Thursday, November 6, 2008

thursday afternoon


It's cold today. It's one of those day-after-a-storm days and the sky is bright blue with a few lovely poofy clouds here and there. There is just the slightest of breezes blowing, but it's a cold one, reminding my fingertips and nose that winter is coming sooner than I'd like.

You know, why doesn't someone make a nose warmer? Not a scarf, because that has to wrap all the way around your head and cover up your mouth to warm your nose. They have ear muffs, why on earth not a nose muff?

I suppose you'd look stupid.

But I digress. Shocker.

I'm sitting at the dining room table with a view of the Western Flutter-Leaf trees (a.k.a. Aspens) in the yard behind my house, fluttering their leaves as they should. They're best this time of year, since there's only 4 of them, and 3 of them are mostly dead. In the summer they're only half-clothed in green leaves, except for the one healthy one, which takes its role of Show-Off Healthy Tree quite seriously. This makes the other ones look absolutely pathetic until fall, when the brilliant one is yellow and losing its leaves and the dead ones just look like over-achiever Leaf Losers. PS. Photo below is so NOT a pic of my neighbor's trees. It's just a gorgeous reminder of why I love fall.


The point (Yes, there is one): It's a gorgeous afternoon and I adore this season. A few days ago I got out of the car and stepped into a gutter full of leaves. I couldn't help it: I ran through them, dragging my feet so it would kick up the leaves even more. I ran back and forth 3 or 4 times, then realized I must have looked fairly ridiculous -- not only because I was a 34-year-old mommy running through the leaves in the gutter, but because I was swinging my purse around while I was at it.

Caution: Leaf-filled gutters may cause rampant leaf-running, unabashed purse waving, and absurdly huge grins.

And then to top it all off, I grabbed a huge handful of leaves, stuffed them in my face and... inhaled. Deeply. Deliciously. Oh, I LOVE the smell of fall leaves!! It was just about the most perfect 8 minutes of my week.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Happy fall. Again.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

You just gave me one more reason why I love you! :) You're fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. Plus some.

Deanna said...

Ahhhh...I was right there with you in your beautiful description of fall. Ditto!

I love your top picture. Did you do it on picnik?

Kristy & Miguel said...

I wish I could have seen you running through the gutters full of leaves!

Janet said...

This is why I love you so much!!

Jen said...

The trones had some nose warmers as I recall. Some fluffy nose thing that stayed on your nose by two little strings wrapping around your head. So there...the nose warmers do exist. Just looks kind of silly.

Janet said...

Where are you?

The Jacksons' Actions said...

marianne - you are amazing. I love reading "you". by the way - I had a nose warmer once and I DID look stupid! And I couldn't breathe either - but my nose was warm!!
Love, Aunt nancy