Everybody gripes about the weather

So it’s the second week of October and the air conditioner is still kicking on. What’s wrong with this picture?

It’s supposed to be chilly. Not just in the mornings, but all day long. I search through my closet in the morning and ask myself “what did I wear all summer long? There’s nothing in here.”

I’m so ready to wear long sleeves, sweaters, and sweatshirts that I fail to see the summer clothes. I’m done with summer. It needs to go away.

I had my coats cleaned a couple of weeks ago. I was so ready to put them away in the spring, but now they’re fresh and ready to go on a cold morning. I have fantasies of bundling up in a heavy parka and feeling warm and cozy. Can’t wear a windbreaker. Hoodies are out of the question. I’m ready to get dressed up to go out in the cold, but there’s no cold to get out into.

It’s time to make homemade soup and warm cornbread. Leaves are turning colors, but people are still kicking around in flip-flops.

The weather forecaster predicts temperatures will drop, but then will go back up into the 80s again. Are we stuck in a time warp where it’s perpetually the end of summer?  

Eventually fall will come and it will be followed by winter. I simply must be patient. At some point, I’ll be complaining that spring is taking its sweet time getting here, and where are the flowers that should be popping up.

And if anyone reminds me then about these words I’ve just lamented concerning fall, I’ll swear they’re lying!

A change of fortune

Recently I had lunch in a Chinese restaurant, and with the bill comes the fortune cookie.

Most of the time when you crack open the cookie you get a little slip of paper with some ambiguous words that make you wonder “This is a fortune?” Then you toss it away and either eat the cookie or toss it with the little slip of paper. Some of them just aren’t very tasty.

Comedian Alan King used to have a routine describing his family’s ritual of reading the fortunes from their cookies. He would always read his as “Help! I’m being held prisoner in a Chinese bakery.”

Some sources say that the little cookies aren’t even Chinese. Some say they’re Japanese; others say they were born in America. If one is in position to buy fortune cookies, it’s possible to customize the fortunes. Some are funny, either by accident or design. They’re all gathered together on the Internet. For instance:

The fortune you seek is in another cookie.

A closed mouth gathers no feet. 

A foolish man listens to his heart. A wise man listens to cookies.

You will die alone and poorly dressed.

If you look back, you’ll soon be going that way.

You will live long enough to open many fortune cookies.

He who laughs last is laughing at you.

He who throws dirt is losing ground. 

We don’t know the future, but here’s a cookie.

You will be hungry again in one hour.

Never forget a friend. Especially if he owes you.

It is a good day to have a good day.

That wasn’t chicken.

I am worth a fortune.

You have rice in your teeth.

Avoid taking unnecessary gambles. Lucky numbers: 12, 15, 23, 28, 37

Normally I don’t pay much attention to the fortunes in the cookies. Sometimes I don’t even bother with them. They’re often stale — the cookies and the fortunes.

This one was different. It had a citrus flavor and was fresh. And I loved the fortune.

A pair of new shoes will do you a world of good.

I plan to test that fortune!

Whatever happened to America?

Someone complained yesterday that flags were not at half mast in recognition of Sept. 11.

I don’t know flag etiquette, but it seems to me like it would show reverence and respect to fly the flag at half mast on this particular day. Maybe it isn’t required; I don’t know. I don’t remember what position flags were in a year ago.

What I do remember though is what the country was in the days and months after Sept. 11, 2001. We as a country were outraged. We vowed that the sleeping giant America had been until that date was awake and really ticked off.

Flags started appearing everywhere. On cars. In yards. In windows. It was a riot of red, white and blue.

And the rallies! Oh, my the rallies. I  can recall people marching toward the courthouse one afternoon. There were speakers. Our elected officials promised we would not be messed with. We were going after the people who killed our people in the towers, in that Pennsylvania field and at the Pentagon.

I recall standing on a corner, taking it all in, looking down the street at a crowd of people marching in tune to their outrage. In the midst of the crowd was a guy in a Taco John costume, a huge sombrero bobbing along with the rest of the crowd. It seemed funny, out of place, and yet so right.

On the second floor of the courthouse an elected official and a couple of staffers taped a sign in the window directed toward Osama bin Laden, believed to be behind the attacks of Sept. 11. It wasn’t obscene but it wasn’t something you’d want your grandmother to see. Yet, no one was offended. It was good for a chuckle.

We get offended a lot lately. That day, the sign seemed appropriate. The crowds felt safe. We were united in our sorrow and anger.

