We are definitely enjoying Indian summer. Last Friday, we got close to 80F (26C) here. It has cooled off since then, but we were still in the low 70s (23C) Tuesday. It's not mild enough to leave the windows open at night (unfortunately for Max, who loves to spend his nights in open windows), but pretty nice for mid October.
Hmmm. Honey, didn't we get our first snow last year on this date?
With all that has been taking place lately, I haven't been very active with the autumn color pictures. But last week I took a drive west to visit N, and I took a few nice pictures of some trees I saw along the way. Unfortunately, the color was obviously past peak ...
One other nice thing to see: With all the rain we got this summer, the big swamp near the west county line looks a lot healthier than it did before, when it was almost totally dry, as drought conditions prevailed over the area ...
But the summer of 2010 is dead and gone. I like fall, but I'm sorry summer is over, for a simple reason: I like warm weather more than the cold that is in our not-too-distant future.
The usual regrets, too. I went on a number of trips with my wife and son, but there are more places we wanted to go. That trip to the Amish area near Bonduel, Wis., which my wife wanted to do, hasn't been done yet; as long as fall sports continues, it's hard to get days off. In my son's case, his broken hand in early August threw things off for him. He wasn't interested in going places after that, with his hand in a cast.
As for myself: As you know, B and I never got together this summer. I felt pretty bad about that for a while. But fate took an unexpected twist when S and her husband broke up, and she started living with her girlfriend, T. So when I can get away and drive down there, I am more than welcome, and we have a fun time. That's a turn of events I never would have imagined at the start of 2010.
I was able to visit N several times, too. For this or that reason, we weren't able to get together between late July and early October--over two months--but our long separation ended last week. I drove over to visit, and there were no further problems with weather, snarky septic systems or other matters.
The surprise highlight of last week's visit: We watched several episodes of "You Bet Your Life" from the 1950s with Groucho Marx. Groucho will come along next time, too, as will the Three Stooges. N absolutely adores all the old cars she sees on the DVDs--like those 1950s DeSotos that Groucho was selling. "Wow! What would a car like that be worth now???" And many of the Stooges' films come from the 1930s.
If you don't know, N is a widow, a few years older than me, and she lives by herself in the woods with her rescue dogs. While she enjoys her independent life, she also enjoys my visits; for one thing, she gets to cook for someone else. She doesn't get many chances to do that. Then we settle down on her sofa and watch some of my crazy movies. We laugh a lot.
S and I never got to Dragonfly Beach this summer, either. That's partly because T never wrote a short essay to the owner (only about 100 words) about why she wants to go there. But they could only have gone there with me, and I only got down to visit them once during summer (aside from our trip together to Freedom Fest). That's the day it got so hot, and we went to the animal park.
In fact, I didn't go swimming all summer, clothed or otherwise. Just too busy with stuff.
I hope to visit S and T during the second week of November. We are talking about visiting the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, to see all the geese. My mom and dad would take my brother and I there when we were kids, and it's a truly incredible experience.
If my camera and I can make the trip, you will see why.
That also, by the way, is the week my wife plans to go on another bus tour to Branson, Mo., to see the Christmas shows there. It's not a final decision, but she is definitely leaning that way.
But it's also possible that I will have to delay my trip to S and T and the geese until the week after. It's because of a scheduled meeting and the "high holy days" in our area. I'll explain later.
****
All right! I finally had a fairly decent week in that football contest. This week, my three teams totaled 90 points, and that was the 473rd highest score. That may not sound like much (and it isn't), but the week before I was #2073, and the week before that I was #2779.
One couple from our area finished with the fourth best score: 119 points. They won $50.
Next week, my three teams are the Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts and New York Giants. Those are three pretty good offensive teams.
So we all know what's going to happen: At least one of those teams will have a really bad game, and later everybody will be asking why. Only I (and you) will know the rest of the story.
No comments:
Post a Comment