September morn

Personally, I think Ben is a little biased, what with September being his birth month and all, but I do understand why this is his favorite month. There is a certain quality to the air, especially in the morning, that is simply lacking the rest of the year. It is a clarity, a freshness, even a smell, that is uniquely September's. Then there is the color of the sky on a clear September day. It is the very essence, the definition, of blue.

I might even join Ben in his preference for September were it not for one thing - yellow jackets. I know there are perfectly valid scientific reasons for why they act the way they do this time of year, but I just can't deal with it. Now that it is finally cool enough to eat outside comfortably, I can't, because I will be swarmed by yellow jackets trying to eat my food and land on my hands and in my hair. I try to keep my hands in my pockets whenever I am outside because it just freaks me out when they crawl on me. I can't sit outside and read (which I love to do) for the same reasons. As soon as it cools off, I am longing for the first frost to kill, kill them all.

Rufus and I have increased our twice-daily walks from two blocks to three, and it is an absolute joy to be out on mornings like this. Rufus is a good little walker, and generally trots right along, but he has started to develop the bad habit of stopping at each acorn he finds on the sidewalk and picking it up. He generally drops it after a few paces, but this time of year there are countless acorns on the ground in our neighborhood, and we just can't stop at all of them. So we are working on that.

It has been a long time since I have been able to experience the changing of the seasons as I am this year, and believe me, I am savoring it. I will continue to try to share it with you. Stay tuned.