Hallow-Whatnow?

Monday was Halloween. I could barely tell. I'm not one for most holidays (Bah, humbug!) and Halloween wasn't big in my circle of friends or community anyway. I think it also helps that Halloween was kind of on hiatus for the past 2 years due to the pandemic. That helped get people out of the habit of celebrating.

Hawk did dress in a costume this year... at her office. Her company had a costume theme for the day. That works for them as they're mostly in-office. My company is almost 100% distributed so having a dress-up day doesn't work for us.

There were no trick-or-treaters in our neighborhood. There haven't been for several years now, even before the pandemic. I figure that stems from several factors. One, we're a townhouse community, and I'd estimate that fewer than half of the households include minor children. Two, of the children who do live here, more than half are infants and toddlers— too young, really, to go trick-or-treating. And three, the families with kids skew to immigrants— meaning that the parents grew up not celebrating the US tradition of Halloween and thus are less likely to teach it to their kids.

The Heat is On. Is Winter Coming?

For about a month now we've had Fall weather. Yes, that's unusual enough I'm writing a blog about it. Correction: another blog. I wrote 3 weeks ago about how more than 1-2 weeks of Fall is unusual here. Now we're up to 5 or 6!

For over a month now we've had shoulder season weather. Mornings are foggy and cool, but usually the sun burns off the fog by noon and temperatures rise to about 70. Overnight is cool. It's been mostly dry.

A few weeks ago I turned the heat on in the house— one of my personal indicators that Fall (or Winter) has arrived— though for weeks I've kept it set at 69° and the system has barely run. I turned it on after some mornings when I went downstairs at 7am and saw that the main level of the house had fallen to 68 or even 67, which felt too cold. Last night was the first time in over a month, though, that even 69° has felt too cold. Damp air from outside made it feel chillier. I turned the heat up to 71 to be comfortable for the evening.

There are more chilly days in the forecast. Tomorrow has a predicted high in the 50s! (That's chilly here.) And there's rain, too. In fact there's the possibility of rain several days in the 10 day forecast. Heat on, cooler days, frequent light rain... Winter is definitely coming!

GoT S7E1: Arya's Revenge

In the season 7 opener of Game of Thrones Arya Stark shows us that not only is revenge a dish best served cold, but when you refrigerate it it can keep for a few weeks and you can whip up a batch that serves 24. 😨😈😵



( Spoilers for S7E1 )