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Tuesday, October 25th 2005

Wake me Up When September Ends

I love the Fall. My wife and I have learned a great deal living on a dense wooded property. First and foremost we have learned to love the death of Bees and Spiders brought on by cold weather. I grew up a great deal in the tropics, which is filled with every imaginable creepy crawly insects, spiders scorpions and the like. As such, I am not bothered by most bugs and try to coexist. However, we have crazy giant big as your thumb bees that are nocturnal and mean as all hell. Lillian and my youngest daughter both lost battles with this variety of bee. The type of bee is rare but we are blessed with a hive somewhere on our property. The instructions to get rid of a hive included gasoline and kitty-litter. Visions of me running from stinging bees on fire covered in kitty-litter have kept me from searching the property with any real enthusiasm. We have our share of the regular hornets, wasps, and snakes as well as honey and carpenter bees. Being in our yard is a lot like camping. The bugs are a constant in the summer and thankfully gone by the fall. It is a season of change in Petroville. Bugs aside, I love the fall for many reasons. Below are my 10 favorite Fall things.

*My wife and I love to snuggle when it is cold.

*I said dead bees and spiders right?

*Cars go faster. I wrote and deleted more than four paragraphs here covering my goofy car hobby, air density and the Ideal Gas Law…before realizing it put even me to sleep. Suffice to say that cars love cold air. Turbo-charged cars in particular fight heat and need cooling beyond normal cars. The fall gives great cold air without frozen streets. Absolutely perfect driving weather. This makes me way more happy than it should.

*Fireplaces are a family favorite. I can fall asleep in front of a fire in under 2 minutes. Nothing better than waking up 2 hours later to get ready for bed.

*Seat-heaters: Men really do not enjoy the finer things. I really thought seat heaters to be a ridiculous invention that I would never use. Who really needs a toasty ass? More often I am trying to keep my ass cool to avoid any…swamp conditions. Not so in the fall. Give me the full blast seat heater. I use them so much an outline of my pelvis is on the headliner.

*Watching movies with my wife on a cold night with snacks and blankets…Heaven.We have conversations like, “Is that the guy from the thing?” “Yeah”.

*The Hot-tub: Such a good way to get ready for bed. 45 degrees outside and 106 in the tub. If you stay in long enough (near death) you have a 10 minute protective layer of heat soaked into your body that will render you impervious to the cold while you get dressed and put the tub away.

*Fall Food: Fall is the best excuse to break a diet or work-out resolution I know of. En vogue every fall are, hot chocolate, warm cider, pumpkin-pie, mashed potatoes, pound-cake, eggnog, vodka, Turkey (deep fried), candied yams and all of the defect or “shady-looking” Halloween candy you can steal from your children or purchase on the sly like the wife does. See…we do not get trick or treaters. It would take any kid 2 hours to hit 7 houses where we live. Oh..and courage.

*Going Trick-or-treating with my daughters. The emotions always range from joy to terror. This year we are dressing Lillian up for Halloween as one of the Gate Dogs of Hades. The costume is fairly simple…we take off her collar. I tell stories while we walk in the dark and I have vowed to never again start with, “Last year at this exact time 11 children were strangled to death in this very spot...”

*Sweaters, sweatshirts and corduroys. I am turning 35 in 2 weeks and am already mortified at how much I talk about comfortable shoes and Bowel Movements. As I get older, I am in pursuit of comfort clothes. I have great fear of turning into that dad you see in Home Depot with a polo shirt tucked into khaki shorts with white socks, white sneakers, white legs, his cell phone in a holster and a friggin college ball-cap. But there I was at the Safeway in flip-flops, pajama bottoms and a T-shirt and sunglasses buying wine & corn-chips on a Sunday morning. Fall is my excuse to wear bum-comfy attire. Today I wore gold corduroys and a Uni-bomber hooded jacket with house-slippers. It gets no better.

*Thanksgiving with all the women in my life. As you may know, I have only my brother on my side of the family who is fairly distant. I am surrounded by the wonderful women of my wife’s family and really no men, other than the occasional boyfriend in-law. You would think this would make for tough family get-togethers but it has proven the opposite. I love all the women in my family and the interactions they have with one another. I love hanging out with my Sister in laws and my mother in law more than any man should. My sisters and cousin in laws are the best people around my age I know. Maybe I should get out more but when all of them are under one roof and the right amount of wine is flowing….it is worth the price of admission. This Thanksgiving (due to some attrition at the grown up table) there will be 7 women and one lucky, lucky man.

Thanks for reading. I know that my list is not terribly exciting but it is the best part of my life. I start thinking about Fall with my family right after Christmas. I hope each of you have a wonderful Fall with your own favorites and, if you happen to find yourself in Petroville this Fall, please stop by for deep-fried turkey, wine and a NDE in the hot-tub with us.

Happy Fall!

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