Dear Aunt Peg,

I realize that you are ninety years old, that you’ve had a good life, and that one of the reasons we had your birthday in June instead of August was that you said you felt you didn’t have much time left. (The other reason, of course, was that August weather in SoDak is brutal.)

You’ve been a great auntie. Everyone should have a great-aunt as funny, spry, and sweet as you are, so I know you won’t find it offensive when I ask you that, if this intestinal blockage that has you in the hospital tonight is going to kill you, you could manage to die by Halloween, or hold on til December. Not that I want you to die. Of course I don’t. We aren’t ready to let you go yet, though I know you’ve said you’re getting kind of tired.

But you see, November is a suckful month in our family. My grandfather (your brother), my uncle Merrell, my cousin Eddie, Ginny who thought I was her birthday cousin because we share the same birthdate….all these people died in November, and frankly, if one more person in our family dies in November I’ll have to strike that page from the calendar. Not just MY calendar. THE Calendar. The one that determines when we observe things like Labor Day and Daylight Savings. You know. The big one. The official One.

And removing November would be pretty horrible for the people who have birthdays then, for all the folks who participate in NaNoWriMo, for the people who like to vote (we’d have to make sure November 2008 was put back in, at least), and for all the people who’ve never seen the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and should, as well as all the people who have, and want to again, and never miss it on TV.

I’ve lost enough family this year, Aunt Peg: Uncle Stan, Cousin Pat, Aunt Gwen…and I’m sad about all of them, of course, but you and I are actually kind of close, in the way that great-aunts and grand-nieces can be. We’ve shared Christmases, hotel rooms, and illicit cups of coffee together.

So here’s the deal. No dying. Because frankly, with Pat having died just last week, and my grandmother’s death in 2000 pretty much destroying Christmas, October and December are hanging by mere threads, and if we excised a whole quarter of a year, people might get a bit tetchy.

So, use all that Klindienst stubbornness and Chapman stamina, and the sweetness from the frosting of every cake you ever decorated, and bundle it up and get better.

Because if you don’t?

I’ll make my mother sing at you.

Love always,

Melissa

9:08 AM.

I’ve been up for about half an hour, woken by nature’s insistent call, and am apparently fully awake now, even though our alarm won’t go off for an hour.

I escorted the dogs out to the back yard this morning, wanting to feel the fresh air. It’s supposed to warm to nearly 90 degrees by the end of the day, but right now it’s one of those deliciously crisp fall mornings with just enough wind, and I sat in the soft rays of the morning sun, and let the breeze wrap itself around my arms, and ruffle my hair, and tickle my ankles, while I watched the dogs sniffing in the ivy, and listened to a chorus of birdsong. I’m hoping Fuzzy understands that while the weather is my lover, he’s my true love and best friend. Also he takes the garbage out, and brings me flowers. The weather, however seductive it might be, never does either.

Well, sometimes it brings me flowers, but I have to share them with the whole of Creation, which lessens the impact somewhat.

Back inside now, I’m at the antique wooden writing desk typing on the pink Macbook. A glass of tart cranberry juice and a container of fat-free peach yogurt serve as breakfast this morning. I’m craving a croissant and a latte, and while I might have the latter, later, the former isn’t an option.

Anyway, croissants are only good first thing in the morning.

I have NPR murmuring at me from the kitchen. I’ve been really into radio lately. I like the way you can discover whole new worlds between the numbers on the dial. Turn the knob one way, and you get a sports channel, giving you the latest information on the Indianapolis Colts or Dallas Cowboys, or whatever. Turn it in the opposite direction, and a burst of bad mariachi assaults your ears, but it’s only for a moment because you’re moving on to the next.

Top 40. Country-Western. Vintage Rock. Talk Shows. NPR.
An entire world inside a little box, and so much more interesting than television, the way novels are better than movies.

Sunday morning.
A time for small discoveries.
And a tryst with the autumn breeze.

