autumn

Hard to believe it's almost the first day of autumn. It's been warm and sunny and summer-like, well...since Monday. Regis and I went for a long bike ride and then cooked on the grill. The little bugs are pesty so it isn't completely pleasant out there. A guy has to keep a hand over the wine glass or it's a swimming pool for gnats.

We've had tv since Monday and finally remembered to turn it on today for the only news programs to watch, The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Commercials are about as irritating as the gnats. You can get most of this stuff on Youtube, you know.

I have about 80 pounds of paper to go through in the other room. Where does that crap come from, I ask? Every day we get catalogs and junk mail and it's a constant battle to sort out the stuff you don't want from the stuff you do. We should put a recycling bin right next to the mailbox and train the postal carrier to sort it for us. I suppose he wouldn't think that was his job.

As part of our healthy eating regimen, we're eating lots of different vegetable dishes; last night we had stuffed mushrooms and black bean salsa. Peter checks the menu or the recipes on the table and promptly goes to Taco Johns or McDonalds. He says he's creating balance in the universe by countering our healthy menus with his junk food. We think he has a friend of the female persuasion in Mankato but he won't breathe a word about it. I accused him of being secretive and he said he's not secretive, just not very open. He says I should know that about him and I guess I do. Ha.

I have a new standard for independence in your off-spring. It isn't when they get their own apartments, it's when they get their own cell phone plans. Both Tiffany and Peter are still on ours and we are dangerously close to going over both in calls and in text messages. See the previous paragraph about the female friend. The cell phone companies are like bandits when you use too many minutes. Bandits. Outlaws who live by plunder.