It's the season...

I happened to notice a small trailer pulled over to the side of the road while driving to the bank this afternoon. It was hitched to a red pick-up truck, and as I accelerated past the vehicle, I noticed the driver was busy doing something at a nearby stump, from whose base there sprouted a cluster of orange-y mushrooms.

By the time I got to the bank, I was menally kicking myself for not having pulled over myself, so I could get out and perhaps ask some questions of that driver. As a largely self-taught mushroom enthusiast, I have about reached the limit of my abilities, and can use all the advice I can get. By the time my business at the bank was complete, I had thought about recent thunderstorms and temperatures and decided to take a detour on the way home, via the road I call "Shaggy Way," to see if any mushrooms had been coaxed out of the ground.

Indeed, there were more mushrooms out now than the last time I drove down this road, including a number of Shaggy Manes, most of them quite old and withered black. There were enough new mushrooms, however, to fill half a large frying pan once I got home. I also collected about a half-dozen Suillus mushrooms of decent size, and even came across an aspen bolete. Photos to follow, most likely tomorrow.

* * *I have been quietly anticipating the new fall television season, which is something I really haven't done in years. Last night was Castle's turn to shine, but the show was not as satisfying as I had expected it to be. Beckett, of course, survives being shot, which was a sine qua non

As the story progressed, however, Beckett—who looked positively anorexic in some shots, although perhaps that's understandable since she's spent two months recuperating from a wound that put her in cardiac arrest for some time—began to sound unduly shrill in her pursuit of her Holy Grail, which was not helped at all by an out-of-character (IMO) Alexis Castle sounding whiny too much of the time.

Don't get me wrong; overall, I enjoyed the episode, but I was not bowled over by it.

Tonight was the season premiere of NCIS and the spinoff NCIS: Los Angeles, followed by a new show, Unforgettable. The two NCIS shows delivered on the premises left hanging in the air at the end of the previous season, and I stuck around for the third show because of an interesting premise, which concerns a former female cop who cannot forget anything (reminding me of a case study written many years ago by a certain Dr. Luria, about a journalist identified only as S, in a book titled Mind of a Mnemonist). The first episode went off well, although Carrie Wells (the former cop) seems way too well adjusted with respect to her "condition" (especially considering the event in her childhood the audience was made privy to). I think a few more episodes will determine whether the gimmick is workable.

I haven't watched this much television in quite some time.

Cheers...

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