thoughts on a monday morning at the gym...

My day today started out as it usually does on a Monday morning. As if to mock the early hour, I was awakened by the absurd radio station Dave has set the alarm to. In protest of the talk-radio station I had set it to a few days ago, he found some dumb station that plays not "the best hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s," but "the lamest songs no one listened to during the 60s and 70s, and now you know why." Dave's not bothered by stupid music in the morning. He's just out of it enough that he's kept in a sort of stupor until he stumbles into the light of the bathroom. I told him he had to change the station because I cannot bear another second of whatever that music is supposed to be and he goes, "That wasn't NPR?" So like it or not, my day starts all too early to the tune of stupidness. I don't care who you are, that's a great start to any day.

We wake up at 4:30. It's an obscenely early hour to be doing anything besides sleeping, but in order to be one of the lucky winners of a treadmill at the gym (I use that term loosely -- It's actually the community rec center, and I think there are about 9 treadmills there), and to be done using it in time to get home and get the kids up for school, we have to arrive at the gym no later than 5:02. I discovered this last year, when I first started coming. After about a week of trying to get a treadmill before 6 and ending up on an elliptical instead, I showed up at the crack of 5 and secured one.

Already you have a good indication of my stupid level. I wake up every weekday morning at 4:30 to 70s guitar rock (I guess) in order to fight 15 other people for one of the 9 treadmills. That's pretty high on the stupid list, isn't it?

Even stupider is the insane need to comply with posted signs that keeps me and Dave from doing what every other rec center member does with no conscience: They all enter through the "exit only" door to get to the treadmills more quickly. But not me and Dave. No, some stubborn streak in us makes us walk all the way around the entrance area, because we will certainly not stoop to the level of going "in" the "out!" I'm sorry to say, we have lost the last treadmills for this hardheaded display of pride.

I used to go to a gym; you know, the real gym, with like 150 treadmills and 70 tvs, a weight room the size of wal-mart, and a women's weight room on top of that. The gym commands a different slice of humanity than the rec center. At 5:00 in the morning, at least half of the people showing up at the rec center are over the age of 65. This is good for me, because that means I'm still nimble enough to beat them to the treadmills -- or I would be if I didn't have to keep the rules. The gym, on the other hand, seemed always to be filled with far too beautiful people, looking far too beautiful to be working out, with far too coordinated outfits (think fantastic fitting yoga pants with some cute halter thinger and a great headband thing wrapped around amazing hair that looks like the wearer truly doesn't care how she looks, even though she looks completely fantastic, and I couldn't hope to look that good if I spent hours getting ready to go to the gym).

I fit better at the rec center than the gym. And I've become rather oddly attached to so many of the people there. After a year, I know two of them by their given names. The others, who we always smile and say hello to, have all been affectionately named by Dave and myself. There's Sweaty-John-Jones, who runs like crazy on the elliptical and sweats all over the place; there's The Man with One Red Arm, who actually has two arms, but who is always wearing a red, noisy warm-up suit and does all the "both-arms-at-a-time" exercises with just one of his arms. There's Margaret, who, though I'm fairly certain is not really named Margaret, reminds us of Margaret Houlihan from M*A*S*H; I wonder why we don't call her Hot Lips. There's Evan, who runs on the elliptical in his swim trunks and has an uncanny resemblance to Dave's 3-year-old nephew, Evan. There's the PPSSHH Guy, who grabs really heavy weights and curls them about 2 inches, exhaling with a PPSSHH sound on every rep. There are the Raucous Laughter Duo, the two big guys who often show up in camos and beanies and spend a lot of time sitting at the curl machine... well, laughing raucously. Then there's the new guy I call the Jazz Man. He wears shiny purple shorts to work out in every day. He only started coming at the first of the year, but the first time I saw him, I thought, Wow, someone actually picked out shiny purple shorts for himself. On purpose. Purple. Must like the Jazz. Go figure. I worry about him because the man puts his whole body into everything. When he walks in, he takes up a lot of space, despite his somewhat lanky appearance, because he swings his arms wide, and takes a wide stance as he walks. But most striking about this man is his active use of his head while exercising. He swings his head backward and forward with every repetition. Not just a little, but enough that I can't help wondering if he's gonna hit his head on the butterfly machine someday soon.

I wonder what someone would affectionately name me and Dave... Red-faced Girl and Baldy? Wimpy-Thing and Strong-Man-Muscle-Shirt-Guy? I'm good with that. I mean, at least I'm there, having braved the stupid music on the radio, the terrible hour of the morning, and Sweaty-John-Jones'...well, sweat. It's a brave thing I do every morning. Can't wait til tomorrow.

