Fall, schmall.

Everyone says summer is great, but they can't seem to kick it out the door fast enough after Labor Day. 

Never mind the Halloween candy in July -- that's a lost cause, and I think lost because we just like excuses to buy sacks of little candies and eat them and then have to replace them. The stores would put them out in March if they thought they wouldn't look like they'd been left over since last Halloween. And it's not like little candies in big sacks aren't available year-round. It's just that the variety is better at Halloween, and we can convince ourselves we're being festive! and not gluttons. These are for the kids! Yeah, that bag will have been reduced to a pile of little wrappers and human waste before October even starts. 

Well, today is the first day of fall, and as usual, the stores have been all-out for Halloween for weeks, beyond the candy. Labor Day: School supplies out, Halloween crap in. Like this, at CVS:

I'm calling the exterminator

You're not even trying to not be
a Christmas tree, are you?

The weird thing, my neighbors started following the trend. Usually no one puts out Halloween stuff before October 1 -- maybe a generic scarecrow or something that could be just a general autumn decoration, but "Boo"? Foo.

But one product has already got a jump on Christmas, and it is not whom I'd have expected. Sure, my wife's craft catalogs start with Christmas in spring, but they know people need time to make serious projects. And yeah, I've seen ads for some Christmas events like the Rockefeller Center show in the city and the invitation to waste the holidays and your savings at Disney, but people always plan trips months ahead. But a Christmas-themed cereal box in September?

The answer of course is General Mills' sponsorship with Hallmark Channel, home of a million Christmas movies. My sources tell me that the channel is running 31 new movies this year, starting on October 20, so you'd better believe they're ready for autumn to be on its way and get us thinking Yuletide thoughts. 

As usual, I feel like I just took the tree down. Can we push Christmas off till April 2024? Is that too much to ask? I’m not ready.

The daylights outta me.

Everyone here in New York considers summer over because the kids went back to school. They are aware that summer has officially has 17 more days, but they're thinking of closing the pools and getting the leaf and snow blowers ready for What Lies Ahead. 

My main concern is the lack of daylight. When we hit that first day of fall, the daylight and night darkness will--supposedly--even out. Half and half, Even Steven, Igual Pasquale. Actually, according to Time and Date's invaluable Sun Graph feature, I see that even on the first day of autumn we will have more daylight than darkness, not even counting the twilight. But that won't last long, and soon it will be months of depressing darkness again. Seasonal affective disorder? Moi? Yeah, maybe. 

You can get a good idea of what daylight hours in southern New York look like thanks to the Time and Date sun graph:

It's like a snake that swallowed a big meal in January and is digesting it between May and August. The static bit is of course the daylight savings interruptions in spring and fall. 

Now, let's compare this to the sun graph for a Quito, Ecuador, the Middle of the World City, the city that boasts a monument showing where the Equator runs, and you can stand with one foot in either hemisphere. 

Just as you'd expect -- pretty much straight stripes, the days never getting longer or shorter. I had a friend who lived there for a while, who said he got bored with the perfect weather all the time. I say: Try me.

For the complete opposite, and for alarming comparison purposes, here is the yearly sun graph for the Amundsen-Scott station in Antarctica: 

Isn't that nuts? They say that down there, as at the North Pole, the sun goes down one day and doesn't show up again for six months. This graph shows what a weird thing that is. Look at those huge gray vertical bands--those are sunset and sunrise!

So I see my best options as Quito or running back and forth between the Poles twice a year. Or maybe I should just turn on more lights starting in October. That might be good. 

Auuuughtumn.

Well, as predicted, Halloween arrived early this year, and arrives earlier every year. I remember complaining to a store chain once about Halloween candy on display in August. This is from the box store on Friday, July 28. 

Because you need a tremendous bag of SpongeBob
Halloween candy in July.

And the grocery store yesterday, July 29. 

Well, that's just candy, right? Not like the whole store has given up on summer and started in with fall. 

Ha:

We are one month and nine days from the start of summer; the end of summer does not arrive for another two solid months. But sure, break out the fall stuff. 

I know, I know, no one goes by the equinoxes and solstices. They go by Memorial Day and when does school start, by Christmas and maybe -- because spring always gets short shrift -- when can I start my tomato plants. 

Rushing the seasons in a retail setting has to be the fault of the consumer, ultimately. If we weren't willing to buy a five-pound sack of fun-size spooky-themed Nestlé bars* in July, they wouldn't sell it. Picture the scene at PlastiCrapCo:

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"Johnson! Get in here!"

