Winter Comes

When the kid was little, not yet two years old, one of her favorite books was Angus Lost, by Majorie Flack. She had it memorized, I swear. She couldn't actually read yet, but she would sit and turn the pages and recite the thing, word by word: "When winter came, Angwus gwew tiward of the same howse and the same cat and the same yawd and all the same things he knew all about. (Turns page) So one day Angwus went out onto the (pause) WIDE WODE!"

All of this to say that -- yay! Winter is coming.

And I am glad.

After a summer when we had, I swear, six or seven weeks when the temperature broke 102 every single day, I am more glad than usual, and I am always glad when winter comes.

It is gray and windy and chill here now. Leaves are blowing. Rain happens often. We sleep with the windows open. I am hoping for no more long hot spells, though I know, from history, we will likely get at least one. This Friday is Rosh Hashanah, which the kid and I subvert slightly, by doing our annual winter dance afterwards, on the banks of the Arkansas River (we go down to the river to throw the bread in the water for Rosh Hashanah, and on the way back up, the kid and I do the winter dance to bring winter on faster, and mr. delagar looks very pained, because how can I pollute his religion that way?) and maybe that will help.

Here's hoping.