Is it October yet?

We’re halfway through August, which means that fall [might] be just around the corner.  Summer has its perks and everything, but have been dreaming of the day when this excruciating Texas heat ends and I wake up to cool, crisp weather and the beautiful fall colors.  Fall has always been my favorite season.  It’s full of so many wonderful things: the start of the holiday season, hot apple cider, cozy outfits.  Although it’s early, here are the ten things I’m most looking forward to about autumn (in no particular order):

1. Boots, gloves, scarves, hats

2. Cozy nights around the fire with cups of hot cocoa

3. My birthday!

4. Halloween

5. Warm apple pie

6. Taking a walk without sweating

7. APHA World Championship Show

8. My parents coming to visit

9. Pumpkin everything

10. Thanksgiving (the kick-off to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year)

Quotable TV Shows: Gilmore Girls

They just don’t make TV like they used to.  The vast majority of my must-watch shows these days consist of crime dramas.  Which I love, don’t get me wrong, but I haven’t found a feel-good show that I love to watch just because it makes me happy.  At least not since Gilmore Girls went off the air.  I watch reruns like an addict and occasionally go on coffee and junk food binges a la Lorelai and Rory because they make it look so awesome.  Here are some of my favorite things ever said on the show.

1.1, “Pilot”
Rory: You look happy.
Lorelai: Yeah.
Rory: Did you do something slutty?
Lorelai: I’m not that happy.

1.9, “Rory’s Dance”
Emily: Since when do you not like avocado?
Lorelai: Since the day I said, “Gross, what is this?” and you said, “Avocado.”
1.21, “Love, Daisies, and Troubadours”
Lorelai: Luke, we sleep around here.  Okay, we like it.  It makes us pretty, and keeps us from killing our crazy friends!

2.17, “Dead Uncles and Vegetables”
Taylor: Late again, are we?
Lorelai: Yes, I hope I’m not pregnant.
2.22, “I Can’t Get Started”
Oy with the poodles already.

3.7, “They Shoot Gilmores, Don’t They?”
Lorelai: Stanley bailed.
Rory: No! Why?
Lorelai: Apparently Miss Patty showed his wife a picture of me and she thinks I look like Elizabeth Taylor, which makes her Debbie Reynolds, and Stanley Eddie Fisher.
Rory: That’s crazy.
Lorelai: Especially if you’ve seen Stanley.  He’s no Eddie Fisher, trust me.  Fisher Stevens, maybe.
Rory: Can you talk to her?
Lorelai: Apparently only at my own risk.
Emily: Well, at least she thought you looked like Elizabeth Taylor, that was nice.
Lorelai: I have no partner.
Rory: You’ll find another one.
Emily: Elizabeth Taylor always did.

3.22, “Those Are Strings, Pinocchio”
Taylor: People, do I have to detail the problems these deer cause?
Luke: No, but you will.
Taylor: Lyme disease, auto accidents, plane accidents.
Luke: We have flying deer?
Miss Patty: Oh, that’s scary.
Babette: Yeah, those ones you can snuff.

4.20, “Luke Can See Her Face”
Lorelai: I can’t stop drinking the coffee!  I stop drinking the coffee, I stop doing the standing and the walking and the words-putting-into-sentence-doing.

5.17, “Pulp Friction”
Lorelai: Cluelessness is the mother of invention.

Home

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.  – Maya Angelou, Conversations with Maya Angelou

I’ve been in California since Friday for one of my semi-annual trips home.  It’s been a great, exhausting trip.  We’ve been all the way from San Diego to San Francisco with a few stops in between.  I’ve gotten to do some quintessential California things that I like to do every time I come home: touching my toes in the Pacific Ocean, eating Chinese food, driving across the Golden Gate Bridge…it makes me happy to come back and do all these silly and completely nostalgic things.

It also makes me feel really weird to come back to my childhood home.  Sometimes I feel like I’ve done so much and traveled so far to places I never felt I would or could, and yet every time I come here I’m startled by how much space I take up in the bathroom.  I expect to look in the mirror and see my 12-year old self looking back, rather than the almost-23-year-old that is actually standing there.  It’s the most bizarre feeling.

As much as I’ve enjoyed being in California again (nothing smells like that ocean), I’m also excited to be heading back to my other home.  Fort Worth is calling with horses, a new job, and my sweet puppy who I always miss like crazy.