I got stuck on Ida, too

So this morning was a plumbing-related horror which I hope never to experience again in my life (waking to discover that the toilet across the hall had overflowed into my bedroom; I spent the next hour washing floors with disinfectant and extreme prejudice) and I had time-slipped nightmares when I finally got back to sleep, but in the afternoon schreibergasse came by with my ungodson and we drove out to Minute Man National Historical Park in Concord. My mother had thought he would enjoy the trails there and he seemed to, collecting acorns with which to war on oak trees, climbing beeches and a tangled labyrinth of conifers. At one point he ended up bristling with burrs and declared that he had become a hedgehog. We spotted a sword dance as we were pulling into the parking lot: it turned out to be the Newtowne Morris, to which a friend of mine belongs. We watched them dance beside a cornfield and then we headed out through an orchard, where Schreiber' thought he spotted some very old varieties of apple, heavily russeted. Earlier we had stopped for directions at a farmstand and been sold more modern apples by two old men with what I think of as old-style New England accents; they insisted we take the full two pounds for Josh's three dollars, so now I have apples and will bake them tomorrow. The day was cold and bracing and full of sliding sun and underlit autumn clouds and there was a beautiful brassy sunset as we left, walking up the verge of Monument Street. I also climbed some trees, in the fingerless gloves rushthatspeaks knit for me and gave me last night. Going home involved a detour through Bedford and somewhat cheaper pizza than I think my body recognizes as food at this point in my life, but also stopping by my parents' house so that my mother and I could stick a couple of candles into Schreiber''s belated birthday cake and sing to him. Correspondingly, he has given me Ursula Vernon's Castle Hangnail as a birthday present. October is a nice month that way. There was more cleaning when I got home, but Rush helped. I don't disagree with this comic. Once I woke up the second time, this was a pretty decent day.