Computers and I don’t seem to play nicely together. I’m not sure why it is that I’m so blessed with this tidbit of good fortune, but I seem to encounter computer-related woes more often than most people I know.

There was the incident of the missing operating system. There was the incident involving my second favorite error message: “Hard drive failure iminent” (“Missing Operating System” is, of course, my favorite). There was the Saturday I spent at the office with both my laptop, a replacement laptop, and a very understanding coworker. After a week of fighting with tech support on the phone about why it was that I could not connect my machine to *anything* and them insisting that it was irretrievably broken, and me insisting that couldn’t we just check the drivers and did I really have to migrate every stinking file I ever owned to a new machine, we ended up completely uninstalling and deleting the old network drivers, and reinstalling them. I may know next to nothing about this sort of setup thing, but that was one time when I felt satisfyingly vindicated.

It’s been far too long between computer catastrophes, so I suppose it should have been no surprise when, after flying up for my latest stint north of Seattle, I pulled the laptop out of its bag and discovered that the screen looked remarkably like someone had taken that little knob you quite often find on desktop monitors labeled ‘bright’ and moved it all the way to the darkest setting. Only problem is, on this type of laptop, there *is* no ‘bright’ knob, which meant that, basically, my laptop was hosed. The only possible way to use it was to hook it up to a projector – something I wasn’t willing to do because having the entire development team of over 100 people be able to see my email and project reports just wasn’t a good thing. The tech support person I finally managed to contact suggested that I try hooking it to a monitor. I pointed out, rather nicely I might add, that while that was a lovely suggestion, I didn’t make it a habit of carrying a monitor with me on projects (They don’t come in bags that would classify as carry-on luggage, you see). Then he wanted to know when I’d next be down in the main office. Considering that the only time I’ve ever been to that main office is for the orientation (and that was *so* exihilerating that I couldn’t possibly want to top it, so haven’t been back since), and that the office where I’m technically stationed (although I’m never there because I’m always at the project site) is several hours away, I noted that the chances of that were fairly slim too.

The end result was that he scrounged up a replacement laptop and tossed into the overnight mail. It arrived Friday. I came home from work, dragged out a screwdriver, and got to learn how to replace a hard drive in a laptop. Piece of cake. I turned it on, I could actually see the screen, and I was happy.

Happy, that is, until I tried to log in on Sunday to do my timesheet, and discovered that this new laptop refuses to recognize the network. Not just my DSL, but any network, as I discovered this morning at the project site. I switched network cards with my old ones, thinking perhaps that might be the issue. No such luck.

The guy on the phone from tech support today was very helpful and nice. The end result is that he’s going to have to send me a replacement for my replacement (which means I’ll get more practice on this hard drive swapping thing). Luckily he was either tired enough, or simply flexible enough to find the humor in the situation with me. Too often they just don’t seem to appreciate when I subside into laughter upon diagnoses of the computer’s problem. This time it was a dead port. Who knows what the next one will have? I’m almost looking forward to the replacement replacement coming, just to see what potential fatal flaw the next one might hold.

I figure if this keeps up though, they might want to hire me as a trainer for tech support. All this experience with recalcitrant computers has to pay off at some point, right?

Friday night when Richard and I went to Old Sacramento, costume-part shopping, we ended up going to dinner at a restaurant there that turned out to be much fancier than either of us was expecting. It was the sort of place where I usually end up feeling like I’m still pretending to be a grown-up. The sort with waiters who speak in soft tones and where you feel the disapproving frown of the maitre’d when you accidentally put your elbows on the table. The food was excellent though – we decided we would come back for the creme brule alone.

The reason we ended up there is because it’s the restaurant at which my senior ball was held, over a decade ago. Actually, the dance was held outside in the courtyard out back. I’ve passed by the front door any number of times since then and wondered what it was like in there, when it wasn’t cold and dark and filled with hundreds of nervous teenagers in every shade of pastel gown and rented tuxedo.

It was my 18th birthday that night, and I had asked a good friend to go with me, having learned from my Junior Prom fiasco that going to one of these things with an actual ‘date’ was one sure way to not end up having any fun at all. We double-dated with my best friend, and went to a restaurant more expensive than any of us had ever been to. The restaurant didn’t have anything special for birthdays (much to my friends’ dismay) but the waiter stuck a match in a dinner roll, lit it, and hastily sang ‘Happy Birthday’ with the others at my table. The guy I was with stole a fork for me, slipping it into my purse as we left. I tried several times to ditch it, but it still came home with me, somehow.

