Wildlife: A huge Whitetail male was standing in the shadow of a tall pine overlooking the tennis court. Stick around the 'hood, Bucky-boy -- they can shoot 'ya if you wander too far!

Weather: Cold, but fairly dry -- dry enough for roofing. Those cedar shingles take forever to rip off and haul away.

Charity Alert: Food supplied free to the hungry.

In the Community: The Hockaday Museum of Art's website has a new web server:
Members Only Salon at the Hockaday -- 84 local artists on display!
We are having some problems, of course, but it will get much better!

Media Watch: I miss Halloween movies -- the horror show since November started is too much to watch.
I'm reading a collection of Tolkien criticism -- all of it written by his admirers. Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis championed Lord of the Rings early, of course. If not for his efforts, and the rest of the Inklings wanting to hear more at the "Eagle and Child" pub in Oxford, I suspect Tolkien might never have written the trilogy.
W. H. Auden's advocacy of Lord of the Rings must have surprised literary society in the early 50's -- he was definitely a non-conformist, and considered a modernist in those days.
I started reading it as a teenager in 1966, during my junior year of high school, and was very glad when so many others thoughout the English-speaking world fell under the old professor's literary spell.
I had seen the "pirate" Ace paperbacks with Jack Gaughn's splendid covers on the bookstands, but when I first saw the Ballentine edition -- with J.R.R. Tolkien's request for "courtesy to living authors" quote on the front cover -- I decided to give Lord of the Rings a try one winter's evening. I finished it in early summer, and had a great time reading the appendices afterward -- allowing the imagery of Middle Earth to further color my imagination.
I never joined any societies, or learned Elvish, but my enthusiasm for Tolkien's work continues almost forty years after I first read him. There are better writers, and better fantasy novels, but Tolkien said so himself during his life, and his recommendations have led me to some fine books.

Election Tale: I stood in line for a little over TWO HOURS yesterday to vote. My wife was just out of surgery, and on crutches, so she qualified for "curbside voting." I drove her up to the polling place, a judge came out with her ballots, and she checked 'em off in about ten minutes. (The queue of ambulatory voters stretched backward for three-plus hours in duration while we left.)

Weather: On and off days of freezing rain. The roofers have started on our house by the way. They have to tar-paper their stripping work before they leave.

Wildlife: Daylight Savings Time means I don't have as much risk hitting deer on the roads in the mornings -- the evenings are DARK though -- high beams for me.

In The Community: I'm videotaping our college's current events this morning -- there's a break in the bad weather for an hour or two, so we're going outdoors!

Media Watch: Halloween weekend had some dandy dawg-assed shows on the satellite TV. FMC showed the laughingly pathetic Chandu the Magician from 1932 with Bela Lugosi, co-directed by the great production designer William Cameron Menzies. He was employed on Thief of Baghdad, Things to Come, Gone with the Wind, and Around the World in 80 Days, as well as being the director of the dawg-assed 'classic' Invaders from Mars.
IFC had Tom Savini introducing movies directed by Italian greats Mario Bava and Dario Argento.