Treat Piques 'n Peccadilloes

Okay.  I’m going to step in it.  Halloween irks me.  So how about I leap-frog right over Halloween and get a head start on Thanksgiving.

This Halloween, I’m thankful that….

·        I live in an off-the-road, upstairs apartment with two sets of steep, wooden stairs on the dark side of the building.  Pretty sure I won’t have any costumed company, but I think I hid some Reese’s® PB cups around here somewhere….just in case;

·        my kids are grown so I won’t wake up tomorrow with a belly ache because I ate all the candy they didn’t like. There are starving people somewhere in the world and I can’t throw food away;

·        I’m not a teacher and won’t need extra sleep, Xanex® and a Kevlar® vest for the next week so I can manage a room full of sugar charged students who bring gummie bears, chocolate kisses and Dum Dums for snack and lunch then throw up in the middle of recess;

·        with the money I didn’t spend on four bags of Halloween candy I bought some vitamin C so I have a chance at not catching the next bug that the sugar disabled kids will start passing around next week, and Puffs® with lotion in case the vitamin C fails;

·         I have friends on Facebook who will post great pictures of their costumed kids and grandkids that I can ooooo and ahhhhh over, because they truly are adorable;

·        I have childhood memories of wearing my brother’s Pop Warner sweat infused football gear from door to door, dumping my loot out on the bed and swapping favorites with my sister; 

·        my sister didn’t like SweeTARTS® and I didn’t like Twizzlers®.  She was too young to know that a giant SweeTART® was worth more three Twizzler® and I never told her;

·        my mom kept Anbesol® on hand for the canker sores I inevitably got from eating too many SweeTARTS®;

·        giant SweeTARTS® will be on sale half price tomorrow at the corner drug store and they open at 7:30.  I should still be able to make it to work on time;

·        you may outgrow the tradition but never the memories.

A Pique at tomorrow......

In opening this blog, I won’t get personal out of the gate.  I’ll leave the little human quirks for after we get warmed up.  I’ll just take on Mother Nature today.  Mother Nature and litter.

I’m not easily irritated, nor am I prone to negativity, but sometimes it’s the wee things that tweak my tail.  Like an October snow storm and the giant unkempt Catalpa tree just off my deck.

October snow is wet and heavy and Catalpa is in a state of partial undress.  Her large remaining leaves and  long, woody pods did not take kindly to the sticking weight, so she has been thoughtlessly tossing them onto my deck. Large yellow hearts like last year’s valentines and seedpods reminiscent of Edward Scissor Hands fingers layered in several inches of wet, white slush soured my morning outlook and sent me back to bed with my cup of tea.

But the truth is, the falling snow in the night was haunting and magical.  As it coated the leaves and branches around the deck, the limbs bowed low over the railing, like Monsters come early for Trick ‘r Treat.

Now….I’m not saying I had a cheery heart cleaning up Mother Superior’s slop or Catalpa’s litter, but my heart began to soften when I recalled dragging myself up the stairs at the end of a warm June day to see Catalpa tossing deep shade like a graceful Queen of Hearts, dressed to the nines in fragrant pink and white blossoms that smelled like heaven and felt like velvet. Her dress was so full and green that you had to look closely to see her gnarled limbs and branches.  Magnificient! 

As summer unfolded, the bumblebee that had gnawed its home under a corner deck rail made daily trips to gather from Her Majesty’s crown of blossoms.  The squirrels played early morning tag in her limbs.  Birds and honey bees held concerts in the afternoon. At dusk, Cicadas scratched out the high notes for firefly ballets in and out of the deep leaves.

With Catalpa in full regalia from June through August, the road way in front of the house seemed further away, the human noise was muted and the birds were always singing.  Sitting on the deck in shorts and a tee was perfection.

So.  Maybe I’m not irked that Mother Nature litters early snow on my yard and car….or that Catalpa tosses her worn-out heart leaves and woody seed pods on my deck.  Maybe I’m just piqued that it will be so long before Summer returns. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and memories keep tomorrow near.