sunday and vines

my crack dealers are just down the street. yep i'm talking about the corner coffeeshop, tiny's. i get positively ansty if i haven't had my hit of stumptown french press with soymilk. nothing else does it for me like those guys...

...i probably shouldn't take this literally...it's a little too weird to take literally, i think maybe it means that something i have been hoping for is going to come up empty again, and i probably know it deep down inside, but have been pretending otherwise.

i've been raking up the withered corpses of summer and piling up the dead squash vines, digging trenches, and covering up the beds so that the weeds don't take over the whole garden. there's formidable forest of grasses, solanums, mallow, himalayan blackberries, creepers, henbit, and so many others that i'm probably forgetting. stiff competition for my free time. i don't have enough time or energy to fight them all, so i'm thinking of taking the easy way out with black plastic...it's tough work clearing out that much spent growth, but it's surprisingly relaxing. i pulled down the rest of the beans and shelled them, saving their seed for next year. they were very prolific. so were those curious little red peppers, the yellow squash (which makes some members of this household groan just to hear its name), and the brocolli did well. if only more people would eat it...

there are some gorgeous maples down the street...unbelievably beautiful. i can't believe they're still in the full blaze of their glory this late in the year.

we went and did the thanksgiving grocery shopping and the damage wasn't too bad. i thought it would be a lot spendier than our usual weekly groceries, but it really wasn't... i'll see if p---a wants to come over for dinner, it would be nice to have someone other than just the two of us, and i have this corny vision of southern expats holing up in portland having a decidedly non-traditional thanksgiving. we'll see. i'd love to have a weird assortment for thanksgiving...i guess it would remind me more of my family, than not.
in the meantime i have a strange week ahead. only one class, no tutoring, and lots of work, and no doubt a number of cranky customers (with a major holiday looming ahead). i hope brian gets better soon, but so far i've been resisiting the plague, although i have been way more tired than usual. we'll see about that...