I’ve gone and done it!  A Sukkot mini-garden glow!  Shimmering white and blue lights in the sukkah and gardens.  Sukkot is like a grand finale of the harvest before darkness sets in, so might as well celebrate it with a full fae light show.  Call me eccentric, but I can’t get enough of this stuff.  I think even Avdi was impressed.

Not to be outdone by myself, I set up plant lights and plants on top of shelves in the office and dining room, so there’s some green ambience here and there, lighting up dark corners.  I think A, and even Y, liked the improvement.  Y and I and the rat family were hanging out while A was out at one of E’s drama productions at the HS.  Y was sewing on his new sewing machine in the office, probably creating a renfaire outfit for tomorrow, while the rats had taken over their giant theme park/Y’s room.

Shabbat dinner was very harvesty, with sweet corn and a salad featuring assorted sweet peppers from the garden.  There’s still no lack of flowers putting on their final bursts of color and nectar before dormancy sets in.  I even managed a whole new succession planting of assorted lettuces, greens, and root veggies to carry us through fall.  Not surprisingly, new volunteer tomatoes are coming up everywhere.

Last but not least, Avdi drove me and my tropical plants home to join the others.  It’s now very jungly at my apartment.  I may need a machete soon!  Pics later, when the sun comes up.

When I realized it’s starting to get down into the forties at night, I knew what I had to do today: get ready to move tropicals inside or into more protected locations.  So Avdi’s plants are now indoors, and mine are awaiting transport.

I also loaded the spare poles into the cleaned out shed, along with all the tinder and kindling.  I carried the cleared silphium stems to the open compost.   I made paths in the veg garden and behind the trampoline.  I hoed out some compost from the compost bin and applied it to the raised bed with the passionflower seeds.  I raked out E’s “secret garden”.  I watered everything out back and front.

I did my usual indoor chores and prepared dinner, then walked home.  Just as I was one block away from Watson, I witnessed an older man fall down flat on his face in a side street and just lie there.  I ran over and slowly helped him up and applied tissues to the profusely bleeding bridge of his nose.  Mostly his injuries were superficial, and he didn’t seem to be lightheaded.  Three other people came running to help just as I got there–two older ladies and a young guy who pulled over.  The man  didn’t need us to call anyone, and eventually walked to the next street where he was headed.  Still, it was disconcerting, and I could empathize.  That could have been me.

As I got to Watson, I saw flashing lights, and a fire truck was just pulling out of the apartments.  What was it now?!  The full moon is ebbing, so not that.  Anyway, I couldn’t detect anything off when I got inside.  Still, it seemed like an evening of bad omens.

Today was a perfect early fall day, cool, sunny, breezy, and dry.  I couldn’t wait to plant the rest of my native flowers, and string up the new light strings in the sukkah and garden.  I planted purple coneflower, passion flower vine, Bush’s poppy mallow, and prairie smoke.  I went ahead and cleared the rest of the side rock garden and other areas to make appropriate spaces.  If even any of all the above come up next year, it will be gorgeous, and attract even more beneficial pollinators and critters.  One more reason to not die!

Gourds and orna-corn don’t hang themselves (unless they’re suicidal), so that’s what I did today!  The sukkah is now officially harvestized.  Tomorrow some string lights will arrive and be the final touch.  Speaking of harvest, the peppers and eggplants have finally taken off–it only took all season.

Y at least had an excuse, having become a rat-daddy.  He spent the night and day with them, as they acclimate to their new surroundings.  I got to meet them today and hold one.  I’m so animal-deprived, I believe we shall get along.  They’re prettier than I expected; one’s a Siamese.

I started to plant my new native flowers–so far wild blue phlox, New England asters, and wild hyacinth.  I have four more kinds to go.  This way they can stratify all winter, the easy natural way.  It was a great day for it–cool, breezy, a hint of possible rain, and that indefinable autumnal change in the air.

I’ve also been prepping the tropicals and succulents to go inside, by spraying them with natural insecticides, and hosing them down.  Most will join my jungle; some are for Avdi’s.

I made dinner (Asian dumplings) and took mine in the sukkah.

It was actually too buggy and muggy to do much outside, so I did homey stuff, and prepared a sukkah-friendly dinner, should anyone choose to eat out there.  (Only Avdi and I opted for it, briefly.)  I mixed us these mojitos.

You’d think, with these epic cloud formations, and the heavy atmosphere, that it would rain, but we’re still waiting.

Then A and Y were off to meet Y’s new rat family and bring them home. The cage is like a luxury penthouse, taking up half the room.  I guess it will keep him off the streets.

Avdi and friends/family worked extremely hard on this year’s sukkah.  He went full lumberjack, as you’ll see.  Our friend G helped a lot.  Avdi says I worked hard, too.  It was an all-consuming project.  Even after dark, K and G were out there applying branches.  And behold, there was a sukkah in the morning, just awaiting touches.  Later that evening, we held the charcuterie meeting in the sukkah.  The photos pretty much tell the story.

Besides for erev preps, yesterday I reseeded the cilantro, planted native butterfly milkweed seeds in several places to stratify over winter, repotted some tropicals, and watered.

