This is as good as it will get for a while:
The wind took half the scenery away that afternoon, and the scythe of fall will harvest the rest. It’s like watching the Hand of God move the Saturation slider to the left. But even while the leaves expire, there’s odd late-comers to the party:
Big juicy berries, ready to ferment and endrunkenate the squirrels.
Took down the Halloween decorations Sunday. Of course. Nothing is deader than Halloween the day after. No “Twelve Days of Halloween” with another holiday a week later – just bleak November, implacable and enormous. When I was a kid “taking down the Halloween decorations” meant removing the jointed cardboard Ben Franklin skeleton from the window; now it’s like striking the set of an Andrew Lloyd Webber play.
It was a nice night, though. Not as raw as advertised, so the outdoor party wasn’t a trial. Everyone huddled around the fire, trying to strike the balance between bone-warming heat and flesh-singing flames. Took daughter and friend up and down the streets, and the houses looked magnificent in the twilight. The leaves, the bare limbs – most trees are empty, but a quarter still have their costumes – the pumpkins and spooky Target animatronic decorations, the shouts and whoops from kids up and down the block: magic. We even had an escaped puppy to bring drama to the night. A peppy Pekinese bolted out of someone’s door and shot down the street like black mercury, delighted with itself and the world. For a while it seemed it would never be caught, but eventually I heard a YIPE that indicated someone had gotten a handful of fur or flesh.
Over the fire I chatted with a neighbor who’s working on the “Red Dawn” remake. Get this: in the new version, China and Russia invade the US – to put a stop to our greed. There are times you wish you had a mouthful of kerosene so you could do a flaming spit take. If this is how the film turns out, it’ll be hilarious; it’s as if the filmmakers were a bit ambivalent about all the horrible jingoism that such a film might unleash, so they had to temper it with a bit of theoretical altruism that could be true, you know, in a sense. I almost expect the Russians and Chinese to invade to enforce Copenhagen protocols, and the brave Americans fight back for a modified rollout of carbon emission standards that will allow domestic industry to perfect the new HydroWind Energy System, which the Chinese don’t want because they just signed a UN agreement to respect patents of other countries.
Well, it can’t be worse than Transformers, unless it includes transforming Russian soldiers that turn into liquor bottles. I did watch Transformers 2: the Fall of the Revenging or something; I expected kinetic nonsense, and got it, but I really missed the heartfelt contemplative tone of the first one. Really. Sort of. Compared to the sequel, the first one was a Merchant-Ivory version of a Turgenev short story. I know, I know, it’s a stupid movie about robots, and you’re just supposed to sit back and let it pummel you bloody, but I still have trouble with the concept: these robot-creatures have rockets for feet and can travel great distances by walking or running or flying. So naturally, when they want to go somewhere, they turn into cars. Interesting to see the great ruins of Egypt destroyed; interesting also to note that no modern scientist ever noticed the presence of a giant dense machine in the center of the pyramids. Amosbot and Andybot were as appalling as advertised; John Turtorro acted like a man who got repetitive stress injuries from flushing his thespian credentials down the toilet, but hey: it’s a living, and can’t begrudge him that.
Put up some Christmas lights Sunday afternoon. In response to a tweet announcing that fact, someone responded “oh, you’re one of THOSE people.” No, I am married to one of those people. She pointed out that the weather was fine and it would only get colder; did I want to stand outside with numb digits trying to fit cold stiff plastic around dead trees? No. So I got out the survivors from last year, made sure they worked (Chinese factories embed strands with nanotermites that eat away the wires over time), then wound them around a hedgerow. Problem: they have multiple twinkle settings, or MTS. Each strand has a controller box with 12 settings, and I remembered straight away that last year’s strands were uncoordinated. One was Steady Flash, the other was Flashing Chasing, or Twinkle Glow, or Burning Stream, or whatever. So I clicked the controller switch until I got both strands reading from the same script, and considered calling it a day.
