Apple Weather

The Saturday paper arrived this morning, bundled with the Sunday paper. Don't be getting the wrong idea; This was not a tryst, nor the result of any sort of conspiracy. It has happened because the guy who delivers the paper crashed his car Saturday morning before reaching our house and was unable to complete his route. Thus, for me, yesterday's news is as fresh as today's. I now have a front-page color photograph of Mount Saint Helens in eruption! Furthermore, I found out that a second volcano has erupted, this time in the west coast Mexican state of Jalisco! I have read an obituary for Richard Avedon! All these things are evidence that the Earth is about to split in two! Well, maybe the last one isn't, but the two volcanic eruptions surely are.

A large photograph of the pompous Larry Ellison (microphone and crib notes in one hand, the fist of the other hand raised in a threatening manner, a smug smirk peeking from within his oddly trimmed facial hair) occupies much of the first page of the business section, leading me to think that perhaps the impending destruction and dismemberment of the planet is not an entirely bad thing. How marvelous a thing is the news a day late! I think that, from now on, I shall always save my papers unread until they have had time to age, and get a bit gamy. News, like lasagna, is better as leftovers.

I mentioned apples in the subject line, didn't I? It is cool again tonight, and is the season for harvesting apples, and soon the cold will be making us apple-cheeked, and thus this week's...

( Sunday Verse )

Dumb

I made the mistake of leaving the heater vent in my room open when I went to sleep today, and I breathed the utterly desiccated air for hours. The sweat I produced because of having too many blankets might have re-humidified the air, had the blankets not soaked it up. Thus, I woke heat-groggy and with arid throat, and, the day being warm, the room remains too hot even now that a cool (though still) evening has arrived. It felt as though summer was making an attempt to return, but night is autumn's ally. Still, even the bright afternoon sunlight shone on great thunderheads that hung over the mountains. Perhaps it has even rained a bit up there, to replenish the sluggish October streams. But now I must put the fan back in the window and attempt to cool the room a bit before Sluggo throws a fit. I will go outside and listen to the sky, in hope of hearing one of two things: the sound of distant thunder, or the flapping wings and the calls of the cranes who return to the valley wetlands this time of year. If I can't feel autumn, I would at least like to hear it.