Fall Approaches

And Young Men's Thought Turn To What?...Halloween?


Boy oh boy has the weather ever shifted gears this week here on our little island.

I can walk outside for five minutes to take out the trash or amble around the yard picking up limbs and globs of Spanish moss off the lawn and come back inside without searching for a towel to dry my body on. I can sit on the sofa after an outside excursion without Pat making me sit on a beach towel.

I'm able to walk out into my new garage and work on projects like repainting my bike rack and actually see what I'm doing without pausing to wipe sweat out of my eyes every thirty seconds.

Speaking of Spanish Moss, be careful what you ask for because I've always thought it would be cool to live under Live Oak trees draped with the stuff, and now I've found out that Spanish Moss would apparently enjoy living on the ground rather than up in the limbs of trees, because I've hauled a couple of wheelbarrow loads worth over into our ever growing mulch pile in the past month.

I've basically got Spanish Moss growing on practically every surface except my ears and butt.

Seriously, the stuff is everywhere around here, even in the shrubbery. I think that our house plants will soon have moss growing in them if we're not careful.

If you'll send me your address, I'll ship you a big bail after the next thunderstorm knocks it out of the trees into the yard--for free.

I'm also happy to report that we're on diligent lookout for popcorn lung, particularly since the new place came with a built in microwave oven and I've taken to popping a bag every day or so. Thus far I've managed to avoid contracting this new malady, but you never know...and I enjoy a good media induced panic just like the next sucker fellow.

I'm sorry to report that my blogging has been suffering for no other reason than a total lack of effort, not lack of time. I've just been coasting along while I rearrange my priorities and schedule as new things catch my attention.

Tomorrow is "fence day" over at the Brunswick job site, with Home Depot delivering a load of pressure treated fence panels, 4x4 posts, and a new front door for the building. The City of Brunswick finally followed through with their promise to remove the giant pile of debris that my nighttime visitors had deposited on the alley side of the property, and I want to get the fence in place before anyone has the idea of rebuilding the impromptu landfill again.

I'm renting a so-called "one man" auger to dig the fence post holes with, instead of killing myself with a set of post hole diggers for a couple of hours. I think that it will be $30 well spent, but it's still going to be interesting getting five post holes on a straight line across the property line.

I may end up with the world's most crooked fence, but any fence is better than no fence at all, I guess.

Regarding my Halloween reference...we're getting to celebrate Halloween here for the first time in years. We're actually expecting trick-or-treaters for a change. The family next door has FIVE kids--what they were thinking I'll never know, but I do have a pretty good idea what they've been doing after the sun goes down.

In Atlanta I was usually out at a costume party on Halloween, else we lived in a Condo complex populated entirely by barren men and women over the age of twenty-one that were too busy drinking and exposing their body parts to each other on Halloween to bother stopping by to beg for candy.

At the Sea Palms condos we never got any kids to come by, and everyone but us that lived there was closer to 100 than costume wearing age so I ended up eating all of the candy that Pat didn't consume.

So any way, I'm thinking about working up a new costume this year, based on the old Viking theme that I built in the 1990's and won a number of contests with. I spent about $100 on the attire back then, and I probably won about $500 over a three or four year period attending contests hosted by various establishments like Dave and Busters and some other local pubs & Taverns. I also wore the costume at private gatherings and usually was credited with having one of the most elaborate home made disguises in the crowd.

I think that the "Orc's" from Middle Earth in the "Lord of the Rings" movies will also have some influence on my design, so I've been re-watching the movies the past couple of nights looking for inspiration.

My friend Robin, the yard guy the landscaper, just got here, so I have to go wave my arms and supervise his efforts now.

Wish me luck.