Autumn has arrived! The leaves are changing, the weather’s cooler and all the critters are running for the hills.

Wait….what?

See, we live out in the sticks. When the wildlife senses that winter’s a’comin’, they go into an autumnal frenzy. Road kills go WAY up as the less fleet-of-foot woodland creatures throw caution to the wind in their search for provisions and their desire to mate. Probably not in that order.

Many also seek shelter. Unfortunately, our house looks worthy to many multi-legged (and a few no-legged) creatures, and we are overrun with spiders, frogs, mice and woolly worms.

Now the cats are quite good about keeping the mouse population under control. They are furry little killing machines. They are not furry little disposal machines though, so there is the daily sniff/discover the carcass/ grab-a-paper-towel-and-throw-the-dead-mouse-out adventure for moi.

The cats won’t touch the spiders, frogs or woolly worms though. Can’t really blame them – the spiders are nasty brown recluses whose bite is poisonous. I crush them without worrying about my karma.

The woolly worms are too cute though, so I always let them crawl onto my hand (all the city folk go “Ewww”…..now) and take them out to the lawn and release them.

The frogs are less cute but ecologically friendly, because they eat bugs that would try to find their way into our home, so I usually find a small cardboard box to trap them in and transport them back outside. Except at grandma’s house.

Grandma has Misty, the Cairn Terrier who is not as smart as a cat.

Even grandma’s house in the suburbs sees an increase in pests when autumn arrives, and foolish frogs jump onto her patio, where they become Misty-bait.

Frogs do not make a good dinner. They do not even make a good snack, as Misty quickly learned.

She chased down a frog on the patio the other day, at first just playing with it, batting it around a bit with her paws. But then she decided to bite it. Not a good idea.

The frog was in her mouth for about two seconds, being chomped on and shaken about. Then she spit it out and started doing that thing that dogs do when they eat peanut butter. She was shaking her head and her tongue was going 100 miles an hour- lapping and lapping at her teeth and gums.

Maybe it was one of those frogs that people lick for the hallucinogenic properties, or maybe plain old frog juice sends dogs on something akin to doing acid, but pretty soon Misty was trippin’.

And we laughed like crazy.

She looked glassy-eyed but happy. She stumbled around the back yard and stared and the trees like they were talking to her. I’m pretty sure she was laughing too.

The frog was less fortunate. He hobbled off with one leg bent at a peculiar angle, leaving me with this image in my mind:

Happy autumn, everyone!

Avast ye mateys! September 19 is International Talk Like A Pirate Day

They even have a Facebook Fan Page now!

I know why Excel rhymes with Hell.

We are cataloging all of grandma’s belongings onto a spreadsheet. This was not my idea, but I have been elected (pressed into involuntary servitude) to enter all of the data into this monstrosity of a computer program designed for Microsoft by Satan.

Rows, columns, formulas, sums, math, trig and pitchforks (not sure about that last part, but it feels that way). All designed to mess with my head.

We are trying to decipher the lists that grandma has written in her tiny, cramped writing, but she is off on another task and has long forgotten what the list we are working on says. We pull out the magnifying glass. We ponder, we guess. It is driving me stark, raving mad.

Seems simple…type the information into the little box. Except the little box is too little. Or I have too much information. Whatever it is, I can’t get it right. My cursor jumps to the wrong place. My columns don’t line up. My brain hurts.

But I keep tap, tap, tapping away at the keyboard, because all of the gazillion bits of information have to be entered. So it leaves me in the mood to plagiarize…errr….”write in the manner of” Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Raven.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
It was me, still tapping, tapping, typing on my lone keyboard

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the list whose tiny scrawls, now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head crooked, not reclining
Eyes a-straining, fingers aching, this task causing thoughts of gore
Yet I’m typing, ever typing, this list will last evermore!

So the new Twilight movie is out now.

*Yawn*

But EVERYBODY is talking about it, so we have to possess some basic knowledge so we don’t seem like we’ve been living under a rock (no offense to rock-dwellers – it actually sounds pretty good to me in this heat)

My daughter forced me to read these because she hates them and wanted to discuss her loathing. I hate them too and am appalled at the millions of dollars that a hack (no offense to hacks) like Stephanie Meyer is rolling around in.

If you love the books and or movies, I apologize. I won’t be mean and say for what.

Anyway, here is the quick and not-so-dirty on Twilight.

The main character is Bella. Her only personality traits are that she is clumsy and pretty. Oh and helpless.

So Bella lived with her mom, but mommy has a new boyfriend and she wants to spend a lot of time with him, so Bella decides to leave sunny Phoenix to go live with her dad in the gloomy Pacific Northwest, where against all the Rules of Supernatural Beings, vampires do not fry in the sun, they sparkle.

Really.

She spends a lot of time stumbling around and being helpless until she is rescued multiple times (due to her helplessness) by Edward, who never shows up for school on sunny days and no one asks why.

Ever.

She instantly falls in love with him. I mean instantly and after almost no conversation, and certainly no touching, because Twilight is all abstinence all the time.

When she figures out (way behind the entire audience) that Edward is a vampire, it’s too late. She is IN LOVE (It’s actually capitalized in the book)

But of course it can’t work because that is the nature of all romance novels (using the term v-e-r-y loosely here)

Edward knows that he will bring constant danger to her, since all his friends and family want to eat her, so he splits.

Bella finds comfort (but not in the arms of, ‘cause of that whole no-touchie thing) with Jacob, who just happens to be a werewolf. His Native-American name is No Shirt. Sexual desire is OK in the audience, just not the characters.

