Ahhh, finally, we've come out the other end of that long gizzard and we're back onto what passes for a normal schedule around here.

We spent the entire holiday weekend at home, doing some minor yard work and trying to put a dent in the turkey leftovers while having our blood pressure cycled up and down every few hours by the latest news out of Florida.  Remind me never to go there.  And I'm beginning to think the Mexicans were smart by getting rid of Texas, too.

We did an odd thing on Thanksgiving Day.  We dressed up.  For the whole day.  I don't mean fancy.  I mean as pilgrims.  Well, Viv and Amy dressed up, anyway.  I didn't because a: I don't have a pilgrim costume, and 2: I have no sense of affiliation with the boatloads of white folks who stopped (yeah, right) at New England.  My people are swimmers from the south, and a preponderance of the blood evidence might dictate my costume to be a loincloth and face paint.  Had I dressed accordingly... well, let's just say that on Thanksgiving an appetite is not something one wants to lose.  I participated by donning what amounts to a Missouri compromise -- a pair of overalls.  Maybe not precisely on period, but certainly agricultural.

The dressing up was inspired less by whimsy than by the fact that Amy had dressed as a pilgrim for the school party the day before and felt like carrying the theme on into Thursday.  It's not as if we're that goofy family in the neighborhood that goes a little overboard with its holidays.  I mean, we drive Acuras.  We're not the Corvair People.  Honest.

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Our trees are dropping their leaves thick and fast now, and raking is futile except as a way of keeping the street gutters clear and the sprinklers effective.  So I just stand at the window, hook my thumbs into my overalls, and wait for winter to get closer.  I feel so... retired.

To combat this feeling, I went across the street on Saturday to help Herman take out a palm tree that had grown too close to his house.  We shoveled and hacked and pick-axed until the roots were cut enough to loosen the trunk, we started rocking it, and out it came.  I'm not retired -- I'm Shane!

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