POEM FOR NOVEMBER FIRST

November - I love this month - perhaps because I was born in November, but mostly because it is the promise of cold weather and good sleeping ahead. I love to sleep - perchance to dream. 

I am getting this post out in the wee hours of the day. We went to bed, as we old folks usually do, around 8. This is the night we "fall back," so effectively we went to bed at 7. One way or the other, I couldn't get to sleep. Perhaps I was too warm? I know that several times (times!) I wondered what time it really was. What time is it ever really? 

Yesterday I read that the powers that be want to keep Daylight Savings Time, which then would become Standard Time. I know I'd be happier not to "fall back." 

I culled this poem from The Writer's Almanac several years ago for my favorites file. It lilts along delightfully and really tickles my fancy.  

     Come Picnic on Mars

by Diane Ackerman

for Zoë, age 5

On a distant glad November,
when our hearts are running high,
and the dreambats all have vanished
into the limestone of the sky,
why don't we take a fiery stroll
straight up to Mars? Just you and I.

We will pack a mental picnic
for years before we go.
Some will say the sky's the limit,
but we will answer: No,
the mind was made to travel.
So, too, indentured hearts,
and knitted fears unravel
with adventure in the dark.

A world of blues will slowly dwindle,
as Mars glows round the bend;
the differences that blind us
will bind us in the end,
for wonder is the chorus
that makes us all a choir,
and time will not forgive us
if, slug-a-beds, we lie
fat and bored and cranky
in our hammock in the sky.

So, come and take the waters
that jet across the seas
that lie between the planets
we crawl to on metal knees.
Oh! when we arrive, what fancy stuff
we'll see: the swooning sands of Paradise,
dust-devils, a volcanic sea.
Then, when twilight falls, by double moon,
we'll feast on ra-
ta-
touille!

A GOOD SCARE

 Courtesy of NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day,

 this is Arp 272, some 450 million light-years away. 

Pictures like this are usually trotted out for Halloween. It’s kind of scary, ghostly even. But it is not the stuff of a good scare. I recently wrote a scary piece for our community magazine. It is scheduled for next year sometime, to be run under the title “Do You Remember… A Good Scare?” remembering scary movies. I thought I’d run part of it by you now.  I began the piece talking about “itchy” things like spiders and roaches and ants - oh, my! -  in the movies, but then I went on to this:

 ---    For a really good scare there is nothing like a classics, new or old: Nosferatu, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Nightmare on Elm Street, Dracula, Scream, Frankenstein, The Shining, or Silence of the Lambs. In many, it’s the musical clues make us nervous: it builds and builds and screams, and then!  But Hitchcock was the master of the art of visual clues. In The Birds, you notice the massing of the crows, or a guy lighting a cigar while gasoline runs from a broken pump and surrounds him. You know what’s going to happen, but it’s still a jolt. In Psycho you see the form of a figure approaching in the bathroom, a knife in its raised hand, and, though there is nothing at all gruesome to see, the unsuspecting Janet Leigh is offed while taking a shower. We see the blood running down the drain. Holey socks! What was that? What’s next? Whew!

      At one time or another, we’ve all had real scares, but the un-real movie scares are better for us. A good movie scare can be cathartic, providing a strong physical and emotional reaction that seems to do us good. Like a really good laugh, a really good scare can be therapeutic. It can take us, even for a short while, away from our sorrows and worries. In some instances it can even provide a sense of closure, a sense of “Whew! Well, I feel better now.” ---

Yes, a good movie scare can be therapeutic, but for me the effect goes on longer than the momentary jolt. I tell you, I can no longer go to a scary movie or even read a scary book. Authors like H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King? I used to absolutely love them. I still love them, but only as far as what I remember of their stories. I will never re-read them. The last scary movie I saw, years ago, was a rerun of Horror Express. I dreamt about it all night it seemed, and for several nights. That was it for me and scary movies. Same thing with the last horror novel I read – I don’t need dreams like the ones they produce.

Scaredy cat? Oh, yes! That would be me! 

