Grab the Lapels

Sunday Lowdown #249

THIS WEEK IN REFLECTION

I could tell you about how well the big debate — is AI art ethical? — went in my ASL class. I could tell you how I won $50 at music bingo date night on the “Totally 80’s” category. But instead, I’m going to talk about leaves. Here in the Midwest, they are everywhere, and the opinions about what to do with them range. Stefanie @ A Stone in the River writes about leaving the leaves where they are.

I wondered, why can’t I just mow over the leaves, and found some amusing ideas on Reddit: “Blow them all into one area and then go over them again and again and again. Eventually the leaves begin to understand and will reattach themselves to their corresponding tree. And that is where spring comes from.”

And then there more DIY methods: “I pick ‘em up individually with chopsticks. Builds character.”

And a perspective from the tree itself: “Fallen leaves are called leaves for a reason. The tree wants you to leave them there.”

Even my local neighborhood Facebook group got into it when one woman was complaining that someone had blown leaves into the road, which made her worry that motorcycles would slide and crash. Here was one response to her driving/filming her neighbor using his leafblower:

It’s important that we interpreters give back to the Deaf community because without them and their culture, we would have no jobs, so twice this week I volunteered to rake leaves for Deaf families.

I was both freezing and sweaty, which made me silly. Photo Credit: Shalyn Rathbun.

I could also tell you how we bought a lawnmower off Craigslist and then the guy showed up at the house at night when I was alone because he had our address on the check and thought he left his cell phone on the mower we bought. I didn’t know that. I just stood there, frozen, because the blinds were all closed. Which, you know, could be scary regardless because we’re talking about Craigslist, but the day before someone had been banging on the door when I was also home alone, and Mr. Craigslist did not have our address yet. Picture me on Friday night, sitting at home alone, doing my horror book club via video, holding scissors to defend myself if need be. One fun fact about horror clubs is they have loads of advice for what to do when you’re home alone and scared.

IT DIDN’T MAKE IT TO GRAB THE LAPELS

The horror novella for horror book club was excellent. Imagine if zombies weren’t real, but really there was a virus that made you think you saw people doing violent things that made you violent (in self-defense). Check out And Then I Woke Up by Malcom Devlin.

While Douglas Adams is funny, the conservationists he encountered around the world in his travels with Mark Carwardine were hilarious. On the flip side, Last Chance to See is very sad because the animals endangered in the 1980’s are likely dead now.

THIS WEEK’S BLOG POST

As far as I can tell, I am done with witch books, like The Heart of a Witch by Judith Hawke, for now. I’m moving on to more nonfiction for my commute, which I find easier to listen to. I was glad to read that so many of you have a fondness for mass-market paperbacks the same way I do, and I’m happy to know it’s not a meaningless descriptor of the shape and size, but says something about the content.

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG POST

I need to hurry up and finish The Longings of Women by Marge Piercy so I can get a post up on Wednesday. I loved the first Piercy novel I read, Woman on the Edge of Time, which is a sci-fi gender-bender. The Longings of Women is more crime/drama, more examining the frailty of women due to their forced reliance on men.

BOOKS I BOUGHT

Books I paid for (that are not textbooks) since January 2023: totaling $64.25

BOOKS ADDED TO THE TBR PILE

Thanks to Bill @ The Australian Legend for his recommendation. His review reminds me of thoughts I had reading The Longings of Women.

31 comments

  1. So what did you decide to do with your leaves? I’ve happily been seeing lots of articles going around locally about how leaves should be left because a)fertilizes the trees and plants b) provides winter habitat for pollinators. Doesn’t seem like many people are listening though. Sigh.

    Also, I don’t answer my door at night either if I’m alone and not expecting someone.

