The Annual Autumnal War

Every year around this time I start getting antsy.

Part of it is the change of weather.  The nights are getting brisk, the sky takes on that deeper blue and the leaves start to turn.  I take my sweaters out of storage, do my fall housekeeping and then...it hits me.

They are almost here.

They fall upon us like an annual first week of October zombie convention. They start showing up in town, hauling their bizarro trailers behind their ratty, duct-taped together circa 1978 Ford pickup trucks.  Chewing tobacco stores get low in the convenience stores.  Can't find PBR 24-packs in any of the drive-throughs.  Rally's starts to get really, really busy. Mothers start to herd their kids in from the backyard well before dark and I get really suspicious when anyone who looks like he might be one of them lumbers down the street in front of my house, heading for the Circle K and the 33 cent hot dogs.

An annual fog descends upon us, almost like a pre-autumnal stench, a miasma that overpowers the dusty smell of changing leaves and newly fired up fireplaces; an unusual smell that doesn't necessarily smell bad just...different.

Yep. I can smell it. 

The carnies are coming.

Oh, granted: I still have a week or so before they are all here.  Two weeks before the war begins.  I need to stock up. I need to be certain my bunker is adequately prepared for the safety of me and mine.  The conflict between us is of long standing.  They--the carnies--and I have a long, terrible history that goes all the way back to the days when I worked in the bar across the street from the fairgrounds and they invariably tortured me every night after the county fair closed down.  They came swaggering through the front door, their pockets crammed with the money they had taken from the unwary with their rides, and games, and freak shows, and candy apple booths.  Oh, I can spot a carny from a mile away. 

Yes, they brought the money of Fairfield county into my bar in their pockets, and I got them stinking drunk and took it all away from them! Took that money for my community!  For the town I love!  And yet they never got the hint.  Every year, like clockwork or a cabbage-smelling plague, they come back...looking for me.

So far, I've always won. So far, I've always managed to come out on top.  I have always emerged as the victor in the annual war with the carnies, like I'm the brave English and they are the garlicy French in our Hundred Years' battle over tip money.

But this year, they mounted a sneak attack.  They must have bribed someone very close to me considering the predicament I'm in.  This year, they are arriving in droves, scenting victory on the fall air.

This year...I have toddlers.

God help me.

The carousel.  The pony rides.  The little airplanes that go in a circle.  Not to mention the cotton candy, the funnel cakes, the hot dogs, the lemonade turn-ups, the sasparilla, the game where you throw a ring around a goldfish bowl or a bottle and get a live rabbit.

Oh...they are out to get me no doubt.  They are probably plotting right now in their pop-up trailers. I can sense it.

"That Celina woman is DOOMED.  Let's get one of those shoot the water into the clown's mouth games.  Those kids will LOVE those. Mwa ha ha ha ha."

I'll admit it; I've been a little apprehensive this year as we crept closer to Fair Week.  I've hidden as much of it as I can from the toddlers--no need to get them to be willing stooges of the enemy.  I detour around the Fairgrounds, so they don't notice the growing influx of campsites.  I hurry them back inside whenever a suspiciously bright-colored semi comes rumbling past on the road.  I don't allow them to watch any local television.  And yet, somehow the toddlers know, like all kids know, that a huge opportunity for mischief is on the horizon, one that will allow them to yell "Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!" for a whole two minutes per three dollars worth of tickets.

But I have a secret weapon, one that will see me through this annual battle with my customary aplomb.  One they will never expect.  One the toddlers will be overjoyed about.  Oh yes, I have my own secret weapon in this battle with the carnies that they'll never figure out--one that begins with a Z and ends with an O. 

No, I'm not going to tell you what it is, but I'll give you a hint.  It involves animals and a slightly better-dressed foe.

Heh. They will never see it coming.

*Celina's annual battle with the carnies was abbreviated last year, but there are years' worth of carnie-related posts  on this blog.  For previous installments, just check every October's first week of blogs. This blog post has been carnie approved.*

How ELF-Killing Took On A Mountain Bike

Okay, enough nostalgia. Let's get back to what I do best.


Which is....?

Ah, a sea of hands waving frantically in front of me, like Horseshack with a bit of a digestive upset. (You have to have watched Welcome Back, Kotter at least once to get that one, kids.)

Yes, yes--you're right. I'm best at ranting in a pseudo comedic manner. Why don't we get started? So anyway, I just checked my blog stats, hoping that they were a little bit higher and guess what? What a spectacular explosion of interest in my blog! Naturally, modest little me thought, "Wow. That's a hell of a lot of hits coming from the Preditors & Editors or LoveRomances and More sites. I'm liking this nomination thing A LOT."

So I checked the reports, to see which of them was the bigger referring site and Lo and Behold! A HUGE report comes up. My weekly average went from 200 weekly visitors to SEVENTEEN HUNDRED unique views. I was so excited I spilled my milk and dropped my Geritol.

Until I saw the referring sites.

Now those of you who really WANT to be here, riddle me this. What, if anything, does my blog have to do with mountain bikes or environmental defense groups?

What really killed me was that people googled in order to get here. Want to know why? Because 'elf' correlates closely to E.L.F.--the Earth Liberation Front--and also the BMX Elf, a popular mountian bike. Now as to why they got directed to my site I have no idea. All I know is that somehow in the cyber-world, some wire got kinked and now I have a bunch of eco-defense people and biker dudes and chicks stopping by my blog.

Welcome by the way. This blog is about ELVES and killing them; it's certainly not about trees or off-road trails. Hope you enjoy your (brief) breeze-by and if you find one of the Elves run over the pesky little bugger.

Now maybe YOU guys can answer just one question for me. How in the bloody hell did you end up at my blog, for Chrissakes? Possibly only Brittany Spears' site is less related. I beat that one because I spell correctly and have all my hair. But seriously, I appreciate the hits and all that but------

-----WHY?

Don't get me wrong: I like mountains, and bikes, and trees. I don't really even have a problem with sand if you get right down to it.

Ahem! Now that you're all here, you might as well look around. Be sure you follow the links in this post. They'll get you where you want to go.

Or at least, where I want you to go.

Trust me. My youngest daughter broke her patella and tibial plateau while riding a mountain bike in the woods yesterday. Just....trust me. If you don't believe me, be sure to check out the keywords I've left for this post. Happy eco-defending and/or mountain biking. Just be sure you buy my book.