First Saturday in December
I went for a walk in short sleeves. (And pants, of course. Also some shoes, just for protection from broken glass I guess, since I certainly didn't need them for the sake of warmth.) People are out grilling by the light of their Christmas trees. This is unseasonable but not unheard of. I remember one Christmas Day it was in the 70s. I was maybe 13. I went out in the evening, after the piles of wrapping paper and new things were cleaned up and the food and music were through, and sat on the ground on a slope in the pasture, facing east and watching the shadows of the trees lengthen on the yellow grass. Everything feels kind of empty and sad on Christmas Day evening when you're a kid. It was kind of a perfect moment.
I do like this part of fall. Most of the deciduous trees have lost about half their leaves, so you can see their black trunks and branches, and the leaves remaining are red or yellow and in the morning and evening the sun shines through them and they glow, and morning and evening are so close together they alsmot seem like they're glowing all day.
This morning I met my college friend and her toddler at the pet store. He likes to look at the dogs and cats the animal shelter brings in on Saturdays, but she's not inclined to interact with them, whereas from infancy I haven't been able to keep my hands off them. So I crawled around on the floor with him, visiting the crates and making sure every dog got a good ear-scratch and kiss on the nose at least once. I fell in love with a pair of border collie-mix littermates. I want a farm for Christmas. It doesn't have to have a house on it, I could live in a storage building in winter and a tent in summer, and my brother and sister dogs could run and chase squirrels together while the Fuzz sits on the roof overseeing.
RustyNiece, on the other hand, only wants a horse. The nice thing about being a little girl with grandparents who live on a farm two miles from your house is that you actually have the possibility of getting that pony you've been dreaming of. Maybe not this Christmas, but eventually. (Aunt Rusty wouldn't be disappointed, either.) Meanwhile, back at the pet store, I hung out in the equine section looking longingly at the hoof picks and halters and mane and tail shampoo. I really wanted to buy the big barn/stable playset for RustyNiece, but I settled for a much smaller corral with a plastic mare and foal, bucket, pitchfork, and hay. Behind me, people were lining up to have their pets' pictures taken with Santa Claus. Very cute. Wierd, but cute. (Wierd mostly because I've never completely gotten the Santa Claus thing.)
I was going to have a Superman marathon this weekend, but as usual Netflix was overly optimistic about when the disc would arrive in my mailbox. Well, I've got the first movie on VHS and the DVD of II. III should arrive Monday, and I've decided to pretend IV never happened. I can almost guarantee I'll have some thoughts about Jor-El when I finish.
Backdated at time of posting.
I do like this part of fall. Most of the deciduous trees have lost about half their leaves, so you can see their black trunks and branches, and the leaves remaining are red or yellow and in the morning and evening the sun shines through them and they glow, and morning and evening are so close together they alsmot seem like they're glowing all day.
This morning I met my college friend and her toddler at the pet store. He likes to look at the dogs and cats the animal shelter brings in on Saturdays, but she's not inclined to interact with them, whereas from infancy I haven't been able to keep my hands off them. So I crawled around on the floor with him, visiting the crates and making sure every dog got a good ear-scratch and kiss on the nose at least once. I fell in love with a pair of border collie-mix littermates. I want a farm for Christmas. It doesn't have to have a house on it, I could live in a storage building in winter and a tent in summer, and my brother and sister dogs could run and chase squirrels together while the Fuzz sits on the roof overseeing.
RustyNiece, on the other hand, only wants a horse. The nice thing about being a little girl with grandparents who live on a farm two miles from your house is that you actually have the possibility of getting that pony you've been dreaming of. Maybe not this Christmas, but eventually. (Aunt Rusty wouldn't be disappointed, either.) Meanwhile, back at the pet store, I hung out in the equine section looking longingly at the hoof picks and halters and mane and tail shampoo. I really wanted to buy the big barn/stable playset for RustyNiece, but I settled for a much smaller corral with a plastic mare and foal, bucket, pitchfork, and hay. Behind me, people were lining up to have their pets' pictures taken with Santa Claus. Very cute. Wierd, but cute. (Wierd mostly because I've never completely gotten the Santa Claus thing.)
I was going to have a Superman marathon this weekend, but as usual Netflix was overly optimistic about when the disc would arrive in my mailbox. Well, I've got the first movie on VHS and the DVD of II. III should arrive Monday, and I've decided to pretend IV never happened. I can almost guarantee I'll have some thoughts about Jor-El when I finish.
Backdated at time of posting.