It's Mother Fuckin' Fall, Y'all

This weekend was the first really cold snap we've had so far this fall. Or maybe it wasn't that cold and I'm just an elderly d-bag. I tell you though, the crispiness is out there. On my nightly walks this weekend? I could almost see my breath. And I wore a sweater with my shorts. I also tripped, skidded and twisted my ankle on about a billion f'ing fallen nuts. Walnuts and pecans. Yup. It's mother fuckin' fall.

Besides the icy breath, the cursed nut piles, the four batches of cookies I baked in the last two days, the furnace coming on at night and the pile of hoodies in the chair by the front door, I can tell it's fall by the needs I've been experiencing. See when the seasons change, it's like a primal alarm clock goes off in my brain, and there are things I must do or I'll not survive. 

The first thing I do in the fall, as though on autopilot (and I like seriously have no control over this): Hoard yarn. I buy yarn. Lots of yarn. Even though I have lots of yarn left over from last year. And the year before that. Because I must make hats! And mother fuckin' scarves! Usually all for my daughter Gwendolyn, who is not a hat and/or mother fuckin' scarf person. But I make them anyway! Because I must! I can't even knit. I crochet because it's the only "craft" my grandmother was ever able to pound into my block head. And if the thought of me with a crochet hook scares you, then you're probably smart. Because I'm way more likely to wield a crochet hook as an eye-gouging weapon than as a craft implement. But I digress. This year the insanity has grown to epic proportions.  My need to crochet is so big and so violent and so insane, that I have so far woven 23 skeins of really fat yarn into this epic blanket of doom. Afghan? That doesn't seem like an adequate word. This fucker weighs so much it's arduous to move on my own and it's only half finished. You could snare small children under it. Seriously, like if I tucked my little boys in under this thing? They'd not be able to lift it off themselves. Moohoohahahaha.....

Rambo helped me with this project. He's awesome like that. 

Also? The need to snuggle. This season is the reason why I have a king-sized bed. I'm freezing cold, miserable and unhappy unless I'm sleeping in a dogpile of heavy quilts, flailing children, the cat, and approximately 100 pillows. Until of course I end up at the bottom of this hot, sweaty mess of arms, legs, blankets and the cat, at which time I cuss and bitch and pry myself loose and go sleep alone on the frosty leather couch. Because seriously? Leather couches are f'ing cold in the winter.

Incredibly important: Movie marathons. Every single film Wes Anderson has ever made, including the really bad first ones (sorry Wes). And of course all six Star Wars movies. Yes, even the embarrassingly bad prequels. Including Jar Jar. Seriously. And the Goonies. And popcorn. Lots of it. And Donnie Darko. And lots of other movies, too. Movies and snuggly children. And this is the reason, I do suppose, for the need to crochet the blanket of infinite largess. I want a blanket that will cover the entire couch and every body snuggled on it.

There are other rituals. Pies to be baked, soups and stews and squash and roast beast and football and apple picking and scenic drives and shit like that. Hopefully I'll be over the insanity soon and we can move on to Christmas/Kwanza/Hanukkah/Festivus/etc. After the harvest is in, everything is canned, pickled, dehydrated and otherwise perserved for the winter season, what do you do with your free time? What, dear readers, are your autumnal rituals? I'd love to hear about them. Till then, Mahalo for listening!