No: the red lights could go up on the tree. The one with the berries above. The big ripe berries. The big red prone-to-burst berries. More than twice I managed to get whipped in the head by a branch, which not only scraped my cheek but smushed blood-berries in my face. Language of an impolite and uncivil nature was deployed. With gusto.
Enthused by my newfound initiative, I drove to the hardware store for more lights. One look at the early-season prices told me I was an idiot, and should stand down immediately. But I was here! At the discount store! Can’t waste a trip, so . . . okay, batteries. Peanuts. Feed for the new bird feeder. (Bought some “Cracked corn,” thinking, I am, in a sense, Jimmy, and I do care.) Handwarmers for the emergency kit. While I was considering some windshield de-icer, a man spoke up in a loud voice in an Indian accent:
“They have plenty of bird feed but not enough fertilizer.”
I turned around, and noted that they did, indeed, have lots of bird feed, and hardly any fertilizer.
He waved at a clerk, and asked where it would be that he could find the fertilizer.
“That’s it,” said the clerk.”
“That is it? And all this bird feed?”
The clerk said he was sorry but it was a seasonal thing.
The customer scoffed and gave off a great cloud of huff over the idiocy of a store not carrying sufficient quantities of fertilizer.
I examined the bird feed display, and the fellow had a point: it was enormous. I realized I could buy a lot of bird feed in a bulk bag for the price of my Cracked Corn. Suddenly Jimmy cared. On the other hand, the price included a mail-in rebate, which for me is like saying “Thirteen dollars off with coupon, and a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls (subject to verification.)” I never mail in rebates. I know myself.
It’s just not going to happen.
So that was the weekend. It was good. I spent little time on the Internet, but I did slap together a nice batch of updates for this week. Natalie said she missed watching the Rolie Polie Olie Halloween special with me – she had a sleepover that night – and I sad I did too. She wants to watch it tomorrow, which is fine; part of childhood is the ability to draw out holidays a day or two beyond their legal conclusion. Why, Halloween had passed, and I went outside around 1 AM to put out the pumpkin light, and heard a disco-trickle from down the street: the party was still going on. Well, let’s go join it, then. Fire, beer, companionship. I opened the gate to head out, and the music cut off. Party was over.
I blew out the pumpkins, saluted the moon, and went to bed. A good Halloween is a small thing, but if the day that follows is sunny and mild, it gives a man some spine. If there’s ever a month that needed to be punched in the nose just to show it who’s boss, it’s November.
I can’t be alone in thinking most squirrels could use a cocktail.
Never put up lights, because the abundance of Christmas-related tchotckies we usually put out throughout house would make Ebenezer Scrooge, pre-ghostly visit, blanch and scream like a man possessed by… well, ghostly spirits.
For a few weeks after the trees lose their leaves, there’s a small-scale show of color in the underbrush that few ever notice.
We still have some lingering color here in Maine, though most of it is ont he ground thanks to the high winds, but it still looks pretty. A few people piled the up on the curbside in the street nice little piles which I was glad to drive through and make a mess again (as far as I know the police can’t cite me for it)
Leaves just now peaking in North Georgia. Beautiful…the best color in years. Some of the old coots will say you need a dry Fall for a good show. Others, no,no, you need a wet one with mild nights, etc.
It’s been the wet and cold so who knows. Just enjoy it while I can.
Cold weather, and the mention of feed for the birds: these bring up a couple of small ideas, the first being, “You give cracked corn to birds?” I give that to squirrels; the birds get sunflower seed. Except for the goldfinches, who have done their anecdotal-evidence best to contradict global-warming rumors by arriving in Texas in winter and then hanging around for months, because the Texas winters have been cold: they get something called Nyjer. Well, it used to be called Niger thistle, but then a couple of years ago merchants renamed it, without explanation. I suppose to save somebody the embarrassment of mispronouncing it. I believe this could have been avoided if the country in Africa renamed itself Gotwunjee.
