Stuff in the Basement: Only a bit of normal

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

Only a bit of normal

I'll regret this. I shouldn't say it, shouldn't even think it, but the truth of the matter is I'm just darn sick of summer. It's the 20th of October, and yesterday, late afternoon, I came in from working out back and felt a burn again on my bald head. A ring had formed around my collar, sweat was running down my cheeks, and even the waistband of my skivvies was wet.

It wasn't hot. It was just warm, so un-October warm, in fact, that a trip to Minnesota last weekend was, well, summer-like, the trees, normally spectacular in mid-October, were endlessly, boring emerald. It's as if the world around us had run out of gas or refused the services of a good freeze. A good, old-fashioned frost would have turned the whole world into an artist's palette. Instead, no--instead, this from Mt. Tom in Sibley State Park. Last weekend!!! Just shouldn't be.

Beautiful? yes. But October? no. It's just plain boring, and it's wrong. Things are not supposed to be this way. The world is out of whack.

This is the how things should be. Last year.

I know. . .I know--in a month or so I'll be trying to take this all back. In two months I won't be able to get out of our back door because ye old drift has moved back into place, as comfortably as it does every winter. In three months, I'll be sick of the dang cold. In four, I'll be wondering why we never spend time in Arizona, even though we used to live there.

Today?--rain, or so the forecast reads. Today, we start a week of 50s. But then, next week, a gentle rise again.

Global warming, you think?

In 1976, we'd just moved to Iowa from Arizona. At just about this time of year, an old friend and colleague told me as we were leaving the school parking lot--I remember where he said it, the exact spot, in fact!--that he was so darn anxious for winter.

Stopped in my tracks--seriously? I thought. Ready for this?