The Witch Head Nebula - from today's APOD
- not scary at all

MULTIPLICATION DANCE

AAARrrggg!  I know you won't be able to see the picture above too well, but it is a screen-shot-turned-jpg that I finagled with to show you what I've been going through this last week or so. I thought I had all the duplicate files discarded, sent to the Recycle Bin, gone form the earth. Noooo - they're back!

If you look closely, you'll see that every file has a duplicate - the same title, followed by (1) to indicate that it is a copy. I want to know who told the system to duplicate all this stuff. Not only does it duplicate files, it brings back documents and pictures I discarded weeks ago. This morning I went to my blog files to see what I had on hand for a quickie blog - otherwise I had a dandy topic for the day - but I discovered the #%^&*! blankety-blank system had done its multiplication dance again. I've been discarding for at least the last hour. I'm giving up for now, throwing in the towel for the day.

OCTOBER - WHAT'S IN THE WORD?

October in the larder at Historic Brattonsville

Octo – eight – as in octopus. But this is the tenth month. Well, in the old Roman calendar it was the eighth month and the year had 304 days. They must have played around with the leftover 61 days. Calendars have been messed with and corrected over the millennia. When they adjusted the months they should have shifted the names to reflect the new positions, but even then they didn’t get things right. Few of us even think about this these days. Well, I did, but I’m different and I had to come up with an essay for today’s posting.

When I lived further north, September was the time for getting out the fall decorations and starting to make soup - not with the fall decorations, of course.  Living down here in South Carolina I’m feeling decorative and soupy only now in the middle of October. Heck, I’ve gotten out the long slacks and a light jacket, but I’m still wearing sandals. I suppose I’ll begin to wear socks and shoes once the daytime temperatures stay in the 60’s (that’s the high teens for you Celsius folks.)

This cooler weather has me thinking about cooking and baking. Yesterday I made a batch of delicious apple sauce and a huge pot of my spaghetti sauce. Then I made a big pan of lasagna with some of the sauce. I’ve frozen six more portions for the weeks to come. I should have made the spaghetti sauce first. For a while the house smelled just like fall – apples and cinnamon and spices. This morning I can still detect the aroma of my meat sauce with basil and oregano and other herbs. Close, but not really a morning aroma. So now I will bake up some corn muffins and get the house smelling like breakfast.

A bit too brown on the bottoms, but eminently edible!
And the house smells delicious.

ACCUMULATING DUST

Don’t look at my window sills or in the tub in the guestroom – or behind my sofa or the bedroom dresser. I’m collecting dust and cobwebs there to go along with my dryer fluff and belly button lint. I'm saving up nest material for next year’s baby birds.           That’s my excuse reason, and I’m sticking to it.

 You doubt the veracity of my statement?

A POEM FOR OCTOBER FIRST - JABBERWOCKY

Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! October 1st is here and I can post another poem. I just love this poem - always have, ever since I can remember. The poem makes me chortle. You can bet your slithy toves that my Spellcheck hates this poem. The poem is basically utter nonsense, made up of nonsense words, many of which are now in fairly frequent usage among questionable persons like myself: brillig! gyre! frumious! beamish! galumphing! (I do galumph frequently.)  And did you know that some people have named their daughters Mimsy?  This is a truism!

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'

He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

SIXTY YEARS LATER - JAMES DEAN

This piece was published in this month's issue of our community magazine, Living @ sun City Carolina Lakes. I thought it might interest others of my readers who live elsewhere, or who might be so young that they don't even recognize the name James Dean (or even Elvis!) 

Rebel Without a Cause

Mention the name James Dean, and people of our generation think of a loner, a disillusioned, surly, misunderstood Rebel Without a Cause. He will always be young to us because he died so young.

James Dean would be 84 now, and we wonder not only what he might look like, but what he would have achieved had he lived as long as many of us have. Sixty years ago on this day in 1955, he died in a car crash. We do the math and realize that he was only 24. Only 24, and he had three major movies to his credit.

