Autumn is here, finally, and while we’re on the fast road out of October and into November, I’ve been trying to relish every opportunity to enjoy the crisp Fall air, smells, and sights.
We’ve gotten teased with some extremely cold weather, which was contrasted strangely against a trip out to Arizona to see my sister get married. Driving around the Phoenix/Mesa/Scottsdale part of Arizona is stunning, but I don’t think I could live out there. The four seasons are very much my jam, and I’d rather be too cold than too hot. That said, the wedding was a great experience and I’m delighted for my sister. Between her and my brother, I’ve gotten extremely lucky with my siblings. We’re each extremely different and unique people, but our hearts are big and we are always there for each other in the end. She’s marrying this really chill and positive man who is a joy to hang out with. She done good. It was a great opportunity to spend time with relatives I rarely see, and share good times with my sister’s friends, some of whom I’ve known since childhood. A special day all around.
Speaking of weddings, right after we got back from Arizona, the missus and I went to see two of our good friends tie the knot in a beautiful little ceremony in the aboreal woods a few miles away from town. It was the first time in awhile we had gotten to face-to-face hang out with this group of friends from our COVID Zoom Trivia group chat. Making friends, especially as we age, is incredibly difficult and requires way more effort than it did when we were little, but as adults I feel like those friendships are treasured infinitely more. These people who were mostly strangers or loose associates pre-pandemic are now people I think of often, and whose company I enjoy dearly. The wife and I have given a bit of our hearts to them and their families, and it’s an invaluable boon that we don’t take for granted. Getting drunk out in the forest is something we should all do again, and soon. Let’s make it happen.
While we’re on the topic of mischievous nights among the trees, we’re about to enter the last week of October before Halloween, and I once again feel I’ve dropped the ball a bit as far as decorating and planning goes. My “costume” isn’t much to write home about this year, once again, and outside of a wreathe on the door, there’s no other indicating to the neighborhood that my wife and I are very much a Halloween-embracing pair. We’ll probably spice it up a tad before the holiday itself, but for a couple years we’ve hashed out grand plans but there’s always been stuff that pops up (which is fine, such is life). Someday she and I will get a bonkers setup going for the spooky month, and we can breathe in Fall properly.
In case I didn’t mention it here, we adopted a tiny new fluff-ball of a dog. Her name is Lola, a plucky pomeranian rescue who has awesomely become my wife’s loyal soldier. She’s warmed up to me a lot over the last couple months, and has started to reveal her personality, which mostly consists of snuggling close to my better half at any cost and barking excitedly when the other two dogs are running too fast for her liking. She’s fitting right into our goofy little family.
Work at the new job is going pretty well. It’s fantastic to have my own office that I can make my own. There’s posters and colored lights and a fridge full of snacks and lunch stuff, in addition to the piles of various hardware bullcrap that I unfortunately have to have sitting here doing a whole lot of nothing. It’s nice that I don’t have as much interaction and time-stress as my previous job, but the people I used to work with are the best. I feel so grateful to have spent the better part of a dozen years working alongside those peeps, and I admit I need to make more of an effort to see them. My new gig has a bright future, and hopefully will be the last place I work. Fingers crossed.
Thanksgiving and Christmastime are right around the corner, and hopefully it will be a wonderfully peaceful few months. I’ve got a lot to be grateful for, and I’ll write more on that in November. Ideally by then the chilly transition into winter will have begun to reveal itself, and we’ll get a (little) bit of snow before Christmas. Until then.
1985 Edition 