I am working from home this morning, but my wife Jen is not. She left the house at about 8:00am. I walked her to the door and watched her go. When we first looked outside we saw it.
There was ice on the car.
October 15, 2024… the first instance of winter frost.
Damn it.
I hate winter.
What day is it? Who knows. It’s Thursday, right?
Is it too early to start thinking about plans for the weekend? It is the height of leaf peeping season here in New England. We thought about going up to the mountains for a look last weekend but we decided against it. If we go this weekend the traffic will be insane. I checked the weather for our area and Saturday looks great while Sunday looks rainy and crappy.
I don’t know. We’re trying to plan a visit to the kids but that won’t be for another couple of weeks. We have a couple of work days to get through before we figure anything out and maybe we will just hang out at home. I don’t know. After a bunch of day trips on our week off/staycation last month I just have the road trippin’ bug.
We will figure it all out soon enough. Stay tuned.
The calendar says it’s still summer for a few more days at least.
Stop this autumn crap, right now! Right! Effing! Now!
No word from the guitar shop today. The guitar looked finished in the pics he put on the bookfayce yesterday but I couldn’t really tell. There was likely some finishing work that needed to happen (file down, polish, adjust the new frets maybe?) that I don’t know anything about. Hopefully I will hear something tomorrow. I can’t pick it up on Wednesday as I’ll be in the office. I don’t even know if he opens his doors on any other days. His website books appointments on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Let’s see what happens, okay?
Two things that I need to do today. One, call a plumber to look at a leak in the old bathroom. Two, I have a doctors appointment after work. I also have 3.5 hours left in my work day. I am just wrapping up lunch now.
Harry is coming home this weekend. How awesome is that? Looking forward to having him around. Also really looking forward to Thanksgiving. The actual holiday we will travel to my sisters’. The following Saturday we will have Thanksgiving Part II (electric turkey boogaloo) with the kids and Jen’s folks. I am really excited about both. Not that I can eat like I used to, but I’ll still love every minute of both days.
When are we going to go Christmas tree shopping? We usually try to do that while the kids are home for Thanksgiving, but I don’t know how the schedules will work out this year. We’ll have to figure that out too.
Have I mentioned that I am absolutely freezing today? Stupid cold. Stupid winter (even though we’re still over a month away from the first day of winter, it’s basically winter already).
Okay. Lunch break is over. Get back to work, Robert. You have some custom code to deliver. Get to it.
The leaves in our backyard essentially rake themselves. If only the wind would blow them away from the house and into the woods instead of blowing them all right up against the house. Oh well.
There are still more leaves to come too. I don’t think I am going to have time to get to much of it this weekend, so they are going to be hanging out for a while. Ugh.
In other news, Candle.
I took this with my DSLR through Dad’s old zoom lens, Gemini 1:4.5 80-200mm. Aren’t they nice?
I had to step outside today to take out the trash and I saw this hideous monster. How can we live in a world where an evil like this exists?
Also, you’d think that living in the woods in New England would mean we’d have some cool fall colors. Not really. In our back yard the leaves go from green to ugly yellow to dead on the ground. Oh well.
Jen and I talked about going leaf peeping up on the Kanc this weekend. It’s probably a smidgen too early, but it will be a fun day if we go.
Well that was fun.
I logged into a video conference call at 10:00am. At 10:02am a mouse tried to climb the floor lamp next to my desk. It almost got to the top before falling off. It was equal parts startling and freakin’ adorable.
A mouse. I mean, it is that time of year, right? The weather is getting colder and the critters are looking for warmth. I get it. It’s not surprising.
This mouse was either an arrogant asshole, or supremely stupid. Why? Because when I first saw it I made some noise and moved around. I was on video in a meeting so I couldn’t get up and chase it. I made my very large presence known and that should have scared it off, right? Nope. The little shit hung around. It tried going up the light a few times, and it was running in and out of the pile of stuff in the corner next to the desk, and it came strolling out from under my desk a couple of times. It didn’t get the hint.
When my string of three consecutive video meetings ended I got up and kicked some stuff and made a lot of noise. I had a minute or two where I thought I was in the clear. Then I heard it behind me. It was standing next to my amplifier. Yeah, my Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue that costs over a grand. It was curled up next to the power cable. Oh no, you little shit. I got up and it ran. It went under my desk and hid behind my little foot rest. I kicked it… hard. It dashed to the other side of the room. I went after it. Eventually I lost it in the closet. I hoped that would be the end, but somehow knew it would be dumb enough to come back.
I logged onto Lowes’ website and started shopping for mouse traps. I was thinking of capture traps because I don’t want open traps that Patches the Wonder Cat could accidently trip and mangle herself on. That’s when I heard it again. It was next to the amplifier again. I got up, walked over, and kicked it. It smooshed between my foot and the wall.
The end.
Fucking mouse.
It’s Autumn. Fall. I really don’t like Fall. I kinda hate it. Here’s one reason.
We caved in and had a landscaping team clean up our yard today. The main reason they were here was to fix and clean the rain gutters on our roof, but they also cleared the yard. Awesome.
Less than an hour after they left I looked out the window and it was literally raining leaves. It was the front of the house. We don’t have any trees in the front of the house. Two doors down from us they have a huge oak tree. The leaves were falling off that tree and the wind was blowing them all the way to our yard. At this rate, within a day or two you won’t be able to tell that our lawn was clear today.
Fall sucks.
One slightly related note. In our back yard the leaves fall off the trees in the woods and the wind blows them all right against the house. The yard itself is usually not too bad, but the base of the house is a leafy mountain. There are some windows along the foundation of the house but only one of them can actually be seen from the living space in the cellar, the rest are in the storage areas. After the landscape folks left, and at the start of my lunch break, I went down stairs to put some laundry on. I couldn’t believe how much light there was down there. Turns out that one window was free of leaves for the first time in a year and you could actually see through it. It was kinda cool. Of course, by the end of the week the window will be blocked again. Yippee.
It’s September 30th. How the hell did we get here so fast? Yesterday and today the outside temperature when we woke up was cold enough for jackets. It just sucks. Covid ate two summers in a row, but they both flew by so fast anyway that I feel like we would have missed them even without Covid. Crud.
I forgot to mention this yesterday, but yesterday was the 11th anniversary of our buying this house. Our 11th Homeownerversary, if you will. I didn’t do anything to celebrate then, but I did today. I went downstairs to do laundry. While downstairs I looked for leaks and water on the floor. I didn’t find any. Oh happy day. I think there is probably some water under the floor tiles in a few spots still, but nothing visible. I need to run the dehumidifier for a few days to clean up the hidden stuff (in theory at least. Will it work? Who knows).
We are going to see the kids this weekend. Bellana asked if we could bring up some Fall clothes for her. I offered to wash everything first. Big mistake, Robert. There is so much laundry to do. So much. Mountains and piles and piles and mountains (I am exaggerating, yes, but there is a lot of it. A lot). I hope to have it all done tonight.
We missed the new What If last night. Jen was tied up at work and by the time that was wrapped up and dinner was done Harry was busy with homework. We’ll try the watch party thing again tonight. Last night we were going to mess up the tradition by not having burgers, but we can fix it tonight. Jen suggested veggie burgers. Consider it done.
And now, on to work. Happy Thursday, folks.
Inside the Red Head's Head 