The Modernish Father

Woo hoo! The high temperatures are starting to dip below 90° and it’s actually kind of nice in the mornings and the evenings, so that means that we’re finally starting to see the first signs of my favorite season – autumn.

There’s not a whole lot of variation in the weather during the course of the year around here (it’s generally really hot or just hot), but there’s always a 2-3 week period in late October/early November that’s just flat out spectacular.

We’re not quite there yet, but I can tell we’re just around the corner. How? Because it’s cooled off enough for our backyard to bloom. Well, it’s blooming everywhere except for the spot where I left The Boy’s plastic pool for the past week. Oops.

Another (slightly more ominous) sign of autumn’s impending arrival is the slow but steady return of “the damn birds.” They’re only appearing in small numbers now, but in a few weeks they’ll be literally swarming around town, taking up every available inch of landing space in sight and pooping on every car, sidewalk and semi-stationary target in a five-mile radius.

The birds get so bad, they’ve started firing a small cannon in the Kroger parking lot at random intervals in the evenings to scare them off. The Boy was quite shocked the other night when we went to go pick up a few items for dinner and found ourselves in the middle of a human-avian battle zone.

Fries at the bottom of the bag

• Need proof that The Boy has been watching too much Food Network? He insisted on buying Emeril-brand dijon mustard.
• I successfully replaced our kitchen sink spray hose. Having completed one task around the house, I am now on vacation for the remainder of the year.
• The Boy had a busy weekend doing mazes, goofing around, bugging The Wife and placing random objects around the house.
• After a disastrous attempt at Chicken Kiev last week, I’m happy to report that this past weekend’s experiment – Chicken Fettuccine with Mustard Marsala Sauce – went much, much better.
• Hooray! Wallace and Gromit are returning to the small screen!
• The season finale of Doctor Who was a mixed bag, but it’s hard to tell what actually went on with all the stupid edits the Sci-Fi Channel made to insert commercials. Apparently they cut out a full ten minutes from what originally aired on BBC One, so I guess I’ll have to wait until the DVD set comes out before I can make a final judgment.
• The Wife and I have finally reached an agreement on a full name for The Baby. Now you can just wait another three months to find out what it is. (HINT: It’s not Larry ‘Bud’ Melman, although that was a close second.)