Teresa Fannin, reader, writer, gardener, chocolate fan & tea drinker
When our girls were very small, going on their first trick or treat run around the neighborhood we ‘practiced’ in the mudroom. One would knock on the inside door and say, ‘trick or treat’. I’d open the door greeting them. Then we’d try again. We ended the session when Bayley knocked on the door and yelled very clearly, ‘Give me candy’ which was impressive for a three year old.
Practice makes perfect. Or so we think. But does it?
Today is the atumnal equinox. Say it–ah TUM nal... kinda rolls off the tongue.
…when the Sun is exactly above the Equator, this year cacluated to be at 8:04 pm, EDT, and day and night are of equal length. Today the sun begins the journey south to mark the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.
Exactly above the equator…imagine being in space and seeing that! ‘Course, there is not really a line and I can’t even come up with where you would have to be in space…but still, pretty cool thought.
Way back in the last century, I took an astronomy class for my college science credits. Mrs. Larson was the professor, she and her husband square danced with my parents. I loved astronomy. To this day I remember the parts about the eighteen nodes of the moon, the orbit of the sun, the impact of the moon on the tides, waning and waxing moons, identifying the constellations, which I am still lousy at and the solar system.
I read. I have ‘free’ accounts to many a news website. More than the articles I like the comments section. It’s like a self-selected virtual town square where you can sit back gauge the temperature of the room. Beware, you go into that room, you lose track of time.
Recently I signed up for the one-month-free Daily Telegraph subscription to read what was going on ‘across the pond’ during the days and weeks leading up to the funeral of QEII. A long time Anglophile [ always particularly enamored of 1066 to 1603] I was facinated to learn about how Balmoral became the biggest marketing coup for tartans everywhere after Queen Victoria purchased the land in 1852, bringing Scotland more closely into the British orbit. Or, how the gun carriage carrying the coffin of Queen Elizabeth dates back, again, to Queen Victoria [or maybe Nelson after Trafalgar] and that it is human-drawn because the first time it was used the horses shied, either from a broken harness, or the coffin.
Ralph, on the top step, shown here with Claudia, was our first dog. We lived in an apartment near Cranbury
NJ and we found this six month old puppy at the local pet store. Fluffy, fuzzy and kinda lost he was ours within minutes. Both Tom and I worked so Ralph was crated during the day and out for walks early and late and given lots of love.
One evening Ralph walked out of his crate limping. We checked him out and could find nothing. This went on for a couple of more days and we decided to take him to our vet. When we got into the office, we noticed that Ralph was limping on a different foot! So we got Ralph Claudia.
We’ve been having a lot of rain. Reminds me of Richard Harris as King Arthur in his singing/saying way, ‘the rain may never fall till after midnight, by eight, the morning fog must 
disappear….I know it gives a person pause, but in Camelot, those are the legal laws…’ sadly, in North Carolina the rain pours usually between 3 pm and 5pm and it comes down with the ferocity of a firehose making pond-szied puddles, felling trees and creating lots of debris.
Last night I was aware of a change-up, thunder accompanied by rain and lightening I suppose. It wasn’t the thunder that woke me, but Keery flopping her head on my leg. But when I awoke this morning it was quiet.
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