All fall down.

Temperatures have been in the low 50s overnight this week, and you know what that means! 

I'm mostly past the age where my clothes have to be seasonal, beyond the point of survival. My last Hawaiian shirt went to the charity box as a gift to my wife. Now it's someone else's problem. Everything else is just layers. 

But then there's plaid. I have a short-sleeve plaid shirt, but a part of me will always think of plaid as being the color scheme for thick cotton shirts, thus the kind that you leave in the closet until the first day of autumn. And not crazy colorful plaid, either -- they don't wear that stuff in Quito or Honolulu, you know. I mean plaid based on black + one other color.

The sad thing is, that with the loss of my Hawaiian shirt, I only have one other really summery number, a very bright blue that's quite airy and good for the heat. But it also must be ironed after washing, or it looks like it was balled up under the car seat from September to May. That's an issue because 1) I'm lazy and 2) the dog is scared of the steam iron. That hissing really bothers him. Consequently I have worn that blue shirt once this summer, and at the rate things are going it may not come out of the closet again. 

There's another problem with happy colors, and that's you just look dumb wearing them if your countenance is very serious. I used to wear lighthearted ties to work sometimes for that very reason -- to remind me that if I went around grumpy with, say, my Looney Tunes tie, I would look like a fool. And then I got sacked. And then no one was wearing ties anymore. And then I was working from home. So now I just go around grumpy anyway, and wear dark colors. 

This is a lot more than I intended to say about clothes, and I apologize if I've wasted your time. If it made you grumpy, put on a Hawaiian shirt and smile. There's still almost a month of summer to go. 

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. 

Porch song.

John Madden famously said, "If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch."

Well, Izzy's on the larger side as breeds go, but he'd usually still rather stay on the porch. This summer has been relatively mild, and he's decided the porch is the primo spot. 

He isn't there to spy on the neighbors or bark at people going past on the sidewalk. He just likes hanging out outside. Humans need shelter, but not animals. If they're in their natural temperature zone, they can just hang out. They may not be comfortable all the time, but they're in far less danger of dying from exposure than we are.

What's annoying is that Izzy will pretend he has to go out to pee, sound real panicky, and collapse on the boards the moment he goes outside. Sometimes even if he has to do his duty (har!), he will stay on the porch first to make sure he gets his porchwork in.

Never neglect porch day.

Often he'll fall asleep out there. 

I don't mind too much. The porch furniture is not very comfortable, but it's okay. The bugs usually don't attack. It's mainly a problem if I'm on deadline. Almost all my work is done on the laptop, and I don't want that outside if the weather is bad -- or if he really does want to go walkies and I'd be obliged to leave it out there. Even if it's just sunny, it's hard to see the screen. 

He doesn't want to be alone outside, so he'll start making noises if tethered on the porch by himself. If I'm working against the clock, I have to play the bad guy and drag his furry behind back in. 

Occasionally the weather will be too hot or cold, and Izzy will want to go in before too long. This never happens in spring or fall -- rain, sun, fog, thunderstorm, snow, he doesn't care. 

But I think I benefit from the fresh air as well, even during allergy season. Also, because we were out there so much, I caught a bunch of wasps building a nest. The little bastards were building it at the very apex of the gable in the center of the roofline, a place inaccessible with wasp spray from the second-story windows or from the ladder I have. I could go out the window onto the porch roof, but considering that I have injured myself going downstairs recently and crossing the driveway before that, I am not going out on any roofs if I can avoid it. 

So, from the top of my ladder leaning up against the porch, I sprayed the nest with the hose. 

That has a couple of advantages. One, it ruins the nest. Two, they don't seem to consider water damage as an attack, just weather; they go into flee mode, not fight mode, so I got away without being stung. Unfortunately, the nest is still attached up there, hanging like a withered old testicle. If it doesn't detach on its own soon, I'm going to have to dig out the power washer and hope that has better range. 

To sum up: Dog, cute, loves porch; wasps, evil, build branch offices of hell in inaccessible places. And I'm just glad I can sit outside and not freeze to death because it's summer.  

Butterfly.

Butterflies are free! Bumblebees, three for $1.

I saw this majestic butterfly the other morning. It was so large I was sure it would fly into my face if I disturbed it, but I'd hoped it would stay still long enough for the photo. 

