It's beginning to look a lot like Halloween

Our street and neighborhood has been infested with oversized skeletons, spiders and their webs, even a coven of witches. It's super fun, and a reflection of the spirit of this neighborhood. (See what I did there? :) )

Jeff flinches every time I look out into our yard with a thoughtful expression. We've (I've) decorated, but with Alison a grown-up girl living away, it's less Halloween and more fall-ish. In part because I'm lazy and don't want to have to rush out to de-Halloween as soon as it's over.

Fall is a welcome season despite its proximity to winter, whose only virtue is you can decorate for  Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. Yes, I'm a stickler. Christmas does burst out here, but only the day after Thanksgiving. This year, it'll be a bit after that as we'll be in Orlando for that holiday. 

Our social calendar is rapidly filling up with fun with friends, annual must-do events like the Broad Ripple Kiwanis Pumpkin Smash and the Ronald McDonald House Taste gala, and Halloween-related events on our street and in friends' yards.

If you like channeling your inner Les Nessman or David Letterman you want to be at the Pumpkin Smash. It's a family-friendly festival in Broad Ripple with lots of things for kids to do - including a chance to show off their Halloween costumes - but the marquee event is in the title. A very handsome and kind young man takes you and a pumpkin the Kiwanians supply up in a small lift in the parking lot of Half Liter BBQ. From there, you can survey all that Broad Ripple has to offer and then send your little orange bomb down to plummet and explode on the ground.

Rest assured that while no turkeys are harmed in the making of this festivity, but the pumpkins do, indeed, meet their end. Green with Indy collects and composts the remains, the Kiwanians use the proceeds to help local kids get important school tools, and the food is great, so it's all a great circle of life. See you there?

In other news:

My cousin Christina tried desperately while we were out in Washington in August to celebrate my birthday by taking a dip in the frigid Pacific. I declined. Repeatedly. I like my oceans to welcome me rather than challenge my body's ability to maintain a living temperature.

Flash forward to last week when I FINALLY got myself to my friend Annmarie's new Home for  Wayward Girls, which is a lovely spot on what Mainers would call a pond, but we call a small lake. It's beautiful and only 10 minutes away, and Anne has an electric pontoon boat, a kayak and a paddleboard. She helmed the kayak because I am an experienced paddleboarder, who navigated nearly the whole perimeter of China Lake in Maine just this July.

If you've never encountered an Indiana lake in mid-October, let me tell you: It's a lot like the Pacific NorthWest in late August or the Atlantic anytime. It's not approaching the Antarctic, but as I splashed into the Mystic Bay water, I feel like I had to first breach a thin layer of pre-ice.

It was so cold, my favorite curse words were stolen from me and all I could do was say, "Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Anne says I got myself back up on that board at Tom and Jerry speed. I survived only because the sun was a fireball in the sky and shone down on me as I recovered. As we paddled around the lake, I wobble a bit but did not descend into the drink again. Next time, I'll bring my own kayak, I think...

Jeff has been splitting wood because he likes playing the lumberjack, and we both like having wood to burn in the fireplace or pit as the weather gets nippier. My part is supplying him with water, checking occasionally to ensure he's not cut off a body part with the axe and helping move the wood into the shed and garage for easy access.

He had to build a new structure to hold some of the wood outside, so we had to go to Lowe's for supplies. I'd had a big day of prematurely taking down some calla lilies that hadn't bloomed and storing their bulbs for next year's planting in more hospitable spots. So when we opted for a flat blue cart, I hopped onboard and let Jeff pull me from one end of the ginormous store to the other.

I may or may not at one point have posed like Rose on the Titanic and declared myself "King of the World." Jeff kept expecting the staff to tell me to stop toying with their liability risk, but I think they were amused. Or horrified. Equal chances.

Alison is back home in Orlando after her trip to Mississippi to escape Hurricane Milton. Her complex parking lot still held some residual flooding but she had no issues in her 2nd story apartment. Like everyone, we're commiserating with those who lost loved ones and property recently and are hoping this latest threat dissipates over water before reaching land.

Hope you're all having a great fall and will finish the year splendidly. If you get a chance to play Rose at Lowe's, I highly encourage it. And if you have a lot of chores, I also recommend a hammock.