POEM FOR NOVEMBER

November:

I don't recommend it.
One of out five stars. 

Gets dark early;

Temperatures are psychotic;

Too cold to swim;

Too warm to snowshoe;

Too much emphasis on turkey.

Football season;

Hockey season;

'Tis the season.

November is one giant hot flash:

Heat on in the morning;

Airconditioning on in the afternoon.

Orb in the sky, 

Full and shiny,

Mooning the people below -

"It's as cold and barren

Down there

As it is up here."

If November had one

(And only one)

Thing

To tell us,

It might be this:

Cranberry sauce is

Better in the can.

BACKING INTO THE FUN

When driving and parking -- I am a backer-in-er. Occasionally I am also a pull-through-er, but mainly I'm a back-it-up parking person.

Recently a friend teased me that I'm just showing off when I wedge my car into a spot by backing it in. Nah! I'm actually untrustworthy when backing out of a parking space because my view might be blocked by another vehicle, or perhaps a pedestrian or bicycle might zoom by. (I just witnessed this the other day at the grocery store and almost saw two idiotic bicyclists get smeared as they raced between parked and moving cars.) 

I also do this to provide a quick getaway. Not that I've robbed the store or anything. Truth of it is that I hate shopping. Detest it. Doesn't matter what it is: grocery shopping is tedious and always has long lines to check out; shopping for other random supplies (ink or hardware or odds-and-ends) requires wasted time hunting and pecking through jumbled aisles; clothing shopping is torture; malls are constructed from the Devil's armpit; I even hate running into the coffee shop for an iced caramel swirl. 

The main reason I back into parking spaces, though, is because even the average driver is a moron. This is on display when I go to meet friends a few towns away in a place called Station Landing. There are some shops and several restaurants, and there is a decent amount of parking. So, imagine my surprise (being facetious here, folks) when a young man slides his SUV into a space, blocking the handicap spot, and leaves his vehicle partially parked with its ass-end hanging sideways.

I snap a picture of his marvelous parking ability, and I also snap a picture of all of the empty spaces around me. Yes, this is hilarious! Except . . . 

. . . Except that it immediately starts happening as if the driver has opened Pandora's Parking Box. Within two minutes, every space is taken, and multiple drivers arrive making multiple attempts to back into, and to pull straight into, the spaces. 

It suddenly looks like a clown circus. It looks like a drivers' ed course. It looks like the opening sequence from the old TV show The Banana Splits.

My friends, who park across the lot in a sensible spot, arrive in the nick of time to witness the madness. As we wander into the restaurant for lunch, we are wide-eyed and giddy after watching the mayhem of the crazy parking party. As quickly as it starts, and once all of the parking spaces have been filled, it's as calm in the parking lot as if the ridiculousness had never happened. We shake our heads, because, in reality, we can describe it to you, even post pictures of it, but it cannot compare to the hysteria of watching people jockey for spots as if they'd won the lottery and had to beat the competitors to the ticket cashier.

And this is why I back into spots. Yes, there are nutty drivers everywhere, and I can exit the space more safely with a front-facing position. Truthfully, though, I would've missed all of the fun and insanity if I'd been facing the street instead of the idiocy occurring in the lot. Backing into the space is well worth the price of admission to the fun!

BABY, IT'S (NOT) COLD OUTSIDE!

Baby, it's coooold outside.

Well, actually, it's not cold outside on the first day of November, also known as The First Day of Christmas Music on the Radio. In fact, it's nearly eighty degrees outside.

Sure, I know it's always eighty degrees where some of you live. Christmas is tropical, and your Christmas grog has coconut in it. 

But, up here? We're all about snow and hot mulled wine and freezing our toes off just stepping across the parking lot to huddle inside of our iced over vehicles.

Bring on the snow.

Bring on the biting winds.

Bring on the pitch-dark afternoons now that the clocks have fallen back.

Bring on the holiday soundtrack.

I'm ready! 

HALLOWEEN WHINE

It's that time of year again.

Halloween!

It's also Stress Level Ten Time,

When administrators discover all 

The things they forgot to organize,

And teachers' lives turn to chaos.

In other words:
Terror Time.

It's okay, though.

We have a secret weapon.

It's called WINE.

We pour it in goblets and practice

Homophones when we

WHINE.

We welcome Halloween,

Especially when it falls 

During the school week 

Because it gives everyone

Equal chances to be unglued

In character as in reality.

Pop a little ghost wine

Glass charm to the stem,

Call it a party,

Even for one.

Whine a little.

Watch chaos turn to calm.

(Just wait until the last bell rings.)

GLENN FREY MOMENT

I'm having a Glenn Frey moment.

The heat is on!

I caved to the temperatures, but only a little bit. Last year, prior to the flying squirrel taking up residence, I would flip on my gas fireplace to take the chill out of the apartment. Now, though, I have more windows and no fireplace, so the cold creeps in faster. 

The mornings have been the hardest, when it's in the low to mid thirties and the car windshield and windows are frosted. Yes, the auto-starter has been getting its workout already. Getting out of a toasty bed (flannel sheets went on last week) to encounter a chilled home, though? 