The pictures were taken up a flight of stairs and down a narrow hall. We stood in a long line of antsy teenagers in formal wear, in a stuffy, crowded hallway. We were laughing so hard that my picture looks as if I’m slightly tipsy, holding onto his shirt for support. In reality, I was trying too hard to keep from laughing long enough so the harried photographer could take the shot.

Downstairs, out in the courtyard where the dance was to be, it was dark and a bit windy. The DJ showed up two hours late and falling-down drunk. After they rather hastily dismissed him, someone, somewhere, scrounged up a band from one of the clubs in the neighborhood. They started their set with the absolute worst rendition of ‘Louie, Louie’ we’d ever heard, then went rapidly downhill from there. Their saving grace was at least they were sober, but that’s not saying much.

We ended up collecting our souvenior wineglasses and a small crowd, and heading up to the top of a parking garage where someone turned on the radio in their car and opened all the doors and windows so we’d at least have music. We tried to dance, but no one was really in the mood by then. Even then, though, we knew that at least our Senior Ball would be more than most, and something to laugh about later. It was a night to remember. We were seniors, staring graduation in the face, trying very hard to act as if we were old enough to be considered adults.

I don’t often think of high school anymore because while it was certainly a learning experience, I have never regarded those as the best years of my life; they were merely a stepping stone from which I leapt (albeit a bit ungracefully) into college, and then into real life. I still have the wineglass. It gathers dust on a shelf in the kitchen, only taken down on the rare occasions that a woman who does not drink alcohol would have a need for such a thing. The fork, and the boy who stole it for me, have both long since slipped away. But I’m still in touch with that best friend from high school. And occasionally, there are fleeting moments like Friday night when it comes rushing back to me.

At some point a few weeks ago, Richard and I were joking around and I think it was me who said that I was just a delicate flower. After we both recovered from sniggering about that comment, we tried it out on both sets of parents, and all available siblings. My older sister’s response was ‘Richard, we have to talk’. Both my mom and his mom raised eyebrows and gave us a look. Delicate flower I’m not, but it gave me a great Halloween costume idea.

We went to Old Sacramento last night, primarily to search for costume parts, since Richard had remembered seeing a hat in one shop that might work if he was to be a leprechaun, and I was still floundering for ideas because even though I had that whole flower thing going, I still wasn’t sure, and where the heck was I going to find green tights anyway. We ended up wandering through all three floors of this marvelous store that’s got all the tacky and bizarre stuff you can ever want (including a small but nevertheless impressive selection of gargoyles).

Today we ran around getting all the rest of the things we needed for the Halloween party we were throwing this evening. We slept in as late as the cats would let us – although I have to grumble about the fact that I’m still the one the cats prefer. Don’t get me wrong. I find it endearing when they’re looking for a lap to sit on, but when I’m huddled on one side of the bed, mummified by at least three cats and sometimes twice as many, and he’s got an entire half of the bed that’s cat-free, I’m not finding it quite so charming. I have faith though that one of these days he’ll be the one to wake up unable to move because he’s feline-pinned, and I’ll be the one giggling sleepily into my pillow. (I can dream, can’t I?)

It was pouring down rain, so by the time we’d found all the rest of the costume pieces, and purchased all the food items, including all the ingredients for the jello mold we bought last night (it was a brain. How could we pass it up?), and rooted around in a huge box of little pumpkins without any umbrellas, we were both more than a bit soggy. So much for the plans of outside games for the party, or for making the tombstones to put on the yard. Then we scurried around the house, tidying up with no regard for cat comfort this time, putting costumes together, making the punch (I love dry ice!), dragging out chairs. And then we sat and waited. And waited. An hour passed and I started to get annoyed, no matter how hard I tried not to be. I don’t expect people to be exactly on time, but I get antsy when people are really late. We even went so far as to start talking about going to see a movie if no one had shown by a certain time. But finally people started to trickle in.

The brain mold came out beautifully gray and disgusting (and yet quite tasty). I managed to figure out not only how to pin construction paper flower petals to my head so that they stayed, but also how to keep the flower pot on my foot so that when I stood still with both feet together, I was actually inside it. The game that Richard and I came up with a few weeks ago, and didn’t have a chance to actually finalize til this morning, went over extremely well (although I do now have to wonder about my older sister and another of our friends, who came up with a plot to take over the world with genetically mutated, flesh-eating, yodeling cows). We never did end up carving pumpkins, but as I recall, we didn’t get around to doing that last year either, so perhaps I should have learned by now.

