Nice Out

Something disturbed a squirrel in the middle of the night and set him barking for a few minutes. Maybe something grabbed his nuts. (Oh, crap, I'm doing Letterman's jokes!) I had to close my window a couple of hours ago, as my fingers were getting numb from the cold air drifting in. It's so nice to have actual cold air again-- the memory of a hellish summer is still clear enough that I can appreciate the change. A few months hence, I'm sure I'll feel differently, but for now I enjoy it. It continues to be clear, too, and once the moon set (plain yellow tonight, rather than the vivid orange of recent hazy nights), taking with it the tufted shadows and flecks of glitter decorating the pines, the stars provided a pleasing aerial display for my contemplation. I'm acutely aware of the rapid approach of October's mid-point, which leaves me loath to spend more than a minimal time indoors. These most pleasant nights are few, and not to be squandered on mere virtuality. There'll be plenty of time for teh Internets when deep winter comes.

A Fast Variety of Corn

The subject line of a Scientific American RSS feed today was "News: Birdlike Dinosaur Older Than Thought." Wow. And thought must be pretty old, the brains that do the thinking having developed ages ago. But I guess that if any creature were to be older than thought, it wouldn't be surprising were it to be something birdlike-- and probably closely related to the chicken. We can be pretty sure that no chicken has ever had an actual thought. This is why it's OK for vegetarians to eat chickens (and for vegans to eat them raw, I suppose.) Chickens don't qualify as sentient beasts. They are more like legumes which have somehow become detached from their roots and started walking around. Sort of like the customer service employees of just about any company you can name, who can be rather tasty when properly prepared (don't eat the brains, though. They contain no nutrients whatsoever.) Gee, I do enjoy hearing about new scientific discoveries.

I woke up with a stomach ache today. This is surprising because it's been years since I've had one (if you disregard bouts of acid indigestion.) When I was a kid I had them all the time, but as an adult I've almost never experienced them. I wonder if I could be coming down with avian flu? If I'm not the first person on my block to get the avian flu, I'll be terribly disappointed. Being the first to have the latest model of disease is very important to hypochondriacs. Some degree of vulnerability to physical afflictions is vital to our self-image. It's bad enough that I almost never have colds. Not to get the flu during a raging epidemic would be an awful blow to my self disesteem. The epidemic isn't actually raging yet, of course. In fact, thus far it seems pretty much confined to those vegans who eat their chicken raw. Even if this rare stomach ache (considerably diminished now that I've had dinner, I'm sorry to say) doesn't indicate the onset of avian flu, I probably still have plenty of time before anyone else gets it. And, besides, maybe I've got an ulcer, or a hernia, or stomach cancer. Always look on the bright side of mortality!

The persistent quite-niceness of the weather is encouraging. We are but a hundred hours from the first full moon of autumn, and there's a good chance that the night on which it arrives will be mild. Rain might fall Saturday, but a clear spell is expected to follow. For the night of the full moon, I wouldn't take a few clouds amiss, but I'd prefer that the rain be gone, and that the cold front depart by Monday evening.

It was Thursday the 13th. Missed it by one day!