Reading: Don Quijote

Watching: "That '70s Show"

Moving: walked 2.5 miles

17 September 2002: Fall

It's fall. It's dark when I wake at six: early fall. At this point I long for standard time in later fall, so I can get up when I must get up.

It's fall. Before our vacation, we kept more windows open. Now the kitchen window is closed, but not the bedroom, not yet.

The coat closet is in RDC's study and the swamp cooler too; after I hung up our laundered fleeces and Goretex, I unplugged the cooler, wound the cord around the unit, and attached its cover. But I won't cover the outside bit with its canvas tarp until I swap out the screens for storms.

My lounge garment of choice has been for months a soft grey nightgown. It's too thin, now, and my shoulders get cold. I'm back to my beloved sweatskirt, but I've added a long-sleeved shirt. But it's not yet cold enough for my grey waffleknit dress that's really meant for playing boat in.

As we descended to the television Sunday night for "The Sopranos," RDC commented that we'd soon want the space heater. A she-squirrel is kindling her autumn litter in the neighbor's window. The temperature overnight has dipped into the low 50s.

Yet the days heat up into the 80s. Sunday was achingly beautiful, the blue of the sky, the green of the leaves, the breeze.

---

I began reading The Lovely Bones walking back from the library a while ago. I'm usually pretty good at keeping part of an eye on the pavement about four feet ahead--the bit visible over the top margin of book--but not always. The sidewalk is crumpled at one spot between library and work, and down I went, opening my right knee.

Bored at Red Rocks between sets, my fingers itched toward my knee and RDC slapped it away, paraphrasing "The Lion in Winter": "You are a picker and you pick." Two days later, while we were camping, RDC said in alarm, "What's on your knee?"
"My scab," I replied, bemused.
"No, your other knee."
I looked at my left knee. "That's my other scab."
What else would be there?

---

Saturday morning, after that dream, I took a while to wake up. I sat at the dining table in my hoodie dress, sipping tea and skimming mail and reading, and then Blake began to shriek. I looked up. Blake's cage is behind the dining room partition. He cannot see the front door from it. But he's got that canine-Spidey sense.

There were two callers at the door. Jesus, wasn't it early? Not really, it was already 10:30, and Jesus had sent them--they were Jehovah's Witnesses. I opened the door, smiling and apologizing that my doorbell doesn't work (don't people listen for the bell and then, not hearing the bell, knock? I guess not) and immediately closing the door in the faces with an "I'm not interested" as soon as I spotted The Watchtower in one paw.

Back to the table. Ten minutes later, I looked up to see Babushka. She was, of course, ensuring that we were back, that we'd had a good trip. I had asked another neighbor (the immediately next door one) to water the vegetables in return for all the tomatoes and cucumbers he could glean in our absence, and further that he share any excess with Babushka or other neighbors. He did bring her some tomatoes, as I would have known even if she hadn't said so directly. I would have known because for the first time in over a year, she called me by name. I've been "darling" and "honey" for ages and haven't known how subtly to repeat my name, which she had evidently forgotten. But she repeated the other neighbor's words, that "Lisa asked me to bring you these."

I can take an obvious hint, and her visit boiled down to "Oh boys, he's back for his noon feeding." I had just collected what I could on Thursday (best broccoli ever, there to the left, and Blake's new favorite toy is a carrot top), so there wasn't much. She was nakedly incredulous about the absence of plums and nectarines this year, and the pears--four survived--aren't ready yet. I brought her around to the backyard and we found some ripe tomatoes and cucumbers. I pulled a carrot for her, and she pointed out another that she thought was ready. What the hell, I humored her; it was about an inch long. We combed the raspberry canes and I even kept my temper when she ignored my warning, "Oh, that one's not ripe yet," and yanked off a raspberry so obviously unready that it needed to be tugged at all, that it didn't gently release its little nubbin, and that her yank actually ripped off part of the cane. I turned my face when she ate it, because what the hell, maybe she likes them that unripely sour. Certainly she likes my sour cherries straight off the tree (but those are ripe and sour).

When she started to weed my south garden and nearly pulled out a bachelor's button, it was time for her to go.

But she was right about one thing: because Thursday and Friday had a lot of rain, the weeding would be easy. So that's what I did Saturday, and clipped cherry sproutlets. That's about it. Oh, and I planted the replacements High Country Gardens sent. I had expected the front garden to be overrun with bindweed after ten days without grooming, but it wasn't. Could I possibly be winning this battle?

When I briefed the neighbor on watering, I asked him to leave alone whatever that thing was that grew from a seed from a packet labeled and illustrated with yellow squash. He did. And however unlikely it seems--it could be a volunteer from the compost, since my compost seldom gets very hot, not hot enough to kill seeds--but growing in exactly the spot I planted squash? I think the packet was mislabeled or a seed went astray--what it looked like when I left is what it turned out to be when I got back. It's the Great Pumpkin.

(It rests on a luxurious bed of grasses and weeds because that's where the drip hose leaves the vegetable garden and stretches along the south fence. Next year I'll plant something there.)

I mean, I couldn't keep a wife in there, let alone very well, but still it's a swell jack-o'-lantern size. I have no idea how to keep a pumpkin sound for the next six weeks, or for however long after the vine dies. Karen and her grandmother kept carrots in a box of sand, and didn't Tita and Nacha keep enough eggs fresh for Rosaura's wedding cake in a box of sand? No, sheep fodder. Whatever. Anyway, I don't have a box of sand or a cask of sheep fodder. I do have a second refrigerator, but I'm not going to turn it on just for this. And I'm glad the neighbor didn't take it. He could have made apple pie with it. Isn't that what Ma made with the green pumpkin? Damn it, I can't find it. I thought I knew Little Town on the Prairie as well as anyone could; it's my favorite. Is it not in Town but another Little House book? Is it in something totally else? Help?