Everyone is gone now, leaving behind a plastic bag of cookies that look like fingers, half a grey jiggly jello brain, and the remainder of the punch, dry ice all melted and no longer capable of producing fog when stirred. The party didn’t go quite as I expected it to, but then perhaps it never does, and despite everything, it was fun.

Really good excuses why I couldn’t clean my house this morning:

I couldn’t make the bed because Tangerine was curled up on the comforter.

I couldn’t pick up the pile of blankets that had fallen onto the floor because Rosemary had made them into a nest.

I couldn’t throw away the empty box because Sebastian was inside,and purring.

I couldn’t clean up the newspapers because Azrael was wrestling with them.

I couldn’t pick up the stuffed animals because Rebecca knocked them off when she jumped up to the shelf and she was still there.

I couldn’t put the towels back in the linen closet because Zuchinni was in there and he would have been scared if I opened the door.

I couldn’t put the chairs back because Allegra was lying in the sunbeams right where they would have had to go.

Okay, so I was also really really tired because the cats were so glad to see me last night that they didn’t think I should be allowed to sleep and instead should be forced to pet them until the wee hours. And after the week I’ve had with design sessions and being dragged back and forth between meetings and having to go stomp on ideas of new development before they got any bigger than just an idea, and working too long hours, well, I was completely drained.

But still. I really did have the best of intentions this morning. I really did think I could make a quick zip through the house and at least pick up a few things so that it wasn’t quite so bad.

(I *knew* there were good reasons for having so many cats!)

Richard and I have had a joke for nearly the entire time we’ve been together about how we share a server brain. He and I have a tendency to blurt out exactly the same thing, even if it’s completely out of the blue and has nothing to do with the conversation we were having. At one point, he found one of those little toys that you put into water and they grow, shaped like a brain. We had fun with that. When he went to Boston last week, he came home with a pile of all the little doodads and free gadgets that you can pick up at conventions – pens, pads, etc. Since this was a neurology convention, he also came home with brains. They’re made of the same squishy material that stress balls are constructed from. But now we each have a spare brain.

Cat hair is insidious and has this unique tendency to weave itself permanently into things. If you own a cat, you will soon find that you can never completely remove the cat hair from clothes, furniture, or curtains. It has a life of its own. I’ve often joked that it’s one reason why I’m a bit odd – when I die and they do the autopsy, they’ll find cat hair woven into my brain. It’ll have worked its way that far in.

Despite the joke though, I expect that my brain is fairly normal – gray and lumpy just like anyone else’s. And despite how much we may tease, I expect that Richard’s brain is just as normal and wrinkly as anyone else. I never really gave the whole brain thing that much thought however, until tonight.

We were both out of town this week – he in Portland for his last week there, and me back in Washington for the second week of design sessions for this project. We were both scheduled to fly back to Sacramento at just about the same time, so we figured we would just meet in the airport and head home together. That is, until he called to tell me he might miss his flight because he was going to the hospital. He had blind spots in his vision, he said.

I’m not one to worry too much – I never have been. I have often found it amusing that my mom is so capable of imagining the worst-case scenarios for her children. Me – I can usually be fairly practical about things. I look at every angle, rationalize the situation, and then go from there. I don’t tend to dive into the truly nasty ‘what ifs’. Famous last words, I suppose. I know that these things can be just related to something minor. Stress. Certain types of headaches. Staring at the computer screen too long maybe – who knows. But I also know that there are some really ugly things that can cause vision problems. And so despite my practical nature, those nasty ‘what ifs’ starting crowding around in my brain. I stood in line for my flight, chatting with the coworkers who were on the same plane, cheerfully joking about the week’s events, and all the while pretending that I wasn’t worried, no, not me, not a bit.

It’s just migraines. He’s never been officially diagnosed before, but I guess this was a really good way to start. I got my official diagnosis of migraines back when I was still in elementary school, after going through a whole host of doctors who put me through a whole host of different labels – dust allergy, needs bifocals, sinusitis – before one doctor finally figured it out. (Of course, he also was certain that I’d grow out of them at puberty. Boy was *he* wrong.)