That “nyjer” seed has gotten too dam’ expensive. I mix it with “finch blends” or sunflower chips (which are none too cheap either).
I doubt the goldfinches in Texas are migratory. The ones here in Virginia are not – they just lose their yellow feathers for the winter and look like sparrows.
I used to feed them in the front yard, so I could see them from my home office window, but a black bear kept pulling down the feeders, and I had to give it up.
So true about the “Andrew Lloyd Weber” set. I’m taking down skull lights,spider webs, yada, yada…
Have to ask everyone: Is it just me, or don’t kids know to say,”Trick or Treat!” when they come to the door??? Our trick or treaters would come up, look at our pumpkins, etc., then stand there staring at us. They had all the enthusiasm of cold pizza! What’s the deal?
teach5: I got a couple who said trick or treat. They were under 5, and their parents were prompting them. The older kids just held our their bags expectantly. Hardly any thank-yous, too.
I was sad when our trees stayed green for way too long, then turned beautiful shades of gold and red for 5 minutes before dying and dropping off the trees. Then it rained for 3 days straight.
About ten times a year your writing makes me laugh out loud, (rather than the usual mute amusement). Today’s Bleat did just that with your Jimmy cracked corn comment. Thanks!
When we first moved to AZ seven years ago in September, we met the neighbors across the street for about 10 minutes. Weeks later, on Halloween, Barb the Neighbor set up a lawn chair at the end of her driveway. When I asked why, she explained that she didn’t want the little monsters walking across their newly planted shrubs and cactus, so she’d decided to meet them at sidewalk level. My wife and I joined her and her husband in a couple of folding chairs, and by the end of the evening, we had half a dozen new neighbors join us.
The next year, we moved the little party to our own driveway to take advantage of the streetlight over our property. This year – six years later – we had thirty neighbors on our driveway, eight buckets of candy. (”Take just one from each bucket, kid! Except you, ‘cuz your costume is really great!”) We’re the WalMart of Halloween candy. Neighbors from a mile away drive their kids over to our house.
The adults sit behind the candy with wine, chili and pumpkin beer until 9 PM when the true adult beverages come out. Skeletons, bats, tiki torches, pumpkins, ghosts hanging from the tree, and discussion of really scary things like the HOA, property values and the neighbors who have left. Visits from other neighbors who left years ago, and return annually just for this occasion. We’ve developed a block party that we hadn’t expected, and Halloween has become a great day here.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that it was 72 degrees.
We have saved the Russians and Chinese the trouble and expense of invading us.
Thank you for the Diner!
Words of advice: Don’t buy lights from Target. They have the prettiest lights, but the darn things don’t work. Half the time they die on the tree. I keep hoping they’ll improve their lights, but I have thrice been burned hoping they’ve addressed the problem. I have strings of lovely patio and Christmas lights that don’t work. Wrote the company, too again and again. Never even got a form e-mail back.
Problem: they have multiple twinkle settings, or MTS. Each strand has a controller box with 12 settings, and I remembered straight away that last year’s strands were uncoordinated. One was Steady Flash, the other was Flashing Chasing, or Twinkle Glow, or Burning Stream, or whatever.
I have a few strands that seemingly have only one setting: Auto-Self-Destruct-Sequence-Enabled.
We have a wrecking crew that we escort through our neighborhood of 200 houses. All of our other friends live either on Horse property, or in similarly rural areas. Trick or Treating there is like calling the Donner Party a Three Hour Tour. So, even though we lack sidewalks, we’re the designated Halloween Rally Point. One 9 year old, three 8 year olds, one 6 year old, two 5 year olds, and one 4 year old. We frequently encounter similar sized groups ‘in the streets’. In the back of my mind I always think of the ‘Gang Fight’ scene from Anchorman. It makes me giggle.
