The title line should end “in-out, in-out, just came to read the meter.”

Guess the movie reference and win absolutely nothing.

I got no time to write, though, the baby is returning in just four hours. Picking him up at the airport, and we’re going to go peep some leaves up in Vermont (from where apparently leaves come).

I ain’t never done a romantic-ish, autumn in VT kind of dealio. Sure, I’ve been to Vermont (I’ll never forgive my oldest brother for going to school up in the northern country). The jaunts to look at leaves and eat cider donuts and shit in the autum chill were fucking godawful treks to my 13-year-old self.

My memories include puking up some French onion soup at some wonderous New England fallfest, my aunt pissing off some Canadian French dude with her Parisian French in nearby Montreal, sleeping in bunk beds with my mother (scarring), my must have been 15/16-year-old brother getting carsick repeatedly and annually (couldn’t have been the drinking in the woods the night before the trek) and missing the Stones on “Saturday Night Live,” because the dinky condo TV antenna was unable to reach beyond the mountain valley in which we were nestled. (Yup, kids, I lived before the days of cable and satellite dishes.)

As much as I loved dear old Pat, you did not really want to car trip with this woman. It was a ruthless ride without pity or stops to pee or snack. And, of course, the aforementioned carsick brother and I arguing, punctuated with Pat’s pleading for peace and silence and haranguing on why she ever had such children anyway.

It wasn’t so much leaf-peeping as leaf abuse.

I’m hoping for greener pastures with this trip with M. Sure, he tsks and sighs at me and my remarks as much as Pat ever did. But, he generally wants to pee or eat more than I do, so at least I will be more comfortable.

Who knows, maybe this will be my last New England autumn, a season I really do adore.