Big Kahuna Burger

• OMG
• Frosted Flakes.
• So my sister stayed at our house with the Teenager last week while we were in Rochester. 
• Apparently she’s become a cereal killer.
• Heh.
• She left behind one of those Kellog’s cereal variety packs, the ones with those little boxes.
• Fruit Loops. Apple Jacks. Pops, Coco Krisipies … and Frosted Flakes.
• You remember that scene in Pulp Fiction where Samuel Jackson is eating the poor guy’s burger from that Hawaiian Burger Joint?
• The Big Kahuna Burger.
• “My girlfriend’s a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian.”
• The Wife does her best to keep our options healthyish.
• She always gets herself that Raisin Brand nonsense, and for me, something highish in fiber.
• The takeaway you need is that from my childhood on, Frosted Flakes are probably my favorite cereal. 
• I could not tell you the last time I had them.
• They have zero nutritional value.
• I had one of those tiny boxes of Frosted Flakes last night.
• So good.
• There’s one more tiny box on the counter. 
• Sorry, Sis, I’m eating them.
• Them? That? Does multiple flakes in one box make it singular or plural?
• The other important takeaway you need is … portion control.
• That one tiny box keeps me from overindulging.
• When I was a kid, those boxes were made so you could open the little bag and pour the milk right in, so the box became a bowl, saving everyone from having to do dishes. 
• You remember those, right?
• Pepperidge Farm remembers.
• Since we’re remembering … how about those long bags of powdered sugar donettes?
• …
• How am I not diabetic?
• Good gravy.
• It’s probably coming.
• Everything else is out of control.
• Anyway.
• I wrote those bullets last night in my journal as I finished the Frosted Flakes.
• Now I’m out of pre-written material, and we’re not even halfway to the word limit.
• Yes, I know I set it myself.
• And it’s completely arbitrary.
• But …
• I do this as much for myself as for you.
• This just happened in our office.
• Me, yelling from my office: “Laurie, is it Halloween season yet?”
• Laurie: “No, Editor, no it is not.”
• (Don’t ask me why I keep sticking to the Editor moniker; it’s been almost four years. You guys know who I am. It’s just that I’m more of a Wizard of Oz type. Anyway …)
• And then she explained the schedule.
• Apparently, according to Laurie, who btw loves Halloween, we’re still like five weeks from the season.
• I dunno. I stopped paying attention when she started doing the calendar math.
• Still, she is, as it happens, the boss of me.
• So I’ll take it under consideration.
• Yesterday and today, I drove to work with my window down.
• Glorious.
• So close to Fall.
• And because of the Dogs, I may commit to getting up earlier so I can take my coffee on the back patio and mentally prep for the coming day.
• But that’s not why I want fall.
• I want the leaves.
• I want the colors.
• I want those chilly breezes that make you don a hoodie. 
• I want those walks on Turkey Mountain.
• I want to bury myself in movies and shows laden with fall ambience.
• Like Burton’s Sleepy Hollow.
• (As it turns out, the bad guy in my work-in-progress gets called Ichabod by the rest of the characters.)
• I want haunted hay rides.
• And campfires.
• What I really want is a Fall in New England.
• I want to visit Salem during Halloween season.
• You’ve looked into that, right?
• You almost have to book your Inn more than a year out to get to do that.
• And then … a madrigal dinner somewhere after we’re through the spooky season.
• Is there any way to make time slow for the next four months? 
• Asking for a friend.
• Asking for me … what else you guys have for media that provokes that perfect fall feeling? 
• (I’m having trouble not capitalizing fall; it deserves a formal title. If we were to make Fey out of the seasons, their names would be capitalized.)
• Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes fits.
• And Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, but I just watched that again two weeks ago.
• And Fellowship of the Ring, obviously.
• (I’m enjoying the second season of Rings of Power more than the first so far, and the elven stuff seems to bear mostly fall ambience.) 
• A lot of fantasy books seem to start in the autumn, stuff like The Eye of the World and The Belgariad, and the first Dragonlance book (which as an adult writing professional has become unreadable; I cannot stand third-person omniscient with multiple POVs on the same bloody page.)
• It’s still too early to make that butternut squash soup I discovered last year.
• I’ll try to find the recipe for you guys, because it is magical. 
• It’s like tomato soup, only, you know, good.
• Okay. Hit the word goal.
• Now I gotta go write a Tulsa World ad and a webpage and some other stuff. 
• You have a Wednesday, all right?
• Heh.

My favorite poem of all time (unfortunately not autumnal):

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake  
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.    

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.