The rain.

It's been busy lately, for reasons I won't go into yet. Today is a beautiful, warm, quiet, rainy day. the rain is pressing into the trees and the ground, resulting in a continuous gentle fall of leaves. It really is beautiful. I think I'll go take a video. Or I would, if I knew where I had put my camera.

Last night as I drove out to dinner I looked up and saw the autumn leaves swirling in the wind and dancing down through the darkening sky, and it nearly took my breath away.

Well, it's been a few weeks.

I keep finding little things I want to write about--

the way the water in the creek has carved out a new path through all its ethereal little islands of leaves 

the way, the day after her son's family moved back out, the sun room of a woman I work for had the warm, empty, hastily abandoned feel of a summer camp at August's end

the stunningly beautiful rain of leaves in each autumn breeze 

the rainbow around the full moon--

But I just never do. So here I am, mentioning them in passing. 

Here are two more recent things in my memory:

1. I just made myself two eggs for dinner, fried over-easy in coconut oil and covered with tumeric, chili powder, parmesan cheese, and garlic. Good God they were wonderful.

2. I've gone out a couple of times recently with a guy named Ian. And, though I harbor near-constant suspicions that we are not each others' types, he is nevertheless really sweet and pretty awesome, and his texts often make me laugh out loud. Also he's agnostic, so if this goes anywhere my mom is really gonna love that. But anyway, we'll see.

Happy Veteran's Day, everyone.

Regardless of what the trees seem to think, it's here.

Though it will take me some time to adjust to these new lower temperatures and artificially heated spaces and driving with the windows rolled up, the nip in the air makes me feel alive. The smell of woodsmoke wafting across the yard and the feel of warm gloves and chilly fingers, the cold wind on my face and the act of arranging logs and embers in the fireplace to coax a flame into being are all excellent. All alive.


Also: fall festivals. Obviously.

A fair and a fire and a late-night stroll

And it's finally cool enough to walk with a hoodie and hat and gloves. This is all so wonderful.

My mother is a genius.

I have had a cold, and she has been in New York City. When she came back I asked whether she knew of any way to temporarily remove the left side of my head (earlier I had been thinking front left quadrant, but I realized that that was too conservative an estimate), just until the swelling went down in my sinus cavities. She said no, but she asked what I had been eating and informed me that all of my responses were mucus-producing and/or acidic, and when we got home she brought me a little peppermint oil on a tissue and told me to breathe it in and spread a little under my nose. She explained that peppermint is anti-inflammatory. I know this of course, but my brain doesn't connect the "I have a cold" > "my sinus cavities are inflamed" > "I need an anti-inflammatory" > "peppermint is an anti-inflammatory" dots. So anyway, now I feel a little like someone is holding a chunk of dry ice under my nose, but the stabbing sensation inside my sinuses has subsided, so that's nice. On the plus side, I can now move air through the left side of my head. On the downside, it is becoming increasingly difficult to move air through the right side of my head.


On another unrelated note, I bought a new camera for Scotland*. My old one is still functioning, but seems to be on its last legs--and if it died during or just before the Scotland trip, I think I might kill someone. So really this is all** in the interest of homicide prevention.


With my mother in NYC, I had to get up earlyish this morning to help my dad get ready for work. This worked out well, as I began waking up as a side effect of the cold around 7:30. My point though is that I tend to forget how much I love mornings. How gorgeous they are. How delicious they smell, even through my current haze. It was lovely. I also always, always utterly forget how amazing the morning light looks in the fall, when the sun shines in through the trees and fills my bedroom with a deep red light. That was closer to six, when I wasn't quite as conscious as I now wish I had been. It was really beautiful.






















*For my trip to Scotland, I mean. Not "for Scotland," exactly.

**I put hours of research into this decision. Do you see what a good civil servant I am? Completely selfless, even if I do say so myself.

Laws of nature:

They're more like guidelines than actual rules.






On another note, the bright red, orange, red-orange and red-yellow and orange-yellow and yellow jewel tones on our street have begun fading to pink. I am reminded of the way an incandescent bulb glows after the power is switched off, or the way embers glow when the fire dies. Shockingly bright for a time, and then dull and low, and then black. Cary Street, which I drive to work, is redder than ours, and the way across the river is more yellow. Something in the soil, perhaps.