Dinner was quiet, as each of the kids quickly retreated to their various lairs.

Then I stayed late so Avdi and Joyce could go to a Gary Numan concert, which looks to have been epic.  It remained eerily quiet at home, as the kids may have worn themselves out with all their latest adventures.  I actually dozed off.  As I expect you’re doing if you’re still with me.

Today begins the sukkah building, a highlight of our year, so I must sign off.

I did a liquid fast for YK.  I took advantage of my old sick person dispensation and compromised!  Cuz I gotta take the drugs with something, y’know.

I walked to Avdi’s, did some serious garden stuff just to feel useful, then took it easy.  Around 4 I cheated a tiny bit (so I could take meds).  At drink o’clock (5), I broke my drink fast with a real drink!  I was impressed that Avdi fasted through the work day until literal sunset, and so did E!  Not sure about the others.  As I made dinner, E was prepping his own high protein diet.  I inhaled spaghetti and meatballs, then walked home at sundown under the moon.  The clouds looked like peach ice cream, my favorite summertime flavor!  (Me not obsessed with food!)

Here’s what I did in the garden: I covered the weed-overgrown section (formerly the strawberry patch) of the perennial food beds with cardboard and then wood chips, and watered it in.  It may be the only strategy that works.  I’ll have to get more plants in spring and start over.  But look how improved it looks!

I’ve included photos of the garden work I did yesterday (the silphium stalks came down after all), plus the neighbor kitty relaxing in the front garden.

Yes, the country is being destroyed by violent psychopaths as we speak, but that’s just too unspeakable for words.  I stick to what I somewhat understand.

This will not be your typical Yom Kippur post, whatever that means, being in an extremely non-neuro”typical” family.

While I was having a nice productive gardening day, Avdi was dealing with impossibly complicated issues relating to the kids’ mental health, ridiculously unaffordable and inaccessible therapists and psychiatrists for the whole family, and the vicious cycle of trying to focus on the work that will not ever quite support all these needs, while having to lose work focus/time to deal with delinquent kids, and feeling like a failing parent.  Like I said, complicated.  That’s only the synopsis.

Skip to our monthly date, which Avdi needed to keep if only to briefly escape all the trauma at home.  For me, it was another colorful adventure in this strange city that never fails to amaze.  So much going on around each corner.

First, I finally got to see Avdi’s workspace, Nebula.  It was nothing like the boring office space I had been picturing!  See for yourself!  I just love the touch of the urinal planter!

Then we hung out on Cherokee, bar-hopping.  These two joints, The Whiskey Ring and Yaquis Pizza, were both interesting in different ways.  I had a very good Sazerac with absinthe in the first, where we went and sat outside.  The whole time, Avdi was having to deal with Y’s latest misdemeanors.  But at least he was able to share a little with me.

The second one had excellent pizza, and live jazz.  I actually didn’t get a second drink, GF.  Amusing drunk characters kept talking to me.  It felt a little like Baltimore, sort of eccentric/homey.  Sadly, Avdi’s concerns were still pressing, just not as adjacent.  Inevitably, he would have to go home and face it all head-on.

As we walked to the car, these people were creating some kind of indescribable (analog electronic?) music out in an empty lot, under the moon.  We hung out there for a while.  As I said, this city is full of unexpected surprises and creativity.

So now it’s Yom Kippur, but the continuing drama of dealing with divergent needs doesn’t stop for even the holiest of holy days.  I know Avdi feels hopeless much of the time, and I can see why.  Of course it’s the system failing us, not him failing to handle the impossible singlehandedly, but that doesn’t ease the worry.  I feel powerless to help ; all I can do is hope to keep supporting myself so I don’t become an additional drain, and try to find small ways to ease his daily reality.

If I believed in the gods of vengeance, I would insist they quickly bring karmic hell down upon these wicked, depraved fascists, as justice demands.  That’s my YK “prayer”.

Yesterday I raked out the whole front length of neglected rock garden along the fence, except for the remaining silphium (cup plant) stalks that haven’t keeled over yet.  I’m trying to keep a balance between leaving things alone for critters to overwinter in, and prepping the area for native flower seeds that I’m going to introduce to stratify over winter.  Once everything is seeded, I can go ahead and let leaves naturally mulch all the beds.

I also raked out the two raised beds in the back along the same fence.  I’m not sure yet what to use them for this time around, since the pumpkins, melons, etc. didn’t work out there.  For now I’ll just mulch them with leaves and wood chips to break down over winter.  (Just thinking out loud here; my strategies change every five minutes.  It’s the middle of the night, and playing garden chess in my mind is what I do for fun.)

It may not look like it to an outsider, that is, someone who doesn’t see the whole underground picture, but with a little “help” from me, our small part of the landscape will hopefully become even more attractive and beneficial to more native pollinators and wildlife that are essential to balance the whole ecosystem which includes us.  Another small island of life in a barren manicured wasteland of exotic invasives, toxic chemicals, and development.  If you think I’m exaggerating, fact-check me.  It may not change the eventual destruction of our planet, but it’s what I can do right now.  Oct. 1, and still summery.