Course, I can't wait til Saturday even more. Saturdays know no 4:30 am.

ushering out the holidays

Well the Thanksgiving turkey was fantastic (but the stuffing was king), the fall colors - gorgeous, the first snowstorm - delicious, the tree - so cute, the decorations in general - brilliant, the Christmas trip to Island Park - hilarious, the New Year - new. And there you have the last month or two in a nut shell.

Life moves so fast. Too fast recently. I had to take a break from my blog in November so I could help design a brochure for the business that really ended up being re-designed in full by a far more talented person than I. But once the design had shifted to someone else, I was in the midst of all the yummy things I love about the holidays, so there was just no time for mindless flapdoodle and bosh and suddenly it's two months later and I can finally take an hour or so to sit and write long run-on sentences and use too many commas. Oh, but, they're, lovely, aren't, they?

I thought I'd just tell you about one of my favorite things that happened all season, and it's up there not because it's centered around my kids or family or any of the other things I love so much about Christmas. It's more because it was a night just jam-packed with people's delightful absurdities. In fact, as far as holiday absurdities go, it's second only to the Ruin of the Spectacular Shoes of 2007's holiday. But that's likely another post. And it'll be a good one.

So this year, I ended up "volunteering" as an usher at my 7th-grader's Christmas chorus concert. I use the quotation marks because I really kind of had to volunteer -- her chorus teacher required parental involvement in order for the student to be eligible for an A, as I remember it. I can't possibly be the reason for a B, for heaven's sake, so I signed up to usher at one of the two performances. No big deal, right? How hard could it be, after all, since I'll be there to hear her sing anyway; I can certainly stand at the door and tell people where to go. Ha ha.

I was contacted by a cheery-sounding woman a day or two before the performance. She assigned me my door, and told me my only job really, was to keep the door closed if the hallways became a little too noisy, and to not allow people in and out during the songs. Easy.

Little did I know that the chorus teacher had each one of his music ensembles performing that evening. That included the beginning chorus, his advanced chorus, some other chorus (maybe they're the in-between-chorus), his guitar ensemble, some mixed chorus, and it seems like a violin group or something. Really I can't remember, the night was a blur of hot, angry, over-crowded people.

So that each class can appreciate the talents of the others, the teacher requires all of the performers to sit in their ensembles with the audience. That takes up a good 1/4 to 1/3 of the seats. Then he asks the students (with the threat of lower grades, I think) to make sure they bring 5 people to the concert. Five people for every kid in the ensembles! You've got to be kidding me, even if there are two shows, there's not a chance we can all fit in that auditorium with a bunch of the seats already taken by his choirs. Of course, I didn't truly know this until after the concert began.

I arrived a little before call time, you know, so I could make sure my "Usher" badge was straight and in full view (it was actually a sticky label with a hastily-scratched "usher" in Sharpie black), and find my "specially marked" seat by my assigned door. Well imagine my surprise when I walked in to find a full-house already, with 5 minutes until show time, and someone sitting in my usher seat! Well I'll tell you what, I'm not going to stand for 2 hours while I have this sticky label on my chest guaranteeing me a seat. My first order of business was to remove the seat-stealer from my chair.

"Excuse me," I said -- politely, I might add. "Are you an usher?"

He looked at me blankly.

I pointed at my tag. "I believe you're in my seat. They reserved this seat for the usher."

Nothing.

"I'm sorry," I tried again. "I think you'll need to find a seat somewhere else, this seat is reserved for the usher." Now I pointed pointedly (which is really the best way to point, isn't it?) at the sticker on my chest.

He looked at me for another second and said, "Oh. Do you need a seat?"

Well yes, but it's not like I'd ask you to move if I just needed a seat. You're in MY seat, man. I'M the usher! I get the seat by the door! I've got the sticky label, I've got dibs. "I'm the usher," I said, hoping he might somehow make the connection between me and the seat he was in.

He stood up a little confusedly, and looked at the chair. Sure enough, on the back of the chair was a sticky label almost identical to the one I was brandishing on my chest.

Understanding washed over his face. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm in your seat." Oh really?

