October's bright blue weather

We had some very gloomy days this past week, but today is glorious. My camera can't capture the vivid blue color of the sky perfectly, but this shot is OK. "October's Bright Blue Weather" -- it's the title and refrain of a not very good poem by Helen Hunt Jackson, written probably in the 1860s or 1870s (she died in 1885).

The trees are just starting to turn, so I don't have any gorgeous tree pictures yet. Maybe next Sunday. Our honey locust is still mostly green, the birch tree (what's left of it) is green. I feel as though this could be a good year for color (lots of rain during the summer and cool nights now), but I don't know. Last year was spectacular.

Helen Hunt Jackson's poem is about how fall is the time for lovers, not spring or summer. I certainly agree. I fell in love with my high school boyfriend in October 1977, and 23 years later I fell in love with Rocket Boy at the same time of year. When our birch tree turns yellow, I always think of how brilliantly yellow it was the year we started dating. 

It's less fun to have him in St. Louis during October. He had a good interview with a Colorado company this week, and has high hopes of it leading somewhere. I refuse to have any sort of hopes about new jobs. They never pan out! But I am so tired of him being gone. We need to get him back home this year. I'm pinning my hopes on the "reasonable accommodation" thing that he's trying again. 

Not much happened this past week. No appointments, no activities. It got colder and colder (and then warmed up again, starting yesterday). My flowers are still blooming, not sure why. Even the tomato hasn't frozen. Well. We haven't actually had a freeze yet, that's why. It got down into the high 30s one night, though. I think we may have our first freeze this coming week.

On the coldest night I moved my little fuchsia onto the porch, but maybe I should put it back in the garden now. I don't know. The guy at the garden center said it would live through the winter if I'm careful with it. I've never done that before. You're supposed to put it in a cool dark place and water it every 3-4 weeks. I suppose I could put it in the garage, but it gets REALLY cold in the garage. Like, if it's 10 degrees outside, it might be 15 degrees in the garage. OK, maybe 20. But really cold. The basement is a little warmer, being underground, but there is no way I'm going to go down in the spidery basement every 3-4 weeks with a watering can.

It seems likely that the fuchsia will NOT actually survive the winter. But I'll give it a try.

I was fairly depressed this week, maybe partly because of the weather or the lack of things to do, but I think mainly because I'm just in a depressed period. It'll pass. 

I tried to be gentle with myself. I made my to-do lists each day, but I tried to make them easy. I did laundry, cooked, did dishes, cleaned the litter boxes. I did yardwork on two days only. I've gotten anxious about yardwork, in part because of the large black dog that came in the yard one day this summer. Every time I go in the backyard I expect a large black dog to appear, and I make sure I always have either the saw or the large clippers close at hand, to use as a weapon. However, I did manage to do some work, including clearing the path that leads to the garden shed. That shed really needs to be cleaned out, but maybe Rocket Boy and I should do it together.

I had planned to call my old friend who has Alzheimer's, but I couldn't do it, so I'll try this coming week instead. I read in an article about "how to talk to people with Alzheimer's" that you should be very positive when you talk to them, because they pick up on bad moods and go into a tailspin themselves. So it probably wasn't the right week to call her anyway.

What I did do was call the dietician that I'm supposed to see and made an appointment. I'm seeing her on Tuesday. Another thing I did was go to McGuckin's and get replacement lightbulbs for underneath the microwave. I did not, however, manage to install them. It's hard, and you have to wear a covering on your fingers so you don't get oils on the bulbs. I couldn't find my box of surgical gloves, so I might have to buy new ones this week. Oh, and the toilet started gurgling (when we took multiple showers or did laundry), so I called the plumber to do our yearly tree root removal. That went pretty well. I was glad to do it before things got really ugly.

What difficult things do I have planned for this week? Three phone calls: (1) I need to call the plumber who gave us the estimate on the rental house and try to schedule him to come out to do the work. I'm dreading that, but I should get it done. I have of course LOST the estimate and the name of the plumber, but I think it's findable. It may even be in a file. (2) I need to call our insurance person about increasing coverage on our house in case of fire. That shouldn't be too hard. I tried once but didn't leave a message. This time I could leave a message. (3) I should call my friend with Alzheimer's.

In terms of difficult tasks, (1) I think I should try again to put those lightbulbs in under the microwave (after first getting some gloves). (2) I also need to replace our furnace filter, which requires a trip to Home Depot (Teen A helped me go down to the basement to get the size info earlier today -- it's 16 x 25 x 4). Oh, and (3) I also want to get up on a ladder and cut some big limbs off the volunteer Siberian Elm in the front of the house WHICH SHOULD NOT BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Also, (4) I should do some pruning at the rental house, though I desperately, desperately don't want to.

I wish Rocket Boy would come home and do all these things for me. And no, I do not get any satisfaction out of doing them myself. Well, OK, the yardwork at our house, maybe. It is satisfying to walk around the backyard and see all the work I did this summer. But the other stuff, no. Another problem that I don't think I've mentioned yet is that the light switch in the kids' room has broken. I told Rocket Boy about it and he said "The kids should be able to fix that." The kids? I don't even know how to fix it and the kids are supposed to do it? Then he said, "Is that the mercury outlet?" and I said oh no, we're not touching this. I don't know what a mercury outlet is, but it sounds bad.

What would I do if there were no Rocket Boy to come home and fix things? I would (a) hire people (to fix the outlet) and (b) get rid of & replace things (like the vacuum cleaner with the broken plug). 

***

Yesterday, before going on my walk, I selected some books to drop off at little free libraries along the way. I brought three or four adult books and two children's books -- Halloween books, from our picture book collection. One was Froggy's Halloween, which I've never really liked. I dropped that one off in the little free library near our house. The other was Hide and Ghost Seek, which is basically just page after page of illustrations with ghosts hidden in them. You're supposed to find all the ghosts. I felt sure that we had all found the ghosts enough times and it was time to let someone else do it. I dropped that book off at the little free library in the park. 

At bedtime, we needed to start a new book (having finished Betsy in Spite of Herself the night before), and it was my turn to choose. The problem was, I wanted to read a library book and it hadn't arrived yet. I had tried to get it at the main library that day, the library SAID it had it, but I couldn't find it. So I went home and requested it. Within a few hours, the website said it was "in transit" to our branch library, so I guess they found it. But it didn't arrive that day, so I said I'd read a Halloween picture book that night. I got all the Halloween picture books out and lay them on the desk in the twins' room, thinking about how no one wants to read them anymore. I selected one to read aloud (Happy Haunting, Amelia Bedelia). And Teen A said, "Where's that book with all the ghosts that you find?" 

Pause.

I said, I gave it away. I put it in a little free library. 

Today.

Long story short, this morning, on our way to Starbucks, Teen B and I stopped off at the park. I brought along a different Halloween children's book, to propitiate the little free library gods, and what do you know? The ghost book was still there! It wasn't where I'd left it -- someone had obviously pulled it out and looked at it -- but they hadn't taken it. I took it, after first depositing the other book I'd brought. So now Hide and Ghost Seek is back home where it belongs.