Tourist Trap

Hello World,      And so here we find ourselves, believe it or not, already past the First Day of Autumn, and lucky to be having some beautiful weather around here for a change. A person from out of the area might find this hard to believe, but we honestly did have the most horrible weather here - and I complained about it long and hard all through June, July, and August - until finally in September, we were at long last getting some of the weather that we were hoping for, all along. And don't think that we weren't glad to see it, really and truly, in the "Better Late Than Never" category, just squeezing in under the wire, and giving us all something positive to enjoy before the long cold winter.     In other local news, we had been feeding a couple of stray cats on our front porch over the summer (one of them, actually since last year) and as often happens in a case like this, once you've made up your mind that they're 2 tom cats - POOF! - then one day, the brown-ish one (Honey Bunny) turned up at food time, with 4 tiny fluff-balls in tow, thanks not. A few weeks ago, we set the trap out there, to try our chances, and Waffles was the first one caught, and who, I don't mind saying, did not think much of the whole idea, that's for sure. It took about 2 weeks, but once inside our library, with plenty of food, privacy, toys, and places to explore, he settled in and started to think this was not so very bad after all. Even more so, the library has an excellent look-out over the front porch, and he soon discovered that he could jump into the bay window and watch the rest of his family out on the porch, any time they were out there, good weather and bad alike. After a while, the veterinarian was able to give us another appointment, so Bill reset the trap for a second try, and although the mother and one of the kittens were both inside - and once again, as so often happens - the trap mechanism didn't work, and the trap stayed open, and thanks so very much not. Bill (who is not one to be daunted, I can tell you that) reset the trap one more time, and caught Squeak, who liked this whole idea even less than Waffles, I can assure you. In fact, it was so much less that she found her own way out of the place, and I came downstairs late at night and discovered her on the windowsill in the kitchen - and I could not tell you who was more surprised. Fortunately for me, she gave up without a fight, and ran back into the library, rather than slugging it out with me in the kitchen. It was only a few days after that, when we got another appointment, Bill set the trap, and caught Fraser, who actually seemed relatively calm, under the circumstances. Alas, that was all for show, since later, he busted clean out of the room, and Bill found him in the kitchen, the same as I had found Squeak, it seemed like only yesterday. After some (obviously much needed) remedial work on the doors to the library, things do seem to have settled down in there, with the 3 little siblings making themselves at home, little by little. So right now, it's nothing but Honey Bunny and Bubble outside, and we have another appointment on Friday, so hopefully our luck will continue to hold.     Other news from the home front included the annual Fall Festival on the 22nd, held every year at Wildwood State Park in Wading River. We had been there last year for the first time with my sister Diane, and frankly, didn't think a whole lot of the event. But we hadn't seen Diane for a while, and it's always interesting to go to Wildwood, particularly in what I would consider "off-season" from my summer vacation, so we packed ourselves up and headed over that way. Last year, we ran some errands and stopped at Denny's along the way, and got to the festival late in the day. This time around, we picked up Diane and went directly to the park, so we got there pretty early, and found the place was a madhouse - in fact, we were lucky to get a parking space, down in the picnic grounds. The ball field was crammed with vendors, games, a bouncy house, pony rides, petting zoo, and plenty of fair food for the adventurous. Since we had skipped lunch, I quickly tucked into a plate of funnel cake, while Diane polished off some zeppoli's, and Bill opted for an oddly-shaped and over-priced pretzel sort of thing. Thus fortified, we made a circuit through the field, and hit up the vendors for some of their signature clothing, jewelry, snacks, and assorted whatnot. That was warm work all around, so we followed that up with a hike to the beach, which was extremely refreshing. We hadn't actually planned to go swimming, which was just as well, since some recent storm had changed the usually clear and placid Sound into a dark brown and choppy mess that was singularly uninviting, believe me. But we're still game, so we waded in up to our knees, walked along the beach, picked up rocks, and enjoyed our time in the sand and surf. All too soon, it was back up the hill to the parking lot, and as we left, we realized that the festival must have been over, because both the parking lot and the ball field were virtually deserted, in stark contrast to when we first went down to the beach. After a quick trip to The Shoppes at East Wind, where we had stopped last year when they first opened, it was off to Denny's in Centereach for a dinner to send us home with, and I can promise you that there were no complaints.  As a matter of fact, we set out for home with plenty of souvenirs and left-overs, and lived to tell the tale, which is just about my favorite way to travel.  Luckily for us, what we originally expected to be a "fall trap," turned out to be a lot better than last year, and we were glad we went.  Left-over funnel cake, anyone? Elle