Last Sunday marked the third anniversary in this house, the longest I’ve ever been in a single house.

This weekend marks, not our 12th wedding anniversary, because that was in March, but the 12th anniversary of flying home to California (when it was home) for the pot-luck reception my parents hosted. We had a Humanist minister lead a brief ceremony, where we quoted from Little House on the Prairie, Anne of Green Gables, and read the “Apache Wedding Prayer,” and my grandmother gave us her mother’s wedding ring, a rose-gold band with sheaves of wheat flanking a platinum inset holding three diamond chips. I’m wearing it as I write this, with her diamond engagement ring. I bought Fuzzy’s ring, and keep joking that someday I’d like a ring from him, but the reality is that I like being able to wear my family history on my fingers, and my great-grandmother was such a tiny woman (or so I’ve heard – she died when my grandmother was nineteen) that the small scale of her ring suits my pixie hands.

Neither our actual wedding (we eloped) nor this ceremony were terribly fancy, there were no strings of bridesmaids, groomsmen gift buying frenzies, or hoards of relatives we barely knew. Instead, a few simple words, and then a pot-luck in the back yard where our multicultural friends brought traditional wedding foods from their own families or countries of origin.

Part of me wishes we’d done a formal wedding.
Part of me doesn’t.

But either way, October has become a month of personal milestones.

And I rather like that.

Appetizer
If you were a dog, what breed would you be, and why?
Something small and tenacious, in the terrier family. Possibly a Staffie, as they’re fierce guardians, but all bluff and no bite.

Soup
What does the color purple make you think of?
Deeply colored autumn leaves, eggplant, my favorite turtleneck, suede sneakers that finally fell apart, crisp sweet grapes, and the midnight sky.

Salad
Approximately how long does it take you to get ready each morning?
Ready for what? I work from home, so half the time getting ready means opening my eyes and grabbing the laptop from the nightstand (approx. 15 seconds), when I go out, half an hour if I don’t need to shower first, double that if I do.

Main Course
How many cousins do you have, and are you close to them?
I have a lot of cousins from both sides of my mother’s family, and while I’ve met many of them, there are apparently many, many more that I’ve never even heard of. I’m particularly close to my cousin Cathy, in New Jersey, who is really more like my older sister, even though our mothers are NOT sisters, and my cousin Stacie, whom I’ve gotten to know better since moving here (she lives a couple of hours away, in Louisiana.)

Dessert
Take your initials (first, middle, last) and come up with something else those letters could stand for. (Example: SFO = Sweet Funny Otter)
MAB: Mischievous Alliterative Broad.

I never did post my Thursday 13, and since it’s now Friday, it seems rather silly to post it now. Instead, I offer some coming attractions for the next few T13’s – W, X, Y, and Z:

In the W-list, you’ll get to hear me ramble about water, writing and weeds.

The X-list includes xylomancy, xylophones, and Xanth.

When we get to Y, that list will talk about Peter Yarrow, and the concept of “Yes And.”

And Z features zoetropes, zinnias, and zippers, among other things.

So, you see, I really have planned them out, I just wasn’t feeling writey today, and yesterday I kind of forgot it was Wednesday, and didn’t post early.

I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly influential person. I don’t have vast masses of people hanging on my words, and I’ve never been a trend-setter. I have my own tastes, and while I’m interested in couture, and the fashion world, it’s an interest based in a love of pretty clothes, and not from any desire to spend a fortune on dresses you can’t actually wear in public.

But today, I feel really influential, because our friend Wintermutt (whose wife does some job that involves human resources software, and is currently spending a lot of time in New York), actually started a blog, just to participate in the projects at CafeWriting.

No one’s ever started a blog because of me, before.

It feels kind of cool.

I have an ear ache, and I’m horribly tired, and therefore my Thursday 13 (W) will be posted tomorrow.

I’ve done the lists for W, X, Y and Z, just not the explainy bits.

