Category: Horrordailies

Sunday Stealing: Autumn

Time for some Sunday Stealing!

1. Are there any fall-specific hobbies or crafts you enjoy pursuing?
Does Horrordailies count as a hobby? Having fun with it this year.

2. Do you have any favorite fall-inspired recipes you like to cook or bake?
The first batch of Grandma’s Vegetarian Slow-Cooker Chili is always special.

3. Are you a fan of Halloween? If so, what’s been your favorite costume?
It’s my favorite holiday! I’d say my favorite costume is Vampire’s Victim. I like to be ironic.

4.  Do you have any childhood memories related to the autumn season?
Considering my birthday is in October, yes.

5.  What kind of outdoor activities do you enjoy during the autumn months?
Walking, hiking, reading on the balcony.

6. Do you look forward to ‘sweata weatha’? What is your favorite go-to outfit for autumn?
I start looking forward to sweata weatha in June. Of the four seasons, I like summer fifth.

7. Are you a fan of pumpkin or apple flavored treats or beverages?
Pumpkin treats with apple beverages.

8. Which fall scents do you find most appealing?
Air. I live in the D.C. metro area. By mid-July just breathing is a reminder that the District was built on a swamp. Also, warm apple cobbler, pumpkin pie, mulled wine, allspice.

9. Do you like to visit apple orchards or pumpkin patches or corn mazes?
I haven’t been to an apple orchard in 30 years, but I would love to go. When I went, we did “gleaning,” where we went through all of the recently fallen apples that couldn’t be sold to bag them up for food banks.

10. Have you ever participated in or attended a fall festival or harvest fair?
In my college days my then-sweetheart and I used to go to the Feast of San Gennaro festival in New York. He was Jewish but everyone thought he was Irish and they would yell things at him from the game booths, like, “Hey, Irish boy, win your nice Italian girlfriend a prize!” I supposed he kind of looked Irish, with black hair, green eyes, some freckles, and a smallish nose that was absolutely a plastic surgeon’s work.

11. What’s your favorite thing about autumn?
The cooler weather. But I think it will be my new tradition to leave the country for Thanksgiving. Bird-loving vegetarian-near-vegan here. The last thing I want to see on a table is a bird carcass.

12. Are you more of a cider or hot chocolate person when it comes to fall beverages?
Hot chocolate.

13. What’s your ideal way to spend a crisp autumn evening?
Windows open, watching a movie. Or maybe going for a walk to see Halloween decorations.

14. Do you like to dress up for Halloween? What’s your favorite costume or what costume do you plan for this year? Do you like to make your own costume?
I haven’t dressed up in years. I keep saying that one day I’ll have a costume-required Halloween party but I’m not sure I’d be all that great a hostess anymore. I’ve become defensive of my lair and kind of lazy about dealing with food. Maybe if I could have it catered.

15. Are you a football fan? What’s your favorite team?
I used to be a huge Jets fan, but I haven’t watched football in years. Not even the Super Bowl, actually. Too many bros acting up with their toxic masculinity, too many commercials, too much overt sexuality with women in skimpy costumes (see “toxic masculinity” earlier in the sentence). Just not my thing anymore.

But let’s end this on a fun note, shall we? Came across these nice folks on a walk with friends today. The song that popped into my head was “Groovin’,” by The Young Rascals, because I’m twisted like that.

Groovin’ on a Sunday afternoon.

Kudos to the homeowners. Also, kudos for D.C. not being New York, because in New York all of that would have been stolen, including the bistro set. My only suggestion is to not use that decorative webbing. Birds and other critters can get caught in it.

Side By Side

I took the photo above at Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, Poland last month. I was struck by how ivy had blanketed the graves, turning them into earthen beds where two souls lie in eternal slumber. I’m not a romantic by a long shot, but the way the ivy came together in the middle, as though this husband and wife had reached out to one another and joined together even in death, brought a tear to my eye.

Heart at Home

Thought I’d wrap up this week’s tales of weirdness at various apartments by saying that nothing unpleasant has ever happened where I live now. Anything that has happened here that one could consider otherworldly has come from Inigo.

I’ve chronicled his passing and a few of the early signs of his continued presence on this website, but I’ve felt his presence here many, many times. I feel it the strongest when I’m in the living room playing games on my tablet or goofing off coloring with the TV on in the background. Sometimes I feel him pretty strongly when I’m in his bathroom, the guest bathroom where I used to give him baths. He loved that bathroom and loved getting spritzed with a water bottle there. And he comes to visit in dreams. Every night I tell him and another birdie I once had, Jimmy the Green Cheek, to come and visit if they like and have no important birdie business to attend to, and sometimes they take me up on it.

I feel Inigo’s presence in all kinds of places, too: On a line at a salad shop when one of his favorite songs came on the speakers (“Wake Me Up,” by Avicii and Aloe Blacc); in Warsaw just before a Poets of the Fall concert started, during a recorded intro by Marko Saaresto where at one point he talks about loved ones; on walks either alone or with friends; and while I write, especially about Inigo himself. He loves hearing how wonderful he is, heh.

There is still grief, however. There are times when my heart breaks all over again for missing his physical presence—the softness of his feathers, the warmth of his little body when he sat on my chest as we watched TV together, the spiciness of his scent, the silliness of our conversations. They say grief comes in waves, and every now and then the waves feel like a tsunami. One night it was particularly bad and I went over to his house and picked up the little towels he once slept upon to see if they still smelled like him. The far corner where he used to sleep was warm. Just the corner, the spot where he would hunker down and pull back the edges to make a little pillow to rest his chin. The rest of the towels were cool, and only the one on top was warm. It was like he had just been there a moment before. That has only happened once since then, so I leave the towels there and the cage door open in case he wants to come and hang out. He loved to hang out on the door, too.

Photo of a Nanday Conure sitting on the open door of a cage in a living room.
Inigo, just hanging out being a happy, curious bird.

Overall, this is a pretty clear apartment, though. It had a happy vibe when I first came to look at it. I believe the tenants before me came in as a couple and moved out as a family of four. It looked like my home office was once a nursery, and a toddler had drawn on one of the walls. There are still faint vestiges of chalk drawings on the bricks on the balcony, too—hearts, happy faces, and stick figures. The landlord installed new flooring and new fixtures and appliances for me, too.  

One of those fixtures did give me a fright one night, however. Imagine watching a ghost-hunting show and this happens:

Yep, the water just turned on by itself. It kept happening, which is how I was able to take a video of it, and I figured out that pulling the handle forward when I turned off the faucet would prevent it. That was last November, and I just keep forgetting to have someone from maintenance look at it. Plus, I tested it over the summer and nothing happened, so it’s probably some sort of part that contracts in the dry winter air and needs to be replaced.

I hope.