Here I am back in my equestrian days. I believe that's my (late) Great Uncle Alton.

Yesterday I had drinks with co-worker after work. My car was parked by his house and as I went to get in my car to go home, this man came over and asked if I could help him find his glasses. He'd been walking home with his head down and a low hanging branch had swiped his glasses off his face and he couldn't find them.

Co-worker hadn't made it all the way into his house yet and I gave him a wave to indicate, "Please come over here just in case this turns out to be a creepy man who wants to club me over the head and toss my body into a ravine." It was almost dark and the grass and walkway were covered with leaves. Co-worker got a flashlight and we proceeded to crawl around on the sidewalk with no luck trying to figure out how this man's glasses could have vanished.

After a few minutes he thanked us for trying to help but he didn't want to keep us. He was going to go home and return with his wife and see if they could find them. As he left another neighbor appeared with a giant flashlight. The light part was the size of a dinner plate.

This neighbor introduced himself as Joseph and he was a character in the best possible way. He was chatty and waved his spotlight around while telling us how he was cleaning his gutters before dark when he noticed glasses man lurking about. He'd been approached by some nutters recently so he wasn't 100% convinced that lost glasses guy was legit. But he thought he'd at least bring a light over now that we'd joined the search.

There was a strip between the sidewalk and the street with big rosemary bushes growing on it. (How come my rosemary doesn't grow like a bush? It just flops over. Is there such thing as a weeping rosemary?) Joseph decided that the glasses must have gotten stuck in the bushes and that's why we weren't finding them. He swept the flashlight back and forth through the rosemary and I saw a little glint and we found them.

But now glasses guy had gone home. Since he said he was returning we decided to wait for him. Joseph broke off the branch that started this whole adventure and told us a series of stories which included his gutters, the apple tree at his house and various things about the election that irritated him.

We finally decided that we'd waited long enough and Joseph thought he'd get a piece of string and some paper so we could leave the glasses and a note for the man. Joseph returned with a plastic bag that newspapers are delivered in and thought we could put the glasses in there and tie that in the tree. That way glasses man would find them and they would be safe.

Just about the time we're rigging this thing, we see a series of flashlights coming down the block. It was glasses man with his wife and two little kids all waving their flashlights. Maybe this isn't making the greatest story but it seemed pretty cool at the time. He was thankful we'd waited and we all had one of those neighborly moments that make you feel better about people when the election coverage makes people all seem like crazy jerks.

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In other news, in case anyone is paying attention. I'm not going to do National Blog Posting Month this year. Mainly because I'm so busy this month I am preemptively weeping and pulling my hair out about it. We have something planned every weekend day in November except tomorrow. Plus I am doing an informal version of National Novel Writing Month which I'm sure I will be freaking out about by Wednesday. My inner overachiever makes me miserable sometimes. Also Twilight starts this month and I will probably have to see it at least 3 times the weekend it opens. Unless it totally sucks and then I'll only have to see it 2 times. This reminds me I haven't written my Twilight predictions post yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I'm confident I could type something and click "post" every day in November but I think (and I actually have a rant about this which I decided not to type out) the blog posting thing is not only about posting but also about participating in the community and visiting new blogs and leaving comments. And there is no way I will have time for that this month.

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I have a piece of paper on my desk in my handwriting that says, "Bears are the new zombies." Any ideas what I might have meant by that?