What started as groundhog days has become groundhog months. Still sheltering in place (since March) we have to ask each other "what day of the week is it?" They're all similar. But October brought many chores to do to get ready for cold weather. Time to take down the ACs and put up the storm windows; harvest the last tomato and a few remaining green beans; get the septic tank pumped, and have our carpenter do a few last-minute exterior repairs. Everything else is more of the same-old, same-old: read books (Gerry just finished his 100th book for the Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge) and sleep, eat, take our pills, and sleep again. At least it's been possible to sit on the front porch to eat, read, and talk, although today the temperature (in the 50s) made that less attractive. We still haven't managed to catch our long-haired feral cat, who badly needs a trim, so I guess you could say we still have unfinished business. Within our small sphere (a two-acre lot on a country road) things are good, but anxieties creep into our fortress of calm from the world at large as we follow the news about COVID-19 (on the upswing again, though fortunately not in our rural county), developments in the presidential election that suggest November 3rd will likely produce grave civic disruptions, and wildfires in our beloved California. We meditate daily, praying for the health and happiness of all beings.