Officially, the last day of Summer was September 20th.
That doesn’t feel right, though. I mean, sure. The last day of summer is the last day before you have to go back to school. So the kids out here have their last day in the middle of August (while, when I was a kid, the last day was somewhere around Labor Day).
But the first day of Fall wasn’t the first day after the last day of Summer. There was still a couple of weeks in there. When you go outside and think “hey, I need a jacket”. When you are walking and find yourself scooting your feet through the leaves on the sidewalk to make that leafy noise. Huh. It’s actually the first day of Fall.
In Michigan, we had The Plymouth Orchards and Cider Mill and we’d get a jug of cider and some of those fresh cinnamon donuts (that, seriously, were still hot from the fryer). When Mom said “get in the car, we’re going to the Cider Mill”, *THAT* was when Fall officially kicked off.
I haven’t purchased a jug of cider yet this season *BUT* I have scooted my feet through leaves as I was doing the warmup for my evening jog and I thought “Yep, Fall is here.”
And that makes me think “Man, does Colorado Springs have a cider mill? Surely not…” and, we don’t, but we do have a hard cider taproom. I was kinda hoping for cider and hot donuts but, you know, that’s why we have a microwave and a King Soopers. But it’s probably worth picking up a growler of… Peach? Pumpkin Spice? Elderflower? Jeez. Maybe just some good, old-fashioned, “Dry”. Maybe pick up some donuts too.
And, given that the chill is finally in the air as well, it’s time to swap out from the linen sheets to the flannel sheets. And since we’re (finally) done with the laundry from the clothing swap last weekend, it’s time to get the ol’ washer and dryer fired up all over again.
Seriously, when we’re back to a load of towels, delicates, and Jaybird’s Clothing That Uses Fabric Softener and nothing else? It’ll feel like we don’t have any laundry at all.
This weekend will have a game night in it. We’re going to be going over to our bud’s and sitting in the basement and having conversations about what we want to be doing with D&D or Star Frontiers or Boot Hill or what.
And getting a weekend crammed in before, one hopes, the weekend recovering from The Booster. In fuzzies and sleeping on flannel sheets.
So… what’s on your docket?
Hey, Jaybird!
Thinking of you. Hope you’re well.
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Cider donuts. Breath making clouds in the morning. Trees going to sleep. That crisp air. Warm sun. And all the great food.Report
JHG!
Yes, we’ve recently dug out the crock pot and have started making stick-to-your-ribs food again. I imagine that I’m a week away from making the first batch of spaghetti sauce of the season.Report
It has continued to feel like summer here but seems to have finally turned the corner into chilly at night. Is it global warming? Is it the weird weather of the mid atlantic? Who knows?
I am sneaking out tonight to see Dune. I inadvertently came across a potentially major spoiler looking up the cast for the David Lynch version that has drastically lowered my expectations. I am going anyway and will dutifully bite my tongue about it with my friends until the after beers.
Then tomorrow morning its my son’s fall fest followed by an afternoon trip to Virginia to attend the bday party for the child of a family friend. Sunday it’s swim lessons followed by the final (and probably terrible) crab feast of the year and football. Hopefully I don’t have a heart attack, I’m getting too old for this level of weekend partying.Report
The main spoiler that I’ve seen for Dune is one of those rare spoilers that I’d prefer to know before the flick.
Specifically, the movie ought to have been called Dune: The First Half.
Now, I consider that a *GOOD* spoiler because I remember seeing Lynch’s Dune and being confused as heck (alternated with being awed)… and then, when I read the book, being confused as heck again because the movie was more like a dream that you’d have after you read the book rather than, like, being a movie about the book. And now that I’m much much older, I would have said something like “you couldn’t do this book in fewer than 5 hours.”
And knowing that this is Dune Part 1 makes me feel good because… GOOD! THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE FIVE HOURS TO TELL THE STORY.
