in my office/second guest room...and, hold onto your hat, the color of the sheets is Maple...

Honestly...only if I had ordered a ton of fall leaves to be artfully strewn about the front lawn (pin them down? hot glue? Liquid Nails?) could I possibly be more Fall Content...

Okay, that is such a lie...but I'm tryin' hard to channel Autumn so just play along with me...

The newspaper tells me that this Friday and Saturday our highs should only be in the middle 70s...as we actually move closer to the weekend, I expect that will gradually morph into low to mid-80s...as it almost always does...funny how temperatures around here are never lower than forecasted...

I have scheduled Serious Baking for this weekend, trusting that if I move ahead acting as if I do believe we will have temperatures only in the mid-70s, then the forces of nature will be duped into providing said forecasted temps...

Kind of like when you get on the scale, close your eyes and believe that you have lost 5 lbs this week...even taking in consideration the pot o' cheese dip eaten last night @ 10 p.m. by the light of the open fridge door...and you have lost 5 lbs! you did it!

Naw...that never happens to me either...but take it as a sign of my continued determination to outwit Reason that I continue to run that scam in various areas of my life...

Now, turn up that AC, put on a sweater and think "FALL"...

Big Bug World

It Came for Supper...

If this isn't the strangest bug I've ever run across, then I hope to never recall what was...

I planned to post a lovely photo of my dragonwing begonia, early-day-away-from-autumn sun shining through its beautiful leaves...

But, G. G. A. pre-empted that photo...I'll let you figure out what "GGA" stand for...let's just say it is what flew out out of my mouth when I stepped out into the courtyard this afternoon finding this Thing having set up housekeeping right next to the walk...

{{{big ol' shudder}}}

Mr G prophesied that I will have nightmares about this bug...and I expect he's right...many a night I wake him up talking about snakes or worms or lizards on the ceiling...

And since, apparently, the countryside where we've set up housekeeping grows some of the biggest bugs I've seen in my 41 years on this planet, he gets woken up by that sort of foolishness quite a bit...

I kid you not, two days ago when our son came up to visit, the biggest reddest spider that probably ever sucked air came out of nowhere to dangle above his head as we relaxed on the back deck...very coolly, I suggested DON'T MOVE...THERE IS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SPIDER ABOVE YOUR HEAD!!!! [okay...I can kinda giggle now because the look on his face was pretty funny...and because he doesn't read my blog]

And not 3 weeks ago, a skink so big I could see daylight under his shiny belly (that's how high he stood up) ran out from beneath my van...and then stopped, looked at me and just gave me a considering look I don't care to think too long and hard about...when I set Mr G after him with the shovel, he (the skink, not Mr G) ran up the big pine next to the drive...as he clawed his way up [stop for a second for deep breath and shuddering...vague feelings of nausea], pine bark fell off the tree...

Pine Bark Fell Off The Tree...

Do you understand how big this skink is? I could see his knees...his knees...

I suppose it goes without sayin' that both of the above instances automatically default into the GGA category accessorized by NSN (Nightmare Same Night), free of charge...of course, GGA followed by NSN only occurs after a loud piercing shriek to alert the neighbors that 1) someone next door is being slaughtered by a gang of roving crack-addict bowie knife-wielding demon-worshippers...or 2) that chubby lady saw a bug again...

Frankly, Mr G and I stay just about worn out from lack of sleep and adrenaline rushes brought on by exposure to the wildlife in this place...

well, I'm back...sorta...here is another one of those quiz things I love...I promise a real post in the next day or so :)

Your Power Color Is Lime Green

At Your Highest: You are adventurous, witty, and a visionary. At Your Lowest: You feel misunderstood, like you don't fit in. In Love: You have a tough exterior, but can be very dedicated. How You're Attractive: Your self-awareness and confidence lights up a room. Your Eternal Question: "What else do I need in my life?"

What's" Your Power Color?

Off Mode

Sometimes you just gotta shut the computer down, step outside and process life without the aid of Wi-Fi and a beautiful enticing luminous screen...

I worry about living through point-and-click links to others and their point-and-click lives...I worry that our son (the Bird) whose precociousness had him sitting on his uncle's lap playing video games when square-cornered figures loaded from floppy disks ran across little bitty computer monitors that could have been black-and-white displays knows more about connecting to others via electronic hums than he does about just looking up, catching someone's eye and establishing a human link...

I've watched DS and his girlfriend of a couple of years sit for hours...on end...in the same room, facing opposite walls and opposite monitors, *talking* with friends not just around the U.S. but around the world...

and yet when I actually see them across a table whether in our kitchen or a restaurant, put forth a question, simple or complex, involving, I thought, both of them,I routinely get two markedly different answers or blank stares...sometimes both in varying combinations...I just wonder...okay...I wonder and then being the total Alpha I am, I just ask "do the two of you even talk to one another?"

when Bird lived at home, amid much grumbling...yes, that means "outright rebellion and witching"...which I quashed without a qualm...we had Shut It Off nights...oh trust me...Mr G contributed as much on the ORAB front as Bird...and once in a blue moon I would come across something tempting in the t.v. listings and wish Shut It Off night were some other night, too...

