So today is calling for snow - not fluries - snow, up to ten inches. The juncos reappeared this week, so I knew cold weather was on the way, but this is too much. And my worse nightmare, we have four people staying in the Bird's Nest. That means the driveway has to be cleared, the steps leading up have to be cleared, the deck has to be cleared. Not to mention, that they are predicting electrical outages, as the trees heavy with snow and weakened by Irene, come down. So that's what we have to look forward to - shoveling and no lights.

Daddy loved snow, mostly because he was a skier. But also as a deer hunter, he would say a light coating of snow during deer season (around Thanksgiving) would be good to track the deer and also, if a wounded deer is moving, to follow him. April snow he liked for spring skiing, would be off to Vermont, returning with a sunburned face and stories of sleeping in an attic with other skiers.

I remember it snowed on the night that Barbara and Jack were married, not much but a coating. That too was late October. But I was hoping for some more of those Indian Summer days, didn't Timmy and I just see swimmers two weeks ago? The neighbors are busy all putting on plows, bringing in wood. Us? Timmy is at the gym, and I told him to pick up some fundador on the way home. First things first.

Well, another Oysterfest under the belt. We had wonderful weather, warm enough that I wore my bathing suit and got sun burned a bit. Stayed at the Sea Shells, in the house I had shared with Ria in 2007....pretty much the same. In back of us at the Main House, a wedding party was there on Sunday, the young people looked so nice all dressed up going out to the wedding. Not so nice coming back in about 1am, loud yelling, laughing, talking, waking both Timmy and myself up. Just got back to sleep about 3am when a woman's screaming voice was heard, "Thanks a ff....lot for leaving me and coming back without me, I had to call three f...cabs before I got one to take me here, on and on and on, until someone calmed her down. I leaned over to Timmy and said, "Do you think that's the bride?" Timmy just said, "I think I know why they left her." The next day they were gone and things were quieter. In fact, after Columbus Day, everyone left and our car was the only one in the lot until Friday when people starting arriving to go to Oysterfest..

The Oysterfest was crowded, good weather brought thousands of people out. In the ten years we've been going, it's changed dramatically. Used to be a small table set up on Main Street where the shucking contest took place. Now there is a big commercial stage, tents filled with all kinds of food, vendors up and down the street, and barely enough room to get through. Also, everyone is on a phone. One girl checking her new earrings, lots of people trying to locate each other, and one woman at our table, checking her calories "Oh 6 oysters are only 180 calories", although from the size of her, there might have been something else on her plate. Our boy Caleb was there, amidst the Pirate Shellmen who were shucking oysters to sell. Caleb was standing in front of a large steering wheel, dressed as a pirate. When he saw me take his picture, he yelled to me "Give me your gold ARRRRR". Made me laugh with tears in my eyes.

And riding home, along the Cape Route 6, people with signs, "We are the 99%" - even in Great Barrington, which is an elite Berkshire city, there were at least 50 people demonstrating on the Main Street. That makes me glad. Glad to see that people are waking up and willing to go stand on a sidewalk and voice their opinion that our government has got to do something. I think I will start an Occupy Tivoli Movement. My sign will say, STOP THE WAR AND SAVE TRILLIONS OF $$$$$$$. Give the people the gold ARRRRR.

Well tomorrow we are off to the Cape for fun in the sun and Oysterfest. I remember years back a Columbus Day when the Murphy family went to Sherwood Island on the Long Island Sound in Connecticut on a warm day like is predicted for this year. We all went into the water even though it was October. I remember I was about 12 because Barbara had brought Jack, her boyfriend, along in the family station wagon. The beach was very rocky, and I remember him limping on the rocks to get to the water. He had hurt himself playing high school football a few days earlier. Later he found out that he had a broken leg and used crutches for a while.

I don't remember if the broken leg came before the cut up arm, when he put his arm through a glass window at Beacon High. As I remember, he ran bleeding, to Highland Hospital, a block away from the school. He needed thousands of stitches and had the scar as long as I can remember. Thinking about this, I bet today he could have sued the school for big bucks for both times - one, who would have a glass door for students, and two, don't they monitor hurt football players? But in those days, nobody sued.

Welll, back to a warm day in October. They are gifts, and if they come after a frost, are given the name Indian Summer. Tomorrow is also the Street Painting, which I will miss for the first time in 11 years - and for Tivoli, the weather is predicting in the 80's. One year for the street painting, Laura had put an unbrella in a tub of sand to get shaded while she worked. It can get dangerously hot on a hot pavement, working in the sun. In Florida at the Lake Worth Street Painting in February the younger kids are all wearing shorts and small tops, sunscreen. The older folks wear big hats and cover up. Street Paintings and Oysterfest. I love Indian Summer.