I never quite got the idea of driving somewhere to look at the trees turning different colors. Sure, they’re pretty and all, but basing a day trip or a vacation on looking at leaves? < shrug > No skin off my nose…
Did you ever to this? Maybe since I almost always lived somewhere that leaf colors were visible from my residence that it just didn’t make sense to me. Maybe I’ve always been an old grouch.
Frankly, it’s starting to irritate me that leaves are falling in my yard. We have a mulcher-vac, so it’s not like I have to rake by hand, but still, not my idea of a good time. Especially since hereabouts it’ll drag out well into November and maybe even December. Stoopit leaves.
Morning, mumpers! It’s 20c/69f with a predicted high of 22c/72f, and mostly cloudy. Weather app says “I’m not going to lie. This day is fucking fine, but I’d be ok with 15% more fucking clowns.” App must have looked in my irk inboxes, there is plenty of clowning going on there.
I’m not a leaf-peeper either, I like seeing the colours change and as I take a walk through a local park when I’m doing my campus days (and our campus is full of trees too), I get to see the gradual change of colour. I can admire it while I’m walking past, but I wouldn’t make a special trip out of it.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and already caffeinated, so no YAWN. ‘Tis < snerk > 69! < snerk > Amurrkin out and clear with a predicted high of 90 and N.O.S. for the day. The big item on today’s agenda is a doc appointment at eight-forty-five this mornin’. Joy. It’s just one of those to confirm I am still alive and breathin’ things to get ‘scripts renewed although I will likely get a flu shot, as well. I shall also ask about settin’ up to get the shingles vaccine, the rsv thingy, and ask about the latest covid booster. The rest of the day shall be spent in the usual sloth and general overall uselessness, as is our wont. Sup shall be boxed lasagna (don’t judge!) sallit, and cheesey garlic bread.
I am not a leaf peeper. Like MOOOOOM I see not the thrill of it all. We have three trees that will commence to droppin’ leaves sometime within the next few weeks. I have a neighbor with a veggie garden who likes to rake up a bunch of the leaves for mulch. Years ago I told her to have at it and there was no need to ask first. The rest of the leaves will get mulched as I mow. Works for me!
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas and bother of bothers, I suppose I must needs purtify and don attire acceptable for bein’ amongst the great unwashed. Woe is me.
Three whole trees? Isn’t that cute… What I find irritating, tho, is when I get my yard more or less de-leafed, then a big wind comes thru and blows the neighbors’ leaves into my yard. Guess that’s to be expected, living here. You may need to turn on the satellite layer for the correct effect.
I’m showered and dressed. FCD has gone to take his mom to her 7:30 Dr appt. SIL will be dropping off Tobias for a short stay while he picks up a bed that’s being given to them (using our truck.) I’ll need to run to WalMart today or maybe tomorrow to get dog food and a few other things. But not a lot on the agenda. Chillage works.
That’s the best part, for me, and you really only get to see that when you have a routine (walk, etc.) through the same place daily or almost so.
A day trip to see the extravaganza is more like viewing a still photograph, and what BooFae and I enjoy is more like watching a stop-motion film.
However, I was so excited a coupla-few weeks ago when I first saw a single maple up the block juuuuust barely starting to blush. Now each day, there’s more and more color in the local oaks. It’s the best part of my (admittedly short, low-stress) commute. So, half credit for being an in-place peeper?
Some of my coworkers groaned when I excitedly reported this update (“Ugh, that means winter is coming back soon!”) and I’m all, “Yeah, isn’t it great?! And autumn will be here even sooner!”
Matter of fact, I’m working on a cross-stitch of an autumn tree - I’ll post a pic later with the progress, since it’s relevant to the O.P.
For now, I’m up ridonk early, thanks to Mother Nature’s unignorable call. Which sucks cuz imma want to go back to sleep right about when I need to be getting up to go to the dentist.
Maybe I’ll be a good patient and nap through the cleaning.
I kinda wanted Chick-Fil-A breakfast (I’d forgotten there was one relatively nearby until someone mentioned them last night) but it’s raining and I’m really sleepy.