And it’s all about the explainy bits.

And I’m going to sleep now.

(I actually fell asleep with my head on a pillow on Fuzzy’s lap about twenty minutes into Stranger than Fiction tonight, waking up for the end of the movie. I’d seen it before, and it was on cable, not rented, but still.)

Catch you all on the flip side.

Give me seven things you associate with October. You don’t have to explain them, but it’s more fun for readers if you do. from CafeWriting

1. Fallen leaves, strewn across the ground. I shuffle through them, or happily crunch them with my sneakered feet, while the dogs roll in them, noses all a-quiver. Ah, the smell of mulch in the morning.
2. Soups and stews, all simmering, filling the house with spicy warmth, living on the stove where one can sneak a bowl at odd hours, filling the stomach and the soul with warmth.
3. Crisp evenings, with woodsmoke in the distance and crystalline stars glittering in the heavens.
4. Chilly, mist-softened mornings that turn the grass a greener shade and allow your breath to form silly spirals when you speak into the air
5. Witches, ghosts, and goblins scampering down the street, accompanied by adults looking wistful for the days when they were the ones in costumes, and the chocolate didn’t have to be x-rayed before you could eat it.
6. Rain-slicked streets lit by lamplight, cars coming home in full darkness, glowing windows dotting the neighborhood.
7. Apples everywhere, red and green and yellow, like stoplights. Pressed into cider, baked into pies, stewed into sauce or boiled into jam – sweet, tart, crisp and redolent of fall.

Outside my bedroom window, fog dances above the surface of the pool, thick in some places, swirling streaks of thick and thin in others, misty and white and making the world feel chilly.

It is chilly. 59 degrees (F).
I had to turn on the heat last night, but this is mitigated by the fact that the temperature will creep toward 85 this afternoon, and I will end up turning on the a/c around 4 PM, but just for a little while.

The bed was too big last night, and I was cold, despite the warm bodies of Zorro and Miss Cleo. Why is it than when Fuzzy is home he is relegated to 1/8 of the bed, and there is never enough room, and when he’s gone there are vast acres of space, and too much?

I think there are weird bed physics that make the mattresses expand and contract depending on the number of occupants.

I’ve rediscovered radio. I go through phases when I hate noise, and stages when I want to surround myself with the spoken word. At times like this, I prefer radio to television because I can just listen to it, and don’t have to watch. I’m listening to NPR as I write this. Even when the news is bad, and nearly causes me to drop lead weights on top of the radio for delivering it, there is something comforting about NPR. It’s just so homey, unlike the ClearChannel clones that monopolize top-40 and even more alternative pop.

I am wearing a purple cotton tank top and my favorite purple, turquoise, and white “woof woof” pajamas. I like pajama bottoms, but prefer t-shirts or tank tops to traditional pajama tops. Always have.

I think it’s a morning for oatmeal and hot chocolate, rather than yogurt, toast, and coffee.

I love mail. Email is nice, snailmail is better. The nice thing about ordering stuff online, is that you get both – an email message telling you that whatever you ordered is en route, and then, just when you’ve had time to forget about the email, the actual item. The item, of course, is the best part.

Today I received an email message about some jewelry that I ordered, and a package from Possets, which comprised my first foray into non-BPAL perfume. I’ll do a rundown of the perfume later today (Tuesday), when I’m awake enough to sniff and analyze, but I have to say I love that Fabienne packs her perfume first into black satin bags, then into bubble wrap bags, then into lined envelopes.

And how can you not love a woman who names a perfume “froufrou” ?

Another happy surprise? One of my blog buddies gave my book blog an award. Watch that space for an announcement, because such awards are meant to be shared.

One final surprise? The wet grey day trickled into a cold night. Officially cold. When I took the dogs out for their evening elimination break, I could see breath in the air.

And I had to turn the heat on.

I love fall.
And happy surprises.