This should be the last mowing of the season.  Still, there is always something going on in nature to photograph.  I’m still getting tomatoes, and there’s fennel.  The orna-peppers are still being decorative, and mint flowers are in bloom.  The birds and squirrels have been fed, so they’re not complaining.  And for a consolation prize, a good coffee stout can never hurt.

The darker half of the year is The Skullies’ time, so they’ve come out of their box-guarding exile to  look festive among their bat, cat, and owl buds.  (All the others are, sadly, packed away for moving.)

We went to our first official Rocky Horror Picture Show late last night at the Little Art Theatre.  (I’ve somehow only seen the movie, not the event, and E had seen neither in its original version.)  It was relatively tame, as RHPShows go–no messy throwing things or virgin-hazing–but still lots of enthusiastic audience partici-(say it!)-pation and props.  It was a lot of fun.  Also much cozier than the big ZombieFest going on out in the cold.  Here’s one of our fellow participants, helpfully posing.

Of course we first paid a visit to HQ for some hot drinks.  Our fellow clientele were in costume, and the atmosphere was halloweeny.

We don’t go out much, having very little disposable money, but we’ve found inexpensive ways to escape our restrictive confines and worries for brief periods.  A small price to pay for mental healthcare.

While I was eldercaregiving in the Vortex, I watched the economy, healthcare industry, and other essential human needs and rights deteriorating as conservatives gained power.  And this was before trump, who is taking our social foundation to a new all-time low.  I predicted then that people would find themselves increasingly banding together in nonconventional family/communal living arrangements in order to survive and make ends meet.

Economy experts are now observing this phenomenon becoming more common, on many levels of society.  Older people without family or resources to fall back on are finding and living with others in the same boat, and pooling resources to pay bills and look out for each other.  Adult kids of different parents, struggling just to find living wages, never mind affordable college educations, are spending longer periods living under parents’ roofs to save money.  Everywhere in between on the spectrum, family structures that no longer function are giving way to nontraditional arrangements that do.

It’s a form of social evolution and survival of the fittest.  You must adapt to survive.  We were heading in this direction already, but trump has ensured that we’re screwed unless we improvise and devise new strategies on our own.  The old safety nets are no longer assured.  The very founding principles that define our democracy are no longer respected by our so-called leaders and their mindless followers.  We’re pretty much left to our own devices.

So life goes on in our own nonconventional household, as in others.  Without it, I’d probably be homeless under my proverbial overpass.  I’m one of the fortunate ones.

After making two of her famous savory “Pies Italiano” (with smily faces), E and I went to our favorite Yellow Springs haunts on a dark, rainy evening.

We had a good Bell’s best brown ale at the Tavern, which was looking appropriately haunty, ducked into Dark Star to visit Mister Eko the cat and his humans (and buy some cookbooks), and then saw the excellent movie “Victoria and Abdul”, with Judi Dench and Ali Fazal at the Little Art Theatre.  The cozy red vintage venue, filled with oldster Dench-o-philes, all cackling out loud, was just the right viewing atmosphere for this beautiful Victorian/Indian story.

It’s still rainy and chilling down, which is the way I feel right now.  Of course all our winter supplies were packed up somewhere for moving long ago, but we make do.  Nothing a little bourbon can’t alleviate.

Beer imitating life.  Beer wins.

Anyone whose had a major loss in their life will tell you time isn’t always a healer.  Sometimes you get more numb as you learn to move on, but you still live with the emptiness, damage, and sometimes, regrets.  I witness this firsthand every day.

Time is a revealer.  It will eventually uncover and reveal the truth of a situation, after the fact.  That you can rely on.  Whether it’s an evil dictator, or your close family member, time will always be revealing.  Sometimes all we can do is be patient and spectate.

In other news, I wish a speedy recovery to my family in TN, who all have a horrible projectile bug, on top of everything else.  🙁  It can only get better from there (one can hope).

We “discovered” Honey Creek Preserve, a pleasant walk through prairie fields, wetlands, and woods, along a winding creek with fish.  There were tangles of tree roots like mangroves out over the water.  There were some very large mantises in the fields of tall native grasses.

This park is probably another example of some old farm family selling their land to the county for parkland, after they could no longer afford to farm it.  Other farms either got absorbed into the huge industrial mega-growers, or were reduced to commercial family tourist traps, with outsourced produce.

While we’re in this forced holding pattern for a few more months, this is how we keep on remembering to breathe and get out of our small space once in a while, before we suffocate.  Also it’s free.

I’ve been remiss in my usual erev (and beer) post tradition, because it didn’t feel very appropriate under the circumstances.  So I’m just belatedly posting these pics, as if to say, some things in life, however mundane, can go on consistently and normally in the face of devastation.  In fact sometimes they must, to convey a sense of reassurance that all is not lost, that some things remain dependable.  Even grownup grieving children need that sometimes.

This will go down as one of the saddest days for my family in personal history.  My son and grandkids are in my thoughts as they try to navigate this rough road ahead.  I wish I could be there, but all things in good time.

We took a stroll (after our recent adventure, all parks are miniature strolls) at Charleston Falls.  My heart was not in it as much, but it helps take one out of oneself a little.