Time went on and little impromptu parades with placards on pickup trucks would roar through town – flags flying, horns honking, sabers rattling. Firefighters and police officers became heroes.

Then life went back to somewhat normal. The flags disappeared from the cars, from the yards, no one seemed outraged so much. The patriotism was there; it just got quieter.

Then it seemed like we forgot our anger, our outrage. We marked Sept. 11 as it came and went each year, but no one posted rude messages to the enemy on the courthouse windows, and the parades and rallies stopped. We were no longer united against an enemy bent on our destruction.

And America did an about face. Police became the enemy, rallies were replaced with riots and looters. Flags were burned and trod on.  As Pogo once said (for those old enough to remember Pogo): “We have met the enemy and it is us.”

What happened?

It’s fall – well, almost

Autumn to me has always felt like the beginning of things. Forget leaves falling from the trees signaling the coming of winter and the end of growing things. There’s nothing gloomy about autumn; there’s something fresh and energizing about it.

I don’t know why we celebrate the new year in the dead of winter. Chinese New Year comes at the beginning of spring, when people begin to look forward to all things new and fresh. That makes more sense than going out and celebrating in sub-zero weather, but really fall is when new years should start.

So much begins in the autumn. When I was a kid school started the day after Labor Day. Summer vacation was over, the swimming pools closed, there seemed to be a nip in the air. It was invigorating, and made you feel like getting out and doing something. There were new fall clothes for school, and new school supplies that brought about the determination that this year, you’re going to really apply yourself and get those grades up.

Autumn means eating hearty soup, chili, sipping hot chocolate. Moms would cook more substantial meals like stews and roasts. Fall meant it was cool enough to bake bread and cinnamon rolls without overheating the kitchen. Pies and cookies started appearing on the table. You just feel more ambitious in the fall, full of new zest and ambition.

New cars come out in the fall. The TV programs introduce their new lineups in the fall. Autumn means dragging your feet through the fallen leaves, wearing sweaters, and stepping on acorns and feeling them pop under your feet.

Fall holidays are more fun. There’s Halloween with hot cider, candy corn, and bobbing for apples. Before it got lost in the holiday rush, there was Thanksgiving with turkey and sweet potatoes and gravy and pumpkin and mincemeat pies. Thanksgiving had its own special feeling before Christmas took over later in December and reminded us that winter was coming.

Air conditioners go off in autumn, and people build bonfires outside to keep warm and roast hotdogs and marshmallows.

And best of all — Daylight Saving Time ends and we go back to normal and get that extra hour of snuggling under the covers against the brisk fall air. I can’t wait!

Happy autumn!

Losing track of time

You know why time seems to fly by?

I’ve just figured it out. It has little to do with getting older. It always seemed that the older you get the faster time goes by — once you get over the hill you pick up speed.

I used to think that, but I don’t any more.

Time flies by because people who are involved with mass marketing make us think it does. Case in point: Here it is August. We can still wear white shoes and pants. Pools haven’t closed yet. People are still grilling in their backyards. By all accounts, it’s summer.

But walk into any grocery or mart store and the first thing you see is Halloween candy. It’s out already. So is pumpkin spice flavored everything from chewing gum to cat litter.

That tricks us into thinking it’s fall. So we pick up a bag of Snickers here, and a couple of bags of candy corn there, and the next thing we know time has flown from August to October.

We open the bags of Halloween candy so we can sample one and make sure it’s fresh, and the next thing you know it’s all gone. Gotta get some more to have for the Trick or Treat ghoulies who come begging at the door. So we buy more, advancing the days even farther into fall. We can’t very well give the little beggars stale candy — if indeed any is left — so we buy even more, and that brings us to Christmas.

What happened to what was left of August, September and November?

Christmas stuff comes into the stores sometimes around the same time Halloween decorations arrive, so it can be easy to lose track of time. Then before the outdoor lights even come down, next thing you know the marketers are pushing heart-shaped boxes of chocolates on consumers. So now we’ve gotten all the way to February and the last thing we knew it was August and we were wondering how long this year’s T-shirts could stand another round in the washer.

I bet if we actually figured up all those lost months throughout the years we might realize that we are actually as young as we claim to be.

Post-Eclipse letdown

After months of buildup, the 2017 solar eclipse is over. This reminds me of a Peanuts cartoon from years ago that showed Charlie Brown talking about his “Post Christmas letdown” on the day after Christmas.

On the day of the eclipse, I received emails that signed off with “happy eclipse day.” Oh, dang! I forgot to order eclipse cards. Come to think of it, I didn’t do any eclipse shopping, although I did go in a few stores that offered eclipse sales and discounts.

