Unseasonal and Unkind: Week 2

My neighbor’s Halloween flag continues to fly.

Day Off

One of the things I love best is a lazy, long morning.  Though I am an early riser, I am slow to start up.  A little quiet in my morning makes my day happier.   I try to find a few minutes of that solitude every day.   But given the treat of two hours of the morning to myself, I can easily fill the time with cup after cup of coffee, Morning Edition on the radio, time to read a few chapters of a good book, and time to write down some idle thoughts.  These days, such time is typically a luxury beyond measure.

But today we have the day off from school.  I tucked into bed last night glad of the knowledge that the next day would bring time to pause and enjoy the blessing of a lazy, leisurely morning.  Adding to my pleasure is the fact that the day stretches before me blissfully unscheduled.  I plan to run a few errands and tidy up my closet, but otherwise I will enjoy a day off.  We’ve nearly six weeks of very full days between now and the blissful quiet of winter break.  Today I will pause to appreciate my many blessings.

I expect that the day will refuel me for the busy weeks that stretch ahead.  That’s happy!

4-8

When JT was born, I remember thinking that when he graduated from high school, I would be 50 years old.  Those notions — an 18 year old son; a 50 year old me — both seemed so far off in my future.  But life has a way of passing time much more quickly than you expect and the cosmos certainly has a sense of humor when it comes to middle age, where the years don’t just pass quickly, they fly by.  So here I am with 50 in my sights.

Today is my 48th birthday.  Earlier this week, in a conversation with my 7th graders I revealed my age and student A said, “adults don’t tell their age…..you shouldn’t do that,” and I laughed and said some adults keep that information private but that I don’t think it matters.  Being 48 gives me the confidence to make my own rules.

That is my wisdom about the world: I’m finally getting to a good sense of what matters to me.  48 brings wrinkles and grey hair; it brings sore knees and crummy eyesight.  But it also brings self-awareness and the ability to laugh a little more often; it brings knowledge about which problems are real and which ones are just really annoying.  48 seems to come with a reminder to stop live in the moment.

I sometimes joke that if I had this knowledge when I was 12 I would have enjoyed the 7th grade a hell of a lot more.  Instead, I try to give my 7th graders and my 15 year old son a little perspective, aware that their journey is theirs to travel.  I embrace my many blessings in life and say “yes” as often as I can.  And I look in the mirror and marvel that I’m a grown up.

5-0, here I come.

Unseasonal and Unkind: Week One

One of my neighbors puts out a Halloween flag and then leaves it out well-beyond October 31st.  Last year, the witch flag hung right through Christmas.  This year, it came out around October 1st and still flies proud.  T and I have a bet about how long the flag will stay out.  T says past New Year’s but I pick December 15.  Winner buys dinner and enjoys endless bragging rights.

Let the contest begin.

November Front Porch

My front porch Halloween decorations are among my favorite, but November’s decorations also have their charms.  This year, November 1st was nearly 70 degrees and though I knew an early sunset and cool evening were in store, sitting on the front porch in flip flops felt pretty dang nice.  I swapped out the jack-o-lantern table cloth for something more in the spirit of Thanksgiving.  The mums and pumpkins remain because this is the month of pumpkin pie, a favorite in my home.

The Halloween flag has been folded up and set aside in favor of the busy squirrel, T’s favorite flag by far.

Though my neighbors have started leaf collection, I’m not in any hurry to begin my raking and leaf collecting chores  For starters, there are still many more leaves yet to fall to the ground.  Plus, I like the look and sound of crunchy leaves scattered about the lawn and sidewalk.  It sounds like fall when I walk through the yard.

That’s happy!

Dogwood Monday

Last Monday I predicted that the dogwood tree wouldn’t retain its leaves for long.  I was right.

A storm blew through on Wednesday and Thursday and the rain and wind made quick work of the dogwood’s leaves, which now cover the lawn in the backyard.  The tree is ready for Winter now.

Old man tree lost quite a few of his leaves as well, though the red leaves of the poison ivy vine running up the tree remain.  That vine is going to be removed this winter when we also plan to trim out the ivy.  

As the leaves fall to the lawn, my Fall chores begin to stack up.  I like that element of seasonal change and look forward to setting things to rights later on this month.

November 1: Peach Tree

Plenty of leaves have fallen in the backyard, though the peach tree isn’t quite ready to let go.

The trees behind the garage ---- a mulberry, two apple trees, and a pear tree still have plenty of leaves and the raking chore can hold off for now.