Won’t even get up to snerk 69 today, it’ll stay in the mid 50s/low 60s, with a forecast stating 100% chance of rain.
{ looks out window }
Yup, they got that one right!
Meanwhile, I’ve both seen & heard the trash truck remove last week’s yuck & boxes, plus I have another mystery box from Amazon that arrived last night to open up later.
I say “mystery” b.c. I’ve been on a shopping binge & ordered a ton of stuff lately. I can remember … a couple of things that should be in this shipment? … but one of the silver linings to having a trash memory is getting to surprise myself with my own gifts all over again.
(ETA Monkey just reminded me about one of them … by starting to use my chair as a scratching post. He has floor-type scratchers, but lately has really wanted something vertical. So a wall-mounted scratcher should be part of the box. Limited floor space around Casa De Shoe, so the traditional “traffic cone wrapped in sisal rope” style would be a PITA.)
I live in Texas, moved here from Arizona. What’s are these “leaf” objects you refer to? You nawthern and eastern folk talk of strange things, like buses, sidewalks, and now some type of color-changing flora. I should visit this strange land.
G’morning all. 68F here with actual water falling from the sky. Now I remember why those gutter objects along my roof are there. Seriously, it’s forecast to be in the 60s-80s the rest of the week, with rain most days. Good news, for the lakes and the critters. We’ve been putting out water and some food for the local wildlife (squirrels and birds) and can now leave Ma Nature to handle it for a while. My boat is about 18 inches from being aground, so hopefully a week of rain will increase that buffer. I’ll go check on it this week and get started on some overdue electrical maintenance (wiring harnesses 'n stuff).
Still working through the necessary cups 'o coffee, and nothing to do but a planned visit to the bank’s fraud department. We need to get their assessment of the weird Medicare refund check we got. We’re still suspicious and haven’t deposited it yet. Something seems off about it.
Off to forage for breakfast in the kitchen. Good week everyone.
My wife and I like taking short hikes on the weekend (in the Toronto area), so during leaf season we usually take one of those hikes in an area where the leaves are changing colours. We have maple trees in our neighbourhood, but they don’t ever get that really vibrant red maple leaf colour.
I am not a leaf peeper but my mother was. She took two or three trips on tour busses, with other seniors, to New England. I think she liked the leaves, but it was also just a fun getaway/roadtrip.
Greed and hunger won out over sloth, and I’m inhaling my Chik’n minis. About an hour anna half till my alarm goes off for the dentist, which means I’ll probably have juuuuust fallen into a nice, deep sleep.
I’m not a peeper but I enjoy seeing the trees when I’m out and about. Today is rainy which is good because the grass is getting brown and leaves are falling due to insufficient moisture. And rain helps the leaves turn colors. I’m a sneezy snuffly wetone from allergies. Going to PT this afternoon then to the half price burger place tonight.
Just came in to share a bit of good news - I took our elderly mog to the vet for a check up on his thyroid levels. When he was first diagnosed, his level was over 60 and after a month on Thyronorm it had only dropped to 57. The vet increased the dose, and a month later he’s gained 100g in weight (he’s now 3.4kg instead of 3.3kg) and his thyroid level has dropped to 25. Normal range for a cat is 15-35 so the vet’s very happy with the results. As are we…there may be a little bit of happy dancing going on!
Morning all. Slept in until 7:30 am and still haven’t had to touch the AC, it’s 71F right now, but due to get up near 90F today, so the Air Conditioning will get some work. Evenings are still in the 60’s, so open windows and energy savings will remain the standard for awhile. Need to get back to the exercise routine this afternoon after yesterday’s sloth, but shopping-n-sammich and a quick banking stop will take care of the morning chores.
When we were kids, my parents would take Brother and I out to ‘look at the fall colors’ up in Northern Ohio, but I can’t remember doing it since I’ve been on my own. Will admire pretty scenes when I see them, just don’t deliberately go looking for them. No tress in my yard, got rid of them early and mowage usually deals with those that immigrate from the houses nearby. Given the temperatures here, we’ll probably see some leaf colorage by November…
Boo fae, very good feline news. Give him some skritches and a treat from me.
yanker, hope the Medicare mystery gets solved. And glad someone is happy to see rain…
When I was in grad school at App State, one of the things I liked most was watching the trees changing in the mountains along the Blue Ridge in September. But the leaf peepers were kind of an annoyance for those of us trying to get around for our daily lives. Would I have driven a couple of hours all the way up to Boone just to see the leaves? No. But I can see how a person might want to take a weekend hiking/sightseeing trip up there during that time.
