Calendars lie

Calendars lie.  At least those in Texas do.  From childhood stories up through Saturday Evening Post covers (anyone reading this old enough to remember the Saturday Evening Post?) to today's NFL halftime beer commercials, we're taught fall means sweaters, fires in the fireplace complete with smoldering marshmallows and Smores, colorful foliage, and lots of leaves that need raking.  

And it's fall now, right?  It arrived September 20-something-or-other as I recall, same as it does every year.  Except we here in Texas usually have none of those things yet.  Sweaters are still safely tucked away in storage boxes, the fireplace is still dark and cold,  marshmallows and Smores ingredients are still on the store shelves, and leaves are still green and holding on tightly.  

Damn!

But....and here comes the good part....this year so far seems to be different.  Dallas on the first day of fall saw rain and a cool front move through.  For the past week the high temps have been in the 80's, and yesterday round two came through.  More rain, more cool, enough that I had to dig around and find a sweater in order to sit outside yesterday evening.  Pinch me!

The cherry on top of this autumn Sunday (sundae....get it?) morning was the flock of geese that greeted me as I walked out onto my terrace this morning.  While directionally challenged (they were heading west), they still maintained their perfect V-formation and were happily honking the whole way.  

As I'm now on the third floor they were right at eye level and so close I think I could  have reached out and touched them. Or more accurately, reached out and had them viciously attack me for such an aggressive move.  (Mean little bastards they are!)

All this leads me to mentally ratchet up my expectations for a REAL winter, complete with snow and....oh, what the hell....smoldering marshmallows on sticks and Smores.

Fingers crossed.  :)

S

Careful what you pray for

I think I've figured out why the weather this summer is so hot:  During last winter's never-ending blizzard all you Yankees got down on your knees at the same time and said, "Dear God, PLEEEEEEEZE make this snow stop and give us some heat."  And hearing it from all sides He said, "OK, done."  Uh Huh....that was it.

There are some things that you can just count on.  Every spring the grass greens up and the trees bloom.  The track of the sun moves a little closer to the equator, and the temperature gets warmer miserably hot.  And I write a blog post bitching about the grass getting greener and needing mowing, the trees blooming and making me sneeze, and the sun track moving toward the equator making it miserably hot. 

Summertime as a school-age kid was fun, for obvious reason....school was out for 3 months.  WooHoo!  Even tempered by the fact that I was charged with mowing our lawn, summer was still a fun time.  

Now as an adult, however, I see absolutely NO redeeming social value whatsoever to summer.  Working/playing outside in the summer makes us HOT.  When we get hot we SWEAT.  When we sweat we STINK.  So basically we just walk around STINKING up the place for 3 months.  Why would anyone want to do that?  I'm pretty sure "summer" is an old Indian word for "stink".  

The only excuse I can figure for there even being a summer at all is because God must have wanted to make it up to you Yankees for sticking you way up north like that with all those blizzards.  "Oops, sorry guys.  To make it up to you I'll give you a few months of warmth, OK?  We good?"  But then He realized that was burning all us southerners to a crisp, so He gave us air conditioning....and ice cream with fresh strawberries on top. ;) 

*Sigh*  Oh well, I guess it's all part of The Plan.  Enjoy your Saturday, and stay cool.

S

Nature's sweet spot

This is the day I've been waiting for.  After enduring all those 100+ degree days, fall has finally arrived in north Texas.  The low this morning was in the upper 40's, and the high today should top out around 67.  Sweater weather for sure, but not anywhere near cold enough to get out he big LL Bean down parka.  Warm enough to get outside and do something, but not warm enough to work up a sweat doing it. 


And it's World Series time, too.  I'm not a baseball fan, but to be able to participate in the water cooler conversation the next few weeks I'm going to have to be at least semi-well versed in the World Series.  I've always been for whichever team wins the first game of the series in the hopes that they can win 4 straight and get it all over with.  I personally think it was highly inconsiderate of Major League Baseball to schedule the World Series right in the middle of football season.  They obviously didn't get my letter.


And finally, I read in the paper a quote from a long-time New York money manager (referring to the Occupy Wall Street movement) who said that "....he was disappointed that members of Congress from New York, especially Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, had not come out swinging for an industry that donates heavily to their campaigns.  'They need to understand who their constituency is,' he said."  Duh....he might as well have just said, "They need to understand who's payroll they're on."


Happy hump day.


S

Another sign

This afternoon while walking the dog I saw this....

....an acorn, another sign that autumn is slowly-but-surely overtaking summer.  Before long there will be millions of these covering our neighborhood.  With our temperatures in the 60's in the mornings and the 80's in the afternoon, with the newspapers giving us teases about the State Fair that will begin soon, and of course with football everywhere, I actually think I can feel fall.  I like.


S