Americans love any excuse to throw a party and celebrate, and an eclipse is as good an excuse as any.

And let’s face it, a solar eclipse is an amazing phenomenon. It brings us closer to outer space in a way. Eclipses have been going on for millions of years, and will go on for millions more, and there’s no way we can mess that up.

But then all these thousands of people who traveled to the totality zone are probably going to leave a load of trash. Sure, they’ll buy food and gasoline, but they’ll probably leave burger wrappers and plastic bags.

Mainstream media folks left Washington and New York long enough to learn that there’s another part of the country the sun shines on. That can’t be all bad. They might learn something.

Or they might be the reason the local media feels it has to warn people not to drive while wearing the eclipse glasses. That’s kind of like driving blindfolded, but evidently some folks need to be reminded or they might end up in the hospital – or in court.

We’re not the first people to get hyped up over an eclipse. According to Time, Inc.’s web site, “In June 1878, the Chicago Times began reporting of the “mammoth excursion from the [Great] lakes to the mountains." In Denver, many businesses closed, and people poured into the streets. The Colorado Chieftain reported that the windows in church steeples that would face the eclipse had been leased for 50 cents, and tents in the Garden of the Gods public park sold for 25 cents each. … The best view was at Pikes Peak, but it came at a price. Some scientists got to the area a week in advance to climb up and set up camp there, but were plagued by snowstorms and altitude sickness. Cleveland Abbe, known as the father of the National Weather Service, had to be carted out on a stretcher. Hotels ran out of rooms, and tourists who didn't get a cot had to beg residents of private homes to let them stay. One man reportedly slept on a pool table. … And the market for eclipse glasses — which at the time were made with shards of clear glass blackened over a candle or by fitting blue glass in the bottom of boxes or the tops of old stove pipe hats — saw a boom too: One Denver newsboy was believed to have made as much as $70 selling bootleg eclipse glasses.”

Yet amid all the 1878 hype, Time goes on, “A Denver sheep herder said the scene looked like ‘a black carpet sliding over the plains,’ while a Pikes Peak observer described it as ‘a rounded ball of darkness with an orange-yellow border fading into the light pea-green of the landscape.’ The Denver Daily Tribune reported, ‘Cheer after cheer echoed and re-echoed among the surrounding mountains,’ and revelers on Grays Peak, a summit west of Denver, fired revolvers to celebrate and broke out into ‘My Country 'Tis of Thee.’ Another newspaper reported Coloradans were the ‘favored mortals of earth.’"

I suppose into every event a little hype must fall. But like Charlie Brown, I feel a little post-eclipse letdown.

Who needs another holiday?

Every now and then someone points out that August is the only month of the year that doesn’t have a holiday. Like that’s a bad thing.

Most holidays require some sort of acknowledgement — a card, flowers, gifts, some sort of cash outlay. With some holidays food is involved. That means shopping, baking, cooking, cleaning up afterward.

August is hot. It’s a lazy month. Who needs to make any kind of exertion to celebrate something or other?  Maybe what we need is a month to recuperate from the stress that accompanies the inflated cost of roses on Valentine’s Day. Besides, we need to rest up and get ready for the upcoming onslaught of the holidays that all blend together — Halloween, Thanksgiving and “happy holidays”, otherwise known as Christmas and New Year.

Let’s not mess with August. August is a good time to take it easy and not get worked up over much. But for those who really need to celebrate something this month, there are a few holidays usually started by special interest groups. Take your pick:

We missed it this year, but the first Friday in August is International Beer Day. And it should come as no surprise that the first Saturday in August is International Hangover Day, followed by International Forgiveness Day, the first Sunday in August. Coincidence? Doubt it.

Aug. 5 is Campfire Day, but it could be combined with Aug. 10, National S’mores Day. Or Aug. 30, Toasted Marshmallows Day.

Aug. 9 is Book Lovers’ Day. That’s a worthy cause. Another one I can get behind is Aug. 17, Black Cat Appreciation Day.

Aug. 21 is Senior Citizens’ Day. Be kind to old folks. We didn’t get this old by being stupid.

There are days in August for honoring mountain climbing, raspberry cream pie, ice cream sandwiches, watermelon, chocolate chip cookies, clowns, mustard, underwear, friendship, sisters, lighthouses, bad poetry, potatoes, spumoni, dogs, trail  mix — even Frankenstein.

Worthy causes all. Even worthier: Aug. 26, Women’s Equality Day.

But I draw the line at Aug. 20: National Mosquito Day.