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We didn't have a real spring this year.  Last week the gallant band of my fellow playground guardian angels were flustered and embarrassed when offering excuses for wearing their winter jackets for work.  But on Saturday you could nearly hear a sizzling as the temperature began a quick countdown before blasting off upwards to a heat wave August would be proud to own.  Bodies Midwestern-bred over the course of generations for moderation in all things and characters prone to perseverence instead of quick reaction time reeled with the impact of a 30 degree rise in temperature.  Collapse came quickly;  six p.m. naps were enjoyed by young and old alike.

It's Monday evening now, just past nap-time as my computer's clock tells it.  I'm going to hold out until a more normal bedtime tonight.  The house is just too miserably hot to let me get any sleep until way past sunset anyway.

Happy Freakin' Summer, everyone.  (You just couldn't wait another month, could you?)

Hard to believe, but spam is once again being served up by annoying bloodsuckers who have nothing better to do than plop the indigestible muck where it's not wanted and then to run like the dickens.

It reminds me of the old prank wherein someone lights a paper bag on someone's porch, rings the bell, and then runs away.  The person answering the doorbell understandably stomps on the paper bag in order to put out the flames and then discovers that the bag is filled with feces.  Dog feces, one hopes, instead of some other creature's excrement, but at that point it's all rather academic, isn't it?  It still is disgusting to have on your shoe and it's stinky and it's unwanted where it is.

Well, the spammers are leaving comments on old posts here, but the last laugh is really mine:  no one reads this blog anymore and their flaming wads of dung aren't even being seen, except by me and I've forbidden myself to click on any of them.

Na na na na na, spam-mongers!

As I typed the title for this post I realized that if a person wasn't familiar with the 11 PM curfew announcements made on television here the whole effect is diminished.  Lost is the pop of finding unusual words in the phrases memorized over the course of you life from teenagerhood until now.

I can get over the knock to our expectations if you can.  My only intention in posting was to mark that it is St. Nicholas Eve today and so my children will get a little treat which involves a sock.  This does not mean that I have dug through closets for the seasonal stockings that are meant to enhance the holiday spirit radiated  by the decorated fireplace.  No, it means that the boys--including Stella's boyfriend--will get choice wool hiking socks and that Stella will get soft girly white gorgeous ladylike socks suitable for wearing to work.  Everyone's socks will have chocolate in various forms tucked into them and what more could a grown up kid ask St. Nicholas for?

I hope old Bishop Nicholas helps the United States Postal Service get those stockings to the kiddies' places in goodly time, but he's working against my not getting to the post office when i should have.  He can blame me for the day-late delivery if he wants to because I certainly will be heaping the blame on him if I'm asked.

My other St. Nick feat was to buy a pattern from a designer on Ravelry and have it sent to someone who posted that she wished she could have it, but was watching her Christmas pennies.  I'll bet that knitter is a sprightly elf herself, making a cheery Christmas for her family.  I am actually quite thrilled to have sent the little giftie.  I saw her thanks to the designer in the forums and she sounded just as surprised and happy at the unexpected treat as I hope my children will be with theirs.

Happy St. Nick's.   I hope you find a joy of your heart in socks somewhere tomorrow.

Added at 7 PM:

I just saw this on the Ravelry board.  It's time for this St. Nick to put her feet up and have a celebratory coffee.

That last post was misleading.  The fix Eliot has gotten himself in and into which he has put his parents up to their necks as well is not the worst of times.

He is alive.

No one else is dead because of him.

Because of these facts this is not the worst that times could be.  They're pretty darn awful, but they are not the worst that could be.

Let's go onto other matters because life does have so many matters ever happening.  It would be a mistake to overlook the other happenings.

Today's weather prompted the premiere showing of my winter jacket for this season.  The sudden drop in temperature brought in during the dark of last night which assaulted us on a steady wind was a shock even to the people of this place who expect to be surprised by the weather.  There wasn't much snow, but instead most flat surfaces were coated with thin hard ice that one's eyes usually didn't see.  If it weren't for the way your legs suddenly went out from under you at random times, you might never know that all that ice was out there and that it laughed at the salt spread on it instead of melting the way ice is supposed to. 

Other than that work went well as it has all year.  The classes I have this year are friendly--as am I-- and the mood of the days is positive, even when things go astray as they must because people are just people and kids are no more perfect than adults.  My major worry at work is that there is a second grader whose jacket already doesn't fit her and it's just the beginning of the cold season.  The jacket's zipper has a tooth missing (as indeed the second grader does), and that didn't help matters out there today.  It's easy to slip a few pairs of mittens or gloves and some warm hats where the kids who need them can find them, but a jacket is a lot trickier.   Pride, parents, and dignity is involved when a jacket or a pair of boots is involved.   I wish my Stella were just grown out of a jacket that would need to be handed down so that the second grader could help me to do something with it and free up some closet space here, but Stella hasn't been in elementary school for a long time.

I will have to think about it.  I will also hope that the second grader's parents take her shopping over the weekend.

I've got something else to consider this weekend, too.  I heard something via one of the sisters that is highly significant (please note that I've arched one eyebrow as I say this).  My second born will be bringing his girlfriend to the crowded family Christmas Eve gathering at Rose's house. 

This is important.  Exposing her to the assembled gang of oddballs means that he's taking a huge risk, one he's never taken before.  In general if someone brings the light of their life to that gathering it means that there's an engagement--at least!--to announce.  It could mean that they're expecting octuplets;  as I said this is hugely important.  I pray for the young woman's sanity.  I pray that my son will not die lonely and heartbroken once she gets a gander at his genetic pool.

That's it.  And that's quite enough.

Everyone has their own problems, so I'm not going to give the astoundingly awful fix Eliot is in and in which  he has invited his parents along for the ride out of sight. 

It.

is.

the.

worst.

of.

times.

'nuff said.  Now for the  best of times.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Stella and Rick will be coming home from the places they live now--oh, okay their faraway homes--and we will give thanks like we should for all of the amazing gifts in our lives that are in them and for which we are thankful and which, astoundingly enough, include Eliot.

I'm going to cook and we will have excellent food to eat.  We will clean up afterwards.

Oops. Excuse the holiday delirium there.  I will clean up afterwards and we will have scads and oodles of time to find out what really is going on in each others' lives.  Rick will go to his girlfriend's mother's house and taste their pumpkin pie.  My bet is that it's excellent and far superior to the homey type of pie which I like to make and to eat.    He's going to love theirs and he loves mine too, so it's all very much the way I like it to be.

Thursday Stella and I will have our annual dedicated Mother-Daughter day out together.  We used to Christmas shop and still will, if we feel like it.  Otherwise we buy ourselves a present or two and then go out for dinner together, even if we decide to have dinner at 2 PM.  This day is an excellent tradition, begun while Stella was still a middle school student.  She's all grown up now and we've been talking about the day since roughly August.  When she thought she couldn't get away from work to come home for a couple of days, I planned to go to her place, not for Thanksgiving, but for the day after so we could keep our tradition.

As for the day before Thanksgiving--today--I just got this purty thing.  Nice isn't it?

50,330 words, despite a difficult month.

Booyah!

Thank you.