We’ve had a warm fall, with days determined to hold on to the 70s.  The coming week promises more of the same, so perhaps it’s fitting that while Mother Nature stubbornly holds on to the warmth, the peach tree keeps it leaves.  Even so, daylight is shrinking and the sun is now setting an hour earlier.  Warm November days feel like a treat that won’t last.

Halloween 2015

As I made ready for Halloween, I couldn’t help but remember the years of taking my own little boy in search for candy.  JT loved Halloween when he was little and from August onward, he plotted each year’s costumes.  He was Peter Pan in kindergarten.

For first grade, he was a politically incorrect Indian, a costume he loved so much that he wore it around for the next two years, in the house but also at the grocery store, Home Depot, and Target.

The next year he was a black cat.

In third grade, he was an alien.

In fourth grade, he got in touch with his Scottish ancestry.

In fifth grade, baseball had taken hold of his soul.  That year, JT went out dressed as the Pandoval, from the San Francisco Giants.

In the sixth grade, his last year as a trick-or-treater, the boy dressed up as a St. Louis Cardinal.  His friend D was a variation of a gory dude, one of his favorite costumes over the years.  

Those days have passed and now it’s my job to admire the costumes of the children who are out and about.  T and I both enjoyed the kids who showed up on the porch.   There were plenty of princesses, musclemen, and undead.  We saw a handful of vampires and devils and a few Star Wars characters.  My favorite was the little boy dressed as a pumpkin.  No ghosts and only a few witches turned up this year.  As usual, I hassled the older boys who came out with no costumes.  But there was candy for everyone who stepped on the porch at Sassafras House.

Happy Halloween!

Baseball

I don’t watch a great deal of television but I love the sound of a baseball game.  From July to September, my evenings are often accompanied by the sound of a game on the television.  Between ESPN, the MLB channel, and the broadcast of my two local teams, I can usually listen to a game or two every day.  Sometimes I sit down to watch, but often I’m simply listening to the play as other tasks are completed.  

A June ball game is a whole different animal from a September game, when the stakes have begun to be significant.  In June, the games can feel leisurely, as teams find their pace and style of game.  There are sometimes amazing plays; just as often there is confusion in the field as the teams find their way.  Things have changed by October, when every game seems meaningful because most are important; games that will determine whether or not a team advances in the playoffs.  

Left to my own devices, I’m a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants.  Daughter of my father that I am, I’ve a soft spot for the Oakland As and I hate the Dodgers.  T is a Royals fan from way back, and of late they have been a fun team to watch, so I keep up with them.  My boss is a diehard Mets fan, as is JT’s baseball coach, and some of my 7th graders.  They are a local team and I can always watch or hear the broadcast, so I know that team well.  This year, Mets games have been such a treat that I’ve seen or heard nearly every game they’ve played since August.  

I’ve a Sunday night habit of turning on ESPN’s Sunday Night game.  That tradition is done for the season but for most Sundays since the regular season ended, there has been a playoff game to watch.  This past weekend, there was no baseball game to be heard on Sunday and my evening felt oddly quiet.  I realized that I’m staring down the tunnel of months without a baseball game to think about.  I’ll use football to fill the gaps, though my growing awareness of concussion injuries makes that game less fun.  Soon enough, college basketball will ramp up and I’ll have those games as the sound of my evenings.  But it’s baseball that I most enjoy.

In the meantime, there are at least a few games left in the World Series.  It’s a particular irony to me that the Series features the Royals and the Mets, two deserving teams that I like and know so well.  It’s a battle between tremendous pitching and scrappy hitting.  With two games in the books, the series is shaping up to be some very good baseball, the sort of struggle that fans can chew on for years to come:.  When it’s over, I’ll enter a long drought without baseball.  I’ll miss the sounds and feel of a baseball game in my days.  It won’t be long until I start counting the days until pitchers and catchers report.

My Walk in the Woods

Last Friday, I had a dentist appointment to finish the new crown on my tooth (so, yes, royalty now).  My car needed a tuneup and oil change and I was scheduled to work a school event for half the day on Saturday, so I took the whole day off.  After the crown on my tooth was complete, I made a trip to a Hacklebarney State Park to walk the trails and enjoy the Fall air.

In the minds of folks who don’t live in New Jersey, it's a state of turnpikes, traffic, and smokestacks.  It’s a shame that’s our public face, because this state has also has acres of history and lovely woods to enjoy.

Of course, I brought a book to read and found a bench for a nice break.

The sky was the clear and shaded the vivid blue that we often experience in the month of October.

Many leaves had already made their way to the ground.

Still other trees were nowhere near done with their Fall chores.

There is a lovely light to fall days like these and this one was a welcome respite in a very busy time of year.  That’s happy!