The Folk Festival

In case there is anyone out there who is not aware of the fact that the Richmond Folk Festival, held annually on the river at Brown's Island and historic Tredegar Ironworks, exists and is amazing... there you go. It does, and it is, and you should go. If you are nowhere near Richmond come October and you are lazy/busy/not rich, then there are actually other folk festivals around, as well! Good times can be had by all! The best part about this festival, I'd say, is the freeness of it. That you get to drive to downtown Richmond, park someplace where you will (hopefully) not get towed, and walk straight into the festival. There are people at the entrance, but they are handing out event schedules and telling you to have a good time. It is fantastic. Three days of sunny (mostly), free, friendly musical awesomeness. Also, if you've lived in Richmond forever, as I have, you will probably be running into a bunch of people that you know. That's pretty great, too. Of course, David's being there two out of the three days didn't really hurt, either.

Richmond Folk Festival 2009 Slideshow | Richmond.com

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Pretend I didn't just write something 30 minutes ago.

Kelly and I are currently house sitting for some friends in Highland County, Va. This entails feeding their four horses, putting fly masks on the horses (unsurprisingly, they do not seem to appreciate this), removing fly masks from the horses (more surprisingly, they don't really seem to appreciate this either), feeding the cats, petting the cats, snuggling with the cats, removing the cats' claws from our pants, getting the mail (whoops), scratching the goat behind the ears, scolding the goat for head-butting our legs, applying for jobs online, wishing I were reading, and watching a whole lot of Direct TV. (Did you know that you can pause, rewind, and fast forward it? Whoa!) I would be actually reading a bit more, but this is a relatively open house, the fall chill is now in the air, Kelly loves tv, and I have no will power once the screen is already flickering. Oh well.

Today one of the cats came in with a mouse which turned out not to be dead, so it's in a cooler with some food, paper towels, water, and a cardboard box. (It being the mouse, not the cat.) This cooler is located in the bathroom, with the door closed. Unfortunately, I think the mouse's front legs may be injured. Poor little guy/girl/thing. I'll be checking on him/her/it again in a few minutes, at which time it will probably be dead.

(edit: The mouse was not dead. However, it starts twitching every time it realizes I'm nearby. Kind of upsetting.)

That was really the biggest event today. Sad, right? Kelly wasn't feeling well so we didn't go out as we had planned, but hopefully we will tomorrow. I'm not sure I can face another motionless afternoon in this recliner.

Earlier this evening though, after feeding the horses, we walked down to the pond to watch the bats. The other night we drove the ATV (I promise I'm not trying to show off here--this house really is just awesome. Normally I'm not quite this lucky) down there and could see the bats flying around in the headlights, and then two nights ago we went down a while after dark and there was only one, so I've been meaning to go back again around dusk. Tonight it was just about perfect, maybe excepting the lack of ATV headlights. Kelly got cold and left after a few minutes, but I stayed a while longer as the sky darkened and the mist rolled over the water like a curtain. I could hear a cow lowing further down the valley, and the crickets and late-season cicadas, and the horses stamping and snorting around in the field, but the bats in their circling, swooping, diving show made less sound than my neck creaking or my feet shifting in my work boots. The only aural evidence of their passage was a single flapping sound whenever one flew within a few feet of me. Most of the time I couldn't see them at all, but every so often as the light dimmed I would barely catch one zooming over its own reflection in the silvery water. It was rather magical.

Really, I think that fall just lends itself to magical moments, in a wholly different way than spring or summer would. Sometimes of course when I think of "magic" I think of fairies, but despite my Fantasia-soaked upbringing, I can't really picture tiny sprites turning the leaves brown in the fall. It's a whole different thing, once the chill is back in the air. After the eternally unrelenting heat and humidity of central Virginia in August, the autumnal nip makes me feel alive. It makes me feel like dancing or flying Icarus-like into the sun--only hopefully with better wings. (It's okay, we have Krazy Glue now.) Oh chilly mountain nights, how I have missed you. I thought you'd never come back.

It's funny, because I say this now, but come February I will probably be railing against the barometer with all the strength my vitamin D-deprived brain will be able to muster.

Anyway, my point was, bats: awesome. A few of the trout were still jumping too, which was also awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. My everyday vocabulary showcases a paucity of adjectives. (Let's pretend for the sake of my self-respect that I have another vocabulary aside from my everyday one.)