Simply put- the weather is making me feel all discombobulated. 

Now, I don’t mind that it has been unseasonably warm lately.  I’ve been trying to soak it all in before winter drops its icy hammer and we all plunge into bitter cold temps.  I like having the windows open, and the heat off.  The fall colors are beautiful.  There are no bugs, except for those pesky ladybug impersonators.  The nuisance of election coverage 24/7 has passed.  Life is good.

But it was odd that as hubby and I were dressed in our Halloween costumes last Friday, driving to the night’s festivities, with relatively warm weather, there was Christmas music playing on the radio station (which, after a number of explicatives, I immediately turned off).  Today, as I was driving along the lakefront, I noticed that the county had put up hay bales around the trees and poles at the base of the big hill by St. Mary’s.  Guess what that’s for?  To prevent sledding accidents- hard to imagine on a 70 degree day, but after all, it is November already.  Christmas decorations are going up around town in full force, which is barely tolerable in November, but even stranger when the weather is so warm.  Our fashion-challenged state is even further confused- shorts and a turtleneck?  Winter coats on a 70 degree day?

I am one of those people who has said on occasion that I would like to move south to escape our harsh winters.  And if you ask me about this again, in say, February, I will likely have a different answer.  But today, I just couldn’t imagine having a warm-weather Thanksgiving or Christmas.  Having lived my entire life in the Midwest, it just wouldn’t seem legitimate- maybe for a holiday vacation once in a while, but not permanently.  Decorating a palm tree?  Having Thanksgiving poolside?  It’s just too weird.  I’m not ready for that just yet.

It's in situations like this that I'm so glad I have a blog! 

Today Hubby goes into the bathroom to do his business and emerges 2 seconds later, looking traumatized.  This is unusual behavior from a man who considers the bathroom his throne, and spends as much time on it as I will let him.

Hubby:  "Honey, you have to come see this!"

Me:  "Ummm.... What?"   I'm thinking what could he show me in the bathroom that I could possibly want to see.

Hubby:  "No, seriously, you need to come and look in the toilet."   

Hubby is still looking visibly shaken, so I walk into the bathroom, where I find a dead chipmunk in the toilet!!!!!  In my house, in the 2nd floor bathroom!!! 

Oh......My.......God.......  I am so disgusted.

While Hubby makes a big to-do about fishing the thing out of the toilet, my mind turns to the next obvious question.  How the heck did that thing get in my house?  We have a nice house, in good condition, with no openings to the outside that I am aware of.  I have cats, and a dog who loves to chase the chippers in the yard.  How did this thing get in, and get all the way to the second floor of my house, and manage to drown itself in my toilet without being observed?  And finally, are there more lurking around?  I am so wierded out by this- we have never even had a mouse in the house, and now a suicidal chipmunk?!

And the strangest part about all of this?  Just this morning Hubby and I were working in the garden and found a chipmunk hole, right under our tomatoes (which are finally starting to turn red, BTW).  Hubby was holding the garden hose at the time, and joked about sticking it into the hole to "drown the little bugger-" which he didn't do, and apparently didn't need to.

How prophetic! 

 But that's all the plants in my garden have- big, heavy, firm GREEN tomatoes!!

I've faithfully watered, weeded, and fertilized.  They get full, hot sun all day.  They have my neighbors' red tomatoes to look at for encouragement.  The plants are huge and laden with tomatoes.  I'm ready to make salsa, brushetta, and caprese salad.  I need RED tomatoes.

What else can I do?  Any suggestions? 

 OK, just kidding... but I did have another run in with the fox family...

This spring the foxes had babies, and now the teenage foxes have emerged into the neighborhood.  They are learning how to hunt (and leaving various animal parts in our yard as evidence), and are basically learning the lay of the land.  I used to think the parents were bold- they are nothing compared to their kids!

So, 5 years ago, Hubby bought me a Vespa motor scooter as a birthday gift.  I rarely ride it, due to the fact that it never works with any regularity.  Sometimes it starts right up, and gets me where I need to go, other times, it gets me to my destination, but stalls and refuses to get me home.  Other times, it stalls before it reaches the end of the alley.  I don't get it- I have had all the mechanical innards replaced to no avail. I would call it a lemon, but apparently the lemon law doesn't apply to scooters.  So I'm stuck with an unreliable mint green scooter.  I have no idea how people in Italy get anywhere on these things- it's gotta be a crap shoot every time they start them up.

Monday morning I decided to ride my scooter to work.  I have been driving it around the neighborhood for the past month and it's been on it's best behavior.  So, early in the morning, I get it out of the garage and coast down to the end of the alley.  I start it up, and guess what?!  I get to the bottom of the hill at the end of the street and it stalls.  Big time.  It won't restart.  So there I am, sitting in my work clothes, trying to start this obstinate machine.  After a few choice words, I give up, and prepare to push it up the hill (which is rather steep), and back down the alley to the garage.  At this point I look up to check for cars (I am sitting in the middle of the road, after all), and realize that the teenage fox has come to sit in the road next to me- 4 feet away!!   I look at it, it looks at me, and then, with that foxy lopsided grin, it walks in front of my scooter and into the neighboring yard.  I could have touched it!!  It's followed by it's brother (or sister), who gives me the same sassy look, and off it goes.  