Indiana-born and raised, Dean moved to California in 1949 to start his post-high school education. He began in pre-law but soon changed his major to drama, something he’d studied and liked in high school. By 1951, he had dropped out of college and was acting in minor roles on television and in the movies. Listening to good advice, and having made some good connections, Dean moved east to New York City. This was the time of live studio presentations, and Dean appeared in productions for Studio One, The Kraft Television Theatre, Robert Montgomery Presents, and Omnibus.

On the Kraft Television Theater

In 1952, Dean was admitted to the prestigious Actors Studio to study acting under the master, Lee Strasbourg. From Bea Arthur to Joanne Woodward, the alphabetical list of Actors Studio alumnae includes dozens of names like Anne Bancroft, Marlon Brando, Lee J. Cobb, Julie Harris, Elia Kazan, Walter Matthau, Paul Newman, Al Pacino, Sidney Poitier, and Eli Wallach. Dean studied among the best actors, writers and directors of the day.

Today, movies are just one of the many pastimes we can enjoy, but during the early fifties, movies were a major source of entertainment. Almost everyone knew of the major movie stars and the movies they were in. 1954, in one of the earlier Cinemascope movies, Dean was selected for the role of Cal Trask in Kazan’s production of John Steinbeck’s best-selling novel, East of Eden. Portraying the son of an idealistic, sanctimonious, successful farmer, Dean’s character wanted little except to gain his father’s approval.

with Raymond Massey in East of Eden

Right after East of Eden, released in March 1955, Dean continued on in the clash of generations, this time in the starring role. Rebel Without a Cause was an exploration of the confusion and frustrations of middle class suburban teenagers. Dean and his character, Jim Stark, became cultural icons, perfectly representing the so-called angst of the teenagers of the time. Such was its impact, that the movie, released a month after his death, was banned in some countries that feared it would contribute to juvenile delinquency. In other countries it was released with several scenes removed. 

Dean’s last movie, released in 1956, was a co-starring role in the film version of Edna Ferber’s epic Giant, a story of the lives of a wealthy Texas family and the people surrounding and serving them. Dean died before the release of these last two films. He was nominated for two posthumous Academy Awards for Best Actor for his roles in East of Eden and in Giant

Giant 

Dean, who owned motorcycles and fast sports cars, became interested in auto racing. He had ambitions of racing in the Indianapolis 500, but filming schedules put a stop to that. He did race in several local California races, and was on his way to one in Salinas when he collided with a car turning out on to the road. That driver walked away, Dean’s passenger was hospitalized, but Dean died at the scene. Thousands gathered for his funeral, and because of the accident his coffin was closed. Earlier that same year, photographer Dennis Stock had followed Dean around from coast to coast and to his home town of Fairmount, Indiana. While there at a local department store, by very eerie coincidence, Dean decided to pose in a coffin.

yes, eerie.

    

PRIVACY, MY DEFINITION

How about a little privacy here!

A thought-provoking meme came my way a while ago: Ten Things that Will Disappear. It goes on to say that they’ll disappear “in our lifetimes”, though I think this one was originated by someone very, very young. It predicts the demise of, among other things, the post office, the check, the newspaper, and the land-line telephone. Well, that one went out years ago at our house.

Last month I did a blog on one of the disappearing things: #4 - Books. Today I am writing on #10 PRIVACY. The meme said:

“If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy.”  That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway... There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, on most policemen (and maybe soon everyday civilians will be wearing them) and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits... "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again and again!”

Yes, they will try, but I probably won’t buy. 

“Privacy” – just what it is?  Google “privacy” and you get this:

pri·va·cy

noun

the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.

"she returned to the privacy of her own home"

synonyms:

seclusion, solitude, isolation, freedom from disturbance, freedom from interference "protecting one's privacy"

the state of being free from public attention.

"a law to restrict newspapers' freedom to invade people's privacy"

What?  Well, let me say this - I need “privacy” in my home

                          When I dress

                          When I sleep

                          When I use the bathroom facilities

                          When I loaf around the house

                         

There’s privacy and then there’s privacy. Things like cameras on the street or some entity collecting my shopping habits don’t bother me at all. Under those circumstances, I am just one of millions, perhaps just part of a trend, and I don’t consider any of this as personal information. I’m delighted to see all the cameras – I know they help catch criminals. When I pick my nose – meaning that if I do it on the street and a camera records my faux pas, that’s my fault. But if I do it in the “privacy of my own home” that’s no one else’s business.

