After the Indian Summer is Gone...

Our Indian summer is over. It was one of those days where, when you get up, it's chilly outside. There's not quite a frost but nature was thinking about it. It's cold enough that you feel like you need a jacket but if you wear one, you're going to feel a little silly by midday when it's warmed up and you're suddenly carrying around a jacket. You still want to put the jacket on because it's still not warm, per se and yet...well, you're not used to it being jacket weather and you don't want to give in, not yet...even though it's time.

It was still a beautiful day out there today. Most of the leaves have fallen and they're swept into tidy heaps. Some ambitious souls are still mowing their lawns. I don't understand this, honestly. I know it's a way of mulching the leaves but the grass is dying back. We didn't have enough rain this summer for the grass to grow much at all during late July/August. Besides that, we've had a hard frost and it's bad for the lawn to cut it.

Still, when I run home at lunch to release the hounds from their crate, there are usually a couple of men mowing their lawns in the warm sun. Perhaps it's their attempt to cling on to the warmer days of the past season. Perhaps they just like mowing their lawn. It's hard to say. Yet there's a chill to the air now that wasn't here last week. It's the type of chill that's letting us know that winter isn't too far away and autumn is saying goodbye to summer, once and for all.

The evenings are cooler again after the tease of the Indian summer. I walked the pups again tonight and as I walked with them, I realized that if you were to take the calendar and flip it horizontally so that we were in spring, not autumn, this was the exact type of evening you'd find. It comes in after a warm day and there's a chill to the air, the same type of chill there was tonight.

The puppies will be disappointed that Indian summer is over. They love their 'leaf dives' in the evenings. Now, with the time change, it's getting dark when we start out and almost dark when we're done. Rory has been able to perform her belly flops into leaf piles under cover of night. It makes it a little less embarrassing if she splats the pile back into an untidy mess of leaves instead of a neatly swept pile. I try to stop her but she's a dachshund on a mission. Sookie, meanwhile, waits for Rory to splat the pile and then she has a nose. One time, they found a vole that one of the neighbourhood cats had clearly hidden in the pile. They thought it was a prize until I made them drop it. They do like their prizes. They haven't caught much in our garden though they had a lovely time hunting voles at my parents. By my count, they caught three. They also caught a rather large cricket and found a recently dead bird. There's no doubt about it: My dogs are hunters.

Yet they also enjoy the sniff of the hunt as much as the thrill of a catch. That's what they do on their walks. You can always tell when they've scented a bunny and they know it's nearby. The leashes go taut and they're both poised, ready to locate the bunny. The nice thing about them being on a leash is...they're on a leash. I can control their hunting expedition.

Of course, I still can't quite control Rory and her tendency to belly flop into leaf piles but it's probably because I just don't try as hard. There's something just too adorable about watching her run, do this strange little leap and suddenly be in the middle of the pile while her sister looks on, as though shaking her head and saying, "Messy little sod!"

Then again, maybe that's me.

Oh well, we may as well enjoy our autumn walks while the weather is letting us still take them. Belly flops and all.

Happy Tuesday!

Warm Days, Cold Noses....

Apparently, we're officially having an Indian summer. I learned yesterday from Frank Marzullo and the Fox 19 Stormtracker weather team that were having one. This is because we've had a 'hard freeze' and then the temperatures have risen. Given that we've had 70 degree days since Monday, this is definitely the case.

It still feels odd though that it's getting dark at 5 p.m. It feels odd that when I get home from work and the pups are in their crate, the shadows are already long in the kitchen and the puppies are still staring at me as if to say, "Dude! Why are you SO late?"

To make matters worse, I've been going out after work for the past two nights which means I come home, let them out, call them in so I can leave again and, by the time I get home, it's dark.

The puppies don't understand this. I don't understand it either, to be honest. It's to get home at 7 p.m and feel like it's far too late to have been out on a work night.

Still, it's all part of the process of moving between seasons. In a few weeks, it'll all feel normal. The Indian summer will be over and we'll be moving on into the chill of winter.

As you know, I love winter. I love the fact that it's a cleansing break between the finality of autumn and the newness of spring. I love snow. I love frost. I love having the perfect excuse to stay inside, snuggle up with a puppy and read or watch TV or write. It's all part of the semi-hibernation process.