Bella, distraught by her total lack of libido and missing Edward, attempts to kill herself. Edward, who is now in Italy (TSA apparently has very lax security standards vis-à-vis vampires with no birth certificates) learns of Bella’s supposed demise so he wants to die (again) too.

He is going to expose himself to humans in front of the Vuvuzelas (no wait, that’s those noisy plastic horns they blow at the soccer games). In front of the Volturi, which is like the Vampire Mafia, who tend to frown on vampires outing themselves. There’s a big fight but of course Edward is victorious, if in your book, rescuing Bella for the 475th time is victory.

Bella and Edward return to Forks, WA. (where there is no forking going on) and Jacob is still hankering for Bella and would want to do her if he had any hormones. Bella says she loves him too except for that whole “I love Edward” thing.

This is how the Team Edward/Team Jacob split came into being with the fan girls and boys. Who will Bella choose? Who cares?

A mature lady gets pulled over for speeding…

Older Woman: Is there a problem, Officer?

Officer: Ma’am, you were speeding.

Older Woman: Oh, I see.

Officer: Can I see your license please?

Older Woman: I’d give it to you but I don’t have one.

Officer: Don’t have one?

Older Woman: Lost it, 4 years ago for drunk driving.

Officer: I see…Can I see your vehicle registration papers please.

Older Woman: I can’t do that.

Officer: Why not?

Older Woman: I stole this car.

Officer: Stole it?

Older Woman: Yes, and I killed and hacked up the owner.

Officer: You what?

Older Woman: His body parts are in plastic bags in the trunk if you want to see.

The officer looks at the woman and slowly backs away to his car and calls for back up. Within minutes 5 police cars circle the car. A senior officer slowly approaches the car, clasping his half drawn gun.

Officer 2: Ma’am, could you step out of your vehicle please! The woman steps out of her vehicle.

Older woman: Is there a problem sir?

Officer 2: One of my officers told me that you have stolen this car and murdered the owner.

Older Woman: Murdered the owner?

Officer 2: Yes, could you please open the trunk of your car, please.

The woman opens the trunk, revealing nothing but an empty trunk.

Officer 2: Is this your car, ma’am?

Older Woman: Yes, here are the registration papers.

The officer is quite stunned.

Officer 2: One of my officers claims that you do not have a driving license.

The woman digs into her handbag and pulls out a clutch purse and hands it to the officer.

The officer examines the license. He looks quite puzzled.

Officer 2: Thank you ma’am, one of my officers told me you didn’t have a license, that you stole this car, and that you murdered and hacked up the owner.

Older Woman: Bet the liar told you I was speeding, too.

Certain men want us to believe they’re like an SUV. They’re rugged, and can travel any terrain. They’re impervious to mud, sleet, snow, and broiling summers.

These are the men who, in hundred degree temperatures, walk calmly through an asphalt parking lot amid shimmering heat waves in their three-piece suits. No sweat forms on their brows, no complaints issue from their lips. They’re much too macho to notice such mundane things.

In the dead of winter, when people are skating to work, these same men are out in cutoff jeans, worn tee shirts, and thong sandals. Oh, and white socks, because after all, it is winter. They move blithely past women buried in enough layers to outfit a family of Eskimos, and behave as though they’re surrounded by a personal climate control field.

This strong, silent guy changes once he enters his domain. Upon checking the thermostat, complaints issue from those previously closed lips.

“When the heck did you put this on forty degrees?” he demands. “This place is like a blast furnace.”

His wife grimaces. “Last summer it was on eighty degrees and you said it was freezing.”

“That was different. I’m setting it on thirty-five. If you’re cold, wear more clothes.”

“If I put on any more layers I may as well go into hibernation, since I won’t be able to move.”

“Okay, okay. Look, let’s watch TV. It’ll take your mind off the cold.” He grabs the remote and stretches onto the couch, propping his bare legs on the coffee table.

The first channel is showing a special about the Donner Party. The next one has a show about ice mummies. The wife begins to worry about those lumps in the back of the freezer.

“Want some ice cream?” the husband asks.

The Man for All Seasons is counterbalanced by the Woman of All Fashions. While this woman is aware of the changing seasons, to her it means a new reason to shop. Whatever the new fashions for spring, summer, fall, or winter, she’s ready to buy. Her greatest attributes, according to the stores, are expensive taste and no sales resistance.

If the newest autumn trend is two hundred dollar mongoose crew socks, she’ll be the first to own them. The Woman of All Fashions will never be caught dead near the clearance rack, where the mongoose socks hang a month after their debut. (My friend bought some for five dollars. Her cat has become quite intimate with one of them.)

The Woman of All Fashions will dress for the climate, but only at the dictate of current trends. You will see her in the sleet-covered parking lot, tottering in stiletto-heeled cowboy boots. Her full length sable coat covers the traffic-cone orange cashmere pantsuit, all of which she “just threw on” to get some bread.

As she heads for her car, she passes a man in faded cutoffs and a tee shirt worn nearly transparent. Both shake their heads as they move on. Some people just don’t know how to dress.

This is a guest blog post from humorist Katherine Turski, a friend from the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Group. She has a new short story coming up in the Yard Dog Press anthology, “A Bubba In Time Saves None” (should be out by June) and Yard Dog is also publishing her chapbook, “It’s the Great Bumpkin, Cletus Brown”, in September. Please show her some love for her great writing!