"Yes, sir?"

"And none of that! You know what my pronouns are now!"

"Yes, xir!"

"Better. Johnson, pool noodle sales are down 15 percent since three weeks ago. The surge from the start of the season, which began during Easter, is decidedly over."

"Yes, xir, but it's not like pool and barbecue season is over. People will be having fun in the sun for more than a month yet."

"'Fun in the sun.' What would they teach you in marketing class if those words didn't rhyme? If I ever hear you say 'yummy in the tummy,' I will not be responsible for my actions."

"Sorry, xir."

"Nothing is yummy by the time it's in the tummy! There are no tastebuds in the stomach!"

"Of course not, xir."

"So don't fight with me! Now look, Johnson, we need to get that consumer excitement back! Time to ship the, er -- What's on the way? Let's check the container list from our friends in China. Ah! Halloween costumes and decorations!"

"Yes, xir! I'll get right on it."

"See that you do, Johnson."

"And xir? It's Johndaughter now."

"Oh, er, sorry about that, Johns-- daughter. Please don't report me to HR."

👻👺👿💀

Of course, I have in the past failed to get enough Halloween candy and made an emergency trip to the store, and wound up giving the kids Christmas candy, because the Halloween stuff had already been dumped. 

Life moves fast enough! Stop shoving things along! 

* Or Her/She Possibly Trans Candy.

It's autumn!

Once again, Walmart has said, "Still more than a week to go in July. Back to school!"

I understand that some colleges start early, and even in these technological times those students still need basic school supplies. But those of us in the New York area, where school doesn't start before Labor Day, know that this is a sight that, in late July, leads to much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the kids. I could almost hear them gnashing away as I took the picture. 

That was last Friday. I am almost dead certain that the next time I go to a supermarket, probably this upcoming Friday, July 28, Halloween candy will dominate the seasonal aisle. Pool noodles, water guns, folding lounge chairs, all that stuff will shoved aside. 

It has been more than a month since the longest day of the year, and surely autumn is looking to make its move. This shot came from the morning walk with baby dog Izzy. Autumn, lurking. 

I think that the scarecrow is behind the hedge because it's going out with the garbage; that seems to be where the family keeps its trash cans. But maybe not. Maybe it's just there to watch over us, to snicker and say, "You fools, playing in the sun! I was once young and carefree like you. Then the autumn chill stole into my straw, and now my time is waning and almost done. Memento Mori!"

Or maybe their dog peed on it. Either/or. 

Moments and mements.

Yesterday I was out and about, rather busy being social. (Me! Out amid the populace! Can you imagine?) Therefore all I can offer you this morning are some stolen moments and stolen memes, collected with the utmost care over the latter part of October. 

And, because I got my first Christmas catalog of the year in the mail yesterday:

Fall, and I can't get up.

So autumn pulled in yesterday and did doughnuts on the lawn, or maybe that was dog Izzy. It crashed the last of summer's party at nine last night, and this morning the temperature was in the forties. The torch has been passed. The equinox has been equinoxed.  

In other words, Fall has Fell, and I'm next. 

The problem is not autumn, of course, but that it is followed by winter, and that's where most of the trouble starts. Regular readers -- however irregular they may be in other ways -- know that I have a bad back and a tendency to collect concussions, and it's all made me down on winter. Worst of all, it's sucked a lot of joy out of autumn, which was always my favorite season. 

If that's not enough, Creeping Holiday Syndrome is beginning to overrun autumn entirely. I am intending to brave the shores of Walmart today, and I'll bet you I find Christmas decorations already on sale. They just can't help themselves. 

If you're in the neighborhood for the next six months, I'll be the guy with the Golden struggling to remain vertical through thick and thin. Those being: snow and ice. Stop and say hi, and give me a hand up if I've become spontaneously horizontal, will you? I thank you for your support. 

UPDATE: This morning.

Everyone says they're so pretty!

 

Putting the fun in fungus.

Isn't the autumn so lovely? The trees, slackers that they are, spend half the year naked, but we must admit they go out with a bang. 

And of course one mustn't forget the DEVIL WEENIES COMING UP IN THE MULCH! 

All right, so it's not actually an evil supernatural phenomenon, although I can imagine someone being scared silly the first time this appeared. And it does seem to fit October, Halloween, and 2020 pretty well. 