The Mentat Mantra was awesome, though. They should keep that.Report
I actually had not heard that spoiler but I’m glad I know it now. It may even mitigate what upset me.Report
Yes. I have learned to not give spoilers (or, at least, give warnings) but this particular spoiler is one that I will throw around without any guilt whatsoever.Report
The David Lynch movie is what introduced me to Dune as a kid. I loved it, and I still do. It ain’t Dune, but it’s still awesome. I also wish Jodorowsky’s Dune would have been made (even though it would not have been Dune either), because I think that would have been awesome too.
However, I am glad that we might finally really have Dune as a movie. Hopefully it does well enough to get at least the 2nd half. My idea world would get us through God Emperor of Dune, though I’m not sure how you make an interesting movie about a giant humanoid sandworm talking history and philosophy for hours on end. I guess I’ll have to settle for 2nd best: https://grimadventures.fandom.com/wiki/Mandy_the_MercilessReport
I only read the first book and while I enjoyed it I did not feel compelled to continue the story. Maybe it’s just where my nerd ceiling is but I read none of the sequels.
Even though the Lynch movie isn’t on point in a way I’d think a hardcore fan would want, it really captured my experience reading the book in a way few adaptations of anything ever have. Strange, at times difficult to empathize with characters. An approach to technology so outside of anything in mainstream science fiction. A hard, humorless culture with a medieval government.
If there’s one thing I could say about Herbert from Dune it’s that he does not indulge his audience and it makes sense that neither would the film. The biggest thing the new movie could do to disappoint I think would be to overindulge.Report
I think we’ve all learned that the first trilogy is just the set-up for the fan-fic prequels anyway.Report
Ha! I just got quite the lesson in all that from my nerd friends.
Anyway I hate to say this but it was a good movie. I am glad for Jaybird’s spoiler because otherwise I’d have been really confused. Anyone interested should see it.Report
it’s still hot here, at least midday 🙁
I’m going to be recovering from this monster cold. First cold I’ve had in almost two years. I forgot what a cold felt like and freaked out at first and thought I had breakthrough ‘rona and was sitting at home gaming out “how do I manage a 10 day enforced time of no coming in to campus given that I have none of my textbooks at home and my home Zoom set up absolutely sucks for teaching biostats (which really needs a whiteboard better than the virtual kind)”
Fortunately, a rapid test conducted curbside by the campus nurse concluded: you have a cold.
But still, I coughed and sneezed hard enough with this to pull all my upper back muscles and it’s very hard to find a comfy sleeping position. Tylenol helps a little, heat helps a little more but I think I just have to wait it out.Report
Ugh, yeah. I’m very lucky that I haven’t gotten sick since the Pandemic started but a handful of friends have.
Laryngitis is still a thing that happens. Food poisoning is still a thing that happens.
And when it hits, immediately, “oh my gosh, am I going to die, have I killed any loved ones?” and, of course, the answer is “QUIT EATING AT TACO BELL”.
Get well soon. Good luck.Report
OMG, half my one class was out sick today. They all e-mailed me and it’s various complaints (so it’s not that I gave them my cold on Monday – anyway I was masked then). Several cases of stomach bug (I had a v. mild version a few weeks back, so I believe it), one strep probably brought home from school by a kid.
it’s like the Minor Illness Apocalypse this week, I think everyone was so stressed from 18 months of pandemic life their immune systems are at a low, coupled with lots of people going back out into the world again and BOOM, everyone’s sick
I’m feeling better this afternoon but still have the muscle aches from coughing.Report
We’re in that great stretch where you see some people wearing sweaters and jackets, and others in shorts and tank tops.Report
The downsides of everybody living in a new place for less than a year.
The first winter we were in New York, we got 8 inches of snow and we went out to the bus stop and nobody else was there and the bus never showed up. “Mom, we must have missed the bus!”
“Dang it! Get in the car!”
We got to the school and one of the teachers yelled as us as we were being dropped off “Snow day! No school today!”
For a mere 8 inches of snow.
SMGDMFH.Report
We planted a small apple orchard about a decade ago… a mix of three types that ripen early, middle, late season. Unfortunately the orchard has not thrived and without significant spraying against various fungi and pests it’s not going to. However, we do get a whopping number of small, misshapen, pocked but tasty apples each year.
And since we’re the type of foodies who don’t mind weird less than perfect fruits nor grinding up a few bugs for a greater cause, we got an apple crusher and press and made hard cider.
