Saturday, August 30, 2003

Once again I found myself up at an ungodly hour, managing to coerce myself out the door into the car, down the highway, into the gym in Montpelier just after the opening hour of 7 o'clock.

Something I've noticed: I can bumble around the house at an early hour like that, getting myself ready to go out and do whatever it is I've gotten myself up to go out and do, and I seem to be moderately awake and functional. I shower without spraying water around the bathroom, I shave without spraying blood around the bathroom, I take care of the lower functions without spraying effluent around the bathroom. I dress myself properly, I manage to toss some vitamins down my throat. It's only when I step out the door that it becomes clear I'm nowhere near awake and clear-headed, that in fact I'm bleary enough to be a danger to myself and anyone that comes near.
(This morning: I step out the laundry room door into the garage, immediately begin knocking things over with my gym bag. I hear the sound of something falling over, I turn foggily to look and knock something else over. I turn foggily to look at the second sound and knock something *else* over. Embarrassing.)

I manage to get the car out the garage without hitting anything, make it down the hill to Route 14, pull out onto the blacktop, and am bowled over once again at how beautiful it is around here. Fog drifts through fields in ghostly fashion. Mist rises from hillsides beginning to show hints of autumn color. Patches of blue and sunlight leak through skies dramatically crowded with autumnal overcast. Spectacular.

At the gym I was, I think, the first person in the door. The young woman at the counter who punched my card wore no smile, made no conversation. (Who can blame her? Starting a Saturday work shift at 7 a.m. wouldn't be my idea of a great time.) Around 7:30, a sudden influx of people poured into the facility. Most were out the door again by 8, maybe coming to their senses and fleeing back home to bed. By the time I walked out the door at 9, the sun shone, some folks walked the streets, the farmers market was open.

Did errands, got food, drove home in time for the weekly infusion of radio goofiness (Car Talk; Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me). The sky clouded up. The temperature, after floating hopefully into the lofty mid-60s, settled back down to the 60 mark. (A mild 60, but still.)

Autumn's been gently elbowing summer aside. If the recent weather trends persist, the elbowing may become more ill-mannered, more drastic. Already, one of the trees I can see from my seat here at the dining room table -- peering out the window past the barn to the property line -- is showing touches of color, leaves out at the ends of some branches gradually turning yellow/orange.

Whichever way it goes -- summer holding on, autumn pushing it aside -- it will be beautiful.

Further signage spotted in Montpelier, VT:
-- One more from the window of Charlie-O's, a bar on
Main Street ("Good drinks and bad company since the
war between the States"):
Welcome Demonic, Sadistic, Wild Motorcycle Crazies --
Your Money Is Good Here


rws 11:28 AM [+]

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