Random thoughts, while eating my weight in Buffalo wings:
- Death is inevitable. But if you catch it early…
- What do I like about October? Everything.
- Best mood lighting: a harvest moon.
- Or a porch full of pumpkins.
- So many touchdowns still ahead.
- So many tricks, so many treats.
- Greatest deal around: the $4.99 deli sandwiches at Sprouts, made to order.
- FYI, I watched so much football last weekend that I needed a juice cleanse.
- “The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.” – Edgar Allan Poe
- Be sure to change your HVAC filter this fall.
- Remember, home repair is foreplay.
- No, I don’t know what that means. It’s a motivation tool.
- FYI, my house is wired like a 12-year-old’s teeth.
- Did you hear about the Ohio State fan who died while drinking his milk?
- The cow fell on him.
- Trivia time: What football position did Will Ferrell play at University High in Irvine?
- Be sure to check out “Carved” the artful fall festival at Descanso Gardens, nightly through Oct. 30.
- Then toast the season with a Drunken Pumpkin at Farmhouse (bourbon, pumpkin, cinnamon, lemon).
- Favorite autumn toast: “Here’s to staying positive and testing negative.”
- Skoooooooooooool!
- Just so you know, when restaurant servers say “no problem,” they really mean “my pleasure.”
- We live in rude times. Get over it.
- “The north wind roaring down in October is cruel and cold and reminds you again — as the sea has a way of doing — that nature does not care for man.”― Elliott Merrick
- Here’s hoping for an early and long rainy season.
- And that the hillsides hold.
- And that the Chargers, Rams, Lakers, Clippers, Kings and Ducks all win.
- After a certain age, the best birth control is just to leave the lights on.
- When ducklings follow their mom across a pond, all I can think: “Wings!”
- When I see geese flying south: “Wings!”
- Every time I drop someone at the airport…OK, you get the idea.
- Best play-by-play announcer: Al Michaels. And it’s not even close.
- When did baseball announcers get so smitten with spin rates? And two-seamer fastballs?
- You too, Joe Davis.
- Think LAX is haunted? Me too.
- Mayor Bass should hold a séance there. I’ll bring my Ouija Board.
- Latest Halloween indulgence: black Pringles.
- Sales of Hamburger Helper, a barometer of consumer frugality, are up 15 percent.
- Meanwhile, grocery prices are up 21 percent over the past four years.
- That seems like a lot.
- FYI, the typical age for first-time home buyers is now 38, an all-time high, Business Insider reports.
- Everything in moderation – except pumpkin bread.
- In a perfect world, October would be three months long.
- To be honest, I can’t tell a sand dab from a potato.
- The greatest two-party system ever: husbands and wives.
- Kenny Rogers’ best lyric: “You can’t make old friends.”
- Would you even want to?
- Yes.
- Good writing is my favorite sweater.
- Good writing makes me late to bed.
- Last time I gave a urine sample, there was an olive in it.
- So? Get over it.
- “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” ― L. M. Montgomery
- October birthdays: Puddles Finn 1; Zach Galifianakis, 56; Sting, 74; Snoopy, 75; the great Julie Andrews, 90.
- Yep, the hills are alive!
- Remember, Snoop: “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” now runs only on AppleTV+.
- Shame on CBS, then ABC, for giving up on a classic.
- Charles M. Schulz was TV’s Walt Whitman.
- Dear Hollywood Bowl. Love you. But can I bring wine or not?
- Trump and Kimmel should have lunch together.
- I’ll bring the wings.
- L.A.’s happiest dish? The breakfast burrito at Lucky Boy (be sure to add the avo).
- Favorite autumn drive? To Fairfax for Canter’s famed matzo ball soup.
- Props to every hard-working restaurant staff in town.
- California’s dumbest tradition: motorcycle lane-splitting.
- Because our roads aren’t nuts enough?
- Whoooops, there goes my mirror.
- Trivia answer: Will Ferrell was a varsity kicker at Uni High in Irvine.
- Best sign at a college game so far this season: “Kirby [Smart] pronounces the g in lasagna.”