I'm enjoying spring, or at least I keep telling myself how much more I like it than winter. But the gnats are getting quite rude, and I've already donated a pint to the Mosquito Annual Blood Drive. Now it turns out we have poison ivy among the bordering weeds, for the first time in all the years I've been here. 

In my mind I'm renaming the seasons; instead of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter I will say Itch, Burn, Mold, and Shatter.

So yesterday morning I stopped at Home Depot and got a big ol' jug of weed killer, one that specifically lists poison ivy and poison oak on the front. The cashier asks, "Does this kill poison ivy?" I said if not I'd be back for something stronger. Agent Orange, perhaps, or napalm. 

I couldn't use it yet, though. Saturday turned into a day-long rainout, but not without advantages. It appeared that my wicked neighbor, the one that will be arrested by the feds, was going to have his annual cookout and pool-opening party. How do I know? Because his wife's sister was over the day before to help clean the house. I don't think they let her stay for the party. Well, every family is weird in its own way, and some are weirder than others. 

Anyway, it looks like the party was a bust (one car showed up). 

On the whole, though, the weather has been pleasant enough this May, and helpful to my new tree. A friend asked if I've been watering it once a week, as the nurseries suggest, and I pointed out that I haven't had to bother since we've had lakes of rain this month. 

One last thing: About that huge butterfly?

So I lied a little. Cute, though, ain't he?

Beep, honk.

It's been said about Illinois and Massachusetts and New York and I guess anywhere that winter is an issue: There are three seasons here -- fall, winter, and construction. 

Well, yesterday I had to make a drive to Pennsylvania, and on the way I found that here in New York, construction season is in high gear. And I haven't put up any of my decorations yet!

I tend to be a lot more patient with construction delays than other causes of traffic jams, partly because I sympathize with the guys working, but also because there's a feeling that things are ordered and not in horrible chaos. An accident with blood and heads rolling on the pavement -- well, that's going to take a while to clean up. A crime scene where a meth addict ran into a school bus while being chased by the troopers is going to require everyone and his brother on the scene for medical help and to make sure the evidence against the guilty idiot is preserved. A massive road failure like the collapse of an overpass? Might as well hunker down and take a nap, drivers.

But regularly scheduled constructions projects with flagmen and drivers doing a courteous zipper merge? May take a while, but we'll get there. We just hope we don't have to pee while we're waiting....

April is the coolest month.

We dipped below freezing the other night -- unusual at this time of April. Yes, April is the coolest month this year so far, meaning unseasonably chilly. And that damn windstorm that came through peeled a stack of shingles off the roof four inches thick. This morning is as foggy as a hangover.

Spring is like pizza, though, in that even when it's bad it's still pretty good. It's also like that crazy girlfriend who made you a basket case and dumped you but you couldn't shake for the longest time.

In years to come -- unless China keeps sending us more contagions -- we may look back on 2020 as having "the spring that wasn't," But rest assured that no matter what, spring was here.

Sometimes the seasons don't give us much, but sometimes it's enough.

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.

The shape of things to come.

Well, here we are in the northeast. Someone hit the big PUMPKIN SPICE button, and now autumn is here -- it dropped thirty degrees in one day. Last night the low was 49; tonight, 37.

So here are some autumnal visions for you.

This one's kind of sad; the tree in the center is usually the most gorgeous tree I know come fall. The leaves turn a bright red-orange, and if you stand under it in the sunlight, it looks like a sunlit sky from some fantasy land. Instead, because of the weather -- too rainy, too hot, too dry, I don't know -- it's dropping its leaves immediately, before they've even turned. Sad!

Meanwhile, up the street, Muppet fruit is carpet-bombing the block. Got to give the chestnuts wide berth so the dogs don't step on those spiky outer sheaths. I know dogs have tough foot pads, but these things are painful.

Okay, this is not specifically a fall scene, but admit it -- CRP is about the perfect name for a dumpster company, isn't it?

Closer to home, I find myself a little unnerved by the psychedelic -- or should I say psycho-phallic -- fungus that popped up amid the mulch.

Of course I had to smash it. No, not because I can't take the competition. I didn't want to be reported for having a naughty Halloween display.