But I’m digressing. All Richard has is migraines. His brain is perfectly normal (although what an opportunity for teasing *that’s* going to be!). It’s not any of the other possibilities that were spinning through my (possibly cat-hair-infested) brain this evening as I waited to board my plane. All that worrying was for nothing…or maybe as my mom says, it was the worrying that made it all right.

Lately I’ve been seeing myself in other people. Not in their faces for some physical similarity, but for circumstances and situations. It’s kind of an odd feeling, looking at people and seeing bits of me looking back.

When we went to the poker night a while back, my coworker gave us a very quick tour of the downstairs of the new house he and his wife just bought. It’s a beautiful house, but it was almost like walking through a model home. Everything was perfect. Furniture just so. Everything coordinated exactly. It was a large house too and I caught myself thinking that the two of them must rattle around in that big house by themselves, wondering if they had kids, and if not, why they’d gotten such a big house – maybe they were planning kids. It didn’t occur to me til a bit later that Richard and I will be looked at in just the same way. We’re building a house that is probably too big for just two people, and even with the cats we may rattle around in it a bit. How would I feel knowing that someone was jumping to conclusions based on that?

I was in the grocery store a few weeks ago, standing in line at the checkout counter with the makings for peach pie (because Richard’s coworker was going to crash at our place for the night and having company over always brings out the domestic in me) and the woman in front of me caught my eye. She was older – probably at least in her 60’s or 70’s, trim, with beautiful white hair and a bright mischievious smile. She held herself poised proudly, and walked with a spring in her step. She was beautiful because of her self-confidence and obvious energy and I nearly opened my mouth and spoke the thought aloud – that it was my fervent wish that I could look that good when I was her age. And then before I could let the words escape I thought about how they might sound – as if it was an insult although none was intended, and quite the opposite, and so I kept silent, but as I drove back home I wondered if I should have said something anyway, just a comment, woman to woman, to let her know that she was an inspiration, even if it was only to a tired stranger buying sour cream and pie crusts. And how would I react if, by some stroke of fortune when I reach that age, I am in her shoes and someone said that to me? Would I be flattered? Offended?

I notice people more, lately. I’m not sure why that is so – it just happens. A couple catches my eye, the way they’re holding hands as if it’s the most natural thing in the world and the sight of love portrayed so quietly and effortless tugs a smile to my lips no matter what mood I’m in, and I wonder if we’ll do that for someone, years down the road when we walk through an airport, hand in hand, simply content to be touching without speaking.

I notice marriages now. I never paid much attention to them before. I could point out things that might worry me or amuse me about friends and acquaintances, but the whole concept of their relationships never really occurred to me one way or the other. But now I find myself watching my sisters with their husbands, friends with their spouses, my parents, parents of friends. I’m not sure quite what it is that I’m looking for – perhaps some small clue to what ties each pair together; what do’s and don’t’s I can glean from them that might work in my marriage to Richard; what to do and what to avoid doing. They’re all individuals, with relationships as unique as they are and I can never truly compare, but I watch nonetheless and yet even as I do I still ask myself why it has suddenly become so much more interesting to me now that I am on the verge of marriage myself.

The driveway to the project site in Lake Stevens curves gently around in a circle through an expanse of green grass and vibrant fall trees. There’s a ‘duck crossing’ sign midway down, showing a small family of duck silhouettes walking in single file, although I’ve never seen a duck there yet. There’s a cougar on the site, somewhere, or so they tell us, amid laughing notes to not go outside at night with a steak in hand. There is a trail that weaves its way behind the buildings through the forest and along the road that offers a scenic walk to relax the mind. It’s a lovely place outside, even though I only caught glimpses here and there throughout this week.

It was a dark week – and by that I mean that I would drive to the site before the sun rose, and drive back to my hotel after it had set. It rained on and off, but then that’s the type of weather I’ve learned to expect from the Seattle area. It was cloudy and wet and gray – all perfectly suited to what I had expected from this week.

But there is truth to the saying that even clouds have silver linings. Much to my surprise, the groups that were shipped in from all around the world to this warehouse of a building actually took it seriously. After nearly a year of indecision, design is being finalized. Conversations are brief, decisions are made, and we are actually ahead of schedule. So much for my gloomy forecast (shared by significant numbers of the rest of the IT department) that they’d not even get halfway through their task list by the end of the three weeks.

There were other bright spots throughout the week as well. Dinners with coworkers I’ve worked with for months but never had the chance to know. Laughter around garlic bread, small-town cooking where everything is smothered in cheese, dinner out where I rely on the rest to choose from a menu of food I love, but can never pronounce. And even if it had all gone wrong, I had my visit with my little sister to look forward to Friday night.

