Thanksgiving at Grandpa's: "broccoli, beans, beets, peas, raw veggies, cranberry sauce, cranberry relish, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, wild rice, several kinds of pickles, shrimp, and one turkey.... After that of course came the pies - apple, pumpkin, blueberry, strawberry, peach, chocolate, sweet potato (or was it squash?), and pineapple plus a banana cake and 2 kinds of cookies."

Neat!

Hey, y'all.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving. May your pie crusts be flaky, and your attendance to all things baking or boiling not so much.


Ode to Autumn
- Keats

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease; 10
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Um, okay. My dad is really sick--I didn't say so yesterday, here, because it's not the kind of thing you post to the public, but I can't explain it to one more individual, because I will freak out. He has a brain tumor, and they aren't 100% sure yet whether they can remove it all or not or whether it's cancer or what or what his chances are.

Basically, prayers (or whatever your equavalent is) are very welcome.

Hi, I'm back.

And it snowed here! Whooooo. Zero degrees--quite a shock, since when I left Missouri, it was in the 70s. I actually spotted some shirtless little boys trying to sled down a grassy hill on Friday.

In other redneck news, my family's invented a new game: Mock Orange Bocce. You throw fallen mock oranges at the mock oranges still in the tree to see how many you can knock down. It's great fun.

So, here's the deal, in case anyone is perplexed by my going missing for the next few days: My dad is sick, and I'm going to go home for a little while. The doctors don't know what it is, so don't ask me. It could be no big deal, so nobody panic. He had some seizures Saturday/Sunday night, and they're trying to figure out what it is.

I'll be back; talk amongst yourselves.

I am so totally twitchy from not biking to work in the dark and the cold. Gonna have to get a light for the bike, I guess, or take long, exhausting weekend rides.

I'm all obsessy about getting my own farm. For the last week or so, I've been dreaming about it--warm kitchen with woodstove, nice house out of the Sears catalog (with friend-and-relative-filled bedrooms), solar panels, chickens, sheep, and canning. Maybe even a greenhouse. And a root cellar, definitely a root cellar. Handspun, handdyed yarn hanging everywhere. A booth at the farmers' market. A chest freezer. A laundry line.

And, therefore, I'm in double-penny-saving mode. Except for my copays on dental work. A cavity for every year since I last visited the dentist. Ouch!

Grrr. Arrgh.

Gosh I love that little ghoulie at the end of Buffy. Also, I have to say that I adore the unhappy bean of the Zoloft commercials. He always makes me giggle; he's far more effective than the drug itself.

If I had the entry fee: http://www.organicfarmgiveaway.com

Good golly, it's wicked windy out there. If you are in Loveland, and reading this, be careful going outside. It's a lovely temperature, and it's sunny, but you might be kilt by a screaming hunk of branch rolling down the street or a tumbleweed traveling at super sonic speed or the dumpster currently rolling around in our alleyway.

I actually kinda enjoyed the latest Matrix; I thought it was more ridiculous than its predecessors and, therefore, pushed into the realm of funny. It would have been better if I had someone to make snarky comments to *while* the film was playing, of course. Perhaps my lack of disgust is just a sign that I don't get out enough.

In other news, I burnt myself pretty badly while playing with hot wax this weekend. Both my thumbs are a little bit less with the fingerprints than they used to be. My bad for trying to melt candles in a bean can and watch TV at the same time.

The box elder bugs here are driving me mad, too. One got caught in my hair this morning while I was on the phone, trying to be a professional.

And then, later, when I was on the phone again, a green ink pen leaked all over my hand, and, before I noticed it, I managed to get a big green smudge on my forehead.

Just call me Pig Pen.

Dude! If I won $150 dollars for some reason, I would so get this kit: The Trompe L'Oeil Schiaparelli Sweater!

Here's a really solid article on Schiaparelli, by the way. It's funny that she isn't more well known to the hipsters of today--with their visual-joke clothing and home decor, they're totally following in her shoes.

PS Another Waaant.

So this cabbie picks up a nun. She gets into the cab, and the cab driver won't
stop staring at her. She asks him why is he staring and he replies, "I have
a question to ask you but I don't want to offend you." She answers, "My dear
son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am and have been a nun
as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just about everything.
I'm sure that there's nothing you could say or ask that I would find
offensive." "Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me." She
responds, "Well, let's see what we can do about that: #1, you have to be
single and #2 you must be Catholic." The cab driver is very excited and
says, "Yes, I am single and I'm

Catholic too!
"OK" the nun says "Pull into the next alley."

He does and the nun fulfills his fantasy with a kiss that would make a
hooker blush. But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts
crying."My dear child, said the nun, "Why are you crying?"

"Forgive me sister, but I have sinned. I lied, I must confess, I'm married
and I'm Jewish." The nun says, "That's OK, my name is Kevin and I'm on my
way to a Halloween party.

Blahblahblahblah BLAH!

omigoodnessijustchuggedamountaindewinthelunchroomitwasfreetheyneededthecanforthiswreath theyweremakingandnowicantseestraight, wheeee!