But if you think THAT was disturbing, here was the scene in the local Walgreens...

AIIEEEEEE!!!!

Time, why you punish me?

I got nothin'.

The end of daylight savings time has hit me pretty hard this year, and I'm blaming that. Sure, I'm stressed, and I'm working on a project I don't like, but I'm always stressed, and I'm almost always working on a project I don't like. As a former coworker once told me, "That's why they call it work. If it was fun they'd call it play."

In years past I might get a little saddened when the clocks fell back. I'd leave work and emerge from the building in darkness. Meh, dark now, oh well. If you're young and something like that bothers you, you can just find someone and get a drink.

What's bothering me now isn't the darkness so much as that I just can't catch up. I'm writing this draft after nine p.m. on Tuesday and I feel like it's past ten. That's another thing: When you're in your early twenties, the first blush of youth, you don't feel different at 9:30 or 10:30. When you're older, you do. Time plays a lot of tricks on you.

I can't remember ever having so much trouble resetting the internal clock. I know the dogs are making it harder. For days now their bladders are telling them it's six a.m. when it's actually five. They're patient about that, but less so when the end of the day comes and they want to play and have dinner because the sun is going down, and when it did that on Saturday they had already played and were about to have dinner. Dogs have trouble grasping the notion of time. Snoopy isn't the only dog who goes by his stomach clock.

So I'm tired and grouchy and the dogs are confused and it's dark all the time. I hope I'll feel better tomorrow. And closer to on time.

Fall guy.

What's a good way to celebrate the first day of fall?

Well, I don't know, but I got ready for it yesterday by taking one.

AUGHtumn

The little dog, Nipper, and I were playing in the backyard, or mostly he was while I stood around like a dork, throwing balls for him to ignore. I usually have him on the tether when we're playing, as we have no fence; this keeps him from following the scent of miscellaneous critters into the woods. Suddenly my little dog -- and when I say "little" I mean "relative to the big dog but still about 100 pounds of muscle" -- shot across to the other side of the lawn, his Puppy Sense clearly tingling like crazy. The tether caught me in the back of the leg while I was off balance, leading to the embarrassing scene above. Classic butt-first pratfall.

HOW DOES HE GET THAT STRONG? It's not like he goes to the gym. Sometimes we'll play tug, or he'll pull against me on his leash, but I'm not exactly turning into Young Ahnold here. He doesn't do doggie kettlebells. I just don't know.

Fortunately for me, the ground was soft after the 8,000 days of rain we've had this summer, so no injury. But that ground won't stay soft forever. We know what follows fall. And there's just 94 shopping days till Christmas.

Seasons.

October 16. You think the season is autumn.

But really... Christmasssstiiiiiiime is heeeeeeeerrre.....

In your mailbox!

In Home Depot!

At Walt Disney World!

I suppose there's no point in fighting it, although I would like them to wait until Halloween at least. Thanksgiving is pretty much a lost cause at this point, just a high-caloric speed bump on the road to the big wahoo on December 25.

I understand that people have to plan for the largest celebration of the year. If you're going to take the kids to Disney, for example, you have only a couple of weeks to figure out how to break into a bank vault or successfully counterfeit $100 bills. In addition to the catalogs shown, my wife gets a lot of craft catalogs, like from Michaels and JoAnn Fabric and Hobby Lobby and Yarn Bomb Monthly and Cross Stitch Hell and God knows what else. Of course, those outfits started with Christmas catalogs in June, but it takes a lot of time to knit that festive '69 Firebird cozy for Cousin Earl.

As I write this is, it is 70 days until Christmas. (That's 10 weeks, 1,680 hours, or 19.18% of 2017, according to TimeAndDate.com, for those of you playing Calendar Bingo at home.) For perspective, 70 days ago was August 7, which to my mind was pretty much yesterday. On August 7 I was complaining about bugs, as I was last Saturday, so it doesn't seem like much has changed. Therefore, Christmas will be upon us before you can take your next breath.

I guess what I mean to say is, tempus really fugits, especially when it comes to Christmas. Consider this your first warning.

BUG!!!!!

People think of spring or maybe summer as the time for insects, but sometimes autumn has them beat solid. In these temperate climes, autumn is a great season for spiders to try to sneak into the house. Deer ticks have a great run in the autumn. The gnats come back to say hi. And then sometimes you spot something really terrifying, just in time for Halloween.