It was storming Friday afternoon as I left the building, the sky angry and clouded. But halfway down 405 the sun broke free. The week was over, the project is still running, and we’re not as doomed as I had begun to believe we might be.

Despite the smooth beginning to this design session, my optimism is cautious at best. But people have a tendency to surprise you when you least expect it. It’s a start.

I feel like a 6-year old playing on daddy’s computer. I hate it when the only chair they give you in the hotel room was meant for someone at least a foot taller than me. Or maybe I’ve just got a really short torso. Hmm. No. It’s discrimination, I tell you. Hotel rooms were designed for tall business men, not short business women.

I flew to Seattle this evening, and then made the long trek through the darkness to somewhere north of there. I’m not exactly sure where I am because I got a bit lost trying to find the second hotel. See, because they did all the planning for these design sessions I’m here for so late last week, when they sent out the hotel confirmations this morning, at least half the names didn’t have a hotel attached. So we were told to go to one of them, and they’d tell us where to head next. Uh. Okay. I found the first one easily enough, and they were kind enough to supply me with a map, with the location of the hotel I was *supposed* to be at cleverly marked with an arrow.

Of course it would have helped if they’d marked the right *spot*. Sigh. I spend a good ten minutes going in big circles trying to find a non-existent street. Finally I broke down, dragged out the cell phone (and thank goodness I thought to recharge it this afternoon) and called them to beg for directions. The impression I got was that this was not the first such call the desk guy had received that evening. At least I know it’s not because I’m clueless (okay, so maybe I am, but getting lost going to the hotel wasn’t related to that.)

I’m driving a Big Car this week (yes, even bigger than mine). I made reservations for a compact like I usually do, figuring that since the only driving I’ll be doing is on the freeway between hotel and project site, and I’ll be the only passenger, I don’t need anything large and hulking. I’m not sure exactly why the guy behind the counter at the airport did this, but apparently he had a whim to upgrade me for free. When I showed up to pick up my car, there was a Subaru Outback sitting in its space. I went back into the office and politely inquired as to the relative un-compactness of this particular vehicle. No such luck. I’m stuck with it. At least I’m only paying the compact price.

My older sister has one of these. She seems to love hers, and that’s cool if she does, but I much prefer my Maxima. Granted that Outback has a *nice* ride (and the unfortunate bonus of being so smooth that you don’t really notice you’re going 80 until you happen to glance at the odometer and yelp). And ooh, that trunk space is nice (once the very tired business traveler figured out how to *open* the trunk that is. Sigh). But I was kinda hoping to get the old standby rental car. I’d never buy a Chevy Cavilier, but they’re lovely rentals. Small, cheap, and familiar to anyone who’s done a lot of travel that required renting cars.

So here I am, back in Washington, and a lot sooner than I’d expected. I was sort of hoping that the only reason I’d come back to this state was to visit my little sister. Pleasure rather than work. Ah well. Such is not to be. I’m tired. Crossing fingers the week flies by without anyone killing anyone else (the very nature of what we’re about to undertake in these sessions is bound to get a whole lot of people rather upset).

Anyway, here I am. Tired. Really tired. But after the time I had getting to the hotel, I’m too wired to sleep. Yet. Now if I can just scrounge enough pillows to put on this darn desk chair so I’ll actually be tall enough to *type*……

I was at PetSmart, perusing the litter scoops, and saw something that made me a do a double take.

It’s a battery-operated litter scoop. I swear I’m not making this up. No, really! The darn thing has a button and when you press it, it vibrates. I guess this is to sift the litter faster. Goddess knows you wouldn’t want to hurt your wrist by shaking the scoop by hand.

A vibrating litter scoop. Just think of the possibilities. Hmm… I’m not quite sure I *want* to know what they’ll come up with next….

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One of the most fun things about little kids is the way they watch things that are new and exciting. We (my parents, my older sis and her husband, and I) took my nephew to see the new fire truck in Dixon. Okay, so maybe that’s not all that exciting to most of you, but he’s really into trucks and trains, so this was a big deal for him. He toddled around the truck, jabbering away in that language only the child’s parents can decipher….although I’m starting to grab more words out of the muddle now. He was fascinated by the two helicopters that were there from the emergency response team, and watched in awe as one of them took off and lifted gracefully into the air.

