gone, but not forgotten

It's autumn.

This means that it is time for Zachary to start producing tubs of mello creme pumpkins. Except for that I can't find them anywhere anymore. Last year I wrote that I was going to on a candy pumpkin hunt. This year I figured I'd save the gas and write to Zachary themselves.

Wal-Mart has stopped selling your mello creme candy pumpkins, and I don't know what to do. I've looked other places, but I still can't find them. I've tried Brach's, but they don't even compare. I love the creamy honey texture of Zachary candy pumpkins, and I look for them every fall, but I can't find them. Please help. I'm contemplating driving the 4 hours up to Frankfort, IN, just to buy them. Watching football is not the same without a tub of candy pumpkins on my lap. I'm not saying I need them, but I do really, really desire them. Thanks.

 I was hoping they'd offer to send me a free tub because of my profuse gushing of my love for them. Instead, they emailed me this response:

Heather,

Thank you for your interest in Zachary Confections!  I'm so sorry you're having difficulty finding our product.  We do however have some options for you.  Currently you can find the mello crème pumpkins online at George Howe and the link is below.

http://www.georgehowe.com/fall-candy/

I will keep searching and if I find any in your area I will let you know!

Have a great day!

Beth Randall
Zachary Confections

In which case, with shipping, it would cost me $9 for an 18-oz bag. At Wal-Mart, they were $1.88. So I'm putting out an alert.

Have You Seen Me?

I am an creamy mixture of honey and sugar shaped like a pumpkin. If you have information as to my whereabouts, please alert your local pumpkin connoisseur [that'd be ME] immediately. Also, do not mistaken me for Brach's, or you will never be trusted again.

I miss you.

summer, fall, time to go

Today I sat on a bench in the middle of a park behind my house. I've walked through this park when the summer sun is turning everything green through the flesh of the leaves, and when the parking lot is frozen over with ice so thick I could skate on it in my boots. (And I have.) Today the ground was covered in brown crunchy leaves, and the naked trees rattled in the wind. I thought about seasons.

I had just gotten off the phone with my dear friend and sister, calling from Namibia, Africa. We've been through a lot of seasons together, from summers spent watching The Office while eating brownies or hiking up mountains in Utah, to traipsing through Columbus strung in Christmas lights and watching Little Women off-Broadway. Different seasons bring different things.

I was introduced to "chider" last week, or half chai and half apple cider. It is my new comfort drink. And it goes perfectly with autumn. I just drank a mugful and my tummy is now satisfyingly plump. Also, I am missing Zachary's candy pumpkins. I used to buy them by the carton for $1.88 at Nicholasville's Wal-Mart, but last year they weren't there, and I have yet to find my favorite football-watching snack anywhere. Don't even try to replace them with Brach's. Ick, Brach's. It's a Zachary pumpkin or it's no pumpkin at all.

THIS JUST IN. I'm going on a candy pumpkin hunt tomorrow. I'll let you know if it's fruitful.

The only thing I do not like about autumn is Halloween. In fact, I hate it. I could give you some religious lecture about the origins of Halloween being pagan and evil, but, frankly, I don't know the origins of Halloween. I've heard mutterings of them over the years. But even if I knew nothing about them at all, Halloween, to me, is unpleasant. Why graveyards and witches and spiderwebs seem fun, I don't know. Why people string orange lights from their houses and hang ghosts from their trees, I do not understand.

And Monday as I rode my bike back from the gas station with a gallon of milk making my fingers go numb, the little 4-year-old boy in my neighborhood rode his in front of my house.
"Can you ride with me back to my house?" He asked me. "There's something on my porch that's scary and I don't like going home alone."
So I rode with him down the street, and on his porch was a tall zombie skeleton in a black cloak hanging from the ceiling. The little boy eyed it warily as he parked his bike. Why does anyone want to celebrate things like that? If you celebrate Halloween, tell me why. I want to know the appeal.

"A fellow can't live on books."

Ah, but Theodore Laurence, he can try.

Over the past four years, I have tried to squeeze in desired pages of desired texts over Christmas breaks and summer breaks, and sometimes over no breaks at all, which left me feeling guilty and slightly ill-prepared when the test rolled around. But now, nobody is telling me what to read, and I have two full bookshelves, the contents of which I've only probably read one-third.

The logical side of me tells myself to read something I haven't before. But a wise friend once told me that life's too short to read something you don't want to just because "you should." So I'm going to read all of my favorites again. Some I can't remember why they're my favorites, because it's been so long since I last read them. Others I would forget only if someone beheaded me. So...never, let's hope.

Here's my list of favorites-to-read-again. And autumn is the perfect time to begin a new (or old) read.