By now, some representative of the school had begun to welcome everyone, etc and blah blah, and now let's begin. Well unfortunately, only the really smart parents who have had other children come through the ranks of the chorus ensembles knew to show up an hour early to secure an actual seat. The other half of the parents were still streaming in. And I mean streaming, none of this one-or-two people here and there. They were lined up outside my door, and waiting for their moment of horrible realization that there is no where left to sit in this auditorium, and at some point, we're going to have to stop walking in and try to start walking out. Couldn't that vice principal take a little longer in his intro? Now here goes the piano intro on the first song, and oh dear, it's not a little noisy out in the hall it's full of giddy teenagers yelling and shouting and laughing and meeting up at the big Christmas chorus concert, and my door's still open. But there's like 50 people standing in it and there's no way in a million years I can close the dang thing, and there's also no way in a million years that anyone in the back of the auditorium could hear that song. 8th graders.

By the end of the song, people had started back out the door and I managed to get it closed as the 2nd song began. It locks on the outside when closed, of course, so that's when the brilliant people who hadn't yet made it inside to witness for themselves that there's fire-code-violating standing room only began to knock on the door. Knocking. On a door. During a concert. ...Who raised these people?

I opened the door after the 2nd song to let in another flood of people who stopped short upon their first view of the place -- every seat and most of the isles, filled. But of course, the people at the back of the flood can't figure out what in the world could possibly be stopping the idiots at the front of this mass. So they're grumbling, and I'm smiling and apologizing (I'm not sure why, I'm just the dummy with a sticker on my chest. I have no real authority.), and mumbling non-sentences like, "No where to sit," or "so many people," and "no where to go." One particularly grumbly woman with a pierced tongue glared at me as she said, "Well if they'd just move up, I could at least hear my kid sing!" I nodded with a frozen smile and just barely squeezed the door shut as the next song began.

And here's where it started getting ugly. I've just squashed about 20 more people into a space that comfortably holds 3-and-a-half. There is no where to move forward, and a closed door is behind us. I am the only thing standing between them and freedom, yet I am forbidden to open the doors during a song. I now have 20 people with no where to go. A few move to leave and I stand with my arms protecting the door and whisper as quickly as possible, "I'm sorry, you'll have to wait til the end of the song to leave!"

Miraculously that sticky label carried more authority than I thought. They all nodded at me, like they were accepting their death sentence, and waited for the song to end.

It went on like this for a song or two, with people knocking on the door, and others trying to leave during the middle of the songs (and most of these are adults, mind you, not irresponsible teenagers who don't know better), and almost everyone getting grouchier the more crowded and hot it became.

Part way through the second or third group, the woman with the pierced tongue returned. Apparently she had heard her "kid" sing, and was ready to go. She was followed by a scraggly-looking young man, and a taller, back-woodsy-looking man, who I assume, was her husband. Up they come, squishing through people in quite a rush, until they get to me, The Keeper of the Door.

I guarded the door again, amid knocks from the outside and whispered (probably too loudly) "I'm sorry, I can't open the door until the end of this song."

She was mad.

And bigger than me.

"We were supposed to be on the road two hours ago!" she said.

Well what difference will another 3 minutes make?!

I didn't say that. I only thought of it later. ...Probably better that way.

"I'm sorry, I can't open the door until the song is over," I repeated with that obnoxious frozen smile of mine. No, I'm not nervous. Not at all. I mean, sure, she could take me in a bar-room brawl in a second. And then take me and squash me again if she wanted. But no, no, I'm not nervous.

Did I mention she was mad?

Then her husband says something to her that I thankfully, couldn't hear, to which she responded (unfortunately I could hear this one), "What do you want me to do -- knock her out of the way?"

Um. Does anyone else want to wear my sticker? I'm done now.

Thankfully I was spared (chalk that one up to a Christmas Miracle) as they waited impatiently for the song to end (and by the way, I do believe it was the longest song on the program), and the rest of the night went on much like the excruciating first 25 minutes.

About 3/4 of the way through, the lights quit working. That was a highlight. But the show must go on, and on, and on, and so it did. With flashlights. But by then I was giddy with the lovely absurdities presented to me, one right after another. It was delightful. Having escaped certain death (or at least certain pain) from the tongue-pierced woman, I became suddenly very appreciative of all the funny quirks that come out in people when they're shoved into a hot, over-filled auditorium with other hot, over-crowded people, a faulty lighting system and an absurdly determined usher at the main door. Each new grumpy face delighted me. Every bang on the door became funnier and funnier.

I vowed, of course, that I would never, ever, in a bazillion years, volunteer to do this again. But it's been a month since the concert and now I almost might do it again. But only if the lights go out again. And the lady with the pierced tongue comes back.