And yet it's not winter yet as evidenced by the beautiful days we're having at the moment. It's wonderful to come home at lunch without a jacket and watch the puppies frollic in the garden they way they did most of the spring and summer. It's been too cold lately for them to do much outside but hunt the occasional squirrel, do their 'business' and come in. I think they're as delighted as I am that it's warm enough to go out.

Of course, it's still getting pretty nippy at night. We've still had a few frosts. Personally, this is the way I like my weather. I love the dramatic difference between daytime and nightime. Even when it's freezing outside, I keep my house cool at night so that I can snuggle in my bed and enjoy the cocoon factor. These days, I have two doggy-hot-water-bottles to keep me warm. Rory snuggles on the right, Sookie on the left. They burrow under the covers, heads towards my pillow and lay vertically pressed up against me. It's very comfortable and it's lovely to feel that loved and needed.

Naturally, I know it's really because they're cold and I'm a convenient puppy-warmer but it's still nice to have the snuggle factor on chilly nights. It makes the slightly eerie creaks and groans of my little house a little less sinister when you have two puppies you know will alert you if there's really something to be worried about.

I love having my pups to keep me company on chilly nights. Of course the fact that they like to press their cold noses up against me tends to make me jump a little at first but I'm getting used to it. I don't like it when they need to get up in the wee hours of the morning to go outside because it means I have to leave the cocoon of my bed to open the back door.

However, when we come back to bed, chilled from the frosty air, I do enjoy the race we have to see who can get under the covers first. I usually win.

They follow quickly, cold noses and all.

I love autumn!

Happy Thursday!

A Frosty Friday...

It's a frosty Friday morning and I'm ready for the weekend. As I drove in, the frost was thick on the cars parked outside, the grass and on the tall piles of leaves that have been raked at the side fo the street.

I always think it's nice to see those piles of leaves. I admire the people who rake that diligently because all it really takes is one gusty day or one enthusiastic leaf-pile-jumper and all those leaves are scattered again.

I have a lot of leaves in my own yard. I don't even have a tree. I have a sneaking suspicion that the leaves came from both the hickory nut tree or the sycamore tree that belongs to my neighbour. I suppose I could rake the leaves but the thing is, I don't want to. I personally like a coating of leaves because I think it does the grass good to be covered up for winter; sort of a thermalizing effect.

Also, it means that if I have too many leaves, I can't really find my lawn which means I don't have to mow anymore. The Dog Whisperer next door mowed his lawn last weekend. My own grass hasn't really grown that much since it's hit the 'hibernation' period. His grass wasn't that long either. I've always heard that you're not supposed to mow after the first heavy frost because it's bad for the grass. Since he now has several dead-looking patches, I can't help but think there might be something to this. Even if there's not, I don't care. It's a handy excuse to avoid mowing the lawn.

I'm hoping this Friday will fly by. All in all, it hasn't been a bad week. Most of the managers have been gone at conferences and the atmosphere in the office is a little more relaxed. Besides, it's Friday and everyone loves Friday.

I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend but, then again, that's nothing new. I'm not sure what I'm up to yet for the weekend. It's supposed to be Indian summer weather in which it gets up to nearly 70. Since I have some final work to do in the garden, I need to get that done this weekend. There's a lot of things that need to be cut back so that they don't rot and make a mess over the winter.

In addition, I want to do a little Christmas shopping. I'm liking my strategy of starting very early with shopping because it's making it more economical. If I see a good gift for someone at a good price, I'll buy it.

Yet, just because I plan on doing a little shopping, it doesn't mean that I think it's really time to start getting ready for Christmas. As I blogged last year almost on this exact same day, it seems as though Christmas is already in full swing, according to the retailers. Last night was my 'busy' TV night and even though some of the shows were recorded on my handy-dandy DVR, I still had to sit through commercials. Apparently, it's time to start decorating, to start buying cell phones as gifts and going to 'pre-Thanksgiving' sales with the "Lowest Prices EVER for the holidays."