AAIIIIEEEE!!!!!

I'm not saying that I scare easy. You can say it for me.

"LOOK AT THE BONES!"

This little chum appears to be a Differential Grasshopper, near as I can find, a critter about as big as some of the chipmunks we have running amok in the area. The females grow up two inches, Wikipedia says, but I think this one was an overachiever. Melanoplus differentialis here was once one of 40 to 200 eggs, a hatchling who reached full maturity in 32 days. I'm surprised that I can pay the mortgage twice in 32 days. Like many of nature's little bastards, this huge grasshopper likes to swarm, and will take out an entire farm in less than a week. On their days off they like to stand on posts and terrify homeowners.

I guess we're luckier than folks in tropical areas, though, where winter never comes to kick the bugs' buts as they grow as big as Buicks. But this is big enough for me. I carefully skirted around the pole lest D.G. decide to jump on my shirt, at which point I'd have to run half-naked down the block.

A few moments later, though, she was gone. Bird probably got her.

Sometimes I like the Circle of Life.

More summer stuff.

Pre-season football has begun, college students are packing up for school, a lot of county fairs and carnivals have moved on leaving only a whiff of fried dough and corn dogs, but summer isn't over, not by a long shot. Here are some photos to help you keep thinking those summery thoughts. 

Below we have a slightly blurry frog. It was taken in rather a hurry because the baby dog, Nipper, wanted to make friends with it. As that might have resulted in catastrophic injury to the frog, I figured we'd best move on quickly. Strange that this frog was sitting in short grass, as in the summer the reptile population generally must stick to the tall stuff. 

It's been so wet this summer (as I've complained again and again) that the frog was just as comfy in the short grass, at least until we came along. I met a snake a couple of days later in a similar lawn spot, but he slunk away before I get the phone out, sly chap.

Here's a... oh, I don't know. Pretty.

The bird shot below is actually a few weeks old, but what summer picture group is complete without a fat li'l robin? Honestly, the robins around here are so fat, if Robin had been like one of these, Batman would have started him on Weight Watchers before he started the anti-crime training.

Here's an early fall leaf, one I think that may have been affected by the mold problem I mentioned a few weeks back. All I can say is, if Jimi Hendrix used a leaf motif for an album cover, he would have started with this one.

Finally, what would July be without this display in your local supermarket?

Yes, a friend who knows how ballistic I get about early seasonal candy wanted me to know that the Halloween candy was up on July 29 in our local supermarket. What kills me is that, aside from horrible candy corn and circus peanuts, not a single one of these sacks of candy is unavailable in non-Halloween form. You can get packs of bite-size Milky Way, M&M's, Reese's, all of them year-round. But no, some people I guess will only buy holiday-themed candy. Maybe they think there's no calories in them. 

Anyway, I guess as long as there's Halloween-themed candy it's still summer, right? If it were autumn we'd have Christmas candy. One day they'll get too far ahead and give us Easter candy in summer, and it'll look like leftovers. Then we'll get the last laugh! Ha ha!

AUGH! ust

August has never been my favorite month. I'm not sure that it's anyone's favorite. Maybe if you traditionally go to the lake house in August, or to Disney, or your birthday falls in August and you make it a big wingding, or the state fair comes along and you live for that, or you like sunstroke, then you'd love August the most.

When you're a kid, you can at least console yourself that it's not school time yet. Sure, your family went on vacation in July, and the Fourth is over, and the weather is uncomfortable, and you're bored, and all the movies you were looking forward to have opened and gone, and you had a fight with your friend, and your other friend went on a stupid trip to stupid Hershey without you, and you spent all your money... it's still better than school.

Of course it's worse when you're an adult. No time off and commuting through blazing sun to go to work, except for those days when you get thunderstorms and show up drenched. Or maybe you work outside, and get to enjoy the weather all damn day.

August in a nutshell:

🌞🌞🌞🌞⛈🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞⛈⛈🌞🌞🌞🌞⛈🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞🌞⛈🌞🌞

Traditionally in the American newspaper game August was the Silly Season, because nothing much was going on and newspapers filled space with stories of bizarre happenings. People started to act crazy with the heat, so there were lots of bizarre happenings to report. Of course, thanks to the Internet and our sick, sad culture, every season is silly season now.