Noted the past two years (second & third grades) that kids recognize each other with amazement – “Hey, its Megan!”. Typical lot sizes here are about a third of an acre, so while there are 200 houses, school children are quite spread out. They run into each other in the store more often than in the neighborhood.
As far as starting the rural electrification project that is Christmas Lights, I thought about getting the gear down. All 13 boxes of it. Eh, that was about as far as I got. Need to feel the spirit before I make that commitment. Need a bit of Elmer Gantry I guess.
I didn’t know someone was doing a Red Dawn remake. Googling it just now, it looks as if the Russians and Chinese invade the U.S. and SAY they’re doing it in order to “repair our [the U.S's] reputation,” but that’s obviously propaganda. Though I think it’s reasonable to assume that the Dirty Vicious Reds vs. Patriotic Wholesome Americans theme of the original will be modified somewhat for the ‘naughties.
Greaddy huh, So the Chinese want to us to stop buying stuff from them. Hmm, sounds like a flimsy excuse. I suspect the real reason was an effective “tea party” type protest and boycott of cheap Christmas lights that threatened to destabilize China’s precarious economy.
It is good to attract birds and squirrels to your yard, if we are invaded or struck by some other man-made or natural disaster, think of these critters as your emergency food supply. That is why when I fill the feeder I always refer to the seed as “bait.” I believe the cat see it this way as well.
oops, greaddy=greedy, damn tennis elbow. . .
@Lulu
I suspect even if they go with “dirty reds” they will temper it with several domestic traitors most likely from the business world and not likely politicians representing the California 8th, 9th, or 30th congressional districts.
Tsk. At the mention of “fertilizer” I anticipated a Lilekian/Sisyphusian struggle to fertilize the multi-tiered plots of Jasperwood. Another time, perhaps?
There is a similar vicious red berry tree in front of my abode, and I always manage to find the rawest, coldest, grey New England day to string the lights on the nasty tree. Squished red berries end up on the step ladder treads, front hall foyer and stairs, and of course my shoes.
So the Ruskies and the Chicoms invade us to spank us for our greed. And somewhere Michael Moore is grinning like a raccoon eating fish guts. And having himself another pizza or two.
People feed squirrels? I send my 30-pound dog with the killer instinct and speed of a cheetah to chase them away!
In the 5 months since we adopted him, he’s managed to kill two chickens, three squirrels, a bird, and a young possum. I was walking him in the pre-dawn darkness for this last one. He suddenly pounced on something I couldn’t see, and I immediately yanked the leash and pulled him back. Too late for brer possum–Fido snapped his neck with lightning speed.
Law of the Jungle, I suppose. Or in this case, the Law of the Suburb.
wonderful, glorious weekend… which I spent in company of the latter two sons installing a new patio door onto the deck. good news is, it’s done, it’s solid, the lock sort of works, it’s all caulked up with the exception of the gap under the sill.
someplace on the ocean, a Navy fleet is stopped dead in the water because the chief petty officers heard a few of Son #2’s energetic expositions at the door, and the house wall, and tool this and nail that, and Yo’Momma, and keeled over in shock.
missed all the creepy critters, though. our sole decoration was a pumpkin with a Disney-ish face and an electro-candle.
second the notion about the T-botique’s holiday lights leaving something unmet. we bought 8 strands of LED mini-globes last year for the deck, and they started dying like clockwork in about 6 months. 5000 hour life, my speckled behind.
Oh, Dutch conglomerate that rented its name to some island above the water once a month for the marketing of holiday lights, go back to vacuum tubes. those worked great. I might need some 27s if I get to that old radio project in the garage this winter.
@GardenStater
Feeding skwerls is a by-product of feeding birds.
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My four-year-old is finally saying “Squirrel” instead of “Skwerlo” . . . and I am sad. I’m going to keep calling them “Skwerlos” until I die.