I don't know why I'm still horrified that we're already seeing these advertisements. By now, you'd think I'd be used to it. Retailers want people to jump into the holidays with both feet starting the day after Halloween. Actually, if I want to get nit-picky, they started stocking Christmas stuff at Walmart about two weeks before Halloween. Yet, as much as I love Christmas and all the trimmings that go with it, I'm not ready to start getting ready for Christmas. I want to enjoy that Thanksgiving turkey first. I want to feel that little rush of thrill when I'm close enough to Christmas that I can start getting excited about it. I can't do that now although, I confess, when I got to a store and see aisles of decorations, wrapping paper and lights, I want to start getting ready for it. This idea, naturally, makes me angry when I make myself remember the date. I'm being manipulated by retailers and manufacturers and I don't like it.

I mentioned the other day that there's a house on my street that has the decorations up already. I've noticed that every day, they add to it. It started with candy canes lighting the driveway. Then they added a row of ginormous outdoor fairy lights. I say ginormous because they're not actually normal lights; they're these massive plastic things that are more like a lawn decoration than a lighting method. On Tuesday, they added a snowman to their yard. Yesterday, they added a penguin and a caroler. Today, they've added a stack of 'presents'. I'm not sure about those. They're no plastic-made-for-the-outdoors type of decoration, they're actually cardboard boxes wrapped up with shiny wrapping paper and tied with ribbon bows. They've been out there less than 24 hours and, already, they're looking a little saggy and soggy. I'm thinking they're going to be one of those Griswold type of families that is going to be the best and brightest house on the block by the time it actually is close to Christmas. Thus, they add slowly but surely and eventually, their house will be visible from outer space because of the glow.

I haven't seen anyone else in my neighbourhood put their decorations up yet but since it's the weekend and it's now been a week since Halloween, others will most likely follow. I'm not going to join them. The most I'll do is peruse the sales and see if there's anything worth squirreling away until Christmas. I will NOT be putting my decorations out yet. Also, I will not be listening to Christmas music yet even though the radio tries to tell me otherwise. There's a station that I flick to once in a while that has now become "All Christmas Music, All the Time!" It's TOO early!

Ok, I'm not going to talk about that anymore. Although I'm curious to hear an opposing viewpoint to mine as to why we should be preparing for the holidays already. So, if you have one, comment away and I'll happily entertain the notion of breaking out my Transiberian Orchestra CD's and baking gingerbread.

Most likely though, I'll try to ignore the fact that it's hard to walk in a store and avoid the Christmas merchandise. Even the giftcards that places like Target, Walmart and K-Mart have on sale are emblazened with festive decorations. The question I have about this is...REALLY? Do we need Christmas gift cards yet? I mean, hello, it's a GIFT CARD. It's not exactly something that stores are going to run out of. The one thing they want to ensure is that people will spend money in their store and gift-cards are the most secure way of doing that. Thus, you can walk into store at 9 p.m. on Christmas Eve and buy a Christmas gift card. You don't need to run out and fight the crowds for one of those so, I ask, is there any reason we should have them on display already? I'm not going to buy those yet! If I did, I'd probably talk myself into using it and buying the intended recipient something else!

Still, there is no escape: In the World of Retail Merchandise, the holidays are already here. Just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's going to stop. All I have to do is not let myself get sucked into the vortex of hollyberry scents, shiny ornaments and glittery lights.

Right?

Happy Friday! Have a great weekend.

Frosty Mornings and Suicidal Hats

It's a freezing morning out there, literally. The frost is covering the ground and is glittering in the sun. Ironically, I just looked back at my blog archive and on this exact Monday last year, we had our first major frost...just like today. That's pretty exciting.

What's more exciting is that a year ago, I was scraping my car and feeling guilty because she's a California car. My fingers were freezing and I was pledging to buy a new ice scraper because I'd been reduced to using a piece of cardboard. Now, a year later, I'm a spoiled suburbanite. I have a garage. I get to go out to my car in the morning and back out of my driveway with nary a lick of frost on my windshield.

It's a big change. It's also amazing that it's only been a year and I own my own house. I'm still not sure that fact has sunk in. I had to put the heat on for the first time last night. My heating/cooling system is pretty solid. It's also old. This means that when it's on, it's loud. Really loud. Still, better loud than freezing.

It's cosy in my house in the evenings. Last night, I sat down and drank pumpkin-spice flavoured tea as I sat down in front of the television, my electric fireplace flickering. It's a lovely way to hibernate.

Of course, if I were truly hibernate, I wouldn't have to had to drive to work today. Actually, I wouldn't have had to get up this morning. Mondays are always the worst morning to have to get up, as I've stated in many a previous blog. Having a good weekend makes it harder, I think.

