You can't always get what you want

We'd been planning a venture to Cold Hollow all week. I would (shockingly) be in Vermont. The leaves were turning color. The cider press would be in full operation.

Autumn at its finest...

...until it started raining mid-week. And failed to let up. A Sunday lounging around at home, cursing the water still coming down.

Finally, around 2, we decided to make the best of it. Rain? We'd be inside.

So we hopped into the car and set off for Waterbury.

So the leaves are being beaten off the trees by the rain and the wind. The cider press wasn't operating.

Screw it. We still wound up with paper cups warm with spiced cider. The cider doughnuts were still as warm and soft as I remembered and we still played around, dodging the raindrops and taking photographs of the soggy autumn scene.

You can't always get what you want, but you can revise things so you still leave feeling as if you got something out of the deal.

Thanks, Waterbury, for a brief but enjoyable time.

I've decided that I'm going to have to be Domino Harvey for Halloween. Due, in part, to the utter screwup conducted by the woman in whom I put faith in cutting my hair yesterday.

She, um, didn't do what I wanted. At all. I had my eyes closed for most of the session, because I was going short and was more than a little on the apprehensive side.

And then? Well, then I opened my eyes and shut them again real quick.

I'm proud to report that I didn't cry until I was out of the salon and in a store at the mall, trying to find headbands and hair clips to improve on the situation at hand.

And then I cried a lot.

But hey. It happens. And I adapt. It's what I do. How I roll. And as long as I own and embrace the unexpected style, it's all good. This is giving me the chance to take the bold, dramatic woman I've had hiding in myself and put it on display. I'm playing it up.

And now I've got a Halloween costume mostly pulled together.

Anyone know where I can get a good, fake shotgun and a spare bullet belt I can use as a sash?

Because now I hunt bounty. And I'll be able to get away with speaking in a clipped British accent. And my newest ringtone on my phone is Van Morrison's "Domino."

See? Silver linings all around.



(Click on the photo to go to the rest...)