Standard Time

The clocks have paused for one hour, bringing them back into synchronization with my brain. Windows still insists on setting the clock in my computer ten minutes fast. It is now 4:06 AM, Pacific Microsoft Time.

Hooters

A pleasant dampness pervades the night, and in its dense quiet I hear only the sound of two owls hooting. Their resonant voices drifting from the dark pines complement the melancholy atmosphere under this pearly grey sky.

Grey

Delightfully grey, like those days when I used to have the public parks of Los Angeles almost entirely to myself, and could walk the paths that were strewn with yellow leaves undisturbed. One of the most enjoyable things about southern California was always the propensity of the populace to run for cover at the merest indication of the possibility of rain. They would watch me, the crazy guy, from the safety of their cars, as I dared the clouds to make me wet. Sometimes they did. Mostly they didn't. I learned to trust grey days. I still do.

Birds

Yesterday's drifting mass of silver-veined slate clouds have been replaced by featureless grey, but the flocks of small birds have arrived as they do each afternoon this time of year, to fill the day with chirping and the flutter of wings. They come to peck in the lawn and to raid berries from the dogwood trees. From down the street, the smell of burning charcoal drifts; some die-hard barbecue fan is reluctant to let the summer go. In the grey chill, the large, deep green leaves of the fruitless mulberry seem to shine more brightly than they do in the sunlight, as though they were already slick with the anticipated rain. When the birds have left, I will go into the house and play music to replace their vanished song.