O.K., privacy may have been “gone for a long time anyway”, but in the years before the media explosion, before the amassing of data of all kinds, most folks thought little about privacy as it related to them outside their homes. That’s the way it should stay for the vast majority of people.

My privacy I’m not worried about. The security of my personal data, my identifying numbers of all kinds, is a concern to me. I do my best to keep safe that kind personal information. I'd be a fool not to.

PUSHING PUMPKINS

There’s a new ‘drug’ around: pumpkin. The pumpkin production people have raised their heads out of the pumpkin patch and decided to really push pumpkin.  No longer do we have just pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread, but everyone has followed the success of Starbucks pumpkin coffees, lattes and such. I say, “Why wouldya?”

Today is the first day of fall, and along with canned pumpkin for pies and real pumpkins for carving, on this morning’s Harris Teeter on-line flier we have from them, in alphabetical order no less -

On the Dairy page:

International Delight Pumpkin Spice Creamer

Nestles Pumpkin Spice Coffee Mate

Philadelphia Pumpkin Spice Cream Cheese

Pillsbury Grands Pumpkin Spice Rolls

Pillsbury Ready-to-Bake Pumpkin Cookies

And on the Grocery Page:

Alpine Spice Pumpkin Cider Mix (Don't mess with a good thing!)

Bigs Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Seeds

Blue Diamond Pumpkin Almonds – (I’d love to know how they did this. I

        Guess that the artificial flavors guys got in on this recipe.)

Boulder Potato Chips – Turkey Gravy and Pumpkin Flavors (really???)

Bigelow Fall Harvest Pumpkin Spice Tea Bags and Tea Cups

Clif Bars Pumpkin or Gingerbread – (well, gingerbread is o.k.)

Creative Snacks Pumpkin Granola

G.H. Cretors Pumpkin Caramel Popcorn - (pumpkin and caramel – no!)

Gevalia and Green Mountain Pumpkin K-Cups

International Delight Pumpkin Latte Mix

McCormick Pumpkin Pie Extract - (they extracted something from a Pumpkin

        Pie?  Holey Socks!)

Pioneer Pumpkin Pancake Mix - (close, but no cigar)

Salem Pumpkin Spice shortbread Cookie - (now that one I might go for)

Stonewall Kitchens Maple Pumpkin Spread – (anything from Stonewall  

         Kitchens is great, I’ve been buying their products since they first  

         started and were selling their wares in a tent at a Manchester,  

         Vermont craft fair, so this one is o.k. by me. Might be like pumpkin 
         pie on toast! Yum.)       

Terra Pumpkin Spice Chips

Pumpkin pie is one of my very, very favorite things from about late, I say late fall into the holidays. We’re still two months away from that. It’s even a bit too early to carve a pumpkin – by Halloween it will be a shriveled pile of mush.

Poor guy, can't find his dentures.

I’m always pleased that only maybe 50% of those around our Thanksgiving table like pumpkin pie because that means more for me, especially the next morning. In my estimation, pumpkin pie is the breakfast of champions.

I’m really not interested in ersatz pumpkin in mid-September, and it is amazing to me that anyone would want their potato chips or coffee to taste like pumpkin. Some of the sweeter stuff is o.k., but pumpkin almonds?

What’s next: broccoli?

The Curmudgeon has spoken, and I am
unanimous in this!

      

A THARK ON A THOAT

I recently completed a piece on Edgar Rice Burroughs for our community magazine. Burroughs was born 140 years ago this month. I googled a few phrases in search of some illustration to go along with the article, and came up with this neat picture: a Thark on a Thoat.

