Sunday stuff.

When I went into town before the weekend, at least half a dozen people said to me "So how are you liking the cooler weather? Isn't this just so nice?" I smiled and said it was wonderful, but inside I was just laughing. By cooler weather here, they were talking about temperatures in the mid to upper 80s, which I guess is cooler than the last five months of high 90s and low 100s. We are into what I call the Second Spring.... the mornings tend to be a little crisp. Not cool enough for a sweater, but cool enough to think you may have gotten out of bed in another part of the state further north.

The cats are indeed loving these cooler days..... both Mickey and Sweet Pea have been chasing the chickens again-- something they don't bother doing when it's so hot outside. Gatsby does not chase the hens.... either he's too lazy or he knows better. I would imagine that any of the cats would be able to catch the hens if they really wanted to, but I think it's more of a game with them. I don't know what they find most enjoyable with the hens-- the chasing, or the squawking.
We drove up to College Station yesterday....... my husband looked around his favorite hardware store up there, and I looked around the bookstore. Of course I found things... clearance items for just a dollar each. I could easily fill up a shopping bag with clearance-priced hardcovers, but I just don't buy the best-sellers that I know I will never read again, and won't be missing anything at all by not reading them the first time. The recent exception to that rule was "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett. I read a review of that book, which prompted me to search for it on Half.com (always clearance prices on that web-site). What a great book that was..... I had to stop myself from reading it too fast.

This week is the annual neighborhood get-together. All around the country, it's held in August. I think they call it "Neighbors Night Out," or some such thing. I don't much care for it, I have to say. We had that up in our old neighborhood..... and my husband and I went to it the first couple of years, then we quit. It was just too hot to hang out in the middle of the cul de sac for the block party on a summer's night in early August. Plus, the whole idea of this "Night Out" thing is to enable neighbors to get together. My husband and I got together with our neighbors all the time, what with all the lunches, dinners, and parties we used to give for every holiday we could think of, and some we made up on our own (like the Harry Potter Party when the last book in the series was released). We honestly didn't need a scheduled night to get together with friends.

Somewhere along the Texas lines here, the night in August was switched to a night in October... because the weather is cooler here in our "Second Spring." But the premise is the same..... get together with all of your neighbors, bring a pot-luck covered dish and a lawn chair, and make nice. Give me a blessed break. We don't host the huge parties here that we hosted in Clear Lake...... but we have invited new friends over for dinner, for cards, for dessert. We don't live in an area filled with couples who are going to want to dress up for a Halloween party, or enjoy a huge Charades party with 30 people. I just can't see that happening up here, which is why we haven't planned one of those parties. (I truly miss them, though.)

Last year when we went to our first Neighbor's Night Out, people were saying "See y'all next year!" as they left at the end of the night. What?! My husband and I laughed at that, but we soon learned that what was said was exactly what happened. Except for our close-by friends, we have not seen any of the further-away neighbors who said 'See you next year.' So of course, now that the Night Out thing is getting closer, I'm sitting here asking myself if I truly want to go to a get-together filled with people who I have not seen in a year's time and then won't see again in another year's time.

The answer is no, of course, but we'll go anyway. This year's event is being hosted by our friends J & J-- we see them all the time. We don't need a state-sanctioned specific night to get together with our friends. Give me a blessed break. I would guess, with the weather being so nice and pretty the way it is now, there's no way I could catch the flu between today and the date of this Night Out thing. I know that sounds so terrible, but I can't help it. I just have this thing about made-up events that have no meaning whatsoever with groups of people who don't normally choose to be social. And please-- don't even give me one of those stick-on paper name tags..... that's the first clue you will have for a bad party. When you're handed one of those at a front door, you may as well turn around and walk right out.

My friend Frankie used to always refuse those paper tags...... and if someone insisted that she have one (as happened at an office party that she had to attend), she took the stick-on tag and peeled off the backing and stuck it right on the backside of her dress. Frankie always said that when you give out name tags like that, you're taking away the opening line of a potentially good conversation between strangers. (As in "Hi! My name is...... I'm so happy to meet you!")

Oh well...... I told my husband that I don't intend to volunteer hosting one of these Night Out things. If we want to do a party, we'll do it with our own guest list of friends, on the night of our choosing. I swear, none of our friends have ever walked out of our house and said "See y'all next year!"