    I see you’ve added Into Thin Air to your TBR. It’s super good, and the audiobook is good too. And the cover proximity of the Sheridan Le Fanu book and Villette had me going for a second because Le Fanu was one of the first to write about vampires and then the Villette cover right next to it looks like it has some vampiric action and I’m thinking, wow, the Brontes were kinda out there sometimes but they never had vampires! 😀

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    • Nick is outside as I type mowing. If they get mulched a bit, hooray. If they just fall back down, hooray. We’re not bagging or moving them or anything. Last year the neighbor, who was also the former owner of this house, asked if her family could put the leaves in the farm field (that we now own) behind our house, and we said yes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, because I hadn’t researched what that would do to the ground, but we trusted them. This year I noticed that she had a company come and suck up all the leaves in her yard, which is a little funny because now her side is all green grass while ours looks like the wild, wild west of Leaf Town. What happens if the wind blows, I do not know.

      There were so many covers of Villette to chose from, but none matched the copy I bought. So, I just chose the sauciest one, because that always makes me happy. I read Carmilla, Le Fanu’s vampire novella, and loved it. The vampire sleeps in a coffin full of blood, which I’d never heard of, but now makes me think of a nice, relaxing bath for vampires.

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      • I used to have a nextdoor neighbor who was fastidious about his lawn, He was always friendly, but I’m sure my leaves this time of year made him mad when the wind would blow some into his yard. Or maybe he appreciated them because it gave him something to do?

        Oh, I read Carmilla a long time ago. I love over the top gothic and enjoyed it very much!

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  2. Those are some funny responses about the leaves. I have left mine but we don’t have a ton. I put some in by flower beds for mulch and soil enrichment and just left the rest.

    Margaret Atwood’s Edible Woman is good! Her first novel. It’s weird. I am interested is what you make of it.

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    • Nick was saying something about how if the trees are close together, there can be too many leaves for the grass to handle, whatever that means. He researches stuff so much that I trust him and go along with it. We mainly have one tree that let go of a bunch of leaves, plus the neighbor’s tree, which is close enough that her leaves float into our yard, too. We not bothered by that sort of thing. Nick is just out there, mowing away, right now, and if he runs over any “leaf clibbins,” then so be it.

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  3. Love this post Melanie and particularly on the leaves, but I will go to Stefanie‘s blog and comment there. I will just say that Mr Gums isn’t absolutely assiduous leaf raker, and is very glad that next autumn we will be living in an apartment.

    As for your mower. I have a few comments on this. Number one is I guess he didn’t do anything to you because you’re still here – but maybe you did something to him! Two, I would’ve been suspicious. How can you leave phone on a mower and expect it’ll be there after it’s been transported. Does your mower have pockets? Three, you still use cheques? No one of your age in Australia would. In fact, I don’t think my kids ever had a cheque-book in their life. They are all but gone in Australia – even in my generation where some of my friends hung onto them for a long time. For us, though it’s been a decade or more since we used one. Are they still common in America?

    Finally, great additions to your TBR this week. I even know many of them!

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    • Firstly, I ended up raking some leaves after Nick mowed because I wanted to put them over the flower garden, which is where I found a package slip from the post office. It’s like the flowers had a present!

      As for the mower, he was panicked about his phone because his mother had recently died and he sold the house. They were closing on it that day, but the house is in Ohio, not Indiana, so his only connection to all the people involved in selling the house was via that phone.

      I have checks just because we have a house. For several steps in the process of buying our own home we needed checks, so each time I would have the bank print one off. I ended up getting some that I figure will last forever because we’re not planning to move. It’s rare that I use them, but for something like $1,000 none of us felt trusting of cash or Venmo.

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  4. I absolutely love that picture of you in the leaves. You’re freaking adorable. ❤
    I haven't even begun to deal with my leaves yet. I wish they would just kindly blow themselves out of our yard. 😛
    Into Thin Air is on my to-read list. I very much in enjoy Krakaur.
    I think I might do my first audio book soon. Book club is discussing getting back in action and the first book might be Brittney Spears' autobiography. I don't want to pay for it but I am curious to hear her side of the story, and Spotify has it free on audio if you have a premium account.

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    • Why, thank you! For all my grumpiness about not being “fun” when someone proposes we play a game, I sure am silly on my own terms.