I suppose I’ve seen a Tarzan movie or two in my day, but I never read one of the books. My father did own some Tarzan, but the ones he had that I was most interested in, my brother was too, the series we both read in its entirety, was the Barsoom series. I can still picture the line of books in the big bookcase at the end of the upstairs hall at my grandmother’s house. They soon made their way to our own bookcases.

Mars! Now those were adventures! The series starts with John Carter’s mysterious transportation from a cave in Arizona to Mars, what the local folks call Barsoom. That was amazing enough, but in the eleven books in the series Carter and his descendants encounter two-armed red Martians, four-armed green Martians,the Tharks, six-legged horse-like thoats, and many other humanoid races and animals. The strangest were those Kaldanes and Rykors. I had to look up the names because I’d forgotten them over the years, but I never could forget the picture of them in my mind. Here’s a great description from the ever-helpful Wikipedia:

The Chessmen of Mars introduces the Kaldanes of the region Bantoom, whose form is almost all head but for six spiderlike legs and a pair of chelae, and whose racial goal is to evolve even further towards pure intellect and away from bodily existence. In order to function in the physical realm, they have bred the Rykors, a complementary species composed of a body similar to that of a perfect specimen of Red Martian but lacking a head; when the Kaldane places itself upon the shoulders of the Rykor, a bundle of tentacles connects with the Rykor's spinal cord, allowing the brain of the Kaldane to interface with the body of the Rykor. Should the Rykor become damaged or die, the Kaldane merely climbs upon another as an earthling might change a horse.

Now if that didn’t make you sit up and take notice, I don’t know what would. I always did wonder how the Rykors ate and breathed and such, but hey, this was fiction, and I didn’t let it stop my reading.

All of the Barsoomians were telepathic, and all their differences invited great conflicts and vigorous fight scenes. The heroines were the complete opposite of prissy, fainting maids, but they did get abducted a time or two and there was always a stalwart hero to rescue them.

I don’t suppose I’ll get to read them all again, maybe one or two, but as readers everywhere lament: So Many Books, So Little Time. 

A Kaldane and a Rykor  (ick!)

BEDROOM ANTS

AAArrrggg! You will not believe this. These last few weeks we’ve had some minor ant invasions – usually happens in the fall – and strangely enough this year it is a mix of at least three ant types: little “sugar” ants, bigger black ones, and fire ants. No problem, get out the Terro – there they go. But last night was a pip.  I took a shower, finished up in the bathroom, turned out the light and went to bed. Damnation, what is that? Something’s biting me – then more, then more!  It didn’t take long for me to jump out of bed and turn on the light – ants! – hoards of ‘em, coming across the rug and making a two-inch wide stream up the bed skirt and into the bed. I had walked right through their line of march. Same three types of ants – are they forming a coalition? – and those fire ants were biting like time.

Well, Frank sprayed the life out of them with the repellent he uses around the door sills and outside perimeter of the house – he didn’t do a fall spraying early enough, I guess – and they were gone. (There were lots of dead bodies to be vacuumed up this morning when the rug was dry.) After I ripped off the sheets and threw them in a hot wash, I dosed myself with cortisone cream and took some Benadryl, but this morning I was a mess off little blisters – mostly on my legs, but some on one hand too. I still itch like crazy.

 LOLOLOL – just for giggles, I googled “bedroom ants” – turns out there is such a thing – a parody on Lady Gaga by  The Kinsey Sicks – that in itself must be a parody.  "Bad Romance" – Bedroom Ants?  Except, we never, ever eat in bed! I don't know if you really want to see the skit, but it is here.

Then I went to the images and found this:

Translated from the Spanish, it means "I want to sleep." That was me last night after the mass spraying and replacing the bed linens. It sure wasn't easy to get to sleep, and then I didn’t sleep too well. No wonder my blood pressure was too high this morning when I went to the MD’s for my annual visit. Whew! When I told the doctor about it, I told him that some wayward little ant got his signals crossed and brought all his buddies to our bedroom. What would a normal ant want in a bedroom? In the bed? Reee-diculous!

And I am unanimous in this!

QUEEN, NO TRUMP!