@Drew
I am just glad I am not French and have to pronounce écureuil
(btw, darn cute baby talk)
@teach5
Most of the smaller kids needed prompting, but got out the “Trick or Treat” and “Thank you” (with the smaller kids it was “Twick o Tweet” and “Tank you,” but that just made it better.
The worst was the group of 4 teenage/ high school boys that couldn’t even be bothered- just held out their bags expecting a handout. These louts will be voting in a few years! One of them, couldn’t even get his bag open because he was too busy talking on his cell phone. I just stood there and told him, “You really need to decide what you are trying to do, and FOCUS on it…” I gave him a candy and sent him on his way, rather than deal with the TP on my house/ eggs on the windows later.
Drew- (Boris Badenoff voice)- “Get moose and squirrel!”
Too late for fertilizer. Fertilizer is an April-May and September-October product in MN. November 1 is too late, he’d be wasting his money when it ran off with the snow melt.
@GardenStater
“… smiling like a raccoon eating fish guts.” That’s near Lilexian and inspired a real laugh-out-loud (no acronyms please).
They don’t have to bother with a remake of “Red Dawn”, as the Chinese are already doing something about American greed. Those folks from the Orient are buying up commodities as fast as they can get their hands on them, and Uncle Sam’s credit card is maxed out. I don’t see how the Chinese would want anything to do with the Russians, except use them for their air force. Until the Chinese can figure out how to assemble an effective air force, they won’t be invading anytime soon.
And likely, soon the California 10th. Two words that I have to spit out:
John. Garamendi.
lots of fertilizer left in the right places. hardware stores, menards, etc.
limited number of elections tomorrow, prime fertilizer still availiable for the hauling… .
We had a few tricks-or-treatsers show up. I think the group that annoyed me the most was a group of teens who showed up, one held out a bag, another held out his hands. The one with the bag had a costume, so I gave him a handful. The one holding out his hands? No costume, he got one piece. He then chucks it into the same bag, until a girl behind him produced another bag, more like a pillowcase, and said, I’m not lying here, “We’re all in one bag.” Socialism at its best, or worst. Take your pick. Their friendship probably ended late that night or early the next morning. Five teens arguing over one bag of Halloween candy would instigate the start of the next Civil War, and would split the country into 10 sections. China and Russia would then step in, “heal us”, with Nigeria handling the financial sector.
We didn’t do a whole lot when it came to decorating. We never did. My parents bought a plastic skull that has one of those 3-color LED lights mounted in at the Great Wal of China, because they didn’t want to mess with carving a pumpkin. I set up my strobe light in the spare bedroom and had it going. We actually had two kids get freaked out by the pumpkin. The mother was scolding the oldest for being scared because he had gotten his younger brother started up. The oldest was probably 5 or 6; the youngest 3 or 4. They wouldn’t get anywhere near the door, since we had the skull right there at the door. I stepped out onto the wet pavement to hand out the candy, and the mother said “See?! Making him come out in his socks in this wet weather! We’ll find a bathroom soon!” I thought the oldest one had already done so.
I told my mom that next year’s decorating should involve that skull, a plastic black cauldron, a PVC pipe painted black, some dry ice, and some glow sticks. Perhaps some green-dyed water as well. She liked the idea. She thought of dressing up as a corpse sitting in a lawn chair, with the candy dish in her lap, and when kids came to grab the candy, she’d jump up and scare them. I told her that’d be too much: that little boy might actually wet himself, or worse.
@Spud: Perhaps I am missing something, but Wikipedia ranks the Chinese Air Force as the third largest in the world, behind the US and Russia. Of course, “largest” doesn’t necessarily mean “effective,”
The Chinese don’t need to invade the US to do damage. They just need to stop making stuff for us in their factories. Bring us to our knees in a week, it would
I only give the squirrels the heels of my bread — good bread made at The Fresh Market and not stuff like Wonderbread. I do it only to keep the squirrels hanging around as the dog loves to chase them even when they’re up on the telephone wires. Good exercise for the dog.
