Cold

October was spectacular here. Really. Living in warmer climates for ten years, I had forgotten how glorious autumn could be. Fat orange leaves on the pavement. Bright yellow trees standing against the deep blue mountains. If I were a poet, I would compare autumn to something poetical, like fish heads, and then spill my fat, juicy words across the internet for you to pick up, turn over, and admire, and then squish, like grapes. Poetry is like that. Of course, if I were really a poet I'd want to publish my grape words somewhere they might earn me some money. That is why my secret poet self doesn't put poetry on this blog.

My secret photographer self hasn't uploaded pictures of October yet, either. That's because she is lazy. Still. Just stuck in that lazy thing, and hoping that maybe Tim will get around to it.

So October was glorious, and you will have to take my word for it, because I cannot show you in pictures or poetry.

November, on the other hand, so far is just turning out to be cold. Hard frost cold. The kind of cold that makes your nose run, but you don't notice because you've lost feeling in your upper lip. The kind of cold that makes your heater turn on late at night when you have the thermostat set to economy. You wake up, shivering, and wonder if you should rethink economizing on something like heat. That kind of cold.

Then I start counting on my fingers, and realize that there are six months between November and April, inclusive, and that it will pretty much be cold all those months. Maybe that's too pessimistic. Maybe there are only five and a half months of cold.

I dress like a pillow each morning. I wear a puffy coat, a hat, gloves, and an extra layer of windbreaker pants over my jeans. There are a lot of people out on the streets as I walk to work, but I am the only walking pillow in early November. I'm guessing the others are saving their pillow gear for January, when it really gets cold.

Meanwhile, I've been considering buying a membership to a tanning salon so that I can get some vitamin D between now and April. And also maybe warm up my toes for 15 minutes every other day. Oooh that sounds heavenly.