October has arrived

It's kind of nippy today, getting down to 39 degrees last night. It was 35 in Big Rapids, but I was home, snugly tucked into my big king-sized bed with my husband. Most of the week it rained in BR, but I was indoors practically all of the time, so not a problem. The leaves are changing colors rapidly now and falling wetly from the trees. Soon the trees will be bare, the skies will be mud gray, and the days will be far too short. As it is, it's nearly dark at 7:30 p.m., and when I leave Betty's at 7:30 a.m., the sun is barely up.

A couple of nights ago, I got back to Betty's about 7:30 p.m. I noticed as I pulled into her drive that there was an unfamiliar truck parked off to the side. Then when I was coming up the walkway, I heard this strange noise, kind of a combination of a whistle and a screech and a hiss. Two deer (buck and doe) bounded through the twilight across Betty's backyard. I'd never heard deer make verbal noise before. They apparently were startled by the man connected to the unfamiliar truck. He's a bow hunter that Betty allows to hunt on her property.

Nothing much has happened with my sons this week. My husband has been in contact with our younger son and has apparently supplied him with a new cell phone. Dan's wife is now on her mother's cell phone plan, so we are funding only Dan's talking and texting. He is thinking about moving back to Columbia, leaving his wife in their little house with the cats. He's been working nights at a motel as the night auditor, so at least he's got a job, even if it is only part-time. He doesn't have friends in Columbia now, or so he says, but at least he's decided not to move to St. Louis. My thoughts have been with him all week, and I still wish that they'd tried harder to make a go of the marriage. But that isn't something we can do for someone else. Apparently neither of them is much interested in saving the marriage. Perhaps it's a sign of the times that young couples just "try on" marriage, and at the first sign that it isn't nonstop bliss, they give up. If only they could be told (or if only they would believe) that the bliss--the real bliss--comes many years later, when the person you're with is your best friend, not just your humping buddy.

I've got a lot of grading to do this weekend, so I guess I'd better get started.