I've been working out. I think I could take her.

Merry Christmas. Late or not.

thursday afternoon

It's cold today. It's one of those day-after-a-storm days and the sky is bright blue with a few lovely poofy clouds here and there. There is just the slightest of breezes blowing, but it's a cold one, reminding my fingertips and nose that winter is coming sooner than I'd like.

You know, why doesn't someone make a nose warmer? Not a scarf, because that has to wrap all the way around your head and cover up your mouth to warm your nose. They have ear muffs, why on earth not a nose muff?

I suppose you'd look stupid.

But I digress. Shocker.

I'm sitting at the dining room table with a view of the Western Flutter-Leaf trees (a.k.a. Aspens) in the yard behind my house, fluttering their leaves as they should. They're best this time of year, since there's only 4 of them, and 3 of them are mostly dead. In the summer they're only half-clothed in green leaves, except for the one healthy one, which takes its role of Show-Off Healthy Tree quite seriously. This makes the other ones look absolutely pathetic until fall, when the brilliant one is yellow and losing its leaves and the dead ones just look like over-achiever Leaf Losers. PS. Photo below is so NOT a pic of my neighbor's trees. It's just a gorgeous reminder of why I love fall.


The point (Yes, there is one): It's a gorgeous afternoon and I adore this season. A few days ago I got out of the car and stepped into a gutter full of leaves. I couldn't help it: I ran through them, dragging my feet so it would kick up the leaves even more. I ran back and forth 3 or 4 times, then realized I must have looked fairly ridiculous -- not only because I was a 34-year-old mommy running through the leaves in the gutter, but because I was swinging my purse around while I was at it.

Caution: Leaf-filled gutters may cause rampant leaf-running, unabashed purse waving, and absurdly huge grins.

And then to top it all off, I grabbed a huge handful of leaves, stuffed them in my face and... inhaled. Deeply. Deliciously. Oh, I LOVE the smell of fall leaves!! It was just about the most perfect 8 minutes of my week.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Happy fall. Again.

toothpaste on the mirror

The bathroom: A fine, practical, utilitarian sort of space. Oh I know, some people have a spa for a bathroom with a 10-foot wide, 5-foot deep bathtub and a fireplace with candles all over the place. Some people, I believe, would call their bathroom a sanctuary.

At my house the bathroom is the room an inch larger than a closet that just barely fits the necessities, the end. You walk into the sink, take a step and hit the bathtub, and wedged in between the two is the toilet. Apparently, when my house was being built in the 70s, no one could think of a reason that you'd want to actually like that space, or heaven forbid, move around more than 2 feet.

So I like to honor the builders of the 70s by treating my bathroom just as they intended: get in, get done, get out. Showers? 5 minutes. Tooth brushing? Keep it to the maximum 2 minutes. Hand washing? Just long enough to sing my ABCs.

My children are another story -- particularly the 3 youngest. For them, brushing your teeth is a group activity; in fact, if you send one of them up to get it done without anyone else, they'll stop and tell you they can't...because...well, no one else is in there...

Oh, I'd LOVE to know what goes on when they're all in there. For example, why in the world is there a blob of toothpaste on the wall every morning? The wall. Sure, the sink. They're kids, there's bound to be a little toothpaste in the sink, on the counter, or even the faucet. But what, pray tell, are they doing to get toothpaste on the wall every day?

Or in the evenings, after everyone's gone to bed and I head up to take care of my ablutions and other various bathroom activities, why is it that when I go to use some toilet paper, it's all wet? Not sopping, mind you, just wet enough that when you pull on some, a little bit stays on the roll and there you sit holding a scrap of damp, clinging paper in your fingers.

What could they possibly be doing? There's not really water anywhere else, not on the floor or the sink, or the toilet or walls. It's just there on the toilet paper roll.

Then there are the baths. These, unlike the tooth brushing, are one-man jobbers. The Boy, in true "man-form," prefers the shower, and is in and out in seconds. Just long enough, I believe, to barely wet himself, run a bar of soap up and down his body, rinse, and get out. Seriously. I think it's about a minute.

But the girls all love a bath. And I have no idea how they do it, but there are always, always gallons of water on the floor when they're done. I don't know what they do. Are they laying down and swishing the water back and forth to make great waves plunge out of the tub and all over the floor? If they are, I never hear the wave-making, and even in those moments when I have to run in and get something, I hear nothing. The shower curtain is closed and there is no sound whatsoever, save for perhaps the stray drip from the faucet.

