September was a rather odd month. When it was good, it was very, very good. And when it was bad...well, we will get to that later.
It certainly started out very very good...I vacationed down to Florida and spent a week hiding out in Middle Sister's home, surrounded by all of her boho swag, as I read books, drank wine, napped, and played with these two incredibly adorable creatures. Meet my new fur nieces, Stella Blue and Betty White:
Back home again in Indiana, I got on with the business of living life, which basically for me means working and keeping my eyes peeled for evidence of fall. It was not long in coming; the trees at one of my places of work started to show their colours fairly early on (see the brushes of yellow and orange?) and now that we are into October, they are really starting flame into a robust scarlet colour.
Of course, this is the perfect time of year to lurk about at Farmers' Markets, so one bright Saturday morning, Dr. J and I ventured forth to the Broad Ripple Farmers Market (which, by the way, is in no way at all located in Broad Ripple, but whatevs) and I came away with a nice little haul:
I'm experimenting with mixology a little bit, and trying to make a new cocktail recipe each month. September's experiment was a raspberry gin fizz cocktail; it was so good, but definitely a fussy drink to make:
Later in the month, my work's Staff Association arranged a ball game night downtown at Victory Field; I went with my colleague/longtime dear friend Ezz, and her family, and enjoyed a pleasant late summer evening watching the Toledo Mud Hens trounce the Indianapolis Indians. Shameful. (Also, side note: why on earth do ballpark hot dogs taste so damned good?)
The very, very, very best thing that happened in September: a beloved friend of mine down in Bloomington, who went through some very shitty stuff last year, got a fantastic job offer in the place where he wanted to move to. So in celebration, he and I and a colleague of ours joined forces one cool Saturday evening in his backyard, where we sat around a fire and caught up on a year's worth of news, reminisced about times past, looked forward to times to come, and...well, drank a heroic amount of PBRs.
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The morning after...this was only one corner of the yard. Not pictured: all the other fallen soldiers. |
As evidenced by the picture of Victory Field and all of its masses, I've obviously pretty much 100% rejoined the land of the living, in terms of COVID avoidance. I'm as boostered as I can be, and while I don't go around licking doorknobs or making out with random fellers in the Broad Ripple bars (much to both their relief and mine), I do go to theatres and pubs and restaurants and hop on airplanes and go to sporting events...and concerts, too. I've been to a couple of concerts this summer, and on the last day of September, I went to the Rock on the River event in downtown Indy to see the Head and the Heart in concert. It was a perfect fall evening, and it was a sold-out concert, and it was all I could have asked for.
Of course, there were a couple of significant low points in September. The first one was the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II*. This was a blow, and one that I think many of us weren't prepared for. Although, why? For fuck's sake, the old bird was 97. It was her time to go, and for goodness' sake, she was probably happy to be released from all this nonsense. But it still seems strange to think of a world without her in it. She's always been there, or at least it seems. Over the course of seven decades, countless politicians and premiers and prime ministers have popped in and out of power, each of them reflecting changing views and values and standards and backgrounds. And then in England, there was Queen Elizabeth. For so many of us, she had simply always been there; perhaps not overtly influential, but a sober and stately and unchanging figurehead whose presence helped define and guide a nation.
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| God save the King, I guess. |
And then, finally, there was Hurricane Ian.
While I've got no love lost for Florida, 45% of my life (thus far) was spent there, and so the crazy old place does hold a (grudging) space in my heart. To say nothing of the fact that people I love still live there. So when I caught wind of a hurricane barreling towards Florida, I was worried to distraction. And rightly so, as it turns out. My sisters and their partners and their homes came through more or less unscathed, but of course the same cannot be said for a lot of the whole sorry state...
Ah well. That's one of many reasons why I left the state of Florida 18 years ago (as I like to joke, I was pretty much chased out of the state by Hurricane Charlie, back in '04.) I will always worry for my sisters, but I will always bless the trapped animal I was at 24, when I basically gnawed off my own leg to get out of the trap of Florida which had ensnared me since I was 5 years old. Granted, I moved to the Republican stronghold of Indiana, land of corn and potholes, but trust me, then and now, Florida makes Indiana look like the motherfucking promised land. But we all like what we like, eh? I'm just glad I like corn and Republicans and seasons and tornadoes more than Disney and Republicans and sunlight and hurricanes.
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| Photo of a library in central Indiana, taken at roughly the same time Hurricane Motherfuckerwas making every Floridiot re-examine both their life choices and their insurance policies. |
*Yeah, I'm a monarchist, at least with the British Monarchy. This is not to say I am pro-Empire. Deal with it. We all have our quirks.
