Stumbling, Falling

Fall is finally here, tumbling frantically downhill into Halloween after an uncertain ending to summer. Weather cools itself off in a spasm of pewter skies and spitting rain. Enjoyable in its own way even if it carries with it a nervous chill of realization that Halloween is just about here. People will "celebrate" this weird "holiday" in fits of trick-or-treating tinged with resignation or excitement, generally depending on one's age group. Or perhaps on one's willingness to embrace overindulgence in some form of socially accepted vice.

The leaves in this part of the world changed color seemingly overnight, sneaking up on the neighborhood like foliar ninjas. Ninjas bedecked in red, yellow, and orange cloaks twirling through the air to festoon lawns and sidewalks in coruscating displays of chaos theory that induce gawking. Such as it was on my errand-laden drive time today, out in the mist. One tree in particular, crowing to the world in a deep shade of red, nearly caused me to stop my car in the middle of a busy street, just to take its picture.

No pictures were taken, however. The car kept moving. The mind kept racing far out on front of it like a falcon on a long rope. The leaves. The colors. The metallic smell of rain. Sensory impressions gelled on the tongue, which burst into a question ejected onto the backside of the windshield.

"What happened to the time?"

The question shattered itself on the glass and rebounded into dizziness in my head. How did it get to be this late in the year, with summer passing by in a blur? The air in the car had a tang of incredulity in it, temporarily disabling my ability to swallow. How could it be the end of October?

That thought and a few garish displays of fake tombstones, Death and undead creatures clawing their way out of suburban-looking front lawns brought it all back to me in a rush. It is the end of October because the earth spins around the sun, nights elide the days and time marches on regardless of my attention span. Occasionally the fog lifts and notice is taken, only to further engender bemusement at what happens in the world beyond my shoulders.

It will be Halloween soon, a happening that always infuses me with a bit of low-grade anxiety. It is not a social event that ever cottoned to me, or me to it. I know the young ones dig it, my own included. They can celebrate it for treats, and that is the way of the world.

Me, I look forward to the fall as celebration of change in the air, manifested by the entry some years ago of my daughter into this world. She was not born on Halloween, thank heavens, but she sure made fall a treat. I drive on, past the decorations and into the swirl of leaves afloat in the October air. The colors blur into chaos and remind me of the love that is constant through all my seasons. It rises, it falls, it is ever there to catch me when I stumble out of time.

Spirit Lamp

Brakeman slumps over the iron rail,
cold truth digging into his ribs
and graveyard air filling his lungs

Stoking a cigar with precious tinder
the ash floats down, a gray luna moth
kissing liquid silver of the river

Tattered hat removed by grimy hand
of three fingers, plus memories of more,
plume of smoke roiling the October air

Brakeman likes the quiet after the trains,
down by the bridge, his second home,
across from the graveyard.

Indigo sky, cold tips of wind, he thinks
Tonight I'll see her, the ghost holding
my heart, down by the Ohio

...Happy Halloween to one and all...

Halloween Is Cool Again

It's that time of year again. There is a nip in the air, the sunlight is getting that lovely gold tinge, and the fall is creeping in. Aaahhh, breathe that air, with a hint of wood smoke, and get ready for...Halloween.

yay.

I confess, I am not a big fan of the modern day All Hallows' Eve celebration of beggary and gluttony. Even as a little kid, I always felt awkward and silly (just like now, except older!) on Halloween. I didn't really like costumes then, still don't, and I could never say 'Trick Or Treat' with conviction. I will always remember standing on a porch, mumbling 'trigortree' or something like it while adults with sloppy (perhaps alcohol fueled) grins on their faces bellowing "Well, aren't you a cute/fierce/lovely fairy/tiger/princess, here have a Pixie stick! (hic)".

(Clarification: I was never a fairy or a princess. Well, there was that one year where it started out to look like like elf, but i hadn't had a hair cut in a while, and with the green tights...Damn you, Mr. Jenkins, I was NOT a fairy!)

Anyway, I grew up, moved away from home, did the responsible adult thing and all that. It was with a sense of relief that I realized I did not have to participate in Halloween. Hell, I didn't even have to answer the door if I didn't want to, and some years I just went somewhere else for the evening. Finally, that nonsense was over!

