It's All About the Pants

***first para to be read in a deep voice, with a hand to one ear like the guy doing v/o for a movie trailer***

In a world where global warming screws with our temperature-focused brains I stand tall - well, at least 5'10' - among my neighbours and friends and wear shorts at the crack of spring. No, that's not a euphemism for having forgotten my belt. It's an expression of optimism. You might say that in my house April showers lose long May trousers. (Yeah, I thought of that myself.)

Cargo shorts, golf shorts, cut-offs - you name it, I can't wait to expose my scrawny little legs to all and sundry not to mention all the sunshine. It's as if someone brainwashed me, like in that movie Manchurian Candidate - the one with Frank Sinatra, not Denzil Washington - into wearing shorts from May to October. Thankfully I do not cluck like a chicken.

And once I don shorts there's no going back. Let the temperature take an unseasonable dip, I'm still wearing my shorts. Like several weeks back when I went to see my three grandkids play hockey in two different arenas. Cold? Like, yeah - I don't know if you knew this or not but they play hockey on ice, eh. And I wore my shorts. And now I have a cold. And like my wife told me ahead of time to wear long pants. And I thought to myself "Long pants? Bah. It isn't even October yet".

So now I have a cold and long pants. But it wasn't easy. For me the first sign of autumn isn't a date or coloured leaves or brisk, foggy mornings or early sunsets or NFL football or the end of Master Chef or even the new TV fall line-up. It's long pants. More to the point, I have discovered, it's attempting to pull up those long pants over a somewhat protruding belly that's a little more protruding than it was in May when it started to run unchecked and unbelted. I wonder if I may have had a few too many Sausage/Egg McMuffins over the summer.

I may now need a professional to brainwash me into cutting back on those McMuffins not to mention getting into my pants. Cluck, cluck.

The Studio30+ prompt was brainwash/gaslight this week. I always thought gaslight was something else but I may have been brainwashed on that.

My Back Pages - October

Well, folks, I read seven (count 'em) seven books in October. One I didn't finish but even at that I hit the magic number 50 I estimated for myself by the end of the year. The six books I successfully waded through were, firstly, What Happened, Hillary Clinton's book on her bid for the Presidency. I''m a bit of a political junkie so I get off on this stuff but still it kinda struck me as one long whine over losing. Next up was the excellent Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and Music of Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon was the fabled area outside of Los Angeles where many musicians and artists lived. Known as a 60s enclave, the book takes a look at just who lived there over the last 80 years. A fascinating read. Next up was Lightfoot, a biography of Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot. He may have been responsible for some iconic folk songs but he was also quite the womanizer and boozer. Enough said. Then I read Dan Brown's new tome Origin, the fifth ...

The Polka Dot Door

A long time ago, when I was 22, my first child was born. That kid grew up on a little Canadian kid's show called Polka Dot Door, produced by the TV Ontario network. And Dad, more often than not, sat through those shows with his little one. Nine or so years later when a brother, and a year after that when a sister came along number one son was moving on to Knight Rider and The Dukes of Hazzard. But there was a nice overlap where his siblings picked up where he had left off with Polka Dot Door. And Dad was right there to welcome them. So you're looking at a Polka Dot Door veteran. The show began in 1971 and ran to 1993. I didn't watch the full run but I did get in my fair share. The formula was pretty simple. A young male and female host, which seemed to change every week, sang songs, told stories, made crafts and generally did their best stimulate little brains. The show opened as follows... Imagination Day! Oh boy! ...

30 Days of Photos III #4 Sour

Check out Ziva's Inferno for the rest of today's photos.

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