For my weekend, I decided to go visit my parents. That's always a nice idea. I still love the fact that I can do that instead of having to book plane tickets to visit. This time of year is my favourite time in which to drive to Northern Indiana. The trees are absolutely amazing. I can't stop looking at them. There are so many hues in the leaves that it really is like looking at a patchwork quilt. The leaves have yet to begin their torrents of falling so the trees are displaying their decor proudly, each one trying to outdo the rest. It's a pretty drive.

I think my mother probably thinks I'm a little strange. I keep pointing out the leaves to her. She's not as impressed as I am. I think partly it's my time in L.A. in which I missed the fall colours of the trees. I also think part of it is that I actually love Autumn and my mother does not. My mother sees the season as little more than a passage to what she sees as the misery of winter. Me, I see it as a season filled with beautiful colours, pumpkins, spiced tea and the smell of leaf fires in the air. Then again, I love winter too with its vicious snowstorms and unpredictable nature. All I have to do is say the 's' word (snow) and my mother cringes. It's the psychological equivalent of poking her with a stick. She's a spring/summer person obviously. She can't see the beauty in a snow-covered landscape.

Still, aside from the chilly evenings, this was a beautiful weekend to be in Indiana and I made a point to try to get my mother to appreciate the leaves. I'm not sure it worked but I gave it a try. We spent a fun Saturday exploring a new grocery store, one of those Whole Foods types with nothing but the best ingredients. We both adore a good grocery store so we spent far too long admiring the produce. I personally like stores like that because, as a singleton, it's much easier to shop for one person. They have a meat counter where you can buy just enough meat for a meal. The chain grocery stores generally package meat for families or even couples. I usually have to buy a package of meat and separate it so it's frozen in individual portions.

Aside from that, I had a lovely Saturday night watching movies with my parents. We watched "The Proposal," the recent Sandra Bullock/Ryan Reynolds romantic comedy. It was entertaining as most Sandra Bullock movies are. The only thing that really annoyed me is that I'm a fan of another of her movies, "While you were Sleeping." In that movie, she's about to marry a man under false circumstances and she confesses at the wedding, telling how much she adores his family and can't hurt them anymore because they let her be part of their lives and showed her what it was like to have a family. I should warn you, I'm about to spoil "The Proposal" if you haven't seen it. However, just picture the exact same speech/circumstances only in a much prettier backdrop.

Sorry if I ruined it. It's still a cute watch if you haven't seen it and, anyway, if you can't predict what's going to happen in the first place, I have to ask you, what planet are you from? I mean, it's a romantic comedy. It's got Sandra Bullock in it. Not exactly a shocker when it ends.

When he rented "The Proposal," my dad had wisely called to run it by me. This sounds horribly arrogant but generally speaking, I know a lot more about movies than my parents. I'm a pop-culture nerd. Even if I haven't seen the movie, if I've heard of it, I usually know something about it and can say whether I think it's worth seeing. I'm usually right (which is the arrogant part.) Now, my father has this amazing ability to go to the video store and pick a DVD up that I didn't even know existed. Usually, these movies are horrendous. I confess, a few years ago, I was even more aware of the movie scene than I am now. Even the little independents didn't escape my notice, even if I hadn't seen them. Nowadays, I know the major independents but some do slip by, nothing more than a blurb in Entertainment Weekly that slips out of my mind.

Such was the case this weekend when my father returned from Blockbuster with not only "The Proposal" but another little gem called, "The Merry Gentleman."

I think I might have heard of "The Merry Gentleman," but I'm not sure. It's directed by Michael Keaton who is also the star. Let me tell you, my father did not disappoint me in his talent of finding an utterly awful movie. "The Merry Gentlemen," is...bad. I'm not sure. Sometimes, I think it was supposed to be funny in the style of a black comedy but it really wasn't. There are these endless periods of silence especially at the beginning that made me wonder if my father had outdone himself and found us a mime-movie. Sadly, it wasn't a mime movie. That, at least, would have been entertaining in a twisted way. No, "The Merry Gentleman," was just...quiet sometimes. No miming.