What we have here is -- like so many things and people that are repellent -- a fungus. Stinkhorn is the vivid name for the obscene beast, "so called because the slime on the end of its fruiting body gives off an unpleasant odor," according to HGTV. I have not gotten close enough to verify that, nor do I intend to. Life has enough unpleasant odors without going out of one's way to sample more. 

The dogs tend to like things that stink to high heaven, unfortunately, but this is a fenced-off area. They also have not shown any interest. Possibly because I've left the fungi alone to fung-die. The Penn Live site informs us that "They’re called 'stinkhorns' because of their odor when you knock them over." So we won't be doing that. Also, "From a gardener’s viewpoint, stinkhorns are actually beneficial in that they’re helping to decay wood and organic matter into nutrients that plants need to grow." Creative destruction, in other words. 

It only seems to come up in the red mulch I use around the dahlias and rhododendrons and the mums and the one baby azalea. (Don't get the idea that I'm Joe Garden here; those plants all fit neatly along the front of the porch.) I'm sure black mulch has its own fun fungus, but we use the red stuff, so: devil weenies.

It'll probably all be gone by Halloween, which is too bad. I would display the evil stinkhorns with clip-on lights and encourage them to grow. That'd scare the kiddies. Although Governor Corleone might still shut down all the trick-or-treating in New York if he feels like it. Speaking of evil. 

Miscellaneous.

Yesterday kind of fell apart on me for a variety of reasons, and I had no time to really work on this blog. But rather than disappoint my public (My Public! How they love me!), I am resorting to the old random thoughts column. I always thought those were cheating, but they do enable one to use ideas that don't make a large coherent thought. Coherent thoughts being in short supply everywhere these days.

💻💻💻

Some candy bars just aren't universal as are others. You can find Reese's things everywhere, but Clark bars, Chunkys, 5th Avenues, and others can be hard to find. Including this:

The Whatchamacallit bar was introduced by Hershey's in 1978, but I don't think I ever had one. The Hershey's site says that the name was picked "from a list of nearly 100 possible names brainstormed by Hershey and ad agency staff." It's a fun name, but it says nothing about what's inside. That was probably useful when they changed the formula in 1987 to include caramel. 

I found it delightful. It has an excellent texture for a Hershey's product, light and yet toothsome, and you can't go too far wrong with caramel and chocolate. I wish they made it in Fun Size packages so I could buy a bag to eat on Halloween give out to trick-or-treaters.

🍫🍫🍫

Speaking of Halloween, I mentioned yesterday that we may be trying to rush into the holiday stream to get rid of 2020 fast. Well, the trees here are rushing too, turning color a little early. 

I think it's because we've had dry weather for a couple of weeks. It was a nice change from the long, wet summer, but the trees might all be nekkid by Columbus Day. 

🍁🍁🍁

I may have mentioned that we love our Bosch dishwasher. Having lived our early married life with no dishwasher (husbands not included), we would have liked a clunky old Yugoslavian machine if it got the dishes clean. When we got a house it came with a Kenmore, which was okay, but pretty loud. When it had to be replaced, the Bosch came recommended and has performed admirably.

But I have, of course, one complaint. It's the little flap door you see below, on the machine's detergent compartment.

The little flap door is where you put the rinse aid (i.e., Jet Dry) to help dry the dishes clearly. If it is empty the dishwasher has to run about twenty minutes longer. The flap door is separate from the unit, attached to indents on the bottom with little nubs. Well, one of the nubs broke off somehow. The door stays on, but I think it leaks rinse aid. Of course you can't buy the little flap door on its own; you have to spend $65 for the whole dispensing unit, and if you're Mr. Handythumbs like me, good luck replacing it without breaking something. I just want a new door, which probably costs them pennies to manufacture. Grrrrr.

💲💲💲

A fellow I used to think had some sense posted that "If you aren't a fascist, Antifa isn't your enemy." I guess he hasn't seen all the videos of Antifa burning down local businesses and attacking people they don't know. Antifa is a mob, and mobs don't stop to examine your credentials before they pull you out of a car to beat you, harass you at a restaurant, or set fire to the block where your dry cleaning shop has been running for years. I have had to classify that fellow as an uniformed dodo now.

Anyway, I also saw this online, which seems to have a lot more truth to it.  

Heh.

💣💣💣

I was informed that the Mets have failed to make the playoffs. Good. Less temptation to watch.

Major League Baseball: "We need to start up baseball again this year! The American people need to know we're with them in this time of Wuhan Flu!"