1. The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins. I read this three Christmases ago. It's 600 pages; I read it in three days. Besides the fact that I couldn't put it down, I remember very little about it. This warrants another late-night binge on 19th-century mystery.
2. Howard's End, by E.M. Forster. This book instantly made Forster one of my favorite authors. I devour his dialogue and wonder at his display of human nature. He's so real.
3. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Once, in high school, I finished this book, then flipped back to page one and started it all over again. I love that Harper Lee only wrote one book. She had a story to tell, and she told it. She wasn't writing for the masses. And that makes her story beautifully, meaningfully, and simply told.
4. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. Of course. How could this book not be on this list? Yesterday I told the 11-month-old I was babysitting, "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again! No, nor any of my folk!" And that's when I knew it was time for another GWtW reading.
5. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkein. I read The Lord of the Rings once a year, for four years straight. I sat in front of the fireplace and tuned out planet earth for the Middle one. This year's reading of TLotR was for a class and gave the reading a little different taste. But I haven't touched The Hobbit in years, and another fireplace-adventure with Tolkein is in order.
6. I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith. I was so delighted in this book that I couldn't believe it wasn't more popular. It's funny, adventurous, and somewhat philosophical.
7. An Absolute Gentleman, by R.M. Kinder. This book is seriously weird, and horrible, and yet so incredibly good that I could not put it down. Well, it's about a serial killer, from inside the  head of the serial killer. So, not so good. But the author is incredible. And after you read it (if you read it), look up the author online. She is not who you'd imagine to write a book like this. 
8. My Cousin Rachel, by Daphne du'Maurier. Another of my favorite authors. I recently reread Rebecca, and her genius in crafting such a story just amazes me. Maybe you think I'm silly for thinking so. But I love her, and I think she's genius.
9. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I wish I could explain in a convincing way why this book is my favorite book, above all. A million little things that add up to one big love. Right now I'm reading a copy printed in 1880, merely 12 years after it was originally published. Can you believe it? Collectors would probably tell me to put it on a shelf so as not to lessen its worth. But it was meant to be read, and I can't help loving the smell that wafts up to me when I turn a page. Inside is inscribed, "Emma L. Greenbery from Santa Claus 1892." How could I not hold this in my hands? I like pretending I'm reading it after it's first come out. And I love this story so, so much.

So there you go. Read away. And happy autumn, again.

happy first day of autumn

In the following paper, I will prove that it is, indeed, autumn.

First, the leaves are changing. Leaves do not usually change unless it is autumn. Or unless they're dying. Which is what they're doing during autumn, only first they turn pretty red, yellow, and orange colors. That is what they're doing now.

Secondly, some nights I have to wear my bed socks. My bed socks are orange and thick, and they sit by my bed because I often have trouble sleeping when my feet are cold. During the summertime, sometimes I saran wrap ice around my feet so I can sleep. But I can always tell it's becoming winter when my feet get cold on their own. Just kidding about that first part.

And speaking of bed, thirdly: I put my penguin flannel sheets on. You know it's getting cold at night if I pull out the flannel sheets - and the ones with penguins on them, no less! (They're drinking hot chocolate and ice fishing. It's adorable.)

Fourthly, I have the intense desire to watch movies like Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. If you've never listened to the Little Women soundtrack, you must. I'm pretty sure Thomas Newman took the music from falling leaves to create the first track.

I consider The Family Stone a precursor to the Christmas season, and I usually have my first viewing (I say "first" because I have many viewings in the last few months of the year) in October, and it's almost October. So, fifthly, it's almost time to watch The Family Stone, which means it's almost the Christmas season, and what comes right before the Christmas season? Autumn.

Sixth: Tea. Drinking tea makes me think of sitting in literature classes and wearing scarves. My favorite teas right now are Good Earth's, because of their fragrance, flavor, and inspirational quotes in each tea package. I recently had one that said, "Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. Rodin (1840-1917)" God speaks through tea.

And finally, on the seventh, God rested, because it's football season. The word "autumn" in Nflese roughly translates to "pig skin sailing through crisp blue skies." There is no greater feeling than sitting in one's pajamas in front of a football game on a Sunday afternoon. Wrong; there are several greater feelings. But this one is really good.

In conclusion, it's autumn. You may not feel it wherever you are, but the calendar says it is, and so do I.

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. - George Eliot

starting out small

Recently I've been making a few trips on my bike to the post office (literally a few backyards away from my house). The man there is probably the sweetest man I've ever met. He deserves a blog post all his own, and maybe one day I'll write one about him. He also deserves some baked goods. Something with zucchini, maybe?

One day when I rode my bike to the post office, I decided to explore. I rode down a road surrounded by cornfields and farms (which describes most of Wisconsin and is directionally useless). But straight ahead of me the road went up, I'm pretty sure at a 90-degree angle. At least, it looked mountainous to me. So I turned around and came back.

But today I drove to the post office, in my pajamas and Asbury U sweatshirt (because it's Saturday, it's cold outside, and my packages were too big to fit on my bike), and decided to see what was beyond this mountain. I drove past a couple of kids in knitted hats playing football in their front yard (swelling my heart with unquenchable joy) and pushed the gas peddle down to keep my speedometer's needle from slowly falling, which it did anyway. And when I reached the top, I decided I was going to conquer that hill. On my bike.

I've already checked a few things off my bucket list, which I only add to when I realize there's something I want to do and have the ability to do it. I try to keep it to things I deem possible. And I only started it this summer, so I've actually only added and crossed off two things so far:

1.) Ride a tandem bike
2.) Stand outside Asbury's "awkward relational goodbyes" card door with a boy

And now,

3.) Ride my bike up Mocking Mountain

As I drove on, I planned my training regimen to conquer this mountain before winter. You may think that's plenty of time, but the sky is already turning wintry, and the wind is cold even when the sun is warm. The clouds are great, white, massive fellows with bulbous dark underbellies. And as I topped another hill in my car, I saw the street name, "Pleasant View," and then turned my eyes on one of the pleasantest views I've ever seen.

Hills of grass and corn, sunlit and shadowed by those autumnal clouds, and in the distance, windmills. Dozens of them. It was absolutely beautiful, and I felt inspired to write a poem or read a poem or at least watch Anne of Green Gables. My capacity for beauty is too small for the abundance of creation that God has to offer, and I feel the need to spill it over onto something so my seams don't break. Consider yourself spilled upon.

Training regimen begins TODAY. I'm coming for you, Mocking Mountain.

last night's sunset from the end of my street