So. The poker game. Last time I made a profit. Not this time. Had more fun, though. (The good thing about nickel/dime/quarter poker games -- profits feel great, losses make little impact.) This game I turned out to be the sole rep. of the male gender. Kind of interesting to sit at a table with three women, all of whom know each other far better than I know any of them. At times, they talked with one another while I listened, my attention drifting between cards and their conversation. I can tell you this: none of them care for Ahhnold very much.
We're well into post-technicolor autumn around here. Cold, days often gray, punctuated with periods of sun pouring down through dramatic skies. Two nights ago, the local weather types warned of possible snow yesterday at higher elevations. A friend who spent yesterday up on Bolton Mountain said snow fell all day. (Aiiieeee!!)
Yesterday morning: me, sitting here at the computer. I hear a noise from outside the house -- hollow, metallic. In the past that has meant (1) chipmunks trying to climb up the drain pipe from inside [see entry of September 10] and (2) a squirrel climbing up the drain pipe from outside, looking for a way to get to the bird feeders and/or get inside the attic (with no success either way). I go outside, a squirrel head pokes out from the rain gutter, beady eyes giving me the once over. I grab the garden hose, turn it on, shoot a hard, sharp stream of water up there, creating big noise of water against metal, soaking the squirrel. It disappears. To be sure it's gone, I drag the extension ladder out from the garage, climb up to the roof, garden hose in hand. No critter. I send water into the downspout, on the chance the little bugger had squeezed in there to hide. Nothing doing. The squirrel had fled -- with no trees near the house, that means it had to make the big leap to the ground and bolt.
Ah, the rustic life.
While I was up on the roof, it began to rain, same as last time I had to drag out the ladder and go up top. [See entry of October 8.] A short time later as I got ready to drive into town, the downpour intensified, changing from rain to sleet/hail. Sloppy. Three, four miles down the road, it petered out, the sky lightened. Much more user-friendly. In town, someone from Adamant, a few miles from here, mentioned they'd had about an inch of snow/hail.
Went to a film, a fine activity for a gray, cold afternoon -- a French number, Le Cercle Rouge. A thriller of the hard-boiled kind, considered a classic. I can see why.
(Other films seen recently:
Intolerable Cruelty -- a hoot. I find it hard not to like a film that includes a hit man named Wheezy Joe.
School of Rock -- er, well, a B-film, with a sweet disposition and some funny moments along the way. Worth staying with for the big performance number at the film's climax. Jack Black is a bundle of energy; Joan Cusack is a natural resource.
And most of all: Lost In Translation -- it warrants all the hype, it bears up under all the ecstatic reviews.)
Today: another cold autumn day. Sky mostly filled with restless gray clouds, sunlight making it through from time to time, seeping between fissures in the overcast. Met with the woman who'll be housesitting here while I'm back in Madrid. (A doll -- a capable, hyper-responsible individual I've been blessed to have taking care of the place during my time overseas these last few years.) A month from now I'll be back on the Iberian Peninsula. It will be interesting, I'm sure, to be there once more after 5 months away.
Is it just me or have the days been skidding by at an unbelievable velocity?
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Images from this last Tuesday, the day after Columbus Day, the first one taken here on the hill, the others on a swing through East Montpelier:
rws 3:05 PM [+]