I've decided that maybe they just take the first 3 gallons that come out of the faucet and scoop it onto the floor before they turn off the water, so I'll be none the wiser. Who knows?

All I know is I'd love to be a fly on the wall to see what's really going on in there when I'm not around. Then maybe I could at least protect the toilet paper.

Oh well, we can't know all the mysteries of life, can we?

mars & venus

I don't think there is anything in my life that compares to being in absolute and complete, this is for real and forever, I cannot breathe without you, love. It's something I think most girls dream of and imagine their entire lives and then one day you wake up and it's happened to you and you're marrying that one person you cannot live without. The thing is, you don't realize then that you haven't really got a clue what it really feels like to be deliciously in love. I mean, yes, you're crazy in love, but if you could catch a glimpse of yourself in say, 10 or 14 years, you'd laugh at what you were feeling then. If you just got married a year or two ago, you think I'm nuts. But if it's been a little longer, I know you know what I'm talking about.

We just celebrated our 14th anniversary by skipping out of work and spending the day window shopping and playing Rumikub and Scrabble. Yeah, I know, to a lot of people that sounds like the lamest excuse for an anniversary celebration in existence. I'm sorry to say, it's just what I love. But truthfully, even if it wasn't, I could watch a rock in the dirt for days as long as I'm doing it with Dave. He's just so dang funny that the ordinary is simply not. What a great, beautiful thing to be so happy just being with someone, that the ordinary becomes quite deliciously unordinary.

So in honor of the big 14th, I thought I'd share a coupla reasons why I'm so in love with my Dave.

Dave is a self-employed masonry contractor. Self-employment brings with it funny quirks. He's generally able to choose his hours, which is really nice, and when we're crazy busy, it's really good. However, we have had times when we haven't had enough work, which is really not so good. Most of the time we're somewhere in between crazy busy and absolutely-I'm-afraid-we're-selling-the-house-and-moving-to-that-box-on-the-curb, no work. Lately we've been on the skinnier side of busy. Just busy enough. And that's good enough.

Several months ago, we were experiencing one of those closer to the skinnier side of the skinnier side than I'm comfortable with. Dave hadn't been very chatty that morning, and seemed preoccupied as he got ready for work. I watched him and began to worry a bit for him. I mean, if I don't like the no-work times, it's even harder on the man who can't find the work. I tried to keep up the happy level on my end, and chit-chatted about nothing in particular until it was time to kiss him out the door. We walked into the mudroom and he opened the door and kind of slowly backed out. His focus was blankly off of me, out into the garage at nothing in particular.

And I watched him and my heart just broke for him. That's my whole heart right there, and he's unhappy, and I can't stand it! And I thought, Oh, he's having a hard morning, he's worried, he's stressed out, I gotta do something for him... I gotta go pray for work. Pray for help. Pray for him... And I smiled and wished him a great day at work.

His mood seemed better later in the day, and I was relieved that things must be looking up. A few days later, I brought up the work topic. Condescendingly, I told him I knew he had been worried, so I had been really worried for him. I mentioned that morning, and how I knew his mind was going, trying to think of a way to get us some more work. I told him how I can't stand when he has to worry about things, and how I wished I could take some of that burden from him. Really, I believe it was quite a moving little speech.

He smiled and told me he thinks I'm great, and how glad he is that I love him so much. That's right, Marianne, you know how to take care of your man.

And then a few days later he told me the truth. As I was getting out of the suburban one day, I noticed a yellow smiley-face that had been spray painted on the wall in the garage. I laughed and went in and asked him about it. That particular morning that I had worried over my Dave as he distractedly backed out the door, he was, in fact, distracted by something completely unrelated to work. On the shelf he had caught a glimpse of a small can of glow-in-the-dark spray paint, and as I assumed his mind was off somewhere meeting contractors or something, he was pondering the many great uses of such a treasure. After he closed the door on his little doting wife, he grabbed the can and painted a smiley-face on the wall.

Good thing I was so concerned.

Here's one more glimpse into why I love him so much. We're huge Iron Chef fans at our house, especially the original ones from Japan or wherever they are. Several times this past year, we've have a family Iron Chef competition, with two teams, a secret ingredient, and 45 minutes to make a meal. For the first 2 or 3 competitions, Dave and I were the judges, but when Dave got home one Saturday morning and announced the next Iron Chef competition, he decreed that he and I would also be competing. Since he had already decided on the secret ingredient, he told me it would only be fair if I knew what it was as well: Curly Noodles. AKA: Ramen.

