Tag Archives: fall

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Calling an associate for assistance. Look, I’m standing in your store. I have money to spend. When you put the items I need to buy, let’s say deodorant and toothpaste, behind lock and key you’ve made it very secure and there’s definitely no way I can walk off with it. But you’ve made the transaction wildly inconvenient and guaranteed that while I’m still standing in your store, I’ll purchase the item from Amazon and have it delivered to my front door before the end of the day. I get why businesses are doing it, but as a customer I won’t play that game. I have no interest in spending money with a business that is actively adding inconveniences to my day. Either sort out how to deal with shoplifters or don’t, but expecting I’ll be doing the work for you is 100% daft.


2. Five-day weekend. This past weekend was five days long. Not one of them was a day of rest. I plugged back in to work on Tuesday not feeling like there was any pause at all from the previous Wednesday. That honestly feels like no way to live a life. It was busy out of necessity, but I damned well hope the weekends that follow will be a whole lot lower effort. That feels like the only fair trade off for blowing through a five-day weekend like it was nothing.

3. The undeniability of fall. Temperatures are dropping into the 30s in the mornings now. It’s mid-October and I’m steady burning propane to keep the chill out of the house no matter how sun-shiny and clear the day looks. It’s not my favorite time of year. There’s too little heat, too little daylight, and a general sense that the only thing to do for the coming months is hunker down and wait for the promise of spring. I wouldn’t be even a little surprised if the ancients thought the arrival of autumn every year could truly mark the end of the world. I know I’m always just a little bit surprised when we come though the dark and cold and find there’s still a world on the other side of it.

A hell of a drug…

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This past weekend was the first time I’d been home during the autumn in probably 20 years. I’d be lying to you if I tried to play it off as if driving down old familiar roads with the leaves changing, even on a rain swept day, didn’t find the nostalgia hitting hard. It was mostly memories of fall long ago – a time and place so different from today that it almost feels like something from a fever dream. 

The combination of the smells and colors of fall bought on instant flashes of core memory… the lion’s share of which featured long trips on the band bus and friends I thought of then as closer than family. The memories were so thick I could damn near touch them. 

Of course, it’s not this time of year for me if any trip down memory lane doesn’t come along with a touch of melancholy. I couldn’t resist dipping my toe into thoughts of how much time has changed it all – the priorities, the people, and how important they are beyond treasured in memory. Some, fortunately, have hung in there for the long haul. That’s fortunate. Who else would sit around over lunch and listen to the same old stories about the olden days?

The weekend was anything but restful. It feels distinctly like I skipped the part of the week where I usually put my feet up and recover… like somehow we bleed directly from Thursday into Monday without any intervening time. I don’t regret it for a moment, but I’ll be high key happy to get through the next four days and then have a proper rest.

I’m glad to be back into the routine… but damned if the draw of falling back into decades old habits wasn’t washing over me like some siren’s song. Even now I can feel that tide ebbing away, but in the moment it absolutely felt like I could have stepped back into a life I haven’t lived in a quarter of a century without so much as a stutter step. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Heartburn. You know what you should definitely throw at a guy who’s trying very hard to get his cardiac health improved? A sudden onset burst of god awful heartburn, that’s what. Because there’s no chance at all that would trigger 17 bloody flavors of panic and hundreds if not thousands of dollars in fun new medical tests and their corresponding bills. This week proudly continues 2023’s ongoing effort to be marked out as the worst of my 45 years… so far.

2. Samples. Well, the do it yourself stool sample package they sent me home with in hopes of ruling out a stomach ulcer and more or less confirming acid reflux has definitely unlocked a new level of disgust. It also reminded me that modern medical science is apparently not nearly as far away from reading entrails, casting bones, and balancing the humors as they like to think they are.