Even though most of the leaves had turned color and fallen off in the two weeks before Halloween, the ones that were still on the trees seemed vibrant on Oct. 31. Then I took the dog to the park on Sunday, and the leaves all just looked a dull brown, as if they could now quit their job of being brightly colored for Halloween.
And now we get two full months of the holiday it is too soon to mention.
Alternatively, the Chinese could also just KEEP making stuff…
Lead Paint on Toys;
Poisoned Pet Food;
Chinese Drywall (extra sulphur for eating the plumbing, wiring, etc.);
I think John Garamendi supports all these.
@rbj
Sadly, I found out Fresh Market doesn’t bake ANY of its stuff on the premises. It’s baked somewhere else, frozen and trucked to the stores. Also, read the ingredients on that bread. Really good bread doesn’t usually have a paragraph of ingredients, most of which end in -ose or -itol.
Don’t get me wrong…I still like walking through Fresh Market’s softly-lit, wood-paneled aisles while listening to classical music, but I’m cured of the notion that they actually are selling superior food.
Nuclear attack? Maybe. Invasion? I doubt it. That’s why we have a fleet of ballistic-missile carrying submarines, just in case. On the Red Dawn remake, it is already making me cringe, just thinking about it. At least in the original, which produced in the era of Reagan, the Soviets, Cubans and Nicaraguans were clearly the bad guys. I’m surprised that in this new version, the Russkies and Chicoms aren’t invading to stop all of the horrible global-warming inducing pollution that we greedy Americans are churning out.
Alternatively, the Chinese could also just KEEP making stuff…
Lead Paint on Toys;
Poisoned Pet Food;
Chinese Drywall (extra sulphur for eating the plumbing, wiring, etc.);
I think John Garamendi supports all these.
When it comes to Running Man John Garamendi, there can be no doubt.
I am shocked, shocked, to think anybody could accuse Long March People’s Red Army Consumer and Baby Food Factory Complex #32 of having a plan.
I know, the new Red Dawn is not really an Invasion but, a clever hoax used to whip us up into a patriotic fervor (in Kurt Vonnegut’s Siren of Titan, they kidnapped people and brainwashed them to be the invading “Martian” army that was easily defeated and gave the planet a sense of unity or something like that).
I wonder how many Chinese or Russians you could kidnap before they would notice?
Apropos of nothing, the “grinning like a raccoon eating fish guts” line I stole from P.J. O’Rourke. Just for full disclosure.
‘endrunkenate’– such a cromulent word!!
Hey – kind of like The Watchmen. I hope Rorschach makes it in this one though…
“John Turtorro acted like a man who got repetitive stress injuries from flushing his thespian credentials down the toilet” – I love you James!
Here in The Glorious Peoples’ Heroic Revolutionary Soviet Of Austin, the only plants that have *really* changed leaf-color – green to blood-red – and dropped their leaves and seed pods are the Poison Ivy plants.
I think the goal of the movie studios is to remake every movie that has come out between 1965 and 2001. I am surprised that Spielberg is not planning a remake of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Quentin Tarantino remaking ET: The Extra Terrestial or Michael Mann remaking Pulp Fiction.
It’s been a long day for me
Didn’t you go to Target once this weekend? Didn’t you see the Post Cereal retro boxes???? My Gosh, Man, I’m dumbstruck. Go to the cereal aisle and see for yourself!
I’ve been noticing this, but if the kids just stand there when I open the door, so do I. They eventually figure it out. Also, some kids are saying “Happy Halloween” instead of “Trick or treat.” That’s insufficient for a treat as far as I’m concerned. Gotta keep the traditions alive.
Lulu — thanks. Sign. The bread is still better tasting than the normal grocery store type. I’ve only been able to find once place that has only a sentence of ingredients. And that was in Poughkeepsie, NY. circa 1989.
My new desktop wallpaper, hope you don’t mind!