Okay, I thought. I've got 6 hours to come up with some good ideas for Ramen. All day I thought. I mentally went through my most spectacular recipes and tried to think of ways to substitute Ramen. I tried and tried to come up with something that would be both delicious and creative, and racked my brains for inspiration for something that would plate well.

At 4:00 we all met in the kitchen and divided up into teams. And then we began. Alas, after half a day of thinking, all I had come up with was uncooked chocolate-drizzled Ramen for dessert, and a salad, a spinach salad, with uncooked Ramen all crumbled up on top. That was it. Crumbly and chocolate ramen.

Contrast this to the ridiculously impressive main dish that Dave invented. Stupid as is seems, he took dry ramen and pulverized it in the blender with the dry ramen seasoning. Then he coated slices of chicken with it and fried it in just a little butter, and served it over cooked Ramen. And seriously, it was so dang good -- so good, that RyBread insists on making it about every other Sunday for lunch; so very good, in fact, that I always want some when she makes it.

That's the difference between Dave and me. He's making Ramen Chicken a la noodles, and I'm smashing dry ramen on lettuce and calling it a salad. He's spray painting smileys on the garage wall and I'm planning our going-out-of-business sale. Dave brings a delicious liveliness to my days. He helps me lighten up a bit and makes me laugh all the time. It's unfair, really, I'm always on the receiving side of the laughter -- he's always providing it for me.

So after 14 years of marriage, I'm tempted to say that it doesn't get any better than this. But the funny thing is, I know it will. I know that woman who's been married 25 years is smiling over this and thinking, She hasn't really even discovered how much in love you can be. And that's what I love best about being married to my Dave. It just keeps getting better.

Happy Anniversary DaveyBoy.

mary, mary quite contrary...

I don't think it's just me, I think everyone has at least one of these: something you love but you're terrible at. Mine's gardening. Actually I couldn't even go so far as to say I love it. I guess what I really love are other people's gardens. I love flower gardens and vegetable gardens, although if it's too big a plot, I admit I don't like it as much -- too many weeds waiting there between the zucchini and tomatoes, I know it. But I love big, plant-filled backyards, with little "outdoor rooms," and "pretty-ish sort of wildernesses" that make you want to explore them. I love all the gardens in my magazines, even the xeriscaped yards. ...No, I don't believe I like my own garden at all.

Okay, really I love my little gardens once a year: at the very first turn of the soil in the spring. I love that delicious moist dirt smell as you break your back trying to soften it all up again. I love the first planting. I even kind of like the first weed-out of the season. And then it ends. Oh, sure, I keep weeding and adding annuals and occasionally trimming back the dead heads. ...For a while, anyway.

It's almost the end of September now. I quit pulling weeds a month ago out of principle, and I must say, if you just let them go, they'll really find a way to become the star of the planter. I have all the usual smaller weeds that only ever spread out, but not up; I've got Morning Glory attempting a hostile take-over of the Black-Eyed Susans; a distant relative of the dandelion is sprouting up nicely (and fluffily) between the faucet on the house and the evergreen-whatevers growing a few feet away; and some fleshy-looking, spreading thing my father-in-law once sampled as a snack and invited me to try as well (as it's an apparently integral part of someones dinner salad in Ecuador or something), is thriving everywhere else.

Meanwhile, over in the veggie patch, my tomatoes are barely going to have turned red by the time the first frost hits. I'm about ready to try some fried green tomatoes just so I can say I got to eat my very own tomatoes this year. The yellow squash produced one perfect, summery squash, and the rest shriveled on the vine long ago. Right next door, the zucchini are producing far more than any family should have to eat in one summer. So for all those reasons, as well as the fact that the morning glory have really outdone themselves on the tomato cages, I'm calling it done pretty soon here -- I'm thinking another, oh, day or so, and they're coming out. Fall is the most delicious time of year anyway, so I say, bring on the dead leaves. Come on, crispy mornings. Hello to the end of dragging my sprinkler around the yard every other day. No more dirt under the fingernails til Spring.

I love the fall, and the end of my growing season's just another fantastic reason to celebrate it. You know, I think I'd have made a lousy farmer. Lucky my livelihood doesn't depend upon my ability to garden. Oh well, even if it did, I seem to be really good at cultivating those salad-green weeds from Ecuador. Looks like I'd be okay after all.

Happy Fall.