The premise is this girl with an inexplicable Scottish accent gets beaten by her husband and runs away from somewhere to....somewhere. We never find out where which I think was probably intentional but ended up being rather irritating. She's a nice girl who immediately finds a good job that helps her get a nice, if sparse, little flat. She sees a man on a roof one night who she thinks is suicidal. Turns out she saw Michael Keaton, a contract killer, after he'd just made a hit. We're never sure if he was suicidal in that scene or he was just admiring the view. He's suicidal in a couple of other scenes, you see. He finds out about her and goes to kill her but finds her trapped under a giant Christmas tree that she's tried to drag to her flat. Naturally, as every single man in the movie seems to, he falls for her. They become friends. There's also a rather chubby policeman who also likes her and who conveniently always seems to be the cop who attends to her woes. I can't help but wonder if there are any other police in the city. He's a bit scary with his persistence and eventually discovers she's hanging around with a hit man. She gets scared and runs away from the policeman. The end of the movie is very climactic: Michael Keaton lets his hat try to commit suicide but then rescues it only to walk off into the distant scenery.

I think the ending is supposed to symbolize that Michael Keaton, in rescuing his poor suicidal hat, can't turn away from who he is. There's a rather riveting scene in which he and the girl discuss his hat and how much it must have seen, you see. Thus, I know the hat is symbolic.

The best thing about the movie is that it's quite short. I kept waiting for something to happen.Nothing really ever did unless you count a Christmas tree falling on top of our heroine. This is one of those movies that tries for depth in little vignettes, scenes cut together to represent a passing of time in which the characters interact. Unfortunately, their interactions involve a lot of staring and a lot of silence. Also, there's not much daylight in the movie.

Unfortunately, my dad didn't turn this movie off prematurely. He has a habit of this, you see. Quite often, we'll all be watching a pre-recorded TV show or a DVD and towards the end, it stops. My dad thought it was over and he's decided to turn it off. Sometimes, he puts it back on. Sometimes he doesn't. With "The Merry Gentleman," I kept hoping he'd turn it off but we had to watch it right up until Michael Keaton walked off into the distance. Actually, I think he really kept it on because he, like my mother and I, were surprised that the movie was over. We were still waiting for something to happen, you see.

Still, overall, bad movie aside, it was a nice weekend. Sometimes the best weekends are those when you have nothing planned and just take it as it comes. That's how mine was. I hope yours was good too.

Happy Monday.

James Bond in a Small Town...

It's almost Friday. I say almost because it's still Thursday which is the danger day. It's the danger day because it's so close to the weekend that it's very easy to rationalize that it is the weekend. This can range from staying up too late to going out and having fun and then realizing that you still have to get up in the morning for work because, after all, it isn't quite the weekend yet.

You see that in a little college town like the one in which I live. Thursday nights are lively. You see a lot of packs of students bar hopping and dawdling in traffic. Because it's a small town, students seem to think they're immune to being hit by a car, that everyone will stop. Unfortunately, since I've already been rear-ended this year, I can't mow them down like sometimes I'd like to do. The worst ones are the text-messagers. They actually cross the street while trying to text. They don't actually look to see if anything's coming. They get to a crosswork, get wrapped up in their texting and bam! A sometimes too near miss. The really annoying thing is they barely notice that the driver actually has smoke coming from beneath his tires because he had to stop so quickly. That driver almost had a heart attack, the student is to busy LOL'ing or TTYL'ing to notice.

Last night, I actually got to explore the town a bit by having dinner and seeing a movie with some coworkers. It was a lot of fun and considering it's a small town, there's some great places to eat and drink here. I tried a key-lime martini, just for the experience and because it came highly recommended by my coworkers. Well, it tasted like key lime pie in a glass which was the point, I suppose. It even had pie crust crumbs dusted on the glass. Personally, I've decided that key lime pie is better as a pie because it sort of freaked me out a little that I was drinking a pie. Which is strange given that I don't like pumpkin pie but am more than happy to scarf down a pumpkin-pie latte. But then, that has no pie crust in it which is definitely for the best. I do not like crumbs in my drink. It's revolting

I did have the experience of going to a small town movie theatre, something I haven't done in a long time. I just moved from L.A. Not to sound pretentious but, well, it's the lands on which Hollywood sits. This is a fancy way of saying I've been spoiled rotten when it comes to seeing a movie.