Yeah, ain't nobody got time for that.

I don't keep the heat on for long. Five minutes here or there. Luckily, it's a small place, so it heats up quickly (which also works during the dog days of summer when the air conditioner comes on). I've delved into my fluffy socks collection, my fleece stockpile, and my sweater mountain, but I have resisted the coats. Okay, I did cheat that morning it was just below freezing and put a winter vest over my sweatshirt, but I'm not sure that totally counts.

Either way, the heat is on. Now I have an earworm as well as an ear-warmer, and I'm okay with that. 

WELCOME, STEW SEASON!

SNL might tell you, "It's sweatah weathah," and it is, so that's true. It's also Stew Season. Basically, it's cooking season up here in New England.

Not that we don't cook other times of the year. because we certainly do. We barbecue, steam, air fry, make pizza (basically add tomato and mozzarella to anything and everything), eat burnt hot dogs off equally burnt sticks, chew on hamburgers that give hockey pucks a run for their money, and we do so all summer long.

Once we whip out that car auto-starter and the seat warmers, though, all bets are off. It's time to bring out the big guns: crock pots and bakeware.

I'll be honest. It has been a while since I cooked anything stupendous. Sure, I'm still eating corn on the cob and an occasional meatloaf, courtesy of my own kitchen, but now that the temperature is inching toward that first frost, comfort foods are necessary.

I go to the store with the intention of getting a few things that I need. I have half a box of lasagna noodles, so maybe I'll make some meatballs to go with that. I accidentally bypass the hamburger, though, and end up in the chicken section. There are some packages of boneless chicken breasts that look darn good, and they're on sale. Into my cart they go. Backtracking to the beef, I first must pass the pork. Oh, how the ribs are calling me. Alas, I'm trying to buy ground beef, so I urge myself to keep moving. 

On the way to that section of the meat case, I see cubed beef chuck. Yes, that's a great idea. It's going to be chilly. I should make some beef stew. I find a small package that is, surprisingly, also on sale. I make a mental note to hit the produce as I push the cart over to my original destination, the ground beef. I find the amount I need, on sale, throw that in with the other stuff, and head over to buy vegetables for the stew.

As I pass by the pork section again, country style ribs whisper, "Won't we taste good on a cold evening?" The correct answer is, "Yes, yes, you would, but you're not on --" Dagnabbit! These are on sale, too! I find a package of five good-sized spareribs, and, just like that, BOOM, I'm buying ribs, too.

I complete my shopping trip, the one where I came in for a couple of random items and some ground beef once upon a mini-list ago, in the produce aisle. I select carrots, string beans, mushrooms, onions, potatoes, and various other delicious fruits and veggies. I think I'm home-free until I pass by the fresh corn on the cob. I pick out two great ears (I'm pretty good at this as I have been a corn hound since before I could walk).

The next thing I know, my freezer has several meals stashed -- lasagna and meatballs, stew (I fished out both bay leaves on the first swipe), chicken and corn dinner -- and five individually wrapped spareribs. It's as if I blinked my eyes and the autumn cooking genies took over my home. I won't lie: I'm totally psyched.

Nothing left to do now except put on my sweater, crank the heat a little bit, and enjoy. Welcome, Stew Season. Long may you reign!

RACECAR FEVER

My neighbor has a race car. I know this because he rents several garage bays in front of my apartment building, and I have full access view of the work area. It's fascinating, kind of like watching a one-man pit crew. Sometimes the car is on a lift, sometimes it's in one bay, and sometimes it's in another random bay.

Sometimes, though, that car needs to be transported to races, and this is where I salivate. The sound of that car is mesmerizing. Sure, I often hear the engine going through its motions as the mechanic checks it and recalibrates it and runs it through its paces inside the bays. But nothing, not one damn thing, beats the sound of that car trying to contain itself as it moves into the trailer for transport.

It's the end of the race season up here, maybe another three weeks or so, because it's New England, and our weather is about as predictable as an unmedicated mental patient. This means I only have limited opportunities to hear the car before it's packed away for the winter. I sit on my porch, pretending I'm not watching and listening. I pull the curtains aside, pretending I'm not watching and listening.

Recently, I realized exactly what I must look like: The neighborhood creeper.

So, I finally introduce myself to the car owner/mechanic. We haven't chatted much, perhaps a total of forty-five seconds in our three very brief conversations. I apologize for being that person who probably looks like a busy-body. He apologized for the car making noise when he runs it. 

Making noise?

At that point, my eyes bug out of my head. I blurt out, "That's the highlight of my day!"

It's to the point where I try not to be a nuisance. If he's working on the car and outside of the garages when I am leaving or returning, I will wave maybe fifty percent of the time. I mean, I'm a car Fan Girl but there must be a fine line I don't want to cross. He probably thinks I'm the crazy old lady who lives in a box. 

I'm just a neighbor with a true appreciation for the beauty of a car, and, if I'm being totally honest, a bit of jealousy that he gets to drive it for fun and money. Lucky bastard!