3. Fall yard work. It’s not so much that it’s a lot to do as it is that fall yard work is just bloody continuous. In the summer, I cut the grass once a week and trim every second week unless it’s growing unusually fast. In the fall, however, the minute I’ve finished mulching up leaves and blowing what can’t be mulched, the yard is every bit as covered as it was before I started. Yes, I know this was a self inflicted wound when I decided to live in the woods, but still it’s just a little bit maddening.

Peace but not quiet…

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I’m going to spend an obscene amount of time this weekend shuffling fallen leaves from one bit of the property to another. We’re still in the part of the season when trying to keep up is a fool’s errand, but moving leaves is one of my very favorite lost causes. 

After the week that was, a lot of hours of droning power equipment and wandering around the yard is probably just what the doctor ordered. For a brief time between when I have everything sorted and a strong breeze knocks the next batch of leaves down, it’ll look like I really got some work done. That’s generally more than I can say for anything I do from Monday through Friday. At best that stuff might have an illusion of accomplishment, but it’s even more ephemeral than a leaf-free yard in the late fall. 

After that, I have no definitive plans to speak of for the next two days. Books, coffee, tea, gin, cat, dog, tortoise, and a few well-cooked meals. That’s ample enough leisure for my tastes. Sure, I’m probably still high maintenance, but mostly in the way I think even simplicity should be well done. The thing I desire most out of these two days is pace… given the amount of leaf blowing that needs done, quiet is obviously out of the question. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Friday afternoon. Once upon a time, I actually enjoyed Fridays. They were a day full of promise. Now, of course, Fridays are just the day the Good Idea Fairy makes its rounds or people remember shit they should have done earlier in the week and try to jam it through so they can claim it got wrapped up before close of business. I can only urge you not to be that guy. Don’t wait until Friday afternoon. I promise you, deep down in places professionals aren’t supposed to talk about, no one give a shit at 3:30 on Friday how good an idea you’re having or whether something gets done or not. Maybe there’s an exception for immediate threats to life and safety, but otherwise all anyone on the line cares about on Friday is getting the hell away from cubicle hell for a few days. I know the uberbosses, enthroned high on Olympus, have forgotten their days lower down on the org chart and truly believe that everyone wants to (or at least should) give 300% 24 hours a day, but the heights of Olympus aren’t a reflection of any kind of universal reality. Sometimes those memos are just going to linger over the weekend… and I’m perfectly fine with that.

2. Paper cups. I know it’s saving the world or whatever, but I miss Chick-fil-a’s Styrofoam cups. In its new, socially responsible paper cups, the lemonade gets watered down on the ride between drive-thru and office. It’s just disappointing.

3. Heating and cooling season. So here we are well into autumn. It’s a special time of year where I fire up the furnace each morning to knock the chill off the house and then a few hours later when passive solar heating has sent the indoor temperature well into the 70s, switch the air conditioner back on to get the place back down to a reasonable sleeping temperature. At least in this part of the world this mixed season doesn’t usually last long. While it’s here though, I spend an unreasonable amount of time pondering the time, effort, and cash it takes to maintain a steady 68 degrees. 

The best ten weeks…

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Here we are in mid-October, I’m comfortable saying I’ve mostly adjusted to the diminishing daylight and have started into one of my favorite times of year. Sure, it’s about to be the “holiday season” or whatever, but that’s not really it. Not directly, anyway.

I’ve long made a habit of mostly hoarding vacation time through the first 2/3 of the year. With the arrival of October, though, it’s time to start letting those days spool out. For me, that means the next two and a half months look something like this:

Three-day weekend… Work for two weeks… Five day weekend… Work for a week… Four day weekend… Work for three weeks… and finally the last, glorious Fifteen day weekend capping off the year.

The annual burning off of vacation time is a real thing of beauty. This annual rite of autumn is made easier in my case by not having to burn time during the rest of the year to tend to sick offspring or in accommodating spousal wishes. I sprinkle days through the rest of the year to get a quick breather when necessary, but it’s here in the fall where I really get my head right.

