My Aim is True

In the last couple of days we've had a return of sort of summer in terms of temperatures. We have a tendency to call it "Indian summer" though I wonder what it's called if you're either on the Indian sub-continent or a Native American living here. It's like NY Strip Steak-I went to prep school in NYC (Manhattan, technically, which is what most of us think of when we say 'New York City" (especially if you're eating Pace)) and never once encountered a restaurant that served an item with that name. My German born spouse is still asked by neighbors and acquaintances about "German" food and clothing items that are actually Bavarian and have little to do with the rest of her homeland. Sometimes I suspect people think she only says she's German.

When I meet folks elsewhere and tell them I live in Connecticut, I often see the movie they're making in their heads of the 'other Connecticut', the Gold Coast area along the LI Sound in Fairfield and New Haven Counties. Sort of like a score of years of so ago (score? Welcome to the Abraham Lincoln Impersonation Bake off and I'm your host, Carl Sandberg) when all of Connecticut's areas code for telephones went from one, "203" to two "203" and "860" and those of us in the sticks part of the state wound up with the 'new' area code, like we didn't have enough inferiority complexes at work on this side of the Connecticut River already.

I saw the other day where we Nutmeggers (when in Rome, etc...) are about to get two more area codes though I'm fuzzy on how they will be assigned and if you could end up with a home phone with one area code and a home fax machine with another area code. Assuming, of course, you're a fossil like me and still have what telecom cats and kittens call a 'land line' as opposed to a cell phone. I'm amazed everyone (to include me) has a cell phone but no one wants to have a cell phone tower built near them-but then we whine about the dead zones we sometimes have when using cell phones. Something about complaining, new rope and hanging comes to mind.....

Anyway, as much as I've enjoyed the warm temperatures of recent days, they've come (as they often do) with strong winds, just as the leaves are changing along with heavy rains. The winds take a lot of the colorful leaves with them and the rains seem to reanimate the squadrons of mosquitoes who dive bomb anything moving with a vengeance. I find their aggression astonishing in such a small and pointless insect. (Don't give me the food chain and their role in it argument, please. I've heard it. The birds could learn to eat other things if skeeters disappeared-like NY Strip Steaks, as just one example.) I admit it's hypocritical of me to criticize mosquitoes because I'm a functionality-challenged biped, and have to admit I may be a little jealous they have a 'how stuff works' entry, and I don't because I won't.

There was the one with the hound dog who became the one with the jump suit as well as the one with the ice skates. Oh, I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused. But since their wings have got rusted, you know, the angels wanna wear my red shoes.
-bill kenny