Really, what is up with these foxes?  When did a stalled scooter become entertainment?  Why aren't they the least bit leery of a mint green machine in the middle of the road?  And the most important question:  Who knows how to fix scooters? 

You may remember from my very first post that I stated that I was a parrothead, also known as a devoted Jimmy Buffett fan.  I've been going to Buffett concerts since high school (which means over 15 years!), and I've been hooked since I saw him play for free at the Marcus Amphitheater during Summerfest.  Those were the good old days... 

Getting tickets to see Jimmy via ticketmaster these days is akin to winning the lottery.  We try every year, seated promptly at the computer at 10:00, high speed internet ready and waiting.  But the magic rarely happens- every once and a while we pull tickets for lawn seating, which I am waaaaay to old and not nearly drunk enough to endure for a 3 hour show.  We have a few connections to get tickets, and sometimes they come through, and sometimes they strike out too.  For the past month we have been tapping into all our connections, all our IOU's to get seats, and we were told last Friday (the day before the show), that there was none to be had.  So last Saturday morning I was glumly sitting at my computer, checking my emails, when I decided, on a whim, to see if any "day of" tickets had been released.  I entered the necessary info- 2 tickets, best available, any price,  decrypted the strange access code, and clicked on "Find Tickets".  Guess what?  The planets aligned, and a ray on sunshine shone down upon my roof, and suddenly my computer screen read- " 2 seats, Pavilion, covered, row CC seats 28-30.  It was a July miracle!!  I had 2 tickets to the show waiting for me at willcall!!

I bought the tickets (for $314, no less, these things aren't cheap) and promptly went to take a quick nap in preparation for a night of margarita madness.   Halfway into my nap, I heard the phone ring, and a few minutes later my Hubby comes into the bedroom and tells me we have a problem.  Apparently our "connection" had the same thoughts I did that day, and pulled us 2 tickets in the pavilion (again, over $300), which were waiting for us at willcall.  Now we had, 4 tickets, worth over $600, and we didn't need them!! 

All thoughts of our margarita madness were gone at this point, and we rushed down to Alpine Valley with the intention of picking up all 4 tickets and selling 2.  We arrived late in the afternoon, and we literally parked in the 2nd to last row of the farthest parking lot.  We ran the mile into the amphitheater, and all the while we are heading in through the crowd in the parking lot we were seeing tons of signs for tickets for sale.  We knew were screwed- based on the laws of supply and demand, we had supply, but no demand.  I began to panic that we had just wasted an extra $300 on tickets would never recover- that's a lot of money, folks. We arrived at willcall, sweaty and breathless, and handed the lady our driver's licenses so she can look up our tickets.  She smiles at us from her air conditioned booth and slides 2 tickets under the glass, and tells us to enjoy the show.  So where's the other 2 tickets?  We told her to check again, and gave her every possible permutation of our names, just to be sure.  But only 2 tickets were there, the ones I had purchased that morning.  How did this happen?  Was it another July miracle?  Did the margarita gods smile down on us?  We'll never know.  Our contact swears he booked them, but they weren't there, and haven't showed up on our credit card for the past week.

All in all, Jimmy played a great show- full of energy, spirit and whimsy that make all Buffett shows great.  The crowd was rocking, the margaritas were flowing, the pre-party tailgating in the parking lot was insane, and overall it was a fun way to escape the stresses of life.  And after the stresses of trying to get tickets, we sure needed it!

 For all intents and purposes, I am pretty normal gal.  I have a semi-normal life, married to my husband for almost 7 years, raising our little girl, working full time as a city inspector (more about that later), and just trying to keep things afloat on a daily basis.  I moved to Bay View a year ago and I LOVE it here.  But that's the boring stuff- here's a few things about me that are more interesting and somewhat entertaining:

1.  I love to Zumba.  For those of you who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, Zumba is a latin-inspired dance workout.  We salsa, meringue, cha-cha, reggaeton, hip hop and generally rock out and shake it for a hour at a time.  It's joyous and expressive, sassy and spicy, and an awesome workout.  I'm excited to try my moves out when hubby and I go to Mexico next month- I plan on hitting the dance floor!

2.  Be warned.  I have red hair and all the fire, temper, and passion that goes with it.  And so does my 4 year old daughter.  Pair that with my Type A personality and things can get a bit dramatic around here.  That alone keeps life pretty interesting.

3.  And speaking of red hair, my neighborhood is home to a family of beautiful red foxes.  If you live east of KK near Oklahoma Ave. you likely know exactly what I am talking about.  We see at least one of them almost daily, and for some reason I am fascinated with them!  These creatures are ridiculously bold, and kill things around my home on a regular basis.  It's like "Wild Kingdom" around here- and I have a bunch of stories to share.

4.  I run a local wine club.  Wine is one of my great passions- as a matter of fact I'm sipping a nice Albarino as I sit here and type.  I have made many dear friends through my club, which is comprised completely of women.  We meet monthly to explore a particular varietal, region, or style of wine.  It's a fun, boisterous time, and in between talking about our kids, husbands, favorite TV shows and assorted "girl chit chat", we even talk about wine!

 5.  Finally, I am a parrothead.  Translated- I am a huge Jimmy Buffett fan.  I'm still waiting to find my own personal Margaritaville, though I've definitely been to that One Particular Harbor.

That being said, I hope you enjoy reading my blogs in the days and months ahead.  I know I am looking forward to writing them.