Octember

Suddenly we have gone from basking to shivering.  It must be Octember.

Octember is when you get three consecutive days of chilly rain, and the leaves that fell onto the driveway are too wet to rake, so they just pile up and get squooshy track marks across them where you went over them with the car.

Octember is when you wonder whether you need to call the oil company, because God forbid it gets any colder inside the house (which, of course, it will, because you are nowhere near Decembuary yet.)

Octember is when it's 10:00 a.m., and you need lights on in the house or you can't read your library book.

Octember is when you hear all the trains tooting their horns five miles away, and it brings it home to you that you never hear trains when it's sunny.

Octember is when you want to light a fire in the fireplace, but you hesitate, because that would mean that the next time you want to light a fire in the fireplace, there won't be any dry kindling to light it with, because you forgot to go foraging during those 3 hours of fretful sunshine last weekend.

Octember is Halloween decorations that keep appearing in different places on your neighbors' lawns, because the wind blows the decorations  down at night and the increasingly frustrated neighbors slam the fallen plastic skeletons, perambulating pumpkins, and the inflatable black cats down in great haste, in approximately the same place where they think the decorations were the night before, as they sling down their coffee and hurry off to the commuter bus.

Octember is the dog contentedly lying on her back on the sofa, wet paws drying in the air, dreaming of treeing more squirrels.

Octember is wondering whether you'll have enough money to buy that new dishwasher before Thanksgiving and its guests arrive, and still have enough left over to buy some food to put on the plates. 

Octember is realizing that all the umbrellas have, one by one, made their way to your husband's office and stayed there.

Octember is bringing the potted plants in from the deck, and wondering whether dahlia bulbs really will produce more dahlias if you shake the dirt off the roots, pack them in Styrofoam peanuts, and stick them in a dark closet till you can plant them again in the spring, the way they said to do on the Internet.  And then realizing that you may as well give it a shot, because the things will die anyway if you don't, so wotthehell.

Octember is picking all the leaves off your basil plant before they turn completely yellow and making pesto to freeze for the winter.

Octember is root vegetables and slow-cooked meals that stick to your ribs, after a summer of salads and panini.

Octember is the somber light that the Impressionists caught in their more melancholy moments.

Octember has its chagrins, but Octember also has its charms.