This is a classic little place. The concessions seller is the same person as the ticket taker. They just move desks quickly and efficiently to scoop out the popcorn and drinks. I didn't order popcorn because I'd just had sweet potato fries and a hamburger for dinner. (Which, by the way, I could write an entire blog about the deliciosness of sweet potato fries because, frankly, they're a little like crack and once I start, I cannot stop eating them. Not that I've tried crack, in case you were wondering...I just like saying "it's like crack".)

But the popcorn smelled nice which is a bonus. Although, since it was freezing outside, I think it had something to do with the fact that it represented something warm and toasty.

The theatre itself was...tiny. It had a screen that looked half the size of a stadium-style theatre's screen. The floor was sticky and it made that schloup-schloup sound when I lifted my feet. The chairs were wobbly and worn. But I loved it because places like that are so hard to find anymore. I loved it because there were only 12 people in the whole theatre. I loved it because you could hear the whirl of the projector. Mostly, it felt so comfortable and intimate that I knew that it's the type of place I can go to when I just need to escape from reality for a bit and get lost in the fakeness of the movie-world. I can bury myself in a movie, good or bad and duck out from life for a bit.

We saw "Quantum of Solace", the new James Bond. I love Daniel Craig as Bond. I love that hardness to his face, his flintlike eyes, the fact that he can convey emotion through those eyes without having to make a single facial expression. "Casino Royale" was an excellent film; it gave us a new Bond and a far less farcical take on the franchise. Ok, so Pierce Brosnan was nice to look at and he was funny but the movies had become ridiculous, almost spoofing the Bond of the former years.

Mr. Craig plays Bond with grit. His body is lean and hard and scarred. When he gets hurt, he has to clean himself up and he bears the injury for the rest of the movie. He doesn't miraculously escape unscathed in his tuxedo, he climbs out from the rubble, dusty, beaten but ready to fight again.

"Quantum of Solace" is interesting. While "Casino Royale" had great moments of dry and subtle humour, this movie doesn't. Bond is angry and he wants to bury his anger and pain in his work. And he does. A lot. He's ruthless, vicious and very deadly in his rage. I know some people have said this is a boring movie but I have a feeling it's one of those films that will improve on each watching. It's like "The Two Towers" in the Lord of the Rings series or "The Empire Strikes Back"- both were rather boring in some ways but they complete the series of movies and when you see the complete picture that the trilogies painted, those movies became the hinge for the entire set. I can't say it entertained me the way "Casino Royale" did but it was effective. My only complaint is that James Bond gets chased a lot in this one and he does a lot of chasing. In fact, in some ways, the movie is a series of a lot of people chasing each other with some dialogue thrown in. It's effective because it shows us that James Bond really is a human, his anger is for the death of a woman he actually loved but he masks it by being a robotlike-agent, efficient and brutal and wiping out all those who get in his way.

But there's a lot of chasing in this movie. There's a car chase, a rooftop chase of foot, a boat chase, a plane chase, another foot chase in a hotel, another footchase in an opera house, another car chase.....you sort of get the point. I suppose it's symbolic. Mr. Bond is chasing a peace and resolution to his grief and anger. Naturally, because, he's Bond, he wins in the end but he's still a man, chased by shadows and regret and scarred both on his body and in his soul.

To be honest though, I'm still not quite sure what a Quantum of Solace is. I mean, I know how it plays into the movie but I'm a little baffled by why any organization would name themselves that. Wouldn't something like "Circle of Baddies" or "Secret Traitors of the World" be a little easier to say?

Despite that, I enjoyed my evening. I ignored the giant "Twilight" poster in the lobby like a good Monkeypants. I may have irritated one of my coworkers because I snorted with disgust when they showed us a preview of "Angels and Demons" the new Dan Brown adapation. How was I supposed to know she's a huge Dan Brown fan? She loves that book. A lot. It's one of her favourites. Ooops.

But, in truth, it was my first evening out since I moved from the big city to a small town and it was fun. I love having a movie theatre that close, even if it is the size of a postage stamp. I love being able to walk from dinner to the movies, the frost starting to glitter around us, my gloves still in my pockets because somehow I ended up with two right gloves and no left glove (and wearing them upside down just doesn't work right). I love that a town like this changes with the seasons, that the summer will bring long, lazy days with concerts in the park and winter will bring hurried walks from one place to another. It's supposed to snow again today and if it settles as it's supposed to, the town will change again, dusty with snow and telling me that it might be ok to start thinking about Christmas now.