As he was examining a plastic firefighter’s hat, my mom and I were distracted by a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than two, dressed in a little bubble suit, curly hair, leaning forward in that way that little kids do when they’re watching intently, head craned back as far as she could, watching her daddy as he put on his firefighter’s suit. A bit later he draped his jacket carefully around her shoulders, completely dwarfing her, while she watched him, eyes round, very serious.

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This work schedule thing is getting crazy. Between Richard and I and our travel plans for work, we’re going to only end up seeing each other for about 3 days in the next few weeks, and most of that time will be merely a wave as we pass each other. He left for Boston this morning and even though I had nothing planned, I got up early with him so I could at least spend a bit of time with him before he left. We drove to the airport in separate cars because I figured as long as I was up I might as well hit the PetSmart to get stuff the cats needed. While we were driving, I violated one of my hard and fast rules. The cell phone rang and I answered it. In my defense, this is the first time it’s actually rung that I’ve heard it (probably because I’ve only given the number to 3 people – heh), and also I knew that it would be Richard. We drove down the freeway chatting for a few extra moments until the signal got too fuzzy (probably from my phone since the evil little thing can’t seem to hold a charge more than about five minutes).

But back to the travel schedules. Richard gets back from Boston on Tuesday night, but we won’t see each other because Monday night I fly to Seattle for the latest batch of design sessions (because even though they’ve been unable to finalize the design for this project in an entire year, someone seems to think that they can do it in three weeks. Uh. Sure). The bright spot about this trip is that I’ll be just about an hour or two away from my little sister, and of course the world’s cutest little niece, so Friday night I’ve planned to swing by their place to visit. This means, however, that I won’t get back til late Saturday morning, and so our time together will be spent in the car, as we both have plans for the rest of that day (and part of the next). Then he’s back to Portland for the next week, while I stay home (and try desperately to avoid being dragged back to Seattle with the rest of the crew), and the following week he’ll be in Atlanta and I will either be home, or in Andover, MA Needless to say, I’m crossing all available digits that they *don’t* decide to hold the final meetings in Andover. Call me crazy, but they’re scheduled to break ground on our house that week and I have been planning for some time to head over with the digital camera to snap some shots of the first day of dirt moving.

On the plus side though, it looks like he’s nearly done with the weekly commute to Portland, so despite the long hours and exhaustion of both our jobs, at least we’ll be in the same state after we drag home from work and collapse each night. It doesn’t mean things are going to get any better – at the project I’m on, our deadline’s been extended til December 1st, which means that crunch time has stretched into the holiday season, sigh – but at least we’ll be able to grumble about being overworked to each other’s faces instead of over the phone.

Winter is coming, albeit reluctantly, dragging his feet, lounging in the door while summer and fall wrestle over who gets to push past him first. The weather hasn’t been able to make up its mind these last few months. It’s flip-flops between unseasonably hot for this time of year, and then unseasonably cold, all in the space of a few days.

But winter is finally coming, because the fog has begun. In this part of California, the cold season is heralded by morning fog – mist that pools in fields to transform the landscape into something mystical, hiding the brown of summer’s heat under a swirling blanket of delicate wisps of white. Before the rain starts and everything oversaturates, the fog comes first.

There are hazards to fog – the rate of accidents always increases this time of year, of course – but it’s still beautiful, the way it blankets everything in silence. By late morning it burns off, the occasional wisp still clinging to grass, and then at night it rolls in again, so thick that when I’m driving the back roads between my town and the next, the only car on the road, I can see nothing behind me but total blackness, and only the swirl of mist in my headlights. It’s an eerie feeling, this sense that I am the only person in the world, but beautiful still.

I love this time of year, when mornings seem to cry out for snuggling back under the blankets with obliging cats instead of poking bare toes out into the chilly air of the room. This type of weather makes me want to stay home and bake, and mull cider. It makes me look forward to putting on clothes fresh from the dryer, hugging warm fabric close to ward off the chill. It makes me daydream of curling up on the couch with a mug of cocoa and a good book when I should be keeping my mind on more important things like work.

The fog is, in a way, a promise of what is to come. I know that when the fog arrives, it won’t be long til holiday season, air filled with cinnamon and nutmeg and pine, greeting cards and secret Santas. Despite the fact that work stress has gone from bad to worse, that in a few short weeks they will begin building our house and my non-work stress will increase drastically as we are faced with hundreds of decisions, I can still be happy. Winter is nearly here.