I can’t wait for the Labor Day Parade, even though there will be a pack of dogs at the start of it. I must grudgingly admit that the King and Queen dogs, along with all the other canines in The Bee’s dog contest, did a great job in raising more than $14,000 for some worthy local causes. And just think of all the tax deductions! That alone should win them a big round of applause as they go by.

It seems like has been a lot of redecorating going on at houses along the parade route, from the scaffolding at Ed Farrell’s house to the house draped for sand blasting a few doors down, and the painting at the Balcony house by Trinity Church. And then there’s the Cricks.

“When Joan asked for a new bathroom, I went right out and got her one,” Jim Crick quipped referring to the Port-O-John that has been resting up against their Glover Avenue house for several weeks now. He says that she wallpapered the inside, hung a picture or two, and bought one of those fancy covers for the extra roll of paper. Jim is thinking that when the Labor Day Parade goes by the house, some of the marchers or spectators might be in need of the facility so he is busy making the door coin-operated.

While at the police station this week, I noticed a decorative touch that dresses up the building. At the main entrance, the town has placed two flanking planters filled with flowering plants and festooned with small US flags. The touch of color brightens up a building that has a largely dull gray exterior.

Now that we’re all rising extra early to get the kids ready for school, we can take a minute while letting the dog out to appreciate a magnificent planetary show taking place in the eastern sky. It’s Saturn again, back in view after disappearing behind the sun in June. Rising by 3 am, Saturn shines very bright in the southeastern sky by 6 am. It appears even larger because of the unusually open position of its rings, which are more often seen side-on. Venus is up, too, not far from Saturn.

While you are out stargazing, the dog has probably taken off and is in the next county by now. The cat has escaped out the back door, and you can hear the hot water pot screaming on the stove. The kids have slept through their alarms and you’re not even dressed for work yet. Oh, the sacrifices we make in the name of science.

Newtown roads are filling up fast and we’ve already had a few fender benders on Church Hill Road. Have a care for the new St Rose School traffic cop who steps out into that busy thruway twice a day at 8 am and again at 2:30 pm to help direct traffic around the entering and exiting school buses and cars. He’s wearing a bright green vest and lime green gloves, and he would appreciate it if we all slowed down a bit as we pass by.

When Tuesday, November 2, rolls around, millions of Americans will go the polls for the quadrennial presidential elections. It is a historic day not only because the nation will choose a leader for the next four years, but because it will also be the 50th birthday of Kevin Cragin, the chairman of the town’s Board of Fire Commissioners. Zoning Enforcement Officer Gary Frenette says that Kevin’s reaching the half-century mark coincides with the national elections, not unlike the sun and the moon coinciding during solar eclipses.

Gary himself recently hit the 50-year-mark, a watershed moment from which he is still recovering.

Seasons are changing at the Sandy Hook Organic Farmers’ Market where the early lettuce and Swiss chard has been upstaged by eggplant, sunflowers, and watermelon. Speaking of watermelon, Jim Shortt (of Shortt’s Organic Farm and Garden Center off Riverside Road) was passing out a new variety of yellow watermelon Tuesday for market shoppers to sample. It’s called Yellow Dolly (as in Hello, Dolly?). “Try it, you’ll like it,” Jim promised. I tried it and I didn’t die. It was sweet, juicy, and delicious. There should be plenty of Yellow Dolly watermelon vines sprouting through the Sandy Hook Organic Farmers’ Market mulch next year, since all of the taste testers were spitting seeds every which way.

That’s enough of Great Expectorations for this week, but I’ll be back, so be sure to…

Read me again.