      I’ve read Into the Wild, and he kept referencing Into Thin Air, so I wished I had read Into Thin Air first. It’s more personal. I read Missoula, and that one almost broke me. It’s all about rape, and it’s very, very graphic.

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  5. I have two cheques sitting in front of me uncashed from 2021. Since the nearest branch of the bank I use moved to a big shopping centre, I can’t be bothered going to them. The last time I wrote a business cheque was 2019.
    I don’t know the others but The Edible Woman (thanks for the mention) and Villette are both excellent reads. You might review Villette for my “Gen 0” Week next January – which looks at inter alia the origins of the New Woman movement.

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    • Okay, so why don’t you have the bank’s app that allows you to just sign the check and take a picture of it? I only bought checks because we kept needing them as we closed on the house, and we figure we’re not moving again, so one box of them won’t hurt. I have a guy who leads interpreting workshops who requires a check, and the mower was $1,000, which is a big ask for cash or an app like Venmo.

      I’ll make a note on my calendar about reading Villette sooner rather than later to try and match up with your reading month. For some reason, I like to read older books over the holiday break, but I have to remember I’m also taking a class this December. 15 weeks crammed into 3.5 weeks. Let’s see how I fare.

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      • I don’t think we have that app in Australia, and I’m pretty sure banks have announced they’ll stop supporting cheques soon. I use my credit cards to buy fuel so I mostly buy stuff with my debit card or by bank transfer.

        To go back to your other topic, in Melbourne we had a house with so many trees that the autumn leaves killed the grass. If I had the energy I’d rake them up and compost them.

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        • Wait, so your bank doesn’t have an app at all? Or doesn’t have the ability to remote deposit checks?

          Nick was telling me that if too many leaves stay on the lawn, the grass may not be able to handle it, but then they begs the question: do we care about our grass? Actually, yes, because so much work was put into it before we bought the house that it seems a waste to let it die. We don’t water or fertilize it, but we do mow. I spread the leaves out because there is a big part of the lawn with no trees.

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  7. I feel like my major takeaway of this post is that you wrote someone a cheque! I can’t recall the last time I did that and now I guess you’ve given me a new reason not to use my chequebook!

    We’re a leave the leaves on the ground where they fall household but most of the trees around us are evergreens so we couldn’t rake up a big pile like that if we wanted to!

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    • HA, after reading the comments, I’m getting the exact same take away as you. Actually, it’s less about safety and more that people can’t believe I have a checkbook. The man didn’t scare me; he seemed pretty normal except his mom just died and her boyfriend wouldn’t vacate the house that the son now owned and had closed on the same day we bought the mower. That’s why he was frantic for his phone — it was the only way people had to contact him about the sale of the house and the squatter boyfriend. I like to keep in mind that if I got to the library and ask for the city directory, my name, address, and phone number has always been in it.

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      • There are probably more ways others can figure out our addresses than we might realize. Sounds like a guy just under a lot of stress.

        In Canada it is very easy and free to send an e-transfer to anyone with a bank account but I seem to recall hearing that it’s not as simple for those in the US? If I couldn’t use e-transfers I’d likely be writing a lot more cheques still!

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          • It’s basically a direct money transfer from one bank account to another without using a third party app. It’s a very secure way to transfer money and it’s doesn’t cost any extra beyond whatever banking fees you might already have. If your bank offers online banking, you can do e-transfers. I pay for so much that way now – piano lessons, after school care, the people we get our eggs from!

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  8. That FB comment really made me chuckle, thanks for including it! Also, cute picture, I love being buried in leaves but they aren’t as plentiful here in Calgary (lots of evergreens!) so I sort of miss that feeling. I love that your education includes doing work for the deaf, it’s such a progressive way to think about it – if they weren’t here, you wouldn’t be employed, so you have to give back. Love that. I wish the world was a bit more reciprocal like that, what a better place we would all be in!

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  9. Love the leaves but am SO BEHIND so just popping in to wave hello. Turns out blogs are easier to keep up with on holiday with nothing to do than when you come home to all the laundry and work. Who knew!

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