Not sure if you noticed, but it’s autumn.

Seattle has a lot of trees. Right about now the leaves leap from the trees and, gravity being what it is, collect on the ground.

You may have heard: it rains now and then, too.

Like an armada of mindless droids the maintenance folks hit the sidewalks with their leaf blowers. I saw three on my way to work this morning, each strapped into a gas-powered blower, contentedly relocating the leaves from the sidewalks into the street.

Where they promptly clog up the storm drains.

Leading to minor floods throughout the city, which causes traffic backups and pedestrian nightmares.

Navigating the streets this morning required fancy footwork and quick reflexes; I had to jump out of the way numerous times as cars went by, or I would have been completely drenched in dirty water. Some intersections required major detours to find a passable route (I didn’t wear my waders today). I have yet to understand why the City allows folks to blow leaves into the streets. Why can’t they bag ‘em up? Why can’t they help instead of contributing to the problem?  At one intersection I saw a City worker squatting next to a drain, cramming leaves through the storm water grate with a screwdriver in an attempt to get some water off the roads.

All words capitalized, because this is a band name and not a description of my pants.

Take a look: Pocket Full Of Rocks

Two of the band members are family, so I feel fully authorized to publish a blog post touting their band. The cool recent news is that one of their songs is climbing the charts in iTunes! Right this very minute their song “Alive” is #20 in their genre (Christian). Go check ‘em out!

With the holidays fast approaching, I’m afraid I have to start screening what projects I show you online. I know, it’s a bummer — but it would be even more of a bummer for one of my giftees to stumble across my blog and learn what they are getting for Christmas. (not that I think that is terribly likely; I see my blog stats. Nobody reads this nonsense.)

So, on that note, here is Penelope.

She just joined the ranks of knitted monsters sharing my apple bowl – Audrey moved out last weekend so there was room. Nurple is currently sporting the pumpkin hat that I knit for my niece but since I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks she hasn’t gotten to wear it. Yes, I know Halloween is over. Someone should tell my sister to visit more often. She doesn’t listen to me.

(patterns by Rebecca Danger / Danger Crafts)

Pumpkin carving time! Here are our offerings this year:

This skinny fellow has taken up residence outside my office door.

While this unlucky (and emotionally disturbed) bride flies overhead.

Down the hall, a new cupboard has been discovered – one filled with all kinds of curious items…

I best watch my step. Who knows what I might encounter!

WHY are companies allowed to use leaf blowers???  They stink, they are loud, they blow grit into pedestrians’ eyes, and they just BLOW THE LEAVES INTO THE STREET, where they block the sewer grates. We have enough problems with leaves blocking the storm drains without the maintenance folks adding more. What the heck is wrong with people? The City spends hundreds of thousands of dollars sucking out the storm drains, digging out rotting leaves, and dealing with flooding issues and lo and behold companies are allowing their maintenance folks to just blow leaves from the sidewalk into the street. Why can’t they scoop them up?

My favorite pair of gloves has had a divorce.

Not an amicable one, but a nasty “I never want to see you again” event, wherein I am left with just one glove to wear because the other has packed up and moved out to parts unknown.  They started out the month just fine, accompanying me to and from work each day, keeping my hands toasty during the driving rain, insulating me from the chilly steering wheel. But obviously, Something Bad happened during the night because this morning there is just one sad, lonely, regretful glove in my tote bag and it’s mate is nowhere to be found. We checked the usual pouting places: the floorboard of the car, behind the front door, under the couch; all to no avail. My gloves have had spats before but they’ve always been resolved quickly and the pair united, usually with me coaxing the grouchy mate out from behind the bookcase.

This time just feels different.

Well, this is it. Today I turned the garden over for the winter, removed the tomato cages, took out the bean poles, and harvested the very last edibles: one sugar pumpkin, one very tiny tomato, a handful of potatoes, and some carrots.

The onions and garlic that I put out in the spring are nowhere near being ready to eat (I now know that those should go out in the fall) so I lifted and thinned them, and replanted them into one box. They are puny and weak-looking, but I know that they will winter over and then the bulbs will spring forth with new growth.

It’s kind of sad to look out at the garden now, all empty and bleak… But at the same time it’s almost like a promise, ya know? I got a lot of food out of those six little garden boxes and I am already planning what I’ll plant next year.

We were out of regular hot cocoa, so I had a cup of the sugar-free kind at my office (artificially sweetened with Splenda / sucralose) because I realllllly wanted some hot cocoa. It’s cold and rainy, perfect cocoa weather.

Headache set in about an hour after drinking it.

Stupid Splenda.

Look like it’s confirmed: I can’t have that stuff. It’s a shame, because I don’t like the taste of the pink or blue sweeteners (saccharin and aspartame, respectively) and I’m rather against artificial sweeteners in general due to their ‘artificial-ness’, and stevia causes me a bit of intestinal upset (which is odd because it’s often used to soothe intestinal upset)…  It’s frustrating, to say the least.

Finished the hat Tuesday night. So cute! Now to get it to the wee niece before Halloween.

This was knit with Cascade 220 superwash wool, and used very little of it…  I could probably get four (baby) hats out of the orange. Hmm…

The pattern is the Berry Baby Hat (Ravelry link) and worked up easily. I added the rows of slipped rib every 8th stitch to give it a little more dimension.

(sorry for the tiny picture, was taken with my iphone)