As much as I love autumn (and that's a lot), I found myself not so fond of it this past weekend. With the temperature finally trying harder to stay cooler, my HVAC system was not running for long periods of time, which should be a relief when the electric bill arrives. But that meant the outside noise levels got worse.

Already nursing sinusitis and a headache, I was not enjoying neighbors' insistence on sharing their tunes with the whole street. Add to that the near-total lack of sleep Saturday night (thank you, earworms from "K-Pop Demon Hunters," for your service to keeping my brain from letting me sleep), and Sunday could have been a total disaster.

Things could have gone horribly awry had I not taken advice from another earworm, "Just Breathe" from "In the Heights" (is there anything Lin-Manuel Miranda can't do???) when a couple appeared on my porch offering to mow my yard.

Though I'm short of cash at the moment, when I had to run a sudden errand I handed over $30 to the couple in case they finished before I returned. The mower, still in my backyard as of this writing, seized up and is to be replaced with someone else's borrowed mower. The yard hasn't been mowed quite yet, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and hopefully it will be mowed by........

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