In C.M. Kornbluth's 1950 story "The Silly Season," Martians successfully invade the earth at this time of year because all reports of weird events are written off as goofy, nutty things people are saying because they've gone loopy in the summer heat. I always think of that story around this time of year.

Keep watching the skies. After all, if every season is now silly, the invasion could come anytime.

Actually, judging by many of the people I see around town and on the Internet, the Martians landed some time ago.

So enjoy your August, whether you have to work or go back to school before Labor Day (as in some sorry, benighted precincts) or not. If the summer is too hot, that lovely autumn air will feel that much better.

Summer shopping!

Summer's here! It's the first full day of summer!

ta-da

And the summer season, like the Christmas season, is a good time for shopping!

Let's see what summer stuff is available at the local supermarket.

First off, we want to taste summer -- all the best produce the earth can offer is in the produce section! Who cares? We want portable, clean, shelf-ready snacks, like Annie's Homegrown Organic Bunny Summer Strawberry Fruit Snacks.

They're organic, so it's virtually identical to real food. Just not as messy. Seriously, you can't just walk about with raw strawberries in your hand. People will talk.

Now for the entrée -- and that means meat!

Sausage you have to cook is great, but sausage that you can just whip out and gnaw on is better. And Hillshire Farm is there, with the Yard-O-Beef Summer Sausage. Now, maybe this too will cause people to talk, if you just go around waving your Yard-O-Beef in the air, but you know what? There's no law against it. It's summertime! Knock yourself out. (But please: No Ecky-Thump.)

Now that we've had a taste of summer, let's get the scent, with our old friends at Airwick:

Ah. Airwick Life Scents Summer Delights. Smells like... I have no idea, actually. Melted ice pops? Suntan lotion? Coney Island? Lawn mower oil? The Lexington Avenue/59th Street station express platform in August? Oh, God, I hope not that. But those are all Scents from my Life, Delightful or not. No, it's probably floral stuff. Okay, that's fine. But summer isn't always flowers and soft breezes. Sometimes it rains....

Fab Ultra Summer Rain gets rid of the Ultra Summer Mud in your life! I'm not actually sure what this is supposed to smell like either. Water? Ozone? It could go several ways. They may be thinking of laundry, which is wet. But that end is also covered by...

Little Tree Summer Linen scent! The smell of humid laundry! Why should your clothes and house have all the summer smells, when your car can too? In fact, why shouldn't you have it on your personal person as well? Here's one for the kiddies:

Tom's of Maine Wicked Cool! Deodorant for Girls in Summer Fun scent. Which is... cotton candy? Drama at the beach house? Oh, who knows. Tom's is very natural-minded, of course, even though the company was bought by Colgate in 2006. But you'd think they'd be concerned about gender assumptions, with girls' scents and boys' scents. Then again, isn't the whole point of gender fluidity the desire to assume the gender you feel? In other words, boys who want to be girls don't want to use Non-Gender Scent, they want Girls' Scent.

Although this might be a summer bridge too far:

And I suppose that's as good a place as any to end our expedition to the supermarket. Enjoy your summer!

Boing.

At 6:28 this morning, it became Spring here on the East Coast of the United States. 

Less than a week after the worst snowstorm of the year. Readers of the Great Lileks and fans of MST3K will understand what I mean when I say it felt like Coily had been at work. 

Should I start whining about all the yard work I have to do? Nah, let's wait until I can actually see the yard. We got up to 40⁰F or so yesterday and it melted a ton of snow, but the grass is still buried under about six inches of the stuff. I have no idea where any of the dogs' toys are. Under there somewhere.

I shall try not to focus on the yard or other housework that will need to be done. If I think about the spring cleaning too much I'll be yelling for another blizzard. Instead I shall focus on baseball, warmth, Easter, and not shoveling snow.

Here's what we can expect to see in a few weeks:

I don't mind plowing so much, but Oxen Local 425 is threatening a strike. And how do Bumpus's sheep keep getting in here?

There's a lot to look forward to. I'm not going to get upset about the spring projects that need doing, anymore than I'm going to get upset about the winter projects that never got done. We do our best, or try to, and on we go!