October Draws to a Close

The weather this month was just amazing.

Sneaking photos in my fave antique shop.

More pretty sunsets...very fleeting now that the days are getting shorter.  This one made me think of "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake.

October was a rough month, overall.  As much as I loved the weather and great foliage, I couldn't wait for it to end.  I knew for awhile that it was going to be a challenge but it's been 10x worse than I was expecting and to say I'm burned out and stressed out is an understatement.  Finally got a resume up on a couple of job websites but so far the 'offers' have been garbage; chew-you-up-and-spit-you-out companies heavy on sales, like Aflac.  No thank you, I'm not aggressively pushing selling insurance.

Oh this is a hoot.  There I am at a little after 7 pm, watching TV, playing on line as per usual, on October 16 when all of a sudden my entire house shook like crazy.  I was like, Are you KIDDING ME?  I move east figuring at least I can leave that whole pesky earthquake thing behind and this is the second time since I've been back that I've felt one here.  Bad enough that I was already thinking about the fact that the following day was October 17th, the 23rd anniversary of Loma Prieta in California.  It was a 4.0, with the epicenter in southcentral Maine, kinda near where I went to college at St. Joe's. It was surprising how fast the PTSD kicked in.  My heart pounded and adrenaline surged for quite awhile afterwards.  I didn't hear about any major damage and the jokes started flying fairly quickly.

But there were a few bright spots, of course.  Weekends with my sweetie, which are all too short.  Also had lunch with The Girls (Liz who was in town from VT, Marsha & Nancy) at Bobby Byrne's in Sandwich one foggy Saturday afternoon.  We spied the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile over by Stop & Shop.  These three pics are photos I took on my cell phone and then emailed to myself because I have a very unsophisticated phone.  They came out pretty good, considering.  

Hard to believe it was 2 years ago that I last went to Victoria (October 21 & 22, 2010).  And I didn't even know yet that it would be my last trip there, possibly forever.  Been getting homesick for the PNW the past few weeks.  Fall is the best up there and I do miss the pink sunrises and sunsets against Mt. Rainier.  I wish now I'd stayed an extra night in Victoria and done the float plane trip and gone over to Esquimalt Lagoon and the Fisgard Lighthouse.  Totally blew it, I did. 

More fall pics in E. Sandwich.

Locust trees

Another fine day, Marsha & I took a drive up to see Susan in North Eastham, with a quick detour at Veteran's Beach in Hyannis on the way up.

Susan lives across from the road to Nauset Light Beach, on the Atlantic side, which is part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.   Here's a map to give you an idea of where we were.

Nauset Light Beach

It's a great walking beach as the sand is a little easier to walk on.

It's not at all as rocky as the Bay side beaches are and it's not very good for glass either.  Still, I'd love to take my metal detector there because there were hundreds of shipwrecks offshore before the Canal was built in the early 1900s.  Every now and then, this area experiences a strange phenomena where whales, especially pilot whales, will beach themselves.  One year in the 80s, over 30 of them beached themselves up and down this stretch of beach.  It was really sad.  

The waves pushed the sand up into this bank.

It reminds me of a tinier version of the mesas, buttes and towers like out in Utah & Wyoming, and the cliffside homes of the ancient Anasazi in New Mexico.

Top of the dunes.

Nauset Light

We went out to dinner with my squeeze's bff and her hubby at a cool restaurant in Plymouth called Rio's Steakhouse.  It's a Brazilian-style restaurant, which is a cuisine that's taken off around here.  There's a buffet with salad, deviled eggs, veggies, fruits, beans, white rice, vegetable rice, etc.  You can easily fill up on the buffet but if you do that you will be too full to eat the variety of meats that are brought to your table on a rotisserie spit, hot from the fire.  Oh. My. God.  It was incredible!!  The bacon wrapped chicken was easily my favourite.  I also really liked the pineapple that had a coconutty/burnt sugar type 'crust' on the outside.  It was soooo good.

In other news, just found an awesome blog called Pinstrosity.  It's pretty amusing and kinda good to know that I'm not the only one having trouble with some of the Pinterest ideas.  I will have to send them some of my Pinterest fails and see if they will be featured.  ;-D  Like the 'tie dyed' roses.  Or when I set the toaster oven on fire trying to melt beads.

As I write this, there is a  pretty large storm system moving north.  The media has everyone whipped into a frenzy about it, calling it 'Frankenstorm' because it was supposed to mess with Halloween, but it looks like it will hit my area on Monday, 10/29.  I hope we don't lose power or cable, and if we do, not for long.  My love will be on the road, so I worry.  I'll be home alone with the doggies, and I have plenty I can do during the daylight that doesn't require electricity if we lose it.  It just sucks at night to have no power and try to read by candle- or flashlight.  Then there's the loss of frozen food factor too which also sucks.  Hopefully it won't hit us as hard as they think.  But there is a cold front to the west and if it collides with the tropical Hurricane Sandy, we are screwed.  It could be worse than the tropical storm/hurricane we had in August, 2011, and we were w/o power & cable for 36 or so hours, which kinda sucked.  This storm, however, appears ready to turn inland way farther south than me, in the mid-Atlantic around NJ or DC.  That means rain and wind here but not the brunt of it.  Still, it is going to be a big one and I hate having to be alone here w/o Russell.  I wish he could be home with me.  :*(

If you don't see me around the blogosphere after Monday, assume I am without power and/or internet.