- Gift tip for your baseball-crazy dad, brother, daughter? Personalized bobblehead dolls.
- Thank you for reading.
- My pleasure.
- “Autumn is everything.” – Robert Browning
For past columns, or books, please go to ChrisErskineLA.com
Next week: Cursive writing and Sloppy Joes.
“No problem-o.”
— a reader
Chris, am I reading between the lines, or do you really like October?
It’s OK I guess
Happy Birthday, Puddles (and Julie and Snoopy). Love your random columns. This one is a gem. I love October too. Always think back to carving pumpkins with my dad, well into my teens. My late, great writer pal, Ray Bradbury, always said his favorite holiday was Halloween. I am right now re-reading his perfect, spooky, October-theamed classic, Something Wicked This Way Comes. If you haven’t read it in awhile (or ever), I highly recommend it.
Thanks Caroll. Great tip on Bradbury. Picking it up this week.
Another random thought/prayer:
Dodgers and Cubs make it!! When baseball season ends, college baseball begins! Yeyyyy! And, your grandson is on the team!
Lucky Boys Breakfast Burrito. Bacon. Add on: Pico de Gallo ‼️
Our daughter frequented Lucky Boy with school friends. Years later when she bore her first child at The Huntington, she insisted her mother bring her a breakfast burrito to eat in the hospital.
As an Ohio State grad….I COULD resent the Buckeye jokes…..except that they’re often funny. (My favorite is: How do you get an Ohio State grad off your porch? Answer…..Pay for the pizza.)
Thanks for being such a good sport
Thank whoever put October where it is! It’s the month that keeps September & November from taking off the gloves and endangering innocent bystanders!
These all hang together like a bunch of newly picked grapes. You remind me of O.J. In his prime, sliding sideways through a shower of hurtling would-be tacklers: you don’t need an open field to run it; or all the bases for that matter, since beisbol is still showering us with its manna in the annual overlap and pass of the baton.
Herewith, a little Autumn shapeshifting, not to run the field as you so easily do, but rather just to stay in the game….hurtling towards Winter.
Falling
I wish that falling was easier;
Dropping with force like a hurtling rock
To the dark pavement the other night
On a fast starry walk was not my
Way of dispersion of the spirit—
My face one inch from heaven’s impact
Suspended only by the bruised hands
Of some incredibly quick instinct;
It is Autumn, gravity breezier
Than usual, all things taking stock
Of loss—of the diminishing light—
Even the tilting plates the tree roots play
With display an angular habit
Of seeking some sleek artifact
Whose implosion makes its own demands
On energy, as if it had blinked
And compressed time to a kind of wall
Against which the leaves could drift, whirl, sprawl
Much as I did, before their end-all
Rustling descent to vows that they keep
To return earth’s chemistry of sleep;
In falling, I wonder if, somehow
I was learning the same kind of vow…
you OK? Nothing broken?
Yeah. I’m O.K. I was moving too fast at night, and uneven terrain is always a challenge., even in daylight. It helps to have fast hands, both as a ball hawk and on the sidewalk. How do you find that out? Play ball, or launch a fall. I tore off several buttons doing this bit of inadvertent acrobatic stunting. I couldn’t have done what I did if I tried. Thanks for asking, my friend.
Uneven terrain at night is a challenge for all of us. Glad to hear you caught yourself and that you’re OK. Onward!
You are one of my favorite sweaters. And I don’t know how you managed it, but when I read the olive in the urine sample line, I actually heard a rim shot.
Happy Birthday, Puddles!!! My grandson, Bix, turns 13 tomorrow. Unbelievable how fast that went!
Octobers ARE wonderful, and wine is allowed at the Bowl during their main season but not at the “contracted” shows after the season. Once the Fireworks Finales have happened (usually mid- to late-September), you can’t take your wine in.
Good to know. Thanks!
So enjoy all your posts – familiar subjects that you bring to life with humor, wisdom, and ah-ha insights. Autumn is my fave time of year – and YES – the Drunken Pumpkin (had mine made with rum), at The Farmhouse at Descanso is a seasonal delight!!
Nice call on the Drunken Pumpkin! Thanks for the note.