Judging from the sunrise today it’s going to be an absolute beauty! Perfect October weather – it doesn’t get any better than that.  Thanks, Alice, for the poem yesterday.  I’m gonna transcribe it here to share …

Fall

by Edward Hirsch

Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences—a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer’s
Sprawling past and winter’s hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.

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I’m going to be doing my annual – or I should say semiannual – clothes swap today. Love this chore. Used to hate it as a kid, but now it provides such a great opportunity for getting rid of things I never wear, reminiscing about the season gone by, and anticipating what’s to come.

Feeling much less funkish today, for no reason that I can really pinpoint. Sometimes I think just naming what’s going on helps to put it into perspective and perhaps get it into proportion.

I see that the Giants and Tim Lincecum had their way with the Braves last night. So far the pitching on the National League side has been absolutely amazing. And I am bummed to see that neither of the teams I prefer on the AL side are winning. Is there no God?  (Of course there is … and she’s going to be making sure that the Phillies take Game 2 against the Reds this evening!)

And taking a moment t reminisce … here’s that last play of Doc’s no-hitter, moment-by-moment.  It kinda gives me the chills, how precise this game is!  Kudos to Carlos and Ryan for making it work!

Here’s a photo of a label that was on a crate that HollyCornblog and CharlieHopbrew found in the attic up at the Lake. Clearly, it was a crate that held plates or dishes or some other sort of crockery that our great grandmother must have ordered as she was outfitting the place back in the early 20th century.

It’s amazing to think of these wooden crates loaded first onto a train and then into a wagon … slowly creaking and crawling its way up those craggy hills all the way from Oneonta to Crystal Lake.

I wish the attic had had more of that sort of thing (even though it would’ve been a hassle for HollyCornblog and CharlieHopbrew to deal with). Imagine finding old, empty flour barrels, empty crates for groceries, household goods, etc. up there!

Back in those days they’d get in their supplies for the summer months, and that was pretty much it. A trip to town would’ve been a day’s undertaking, not something done lightly, that’s for sure. Before they went up there in the spring, a local farmer would cut ice from the Lake and haul it into the icehouse, where they stored their food through the summer months.

Pretty amazing to think about it … as I work at a computer in an entirely different century!