In a few months the new year starts and with it a new round of hoarding time off begins… with the promise of another fall filled with days not spent dwelling under fluorescent lighting. For now, though, I’ll happily celebrate the best ten weeks of the year,

The vagaries of memory…

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Picking Concord grapes is one of my first vague childhood memories. There were friends of the family (distant relatives, maybe) living way the hell north in Erie. They had a house in town, an endless supply of Pez candy, and what now would be called a vintage Volkswagen van. Back then, in the early 1980s, it was just an old van, of course. It’s funny, the things we remember.

We’d go north to Erie in the fall. There was grape picking. I know my memory isn’t completely faulty on this because not long ago I saw the photographic evidence. I’d eat those damned Concord grapes until I got sick. Forty years later, if I don’t impose a touch of self-discipline, I’ll still eat those uniquely purple grapes to the point of making myself sick.

I’m convinced it’s these partially formed memories that are responsible for my ongoing love of grape soda, or candy, or anything flavored in that particular grape-y profile. 

My local Mennonite fruit stand had Concord’s by the quart basket this weekend. I didn’t clean them out, but I put a dent in their stock. They’re the kind of thing that have to be enjoyed in season so when they’re ready it’s a race to eat as many as possible. I’ve avoided making myself violently ill (so far), but boy I’m right there on the cusp… and I regret nothing – especially the memories.

Fall or: Embracing the worst season…

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I hate that we’re losing a few minutes of daylight every day. The older I get, the less enamored I am with the onset of cold weather. Fall, as a season, doesn’t have much to recommend it. Even so, fall is a happy time of year. 

Aside from fresh apples, fall really only has one major factor in its favor – the fact that so many of my favorite living authors seem to have themselves plugged into a fall release schedule for their newest works. The first of many pre-orders has started hitting the streets and will be showing up on my doorstep in dribs and drabs between now and early December.

There aren’t many things I’d rather be doing than settling in with a good book and some spiked apple cider, so despite its other clear down sides, I’ll be firmly embracing the season’s slow descent into seemingly perpetual darkness.

A minor concession…

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Today was the first of many concessions made to the changing season. Putting on jeans instead of shorts isn’t exactly abject surrender, but it does mark the day as the tipping point of the long slide into hibernation weather.

I’m ready for a bit of a break from schlepping hoses all over the yard, keeping the grass in check, and keeping up with the long list of other items on the summer maintenance list. Even though I’ve largely been home this summer, the indoor “stuff” always takes a back seat when it’s nice enough to be outside. With the extra traffic in here for the last six months it’s probably well past time to shift focus.

I’ll be in love with these days of coffee on the porch during these increasingly crisp morning… right up to the point where crisp gives way to cold. After that, of course, I’ll spend a few months pondering the virtue of those creatures that head south for the winter.

For now, I’ll appreciate the minor concessions… and hope that we catch a last few days of Indian summer in the coming weeks that will make such minor concessions briefly unnecessary.

The fall season…

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There was an article this afternoon running on AP that blared the headline “TV cliffhanger: New season in jeopardy amid virus shutdown.” It turns out the fall season of network television is now officially in jeopardy. Which is definitely an issue if you are somehow involved in the entertainment industry.

Once upon a time, I’d have probably been in the ranks of the concerned. Fortunately, most of my favorite television is two decades old. If it does happen to be newer, it’s seasons and seasons deep into its run and there’s a better than average chance I either own copies of every episode or can fish them off the interwebs somewhere. Even if that weren’t the case, having fallen in love with Game of Thrones taught me that two years between seasons is a “perfectly reasonable” amount of time. 

The trouble with Coronavirus crippling the television industry, isn’t necessarily that so many shows might end up delayed or lost forever. The real nightmare scenario for TV in the Great Plague era is that these delays in scripted television may loose a new and terrible age of unscripted “reality” television upon the land. I can’t imagine any way to make contemporary television more irrelevant to my life than to cram even more Housewives of Wherever or Kardashians in Quarantine onto the airwaves.