Happy (almost) Halloween!

Winslow gets a little carried away sometimes. But only sometimes.

I have, for some years now, been accustomed to take a short walk in the evenings. During many of these I have had uncomfortable encounters with trees. Indeed, all encounters with trees are uncomfortable, if we are honest with ourselves. Such honesty is, however, rare and it is much more common that we choose to be oblivious to our own ineptitude in arboreal society. This merely compounds the problem.

Last month’s column got me thinking about the many books I wasn’t allowed to read growing up. There were actually quite a few – my mother was of the prude and prejudice type. Anyway, here’s a small list of some wandering book covers and the secrets they hold that I can only dream of…

I’m not a coffee drinker. Never grew accustomed to the flavor. So my interactions with Starbucks and other coffee shops have been limited. My wife, however, introduced me to frappuccinos, which come in non-coffee varieties and, to my delight, also come in a variety of flavors not listed on the menu. Andes Mint frappuccino? Hell yeah. Those things are freaking amazing.

Day 1, Saturday. My wife of thirty years has left me—who knows why. Sure, it annoyed her that I hadn’t changed out of my bathrobe or moved off her sofa since my retirement in 2005, but is that a good reason? Tonight I went to the bar where we first met and tried again. Actually that bar was gone, so I tried one down the street that looked similar, only someone had removed all the Pac-Man games and the jukebox and substituted a virtual darts thingum and a mechanical bull. I sat down next to a fox in her early twenties who was blonde like my wife was thirty years ago and asked her if I could buy her a drink.