It is not very good (wrong types of apples, and, well, maybe the bugs), but it’s dry, drinkable and doggonnit it’s ours.
Lady Marchmaine and I are going to see the other movie this weekend… Bond and his adventures in HR Workplace approved romance (from what I hear). Will see Dune in a couple/few weeks when the crowds die down. I’m glad it’s going to be more than a single movie – it has to be – but I still maintain that the Plot of Dune isn’t as important as the inner monologue of Dune… so, I’m expecting a plot movie with just enough exposition to make sense, but not enough to make it thought provoking.Report
I googled pictures of apple presses and they’re surprisingly affordable.
That’s downright lovely.Report
I GOT MY BOOSTER.
And now this weekend is shot.Report
You’re the first person I know to get the third shot. I’ll be interested to hear if you have a second-shot type hangover.Report
I got the text telling me that I was eligible at 11:30 and, soon thereafter, I was in the waiting room at the Safeway explaining to the lovely pharmacist that, seriously, I’m obese. I just dress really well.Report
Oh, fatigue has kicked in. I haven’t heard the bass drop sound effect, but, golly gee willikers, I don’t think that I have enough energy to play Diablo.Report
You make me feel guilty now, worried that the gloams might be advancing. I guess I’ll have to take up the charge this weekend.Report
That’s an extraordinarily high level of fatigue.
Perhaps a fatigue scale could be made based on video games. It might start with “Not enough energy for DDR” and run through “Not enough energy for Farmville.”Report
I have had a full night’s sleep and have transitioned from “feeling bleh with no gas in the tank” to “feeling GREAT (with no gas in the tank)”.Report
Good! My (85 year old) mom is scheduled to get hers next week; I hope I can get mine soon. I decided that 2 weeks post booster, I will feel confident going unmasked to teach (unless I have a cold or some other transmissable thing) and once our cases drop below 20/100,000, I will start eating inside restaurants again and going unmasked in stores.Report
Very good! I think that the official date is something like “six months after your second shot”.
I can’t *WAIT* to go to a restaurant again.Report
Mine is this coming Friday, rescheduled from Wednesday to get the Moderna instead of the Pfizer.Report
Excellent. If this is your first Moderna, then order pizza or something the day before. You’re not going to want to cook that night.Report
My previous was the J&J, which is why I’m already eligible. As Dave Chappelle said ““I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m vaccinated. I got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I walked in the doc like, ‘Give me the third best option!'”Report
I kinda want to get the J&J on top of the Moderna. Get all the bases covered.Report
And some ivermectin, just to be sure.Report
I could see microdosing it.Report
Day Two of having the booster:
Soreness at the injection site (I woke myself up this morning by rolling over).
Come late afternoon, I thought “I should go for my Sunday evening jog.”
The way the jog is set up, I have a handful of landmarks that tell me “I am .5 miles away from my starting point”, “I am .75 miles away from my starting point”, or “I am now one mile away from my starting point.”
When I turn around at one of these landmarks, I know that I’ll have run a mile, or one and a half miles, or two miles.
Main thing that I was mainly curious about was where I would run out of gas and say “nope, we’re not doing this” (or if I’d make it all the way to the furthest landmark”.
Halfway up the first hill I knew that today was a one-mile day. So I have less gas in my car than I’d like.
But, hey. Next weekend.Report
Tomorrow my son’s HS soccer team plays in the state regional finals, and the moment is nigh to when I will have watched my last soccer game in my life, as the game has little personal appeal outside of the personal. Five years of fall & spring weekends with some sort of soccer, frequently in other states. A lot of time standing in heat advisories and snow, thinking about baseball, the utter subjectivity of the calls, and man’s inhumanity to man, but I met a lot of parents from a variety of backgrounds that I wouldn’t otherwise have. Some of their stories may have appeared here in some indirect form.Report
You’re not going to be the guy at work who talks about MLS and what’s going on in Europe?Report
My son’s influence says MLS sucks and I don’t think the game shows very well on TV. One thing is that its such a low scoring game.Report
Whelp, soccer is dead to me.Report
Hurray!Report