But, almost always, once the disgruntleds settled down, the night would be pretty good...aided in large part by a key standing guideline being that take-out or a restaurant dinner was a obligatory check-mark item on Shut It Off nights or other family night events...

a note to self sat firmly in place reminding me that these nights were not to be used for furthering agendas about clean rooms or missed homework assignments...those sorts of conversations could be much more handily pursued while Bird was captive in the mini-van during the morning commute to his school...then I could drop his behind off at the curb , proceed on my way and by the time rolled back around for Bird Pick-Up, we'd both have settled back down...

I realize that technique will probably draw limited rave reviews, but you do what works for you and yours...with two hard-headed mouthy people having to interact with one another to get where at least one had to be (and one, not to point any long bony fingers, decidely not a morning person), mornings weren't generally pleasant anyway so why not use the situation as best possible? Sing-alongs and Kodak moments did not show up regularly on the passenger list for the Mega Mega Mini-Van as it pulled out of the drive...

so I used the already unpleasant times to discuss matters I knew could be guaranteed to bring indignant Outrage, Sulking and General Unpleasant Behavior rushing to the forefront of DS's character...that way, when the afternoons arrived, honestly, we were all better...DS had time to decompress and get over the Injustice of It All and I happily received my darling son whom I would have even more happily pulled over and let out of the MMMV beside the highway earlier that day back into the Realm of Not Hormonally Crazed People...

all of this to say I'm about to enter another one of my self-imposed computer exiles...I'm going to shoot for a week...the first few days are always rough...I think of something I want to check on-line...or I want to check my e-mail...I'm like a caffeine addict...I'm okay for the first couple of hours and then I start to Need It...well, that is only addiction besides pastries that I really have to reference...but after a couple of days, I r.e.l.a.x...my mind stops scampering around from random thought to random thought... I can actually concentrate long enough to think a complete thought that contains more than 5 words...not to say complete thoughts have to be in lengthy sentences to be stunning in their comprehension, but being able to connect complete thought to complete thought and actually move beyond a one-sentence concept is an enjoyable thing...and something I find myself not doing as much of as I'd like when I spend my days pointing and clicking...

Things I hope to do during my Computer Free Days to come:

Bake something...try a new recipe & eat at least 1 piece before heading to the mirror to berate myself about my large, um, personality

Dink around with my sewing machine and the manual (which I downloaded off the internet)...perhaps I can get the whole thread-breaking-after-5-stitches-and-lots-of-profanity thing taken care of...or at least realize the thing needs to go to the shop...

Pursue one of the crafts I enjoy (even if I'm not stellar in any craft area), but am usually wound too tightly from hours of internet use to enjoy...seriously...when I've been on the computer for hours without end, I get wired...*wired* like *wired after 5 or 6 cups of coffee...in the space of about 4 hours...with nothing to eat*...Throw Up Wired...

Read something...from cover to cover...that I haven't read before...and doesn't involve recipes and large glossy photographs...There are about 30 books waiting on me while I spend hours P & C'ing (maybe I'll just call it *Plicking* from now on...), checking e-mails and posting on a board with friends...and checking a few more boards...and then checking e-mail again...and then remembering I wanted to check LL Bean's site for flannel sheets...or the library for a book on Christmas Crafts...or The Weather Channel's site to check and see if that prayer about temperatures in the 60s is being answered in the next couple of days (well, crap...shudda been more specific and requested "daytime temps of in the 60s")...

Right now, as I type this post, I'm also checking out Autotrader for a used Volvo stationwagon (which I obsess about almost daily...)...and which Mr G insists I do not need...actually, he has been insisting that for several years now...I'm considering doing some insisting of my own here shortly...

See? the trouble with having all this lovely information of every imaginable sort right at my fingertips is I get lost in the prepping...I research something to death...like planning a trip so thoroughly I don't really even have to go on the trip...saves some cash, yes, but sorta defeats the whole purpose behind the trip...

You can safely assume this process repeats itself across a broad spectrum of subject matter...

Now...as soon as I check my e-mail again...I'm signing off for the week...I'll leave with a photo of the swan-neck gourd on the deck...there must be 500 miles of gourd vine supporting this one gourd...gotta admire the sheer Over The Top-ness of it all...

Froggy

Mr. Frog holds 3 wonderful inches of rain that fell Monday night!

actually, it is 3 1/8 inches, but who's counting?

all I know is the unforgiving heat of August stopped...and rain has fallen just about every afternoon...or so it seems...sometimes as little as an eighth of an inch, but enough to give the plants a helping hand recovering from scalding temperatures and little rain throughout the summer...

We're planting like crazy now that any newly installed plants have a chance of making it through to the next growing season...adding trees to the landscape, perennials and shrubs to the huge once-gaping flower beds...

For the first time since we moved here in December of 2005, the sense of having a garden begin to form has come upon me...

Unfortunately, the rains and easier temps came too late for many Georgia farmers...driving in the countryside around our home, we pass field after field of burnt brown corn stalks...left standing where they withered and died...