Also Major League Baseball: "We need to make common cause with communists who hate most of the people in America!"

⚾⚾⚾

Should I stop now? I think I should stop now. 

All right.

Fear and loathing.

Today is August 10, and therefore it is Halloween again, right?

Must be. This picture was taken in the supermarket last Thursday.

Eek. Glow-in-the-dark monster toys inside Kinder Joy eggs. That doesn't sound too summery, does it?

Nope, we've clearly skipped the bulk of August and the totality of September and dropped right into Halloween country.

But maybe it's just candy, right? They have to make their money where they can, and summer's not a big candy time like Easter and Christmas. So they push the envelope a little, so what?

Oh yeah, strawman-who-is-probably-a-Halloween-scarecrow? This was in the supermarket Saturday:

So pumpkin spice has begun its annual sprinkle onto anything and everything. Pumpkin spice cereals, muffins, pancakes, deli meats, condoms, whatever. Like MacArthur, it has returned.

The year seemed to be dragging quite a bit until I saw this stuff. It still felt like March. Now suddenly it feels like it's going to be Christmas in no time, and we'll have endured a year of lockdown-drag-out fights over masks and money and the damned Chinese Death Virus. Instead of being stuck in time, I feel like it's been a huge waste of it. And that's unnerving. Because whatever you think about time, we each only have so much of it.

So that seemed pretty scary. And then I was on the highway, and New York scared me again:

Obey the sign? It's bad enough we have to obey Sonny "Evil-Eyes" Corleone in Albany; now we have to obey his inanimate objects as well? 

I know what they mean (speed limits were being enforced), but this is a haughty attitude, not appropriate for a supposedly free people. 

Man, everything's getting scary out there. 

Back to school? Yes? No? Maybe?

I may have already mentioned in this space the lore that my late father-in-law would torture the children by telling them that summer was half over. He did this on July 5. My wife still boils about it.

Anyway, at this point summer is half over, at least in New York, where schools normally get out toward the end of June and start up after Labor Day. Private schools and colleges may start whenever, I guess, and colleges usually start at the end of August.

So it's not too surprising to see Back-to-School stuff in the stores already. But is it really back-to-school? We know that the president has insisted all schools in the country open on time for fall semester, and most cities and states and parents wish to comply. However, whenever outbreaks of Chinese Death Virus occur, even if there are no deaths, elected authorities go pull on their Time To Get Bizzay pants and order things closed. So who the hell knows what fall with bring?

Walmart is hedging its bets.

In addition to many banks of the typical BTS stuff (lunch bags, crayons, rulers, pencils, books, everything but teacher's dirty looks) there are things like these activity books by Bendon. "Learn at home!" it tells the parents who were unexpectedly thrown into the wide world of homeschooling last spring. Probably a good idea to stock up, right? And for $1.97, how can you afford not to?

But that's just for kids up to like age seven. What about the older ones? Maybe we should have big racks of Geometry for Dummies or The Complete Idiot's Guide to Physics or Advanced French for Lazy Teens or maybe even American History by People Who Don't Hate America.  

Parents with younger kids actually need help, too, with topics like Common Core for Normal People or Help Your Child Get Good Grades without Being Indoctrinated. There's a lot of opportunity here for educational publishers who want to help, whether the kids return to school or not.

Well, best wishes to the parents and the youths, because no matter if the schools do or don't open this fall, I think you're all going to need it. Even if the Chinese Death Virus vanishes, it's going to be a long road to normal. Maybe we could even shoot for better than that while we're at it.

We all get it in the end.

Fall or Christmas?

All right, so what is it? Autumn? Winter? Christmas? It was 18 degrees Saturday morning... Fahrenheit! What is it?

Okay, this is definitely fall. Wait -- I took this on
October 28. Maybe it's too old.

Fall... I guess? I mean, the leaves fell off this thing
and left the berries behind, but it's not totally dead yet.

Aieeee! Halloween! Or winter!

Ordinary fall photo, in the wee hours.

Here's some nice fall foliage. Oh, crap -- this one
is from October too. 

Um... beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

And your little dog too.

It's taken over!!!

Basically it feels like a kind of weird season, because it's as cold as the middle of December but no one feels like the starter's gun has signaled the mad shopping dash for Christmas. On Thursday we had a ton of rain all day, very autumnal, but overnight the temperature plummeted and my umbrella froze out on the porch.

Iced umbrella, Friday morning.

So my analysis is: It may not be Christmas, but it sure ain't fall anymore.