Monday, September 28, 2009

Indian Summer.

Autumn in Ireland. Shorter days.



Crisp evenings.



That stone wall is the wall around my in-law's house. My father-in-law built it with nothing but hand tools, selecting each stone and chipping them to fit. It's a real skill. Not too many people anymore have skills like that.

Anyway, I'm starting to think of warm things. To reduce pollution, the law doesn't allow people to have real burning fireplaces in the city (except in historical buildings), so we have this thing:



It switches on and looks like...well, a fake fireplace. But it blows heat out?

Never mind. It just blows. It ain't got nothin' on the smell of a real fire.

I've been checking out soup recipes on Tasty Kitchen. I made cornbread tonight and I've been investigating places I might be able to find pumpkins. There are wild blackberries growing along our road, getting ripe. If Edmund and I go for a walk in the evenings, I always have to stop and pick a couple. Mmm, tangy.

I can't help but get a twinge of sadness and nostalgia at the same time, though, because every now and then I feel a little bite in the air or a smell or something I can't put my finger on, and I think "Football game." And I think about high school games under stadium lights and I miss home a little. I don't know why my mind goes there automatically, but it does.

Once, when I was a freshman, my friend Stephanie met some eigth grade boy at a game and gave him my name and number. To get rid of him, probably. Despite me telling him that I HAD NEVER MET HIM, he continued to call me for a good long while and annoy me until one day I told him to stop calling, and then he cried. On the phone with me. A guy I had never met who must have tried to hit on my friend Stephanie cried on the phone when I told him to stop calling me to chat about weird stuff. I still have trouble forgiving Stephanie for that. That's autumn for ya. The crazies come out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

in my defense it wasn't it my idea...but i will take ownership for doing it, because i shouuld have had the common sense...soooo sorry! who would have guessed he would be so enamored with me?!?! sorry sorry. :( -signed, your ever-so guilty-feeling, loser friend, Stephanie