Pumpkin Season with Cookies

Grocery 🛒 trips are always so interesting. At my first stop, I hear parents 👨👩‍🦱 trying to talk their college son 👨‍🦱 into putting a pumpkin 🎃in the dorm, like just outside his room. This persuasion attempt did not go well. At my second stop, I hear a man yell into his phone, "I tell you, they don't got no windmill cookies! 🍪 They don't got no windmill cookies! They're not there!" (I couldn't find one, either) Immediately, my mind conjured up memories of windmill cookies. These were very popular with us kids back in the day. Either that, or our mothers were cheap and pulling a fast one.

October

Although it's the 10th month, October means eight. American Indians & settlers alike called its 1st full moon, "hunter's moon", as it signaled winter's onset. The 31st day, Hallo-we'en, is the beginning of the Celtic New Year, when boundaries between the living & dead were thin; fairy folk were out in full force playing tricks. Irish & Scots brought it to America. We mark, with joy, the passage of the season and of time, wrapping ourselves in sheets as the ghosts we'll one day become.
-paraphrased from the Dance of Time, by Michael Judge.

from Time&Date.com

Grandma, What Great Deals You Have!

A relatively young woman just discovered Aldi's. It started with her asking me where the jalapenos were. While I'm no expert in jalapenos, 🌶 I was able to find them in the pickle area to where she was referred. She thanked me profusely. So, that was the first I'd noticed her, like, right away. It seemed that I kept running into her and her grandma. 👵 Grandma must have gotten an early start, as I doubt I'd still be around for a gran-daughter that age. But that was chronological. The woman kept exclaiming at the wonderful deals all around the store...."Oh, a coffee pot...I want a coffee pot! ☕️ Grandma, how much money do you have? I'll pay you back when I get paid." "$7.98." Grandmas really have to keep track of just how much they have. 💵 Smart Grandma! I could hear this young woman exclaiming all around the store at this and that, and how she couldn't wait till she got paid. I couldn't help but wonder if Grandma had been the one to raise her, but then, I heard the woman on her phone 📞saying, "Bye Ma, Love you!" I thought I was the only one who noticed, but when I got to the smiling clerk,😄 after she'd left, he said, to everybody who was listening, "Did you notice how quiet it got after she exited?"🚶‍♀️

Mouse in the House

Settling down to a quiet time, and who should appear? A mouse🐭 in my house! 🏠 Bill was out, so what could I do? Well, eventually, the mouse found his way to the inside of the window sill, and I shut the window, fiercely. 🎬 (I assume that's where he'd sneaked in.) I stepped out onto the porch to undo the somewhat loose screen and "encourage" him to leave. He did so reluctantly, climbing down the wall, but then, planted himself back on the outside sill, to recover from a wounded tail. 🐁 Of course, this brought to my literary children's dramatics mind, that I had acted much like "the farmer's wife, who'd" 🙍inadvertently, "cut off his tail with a carving knife."🔪 I felt a little remorseful, but eventually, he went away, though I did not "see how he runs".🏃

HAL

I just took a walk to de-stress after talking to V.W. phone "computers", ☎ wherein they told me what they were going to do, which I DID NOT authorize, so I started yelling, "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" 🤦 into the phone. 📞 It's irrational to yell at a computer, but somebody must have heard me, because they called back, and I got a LIVE PERSON, 🤱 and we straightened the matter out. So, when she asked me, if there was anything else, I said, "Well, you could tell V.W. not to trust their computer phones to do it all. We need to talk to people directly." 🗣👤 I felt like my computer phone experience was similar to the interaction with HAL from "2001 Space Odyssey". 👩‍🚀 I don't remember exactly how that went, but it wasn't favorable from a human standpoint. 

Hard working People

In our neighborhood, it's always something. Today, it was down the tree, then, cut it to shreds; yesterday, it was tear up a roof, and rebuild it, then, others paint the window frames and sills of yet another house. In our town, there's construction all over, to get around or through. It's like everybody's trying to get things done while the weather permits. It sure has strengthened my belief in vocational education. I've seen a lot pride in their work. Hats off to the hard working people!

I watched this man take great pride in his paving, by hand.

                                         Dedicated, even when in the air...

Results

Clif and Me

  I  took a cue from Clif to check out "how to type on a typewriter", again. I ran into a blog from a writer*, on how he's returned to the manual, because he doesn't get distracted, and actually has to write. Furthermore, he notices that the computer makes it easier for people to make smart-ass remarks. 

                                                  There,Clif,I said it!                               

I
It probably doesn't bring out the best in people, especially when they see what somebody says that makes them go through the roof. So, it becomes imperative to answer right away, and if the other commentator doesn't get it, go ALL CAPS, which I've noticed is also easier on the computer. I don't tweet, though I hear a lot about them, second hand. The responses to the tweets are even less becoming, using responses like, "Lard Head" (Just made that one up, though it might be a real thing), because there's enough insulting going on. Yes, just as we've returned to the turn-table, and actual records that are actually not as easy to lose in your entertainment center, with big pictures on the front, let's go back to the manual and become more private, shielded, uninformed, and consequently, nicer people. 
(*Credit goes to a writer by the name of Brian Drake.)

I