Yesterday, my cousin sent along this meme with the tongue-in-cheek subject line of "What a classy guy":

Donald Trump goes after Carly Fiorina’s LOOKS in 

a new Rolling Stone profile  “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? … I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not [supposed to] say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”

I emailed this back: 

Yeah, class? – school’s out, right: no class! No class, the man is an ass. (a poem!) Yes, an ass, but maybe more like a one-trick pony. He knows real estate and that’s about it. He has the money and the PR to put himself forward, but if this country was ever stupid enough to elect him he’s be tripping up all over the place. LOLOLOL – I think of the Queen, at the forefront of my thoughts because of her recent milestone, and I just try to imagine a state visit between the two. I’m sure she’d have to excuse herself to go to the ladies room to either laugh out loud or throw up.

And I am unanimous in this!

A DAY FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS

Today is September 11th. We now observe this day as National Day of Service and Remembrance, or Patriot Day. That last one is a bit easier to remember. Throughout the day, we'll all have reminders of what happened this day in 2001, and we'll all be a bit somber and retrospective.

To lighten the mood, I bring to your attention two other observances on this day...  

NATIONAL MAKE YOUR BED DAY

National Make Your Bed Day is observed annually on September 11th.

Do you want to get a better night's sleep?  According to the National Sleep Foundation, making your bed can help improve your tossing, turning and restless sleeping which in return, can be good for your health.

“A comfortable and clean sleep environment is a sleep aid.”

At a Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program, it is taught that the sleep environment is an important, but largely ignored, component of a good night’s sleep.

CELEBRATE

Make your bed. If it is not already a habit, let this be the beginning of a new habit for you that not only makes you feel good and looks good, but is also beneficial to your health!  If you have young children at home, begin teaching them to make their bed everyday.  Use #NationalMakeYourBedDay to post on social media.

HISTORY

Within our research, we were unable to find the creator or origin of National Make Your Bed Day, an “unofficial” national holiday.

and ...

NATIONAL HOT CROSS BUN DAY

A sweet, delicious, spiced bun has its day each year on September 11 as it is National Hot Cross Bun Day.  This bun is made with either currants or raisins and marked with a cross (made of icing) on the top.

In many historically Christian countries, hot cross buns are traditionally eaten during Lent, beginning the evening before Ash Wednesday through Good Friday, with the cross standing as a symbol of the Crucifixion.

Hot Cross Bun Superstitions:

o    English folklore – Buns baked and served on Good Friday will not spoil or mold during the subsequent year.

o    English folklore – Buns can be used for medicinal purposes.  A piece of it given to someone ill will help them recover.

o    Sharing one with another person is supposed to ensure friendship throughout the coming year, especially if “Half for you and half for me, Between us two shall goodwill be” is said at the time.

o    Some people believe because there is a cross on the bun, they should be kissed before being eaten.

o    Hot cross buns are said to protect you during a sea voyage.

o    If hung in a kitchen, they are said to protect against fires and ensure that all breads turn out perfectly. (the hanging bun is to be replaced each year).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

I do suppose that making your bed each day is a good idea - I do do it. Over the years I've progressed upward from a crib (I didn't "make" that one) to a twin (that one I had to learn how to make and make every day) to a three-quarter (a wonderful brass bed I bought at a tag sale). I managed to skip the double bed and move on to a queen. Now we have a king, and making that bed can sometimes be a workout, I tell you. 

But I do like getting into a nice, neat bed. When I lived at my parents' house I made my bed every day because I had to, not that I didn't want to, but it became a habit.  When I lived in my own home I made my bed every day because, being a person who always does things because "one never knows," I never knew if anyone might be coming home with me. I wouldn't want them to see a messy home or a bed. That habit did pay off a time or two, much to my relief. 

As to the Hot Cross Buns -"Hot cross buns. One-a-penny, two-a-penny, Hot cross buns." September 11th? To most people they are a Spring thing, a Lenten delight. I do suppose I can make them in September too, it's just that, like soup in high Summer, I don't think of them at this time of year. 

In so many ways the whole world has been a bit upside-down these days, so I'll go along with the trend.