I've found that time starts

acting like a runaway freight train this time of year.  I make every attempt to prepare for it, but before I know,  Thanksgiving has come and gone, and suddenly the train is careening out of control. I have barely managed to get myself aboard; the Christmas paraphernalia is bumping along behind on the tracks.

Complicating the whole Holidays-are-A'comin' interval is the fact that ordinary maintenance must go on.  Ordinary crises continue.  Ordinary leaves are still falling from the trees, and ordinary pipes go on leaking*.  Tenants keep on stepping into sticky situations.   A plain old cell phone continues its frustrating tendency toward poor reception, and an ordinary car is way past its inspection due date.

*It was an underground pipe, Reader Dear, the one with the leak.  The Water Department at the township office proclaimed that it must have been leaking for months; they'd been looking for it!  Discovery was delayed, but a neighbor who lives nearby finally gave me a call.
"I thought you'd want to know, there's water coming out of the ground at your apartments.  There's practically a  river running down the hill!"

And, "Sorry," said the township Water Department, "but this is your responsibility to repair."
SIGH.
It was a big bloody (er, muddy) mess!

................
But, here's the thing,  Dear Reader:  Once aboard this train that's en route to Christmas, there are jolly times as well.
For instance, there was the search for THE TREE.
Now maybe jolly isn't the right word, but I did have a perfectly pleasant time strolling the sprawling fields of evergreens in search of the one that called my name**.  The weather was glorious last Saturday, and The Yard Man was driving his trotting mares at the tree farm again. 

**Naturally, there were hundreds holding their limbs out to me and calling my name.  I inspected them all, Reader Dear!

It's going to be fun bringing the tree home, too, and decorating.
I'll try to show it to you later through the open train window (as we speed along)
future-Viewer Dear.
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