Mornin all - about 2 hours post-dawn as I’ve been balconatin’ since pre-dawn interrupted by phone with friends much of the time.
From last week:
I’ve stayed at a hotel near there many times. Generic corporate suburbia. There’s a big indoor shopping mall not far from there. Not exciting, but plenty safe. As Shoe said last night.
{{Sari}}: I’m sorry you have some miscues in the move. But those are to be expected. It’s good that you’ve got that handyman person who seems to be capable & trustworthy.
As folks have said to Thelma Lou in her thread about moving to a retirement community, you don’t have to do it all the first day. Settling in can take as long as it needs. Ambition in excess of capability followed by collapse seems to be your favored MO. If you stay aware of it you might be better able to avoid it. My late first wife, even when healthy, had the same problem when it came to exercise. She’d get going and wouldn’t stop until she’d hurt herself. Made actual progress difficult.
Don’t do that!
From this week:
Yaay! My late first wife’s hair was Italian very dark brown. Years ago I saw a greeting card she just had to have. So I bought it, wrote some silly ditty inside, and gave it to her. We kept it for years.
The cover art is two slender dark-haired 30-ish women at a curbside café table doing lunch & white wine. Their poses & expressions suggest they’re sharing catty gossip. One of them says “Is it true that blondes have more fun?”
Open the card and it says “Totally. Their attention span is so short everything always seems new and exciting!!”
Are you by any chance blonde? Rowwr!
Yaay! Best news of the thread so far. Congrats and happy dancing.
As to me:
First off, thanks to all for the fine wishes about retirement. I’m excited and honored to join the exclusive club of other MMP drains on society. Makes me wonder who’s next and how soon? I fear there’s nobody else very close. Today has much my usual day-off activities in it, but somehow it feels a bit different.
Yesterday I drove home with the top down, thinking that it would be a hell of a note to crash on the last commute. So I was a bit more careful than usual. Got home intact and Her Ladyship was extra excited to see me & extra affectionate. Yum!!
My usual habit on arrival is first thing to dump out my dirty laundry, put in fresh, reload consumables like pills, and disassemble the accessories off the uniform shirt I’m wearing and install them directly onto a fresh shirt for the next trip. A lot of stuff just stays in my uniform pants pockets for next time or are transferred to new pants if these are soiled enough. Likewise there’s some resetting, reloading, and recharging of consumables in my toolbag. It’s a familiar post-trip ritual like we all have coming home from irk: Keys go here, purse goes there, clothes change thusly … . Mine’s just a bit more involved. At the end of which I’m ready to dash out the door the next time they call, needing only to yank on pre-assembled pants & shirt and grab my two pre-assembled bags. Kinda like a firefighter.
This time none of that was necessary and it was disorienting trying to figure out what to do and what to not. I’m expecting a lot more disorientation over the next week-ish. I settled for removing dirties, replenishing nothing, and doing a dedicated load of all-white laundry for the last time. Lots of stuff is still arranged as if to go again, but I’ll deal with that later. No rush.
Decide to go for casual dinner at the local ramen place. A nice walk in the warmth, some yummy tonkatsu udon for dinner, and a stroll back home as the sun sinks low. New life is starting out good. No different from last week, but utterly different from last week.
And yet the irk saga continues …
Rewinding a couple of hours … As I’m still driving home HQ sends an alert. Not being any more than idly curious what they want, I wait until I’m at a traffic light off the freeway before reading the message. Surprise Surprise! The flight from EWR is now going to be 10 minutes late. It’s still about 3 hours until departure and things are slipping. Our planned connection at the intermediate stop is now down to 25 minutes. Hmmm. I love it when a plan comes together. Or comes apart.