And, at the very least, it gives me an excuse to drink hot chocolate and think about my weekend which is only a day away.

Happy Thursday.

Monday mornings...

So it's Monday morning and it feels like a Monday morning. I always find it strange that Mondays have their own unique feel. Even when a Tuesday is a Monday, it never feels the same, probably because a long weekend manages to wring out the badness of a Monday by the sheer bliss of having an extra day to do whatever you like.

But there's something about Mondays. They loom over us on a Sunday evening, invading those last hours of freedom we have before we're back to the office or back to school. Even if we try to enjoy our Sunday night, there's a strange curfew on our freedom; we know we should go to bed earlier, not have that last glass of wine, not watch that episode of a TV show that we have on DVD that can really wait until the next day but is so tempting. I don't know about you but Sunday nights are the one evening where I stop myself from reading that extra chapter of book or watching that TV show episode because I know that when my alarm goes off on Monday morning, I will regret it. And why start off the week with regret?

It never matters though; the alarm still goes off too soon (when you actually remember to set the alarm: See below). It still is incredibly difficult to unbury yourself from the blankets and actually put your feet on the floor. I like it when there's good stuff on the radio that I can lie in bed and listen to for ten minutes. Unfortunately, here in Ohio, I haven't found a good radio show. I was spoiled by Kevin and Bean in L.A., two snarky, witty, smart men who have the same dry sense of humour as me and who never failed to make me gasp at some of their bluntness and snide remarks. They also often managed to tap into a part of my brain in which I agreed with them. They could be crude but they were usually funny and they played good music. Here, I'm stuck with "Two Angry Guys" from Cincinnati- which sounds mostly like 'One Angry Guy who really just likes the sound of his own voice and is NOT funny nor smart and really needs something other than sports and the election to babble about'. I keep flipping but there's no other channel that plays non-country music. I think Satellite Radio is in my future.

I digress. It's Monday morning...I'm allowed to digress. I'm already on my second cup of coffee.

So, here's my Monday so far....I forgot to set my alarm and though I was awake anyway, I didn't have the luxury of hitting the snooze button which, somehow, always makes me feel slightly better; it's like cheating the day or something, even for just nine more minutes. Then I discovered it had frosted overnight and though it meant the world outside my window was a glittery landscape of white and silver, it also meant my car was iced over. My car hasn't been iced over before. Ever. She's a car from Southern California and I feel a little guilty that she's been ripped from her nice balmy climate to one that can be slightly harsh. However, she's here and I'm here and that's that. I had to scrape. I might have an ice-scraper somewhere; I think I kept it for sentimental reasons when I moved to L.A. Now I need it again and I think it's in one of those boxes that I still haven't unpacked yet- one of those boxes with non-essential stuff in it that will get unpacked when I feel like it. So I used a piece of cardboard. It worked.

I made it to work and it definitely feels like a Monday. People are trickling in, sluggish, exchanging weekend stories when they run across another coworker. The coffee pot is already empty and I really want another cup. I really need my own coffee maker. The coffee in this office is a little vile. I drink it because, face it, when you need coffee, almost any coffee will do. But I quite fancy waking up to the smell of roasting coffee when the weather is cold outside and I know I'm going to have to throw my coat on, start my car, and then go back upstairs to get ready for work.

My coworkers are quietest on Mondays though- they have meetings to go to, projects to get moving because they didn't quite finish on Friday afternoon when the promise of two days of freedom loomed too brightly to finish up tidily. All things can wait until Monday...until Monday comes and you realize that you probably should have done it on Friday or, for the really ambitious, you probably should have done the work over the weekend like you promised yourself you would. I'm guilty. I like weekends...They're to get away from work, not take it with you.

I'm rambling...again. I blame it on the fact that it's a Monday morning. I don't know what the rest of the day holds but I do know that there's one nice thing about Mondays- they lead to Monday evenings...which means I can take a bath, make a nice dinner and watch some so-bad-it's-awesome TV in the form of "Prison Break" and know that there isn't another Monday morning for a week.

I can usually find the bright spot...unless it's hidden under a layer of frost. Then I just have to scrape to find it.

I need more coffee....Happy Monday.