Saturday was was a little calm before the literal storm. The forecast for Sunday was lots of snow and a high of 19 degrees, so we figured it was time to do a little cold weather prep outside.
The lawn got its last mow for the season and, is traditional for me every year, I ran out of weed eater spool with like 10 feet of trimming left. Ah well, there’s always spring.
It was also time to take down the garden, which had definitely seen better days as it was. We had a few freezes the past few nights, so everything was pretty much dead or dying. I did salvage a few last tomatoes and tomatillos, and was able to make a nice salsa, but the rest was off to the lawn bag.
Amelia and Henry were great helpers. Amelia was particularly adept at helping me select which tomatillos were worth keeping.
With all the yard work done, I actually had some time to take it easy, so I started searching on Prime for a documentary to watch. I settled on one about Ancient Rome, and to my surprise, it was actually a course taught by one of my favorite professors back at UW Green Bay. I took a course on Roman history with him twenty-(mumble-mumble) years ago, and it was like old times watching that. Fun bit of unexpected academic nostalgia, there.
I remember a lot of the academics from that class, but I also remember that the star of our college basketball team was in that class. I remember because every time we’d have an exam review, he would raise his hand once toward the beginning and ask, “Can we use our books?”
Professor Aldrete, chipper and straight faced would say, “nope!”
And then about 15 minutes later, the hoopster’s hand would go up again and he’d ask, “Can we use our notes?”
“Nope!”
I have no idea what kind of grades he wound up with, but I did learn a valuable lesson from old Dribbles McLayup. Always, always ask. You just never know. My hunch is that at least in a class or two, this line of questioning worked. So why not give it a shot.
After a nice little rest, I made some pasta for dinner. Erin and I were chatting afterward, and Asta joined us.
She was probably looking for food, but she held this pose for such a long time, I began to think she was going to put forth a motion or make some other meeting proposal. She looked so very serious.
And the kids ran around for a little bit outside, enjoying the nice autum weather while they could, and taking in the sights from the Halloween decorations across the way.
Then it was bedtime, and under the blankets we went. Really, really cold front coming on.
