Beach Weather in October

It is the time of year when I complain about the weather.  I used to start complaining around Labor Day, but most parts of the nation, where I'd want to live at least, have hotter Septembers than we used to have.

But October:  oh how I long for some crispness in the air.  We'd been having rainy weather, which drives my spouse crazy, but I love rainy days because it's not as hot.

Yesterday, however, it was quite steamy.  My brain thinks it's still July, and then, when dusk comes around 7, I worry about storms, only to realize that it's just getting dark.

Yes, I'm ready for cooler weather.  But I can wait for a few days, because my sister and 6 year old nephew arrive tomorrow.  I've told him that we've been getting the beach ready!

Of course, we don't want a beach that's too clean--how will we decorate our sand castles?

We will go to local restaurant legend, Jaxson's, where we'll eat ice cream sundaes as big as our heads.  We might also make ice cream by putting all the ingredients (cream, sugar, flavorings) into one plastic bag and putting that plastic bag into a larger plastic bag that contains ice and rock salt--shake for an impossibly long time (15 minutes), and you've got ice cream.  It's a great science experiment, and it's fun, and it makes delicious ice cream.

Or maybe we'll just plug in the ice cream maker.

Yesterday I bought Honeycrisp apples, the only kind my nephew eats.  They're astonishingly expensive, over $3 a pound down here.  Really?

It's a strange season indeed.  I can buy quality beef for less money than top quality apples.  And it's all shipped down here using large amounts of fossil fuels.

The world runs on dead dinosaurs.  How much longer?

The Midwest is still gripped by drought.  What will that do to our food prices in a year?  I probably don't want to know.

Well, back to planning for their visit.  The first year they came, my nephew was 2, and I scrubbed the house from top to bottom.  I was afraid he'd find a dead bug and eat it or something catastrophic.  That didn't happen.  Now I'll clean and straighten, but I likely won't have time to scrub.

We're supposed to have sunny, hot weather:  perfect for the beach, perfect for ice cream!