It Happened So Suddenly

It may seem that some desert dwellers kvetch about the weather all the time, and some of us do. It's not exactly that we hate everything about it. It's more that everything about it is so extreme, it catches one off guard and one needs to comment.

Monday I walked my miles in the street fairly bundled up. I work a head of steam up pretty quickly, so I wasn't uncomfortable for any part of my exercise. I went home, drank coffee, showered, absent-mindedly patted cats on their heads, dressed for work. About half way to my car, I thought, "I'm chilly." Glanced at the BlackBerry - to turn around and go back for a jacket was going to be pushing time a little too hard. I progressed to the car, jumped in, and the display on the dash told me it was 47-degrees outside. Huh? Ten days ago it was nearly 80-degrees when I drove to work.

Later in the day, the Badger commented that the A/C is still on at school and his office is frigid. He intends to take a sweater so he won't freeze. I laughed and said, "Well, you're talking to one! I'm a little shivering old lady and not ashamed to admit it."

But there is more. We moved upstairs to our new office in February. We haven't seen a full year there yet. Something I love in our office is the "mood lighting". Who, when, why mood lighting in an office, folks - I don't know, but David and I have it. I always feel restful in the dim light and as if that mood lighting shaves 10 off of my age (10 minutes). I feature myself in the captain's chair in the mood lighting looking like a young woman in her 40s. Ha.

I worked Saturday and did not notice what was very apparent and intrusive on Monday. The shade and shadows are shifting. They're a little longer, a little earlier. At 3:30, I could barely see anything in the office. The deck looked dark and kind of foreboding. My own image bounced off of the huge glass doors at me - I can't see out through the tinted glass doors. Sighing, I got up, turned off the mood lighting and turned on the screaming fluorescent. I also sneaked a mirror out of my purse and checked myself out under the fluorecent. Yikes!

I wasn't watching GPS very closely as Cesar and Matt headed in from their last job. I had work to do. I could not see them approach the glass doors because of the shadows. I nearly tipped over as they flung open the doors, screeching like little girls at all the bright light inside. "What the hell, Limes? What's going on?" "Change of season, homes. Nothing stays the same forever. It's fall."

It distresses me a little that it's already this dark and I'm the last person left in our professional plaza every day, upstairs, on the back of the building, unable to see outside and visible to no one on any street. I guess I'll start locking the door early and turning some lights off to peer outside before I leave. I'm not easily spooked, but one wants to be careful.

Driving home, directly into the west at 6:00 p.m., I suddenly need no sunglasses. Half way through my 5-mile commute, I do need my headlights. Last Thursday morning, our "early" staff meeting day, I didn't need those sunglasses as I drove due east into the sunrise, either.

Friday is the last cycling race of the season (on John Lennon's birthday - he'd have been 69 years old and it charms me that the race is on that day). I'll look forward to getting the play-by-play from the BlackBerry as it occurs and as fast has he can type it. Once that is completed, camping may be addressed in earnest. I was asked by a most creative and wonderful writer to take my journal out camping and write down every peaceful occurrence or feeling. That journal is already tucked into a duffel bag along with the colored pencils I take every single time.

It's not that I'm down or unhappy. I have simply never felt "change" so intensely. As if everything is changing at once. Some things tugging me gently backward and some things snatching me fast forward. I had some unhappy hours on Sunday. I melted down a little. I wasn't able to cope with all the changes. Monday I was still somewhat subdued. Today I look forward to happy times to come. Nothing stays the same forever.

Photo credit: J. D. Morehouse

In my ears right now: Billie Holiday - a CD of 20 of her tunes. Yes, I like that music, too. One should read her biography. She suffered as much pain as a person could be expected to survive. Except she didn't survive.

Something that charmed me: I got a letter in the mail from one of my banks. I've read it three times and I do not understand it. I am not stupid. But bank talk isn't my first language. The bank claims it has been accruing interest incorrectly for nearly 3 years on my checking, savings and line of credit. Um, OK, bank - if you say so. They now confess their error and I got $97.90 I didn't know was mine.