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The Wee Lass came along and I was dragged back into it. There was no way out of it. She is just so dang cute, and all the neighbor kids were dressing up, and there was the vast potential for all those photos I could use for major embarrassments when she becomes a teenager. One year, she was a chicken, the next a baby cow, and last year a cat. This year she wanted to be Sleeping Beauty. My mind has slowly been changing about Halloween, because of stuff like this:

THIS VIDEO REMOVED BY AUTHOR

She was having a grand time, and by extension, so was I. Lesson learned: Don't let adult prejudices get in the way of joy.

I Was Gonna...

I was gonna rip off another screed on politics, because there seems to be no end to the idiocy showing up in the news.

I was gonna write a hard-hitting, insightful and well-researched essay about Obama being the Man, and McCain being the Un-Man (sorry, John, not your election cycle).

I was gonna try to get some of the noise about the election out of my head, really lay it all out, and make sure the world could dig where Mr. Irish Gumbo stands on the matter. Testimony out there, my friends!

That is what I was gonna do. But earlier this afternoon, Mrs. Irish Gumbo and yours truly took the Wee Lass to a Halloween fall festival over at Centennial Lake here in Howard County, Mare-ee-land. It is a beautiful park, around a lovely lake with good walking trails. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky. The trees were carrying a lot of color and it just felt so damn GOOD to be outside. Especially with the wee one. She decided that she would wear her Sleeping Beauty costume, a few days early, complete with tiara. A plastic jack o' lantern bucket completed the ensemble. She looked lovely. We rode a little train, took her to the moon bounce, and walked the Trick Or Treat Trail. We didn't have time to do the pony ride, but we all had fun.

PHOTO REMOVED BY AUTHOR

Sleeping Beauty Surveys The Kingdom

The combination of fresh air, sunshine and Sleeping Beauty's antics was quite the tonic, as they used to say (back when people actually drank tonics); by the time I got home all the piss and vinegar had left me and I didn't want to fire it back up by writing about politics. How could I?

So what I was gonna do became what I oughta do, which was unwind myself, take a deep breath and recognize that the good stuff in life is most often right in front of me. It isn't too late for me, or for anyone, to remember that and put it into practice. Time for some good vibrations...

Squirrels Are A***holes

All right, that’s IT! I have HAD IT! This means WAR! Let’s get ready to RRRRUUUUMMMMBBBLLLE! It’s time for the all-Elkridge Backyard Squirrel-Smackdown!

Squirrels are getting on my nerves. Frickin’ tree rats! This time they chewed a big, BIG hole in the 19-pound pumpkin that the Wee Lass and I picked out at Larriland Farm last Friday. Plus, they have been nibbling on the four smaller ones we got that same day. Wee Lass even sustained an injury to get this humungoid pumpkin (humungoid relative to the lass, anyway). She was trying to follow me out of the pumpkin patch, tried to run and tripped on a cluster of pumpkin vines. I turned around just in time to see her do a face plant into the leaves. Two beats of silence, then a steady high-pitched wail as she flailed around amongst the pumpkins. I extracted her from the plant she had fallen on and in which she was entangled. I stood her up, brushed her off and smooched the tears away. We didn’t notice the scratches until after we later finished picking some apples. Following me out of a row of apple trees, she said “Daddy, there’s something wrong with my face!” Sure enough, there were some little red welts on her nose and cheek. So I think we more than deserved to get our punkin’ on!

The pumpkin was out on the back deck in preparation for carving this weekend. We thought it was okay, but something made The Spouse look out the back door this morning. AAIIGGHH! OHMYGOD,THEHORROR!THEHORROR!

THE VICTIM.

Pumpkin fragments strewn across the deck, and a double fist sized hole in the side! Those little bastards bored into the pumpkin looking for seeds! So not only did they hate on my Halloween Jack O’ L, the little bags of scrofula secured their place on my s***list as competition for a food source! This isn’t the first time. I have been trying to grow tomatoes for a few years running. This year I had some nice ‘mater plants on the grow, including a lone precious Brandywine (possibly the Best ‘Mater on the Planet), and they stole about half the ones I could get to set. In all fairness, they left the cucumbers alone.

This means war. Not firearms kinda war. County regs prohibit THAT, plus my neighbors might be concerned about the loud bangs. No, it’s going to be sneakier than guns. It’s October and the ‘mater plants are dying off anyway. Winter is on the way, and I’ll have a few months to plot my revenge. I’ll take the organic route, no explosives or nasty poison. I don’t really want to HURT them, just serve notice that my deck ain’t no damn salad bar.

I know: habanero pepper juice mixed with Ex-Lax. Squirrels, I’m pullin’ your card!

THE PERP.