The Evening Rambler for the last day of November 2013

I'm making this up as I go along, so I don't know what direction it will take.  Welcome to live blogging!

We had a good Thanksgiving, my family went to my mother-in-law's and we had a good visit.  Traditional food was the order of the day, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, cole slaw, rolls, cranberry sauce, celery stuffed with creamed cheese, and of course pies.  Two choices this year, pumpkin and chocolate.  As I do every year, I asked for a small slice of both since I couldn't decide.  And that's not a lie, I didn't want to pass one of them up.  One of these years I might just choose one, and everyone will look at me funny and ask if I feel all right.

There's an old saying, "You can't have your cake and eat it too".  No cake though, as I mentioned Thanksgiving was a day for pie.  The early results are in, and it seems like the old saying applies to pie as well.

So I've been trying to come up with more stories.  A few days ago, I thought of a dialogue that could happen between just some average guy, and an alien.  It went on for a while, and I thought it was pretty clever.  At the last, the alien starts to walk off (presumably to his spaceship), and said, "You won't see me again".

It had possibilities, and now I sure wish I could recall their conversation.  I have got to start carrying a notepad at all times and write this stuff down while it's fresh.

It was a nice fall day today.  The fall season ran kind of late here, but by now all the colors are over and most of the leaves are down.  Except for the big pin oak tree in my front yard.  It will release leaves a few batches at a time, and it's liable to still have some old leaves to drop through the winter and maybe as late as the first of spring.  It does that most every year.  What are you gonna do?

Tomorrow December begins, and it seems like a clean break between Thanksgiving and the Advent / Christmas season this year.  For me, anyway.  I know shopping and running around will happen, but I'm not in a panic about that.  We have our tree up and the lights put on; the boxes of ornaments have been brought up from the archives.  We're poised to begin.

Trunk or Treat 2013

Happy Reformation Day, and Happy Halloween!  For the past several year (seven?  eight?  - something like that) our church has had trunk-or-treat in our parking lot.  We get to enjoy watching the kids in their costumes, and the kids and their parent or parents have a safe place to go get candy.  We've been to this before and this year as always, a good time was had by all.

Highlights...

The weather cooperated, thankfully.  We've had rain here pretty much constantly for 2 1/2 days now, something like three or four inches total.  It all stopped around four p.m., and the sun came out for a while.  The bonus to that was the illumination of the leaves.  I think the fall colors are peaking now through this weekend, and while I wouldn't quite call it a spectacular fall, there are some really nice trees around the suburbs.

Costumes:

I think the cutest costume was an owl costume worn by a little boy, maybe 2 1/2 or almost 3 years old.  My words can't do it justice, you would have had to have seen him.  A couple of girls, maybe seven or eight, had a cowgirl and indian princess theme going.  I could tell a lot of effort went into the costumes; nicely done.

My favorite though was a girl maybe nine or ten, who was dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  The costume was first rate, and she was carrying a dog that looked a lot like Toto.  And I don't mean a stuffed animal, this was her well behaved pet, just looking around, apparently enjoying himself or herself.

And a lot of the kids wore superhero costumes, mostly store bought.  Batman was there of course, along with Iron Man, Superman, Spider-Man, and at least one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

One of the cars...

...was interesting.  With the trunk open and lined with big teeth, and with the dorsal fin on top of the roof, it had a "land shark" look to it.  Sitting in the trunk ready to hand out candy, was a young lady in sweats (going for a wetsuit look, I think), and she had goggles strapped across her forehead and also a snorkel.

We handed out four bags worth of candy, and only saved back a few candy bars for ourselves.

It's that time of year again

I assume they held the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade again, but I didn't tune in to any of it.  Early in the day, my wife went to her mom's to help prepare the festivities, and I got up sorta kinda early to see if I could finish up my leaf blowing and outdoor Christmas light connecting.  The front part of the house looks good now, and all the lights in front are in place except for a string of 50 LED lights destined for a bush near our door.  Just ran out of time, before it was time to go over to Thanksgiving dinner.

It was a small, simple gathering, six of us, but we all had our favorite Thanksgiving fare.  It was a quiet, restful afternoon and evening.

Not much else to say, but I did want to re-post a link to what I wrote on Thanksgiving 2008.  I'll even ask the question again...what characters would you like to see made into those big Macy's Thanksgiving helium balloons?

The Evening Rambler for November 10, 2010

I've been thinking about the last entry of the Music List Project. It bothered me for a while and I wasn't sure why; now I think I have the answer. The top 39 songs (including ties) I'd still say were my favorites for the year. The other songs on the list I like well enough when they come on the radio, but to describe them as "favorites" would be stretching the point. So I'll go back and edit that post a bit, and in the future, I'll try to keep the lists simpler.

How about a couple of fall photos?

The colors weren't as intense as last year, but it would have been hard to beat 2009. Anyway, here's our maple.


I didn't go on the pumpkin patch outing this year, so I'm seeing this picture for the first time.



My son, doing a great job carving...


...Pumpkin Bubs! You know, the Jack-'o-lantern version of this character, from the Strong Bad e-mail "Original", from the Homestar Runner site.

