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Rabbit rabbit, sweetest peas.

48

It feels like almost-fall. Sun and cool breeze and chilly nights, and dogs with extra amounts of energy during the day, who curl up beside us at night.

It might be too soon to say for sure, but I may have found a pair of jeans that doesn't stretch out and leave me with a saggy butt by day two. I will go ahead and recommend them, because I'm feeling optimistic after two hiking-in-the-woods, dog-chasing, bending-to-plant-mums-in-pots days of wear. They are Levi's 712s, FYI.

Rabbit rabbit.

It is deep autumn
My neighbor
How does he live, I wonder.

- Basho

Rabbit rabbit!

"I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." - L.M. Montgomery

Shockingly Short

September always catches me by surprise, going along like a normal month and then screeching to a stop after only thirty days (yeah, I know, February, but that month exists in an entirely different dimension). Here comes October!

Isaac came home for a brief couple of days, sang us a little song, and was off again.

I saw my dearest Checkout Girl for breakfast this morning. I miss her real-life self so much, and have to remember to be a grownup about the fact that she lives elsewhere. As in, being happy for my far-flung friends when they fling themselves afar. Working on that.

Because I am solo for a day in a quiet house, or maybe just because, I made a bowl of chocolate pudding for myself for dinner. And then, for dessert, I mashed up half an avocado, salt-and-peppered it, and ate it with tortilla chips.

After that, I murdered about fifteen tiny baby spiders that I discovered in my bathroom. They were too small to take outside (they were so small I almost couldn't see them without my reading glasses*), and I felt terrible, and Charlotte's Web was pinballing around inside my head the whole time. I apologized to each one as I crumpled him/her in a tissue and flushed him/her down the toilet. But AHHHH how many baby spiders did I not murder is the real question. Will they bite me in my bed tonight is the actual question.

Be jealous of my friend Jason's dream, which included a book of this title: On the Strategies and Practicum of Basket-Ball, complete with antique illustrations.



*OLD

Rabbit rabbit!

Look, I want to love this world
as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get
to be alive
and know it.

Mary Oliver, from "October"

All the Things

September, slow down! It's speeding past, full of new schoolish things and medical-related things and heaps of library books, plus my victory in getting Mark hooked on Friday Night Lights (everyone thinks he or she is immune, due to his or her disinterest in the subjects of football and Texas, until it's too late to turn back and they're staying up til midnight watching just one more episode), and not to mention our weekly dark double-feature nights of watching the very last few episodes of Breaking Bad along with the first two seasons of the excellent British series Black Mirror with Jason and David. The dark night of the TV soul is lightened by the fact that we also eat pie--so far, blueberry, apple, pecan, and tonight...pumpkin.

Isaac cracked his head open one night and had to get it stapled up. And yet, he claimed it only "hurts little bit."

Note blood stains on pillow. We spent three hours in this room.

Completely unrelated: he also got his wisdom teeth out. When this photo was taken, he was feeling groovy.

We took this picture because we thought the name "Illuminati" was funny. It was only later that it dawned on me that "maxillofacial" surgery includes Botox injections, and I became very creeped out by the whole place.

50+ hours of intractible hiccups, to be specific. Mark checked out fine in the end, as you can see by his diagnosis. And no, he's not hiccuping any more.

Completely unrelated cat torture. No, actually no cats were harmed in the taking of this photograph. Theo loves any attention Isaac gives him, and Isaac is gentle with his cat puppet. That cat is ENORMOUS, right?

So there you have it, most of our medical adventures this month. Meanwhile, in Madurai India, Zoë rode her bike into a manhole, but she escaped with only bruises. And I undertook a very dull elimination diet to try and figure out what my stomach doesn't enjoy digesting. I've given up in confusion after a week of no caffeine (not to mention no dairy, soy, wheat, or pretty much anything else), but we'll continue to work on it, my stomach and I. In the meantime, I will eat a slice of pumpkin pie tonight.

rabbit rabbit

"Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn—

an early warning of the end of summer.

August is fading fast, and by September

the little purple flowers will all be gone."

rachel hadas

rabbit rabbit

in honor of yesterday, here is a spooky rabbit rabbit for you. is it just me, or did october fly by?

i am done with apple-picking now

i went apple picking with these dumplins and their dads today. first we went to thompson's orchard in new gloucester, where we ate delicious apple cider doughnuts but couldn't find any apples left on the trees.

so we drove a ways down the road to hansel's orchard in north yarmouth, where there were no doughnuts but plenty of apples.

we took them back to matt and oliver's (and the prodigal max's) house, where we turned most of them into unbelievably sweet homemade apple cider with their antique cider press.

i think we're near the end of apple season around here!

rabbit rabbit

want to know a secret? october is my favorite.

rabbit rabbit

try to remember the kind of september when life was slow and oh so mellow.

rabbit rabbit!

and a happy november to you. i decided to do this. what the hell, right?

rabbit rabbit!

a rabbit and some elephants. october is my favorite.

joie

i had a happy weekend. first of all, it's fall. friday night some wonderful new friends came over for sushi and games, bearing a delicious cake, the remains of which they left behind, which meant that i got to have a piece for breakfast on saturday. cake aside, it was really fun to spend time with people who make me laugh and who i can be my goofy self with.
























saturday m and i ditched the kids and drove to rockport to the center for maine contemporary art to see our friend karen's exhibition, "wozzeck" - my beautiful obsession. it was so gorgeous and engaging -strange and sad too.



















the piece included photographs:
























photograph/object combinations:
























records playing a variety of things throughout the space (german language instruction, opera, 70's music),
























this quilt,



















cans of peas:



















i am tempted to post all of the dozens of photographs i took there, but i'll restrain myself. m and i took a scenic drive all around rockport, camden, and then down around boothbay. when we got home, bean and i whipped up our favorite pad thai recipe.

sunday, to celebrate the rain and the chill in the air, i had a lovely cup of soup with the lovely dancer at north star (soup pictured below, green split pea). i wish i'd gotten a picture of a nearby laptop screen, open to a page that read, "how do human limbs know where to form?" which struck us, obviously, as hilarious.
























i took bean to a local college fair, which was a little underwhelming college-wise and overwhelming number-of-people-wise. the admissions rep from dalhousie was our favorite (among other things, i learned how to pronounce it. the key is, don't say it with a faux french accent). bean learned about their honors program, and i learned that u.s. financial aid does not always transfer to canada, although sometimes it does. on our way out, after observing many regular teens and their regular parents, bean leaned her head on my shoulder and said, "i'm so glad we're not normal."

sunday night, it was enoch, games, finishing homework, veggie potpie with seitan, and apple-blueberry crisp with coconut milk ice cream.

goodbye, summer

i hate to make the other seasons feel bad, but fall is my favorite. today minnow and i walked around casting fabulous long shadows on the ground. i love the way the light lays itself across the tops of the trees and houses this time of day, this time of year.