Over the course of unpacking, yakking with Her Ladyship, getting re-dressed, and going to dinner my phone keeps alerting about every 20 minutes. It got to be a real joke. The flight from EWR keeps slip, slip, slippin’ into the future 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time. One alert was different: HQ had noticed that we’ll miss the connection, so now we’re to lay over there and finish riding home on Mon, leaving around 11am and getting to MIA around 1pm. Just as the FA and I had predicted over breakfast. Of course there was no hotel room set up for that.
By the time I went to bed at 11pm (!) the phone had kept badgering us with breathless coming soon, really!! updates all evening and the 7:30pm flight from EWR still had not departed. But at least the bureaucracy had located me a hotel room there at the stopover. And had noticed that as late as I’d be arriving, the planned late morning ride to MIA would not work; it was too soon and I needed my beauty sleep. So instead I was reset to ride on the later 3pm flight getting to MIA at about 5pm and therefore home around 6:30-7pm given Mon evening rush hour.
I silence my phone and go to bed, sleeping the carefree slumber of somebody who absolutely positively won’t be rousted by HQ to make something happen overnight.
I’m up pre-dawn, get the coffee going, and start my vital balconatin’. First order of business is to find out how I fared last night. Turns out the flight left EWR at midnight-15 and got to the stopover at 2am. I’d have made it to the hotel at 3am, and probably needed an Uber to get there. Having been up since 7:30am on 5-ish hours of sleep. So the poor customers and crew endured 4 hours and 30 minutes of creeping 15-30 minute-at-a-time delays. Talk about world class customer disservice. The frustration level there must have been insane. At least folks from New Joisey are widely renowned for their genteel manners and endless patience. So there’s that.
It’s now 10am and it’ll be another 7 hours before I find out how my last irkday ends up. Good thing I’m not there to experience it except vicariously.
I don’t fully appreciate the fall foliage because I have problems with red/green color vision. It basically means that the reds don’t pop for me, whereas the oranges and yellows are very vibrant. I do like the fall; the air is cooler and fresher.
Gotta get this damned knee issue resolved soon. The lack of exercise is causing some serious pain in my hips when I’m sleeping. It’s always some damned thing going on, isn’t it?
Taking Q’itih in for her annual checkup and rabies shot. I hate doing this, as she is always traumatized by it, and I honestly don’t see the need. Yeah, state law says pets have to have a rabies shot, but she is an indoor cat with zero chance of getting exposed to any disease. She’s also very healthy for a cat her age. But off we’ll go.
That’s not the kind of peeping I meant. I was thinking about taking a vacation to look at leaves. Free country and all that, but really?
Tobias is in naked baby mode. He’s learned how to undress, tho at least he won’t take off his diaper. Then he tries to dress himself. He can sorta manage it. Entertaining, for sure.
SIL should claim him soon, then I can have lunch and run errands.
Regular heaving in Smalls, but today I was loading on Middle Blue, so I had an easier time that the usual on the South Side(that poor Blueberry got stuck with that.)
I never went to see leaves change. I just look out my window.
I’m waiting in the procedure room for a set of massiter muscle Botox injection. The big muscle in your jaw that you chew with and, in my case, grind your teeth into nubbins with. These suckers hurt, unlike the face and scalp Botox to prevent migraines. They work, so I grit (ha!)my teeth and do it.
Home from dentist. Thought/hoped it would be an inexpensive routine cleaning. NOPE! Deep cleaning. Coupla hundred bucks co-pay, plus another appntmnt. (with, yup, another co-pay) in about a month to do the other half of my mouth.
So, doubly ouch, both physically and in the wallet. Which after next month makes the math “quadruple ouch!”
Something about calcification (calculus?) under the gums needing extra attention. Which frankly, not having been to a dentist in several years, was to be expected.
The whole reason I wanted to do this was I suspected my gums had issues, not my teeth, and I was right. (No new cavities!)
Now I’m sort of … out of sorts. Still tired, but awake enough that I doubt I’d nap now. I dunno. I just feel … MEH.
What I find irritating, tho, is when I get my yard more or less de-leafed, then a big wind comes thru and blows the neighbors’ leaves into my yard. Guess that’s to be expected, living 