That's about all for now, other than a friendly reminder that tomorrow, November 11th, is Veteran's Day. By all means, if you see a veteran, thank him (or her) for his (her) service!

Marty's autumn

(This is an unofficial Marty story. Cousin Mike writes the official Marty stories, so if you want the real thing, click here. But, once in a while I hear from Marty too, so I offer this story for your enjoyment. Just so you understand it’s unofficial. Now you know.)

Marty had been anticipating a colorful fall, what with all the rain they’d been getting all year. Or was it that too much rain made it less colorful? Now that he thought if it, Marty wasn’t sure; and isn’t that just the way? Sometimes you can just think your way into more confusion.

Fall turned out kind of unusual, though. There were some dandy trees all right, red and orange maples, and those yellow whatchyacallums. He saw a nice deep red one down the block, actually almost purple; whatever it was. Some years Marty was drawn towards the most pure red trees, but this year he decided his favorite was a maple (he thought), that still had green edges on the orange leaves. He liked that effect, pick up one leaf and you had all the colors right there; the whole story. But the thing that was odd was these nice trees were scattered, and in between were a whole bunch of green and brown trees – those were mostly what he saw. It wasn’t anything to write home about. The leaves seemed to hang on a long time too, until in early November most of them fell within 48 hours.



Now the wind had blown enough that Marty had several leaf piles to contend with. He has his choice of tools, a leaf-vac, a couple old rakes, and even a few leaf bags left over. But it was kind of cold and was starting to get dark, so he chose speed over finesse. His mulching mower started with some effort (any later in the year and any colder, and that wouldn’t be a given).

So Marty started along the ditch, back and forth. It wasn’t perfect, but the leaves were mulching up into small bits pretty well. Then he turned a corner and prepared to do battle with a big pile along the side of his driveway.

He just about had it done, and was pondering which part of the yard to mow next. He never saw the hidden rock, but he did hear the POW! Marty did what any of us would do, he let go of the handle and the mower stopped.

Marty was confused; he knew from the sound that something substantial had been hit, but where was it? He looked along the base of the garage door, and didn’t see any damage. He thought, “Well, check the car, then”, and walked around kind of bent down looking at the tires. He looked underneath the car to see if he could find the offending object. Nothing…wait, that rock wasn’t there before. He picked it up; it was about the size of his fist, with maybe a chip knocked out of it. Straightening up, he saw where it had hit.

Shattered auto glass has an interesting look to it, but what a mess anyway. There was nothing for it but to go inside and call his insurance agent. They would probably cover the repairs, but he would have to pay the deductible. All in all, kind of a tough and expensive way to get out of lawn work.

Marty called his agent, who gave him the 1-800 claims number. He then called in the claim…oh, they’ve heard that scenario before. Yes, the repairs would be covered – minus the deductible; and three estimates were needed. And Marty now had a claim number in case he needed to call back.

The next day Marty made the rounds of the local auto body shops. The first guy pointed out the crack in the door panel where the rock first hit, before shattering the glass. That would have to be replaced and painted too. Then it was on to the second shop, and the third. All the estimates were close, so he decided he’d use the closest shop.

First, a call to the insurance company to report the estimates…but it was Friday afternoon and was it that late already? Everybody at the headquarters had apparently gone home for the weekend.

Monday, Marty got through to the insurance people again, and asked if an adjuster had to come out to look at the damage. No, the rapid response team could determine what was needed if Marty took the car back to the shop and had them send photographs. He was told an email address to give to the man at the shop.

At the shop, the man used a digital camera and a computer in the office to do exactly that. Marty could see the images on the screen and assumed all was well with the email. Help was on its way. The man at the shop said he would call Marty when he heard from the insurance people.

One week later, Marty still hadn’t heard anything. So he called the insurance company and talked to someone else. That man opened the computer file…no, no photos had been received…

Back at the shop, he had the shop man double check the email address, and oh…it was exactly right. Well, he sent the photos again, and Marty said he’d wait an hour and call the insurance people back. The man told Marty, “You’ve been really patient”. Well, at least there was that.

One hour later, at home, Marty had the same insurance guy on the phone again. He said he’d opened the new email from the shop, and no photos. He asked Marty for the number to the shop, which Marty gladly gave. Let them figure it out. That was yesterday.

This morning, Marty got a call from a lady at the insurance company, and they had agreed to an amount for the repair. Marty was glad to hear it, and wasted no time taking his car to the shop. A work order was made, and he handed over the key; then a short walk home on a beautiful, unseasonably warm November day.

So now Marty awaits the call that his car is ready. It may be Friday, or it may be Monday; for sure before Thanksgiving. Speaking of which, Marty’s really thankful he wasn’t standing in the way of the projectile the other day when the glass broke. And at least he’s got a kind of interesting story out of it. He thought, “What I ought to do is put this on the internet somewhere”. But he wasn’t sure how he felt about having his name connected to this mess. Well that was easy enough, wasn’t it? He could use an assumed name…call himself Bob, maybe.