Day 55: Fall - beautiful or depressing?

Between You, Me and the Lamp Post

Day 55: Fall - beautiful or depressing?

It’s September, the month fall starts and with it the most depressing time of the year.

Some see beauty in the fall, I’m not one of them. Sure, the foliage in fall is beautiful but look beyond the colors and you’ll realize that the leaves are dying and soon after that rotting.

Everything is dying ... the trees, the shrubbery, and the flowers. For months the world will be devoid of color. No more green trees offering shade on a hot day. No more bright red geraniums, playfully pink petunias, or yellow and purple smiling pansie faces. No more anything.

Winter at least offers the beauty of snow and ice. 

While it might be cold, falling snow or gazing upon a white landscape can be a source of joy. But what joy is there to be found in the fall?

Even more depressing is the temperature. Warm days are a thing of the past. It’s only September 8th and I’m already sitting with a sweater on. 

Last year was very different. The air conditioning in our condo building was switched off in the second week of September and the residents descended on the management office un mass. They asked, pleaded and begged the building manager to turn the air-conditioning back on because it was stifling hot in their units.

Not this year. The air-conditioning unit hasn’t been on for days, instead of shorts I’m wearing jeans, instead of sandals I’ve reached for socks and slippers, and as mentioned earlier, I’m wearing a sweater.

Halley and Greyson aren’t bothered by the sudden chill in the air. As you can see, they continue to nap in the balcony swing. 

Yesterday I thought it a little too chilly for Halley to be outside, so I covered her with a blanket. She stayed and continued to snooze. That is, until Greyson came along and started trampling all over her.

Fall ... I guess we'll just have to put up with it. In another six months, it will be spring again.

_________________________

http://connymanero.weebly.com/store.html

Day 100: What is your favorite season

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 100: What is your favorite season

Today’s creative writing prompt is … 'What is your favorite season?' Well, let’s see …

While for many people summer is their favorite season, I’m not one of them. I’m fine with a temperature of up to 26 degrees C (78.8 degrees F) but anything more than that makes me extremely uncomfortable. As someone once said, “For winter you can dress warm, but what do you do in summer … there’s only so much you can take off.” All I can say is ... thank goodness for A/C. Whoever invented air-conditioning deserves a medal the size of Texas.

As much as I dislike the heat, I absolutely hate fall. While it’s true that fall displays a magnificent array of colors in foliage, I find it a depressing season. Trees, shrubs, and flowers die, their remains lying on the ground to rot. I do like the rain that the fall brings though. Not surprising since I’m originally from Belgium where it rains nine months out of the year. Why do you think Belgium is known as frog land …

As for winter … while winter is not exactly my favorite season, but it does have its perks. There's nothing like a snow-covered landscape and along with snow and ice comes skiing and skating entertainment. Cold dark cloudy days are perfect for enjoying thick soup, cuddling up by the fireplace with a good book, or watching old movies. Winter is also the time for Christmas when the house gets decorated and we go shopping for presents for loved ones.

So that leaves us with spring. Yes, spring is my favorite season. A time when nature comes alive, when trees sprout delicate green leaves, daffodils bob their bright yellow heads, and when people shed their dark winter clothes and boots in favor of pastel colors and sandals.

Along with spring comes nest building for the birds, which is something a couple of finches are busy with right now on my balcony. I for one will be very happy when their construction work is finished, because their constant twittering at the crack of dawn interferes with my beauty sleep.

The cats on the other hand are delighted with the finches’ presence. Now that the temperature has hit double digits, they’re allowed to go out on the balcony and they never tire of seeing the finches in action. “They’re just to look at,” I told them, “not to eat. If you catch one, you’re grounded for a week.”

Don’t forget to donate to the Toronto Cat Rescue.

Any amount will make a difference.

https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/toronto-cat-rescue-bowl-a-thon-9/

Day 65: The Weather - According to my Son

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 65: The Weather - According to my Son

A few days ago, I had to go out. Even though it was December and presumably cold, before going out I asked my son “Is it cold out there?”

Heaven knows why I asked because I never get an accurate response. Dieter is one of those people who is completely unaffected by the cold. It must be pretty bad before he wears a coat and he never ever wears a hat or a scarf. So really, I don’t know why I bothered checking with him.

When Dieter says it’s nice, that means that I need a light sweater. When he says it’s a little chilly, a warmer sweater is needed. When he says it’s cold, I better bundle up in a coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. And when he says that it’s very cold, that means it’s freezing the balls off a brass monkey.

In summer, his temperature assessment is equally deceiving. When he says that it’s a little chilly, it’s actually quite nice. The kind of day that I can go out in a short-sleeved shirt. When he says it’s warm, that’s my cue to reach for something sleeveless. When he says it’s very warm, that means it’s hot. I can handle the heat up to 28 degrees C (86 degrees F) comfortably, but anything above that is too hot. So, when Dieter says it’s hot, that means outside the birds are falling out of the trees.

I’ll bet now you’re wondering how he describes wind and rain. So, I’ll tell you. When Dieter says, it’s okay, that means there’s a bit of a breeze. When he says there a bit of a breeze, it’s actually quite windy. And when he says it’s windy, there’s a storm going on. Now when he says that it’s very windy ... well, wherever you’re going you’re in danger of being airborne.

As for rain, he certainly can’t be trusted. It’s misty means it’s drizzling. It’s drizzling means it’s raining. It’s raining means it’s pouring. And when he says it’s raining hard there’s practically a hurricane going on.

My weather app on my phone is equally unreliable.

For instance. For today my phone said that it was 12 deg C (54 deg F). I’m sure it was 12/54 degrees somewhere, but it wasn’t in Toronto.

There have been days that the app says that 75% chance of rain is expected and there’s not a drop of water to be seen. Last winter the app predicted 6 cm of snow (a little more than 2 inches) and we got nothing than a light dusting.

Fortunately, even though my son fails to give me an accurate description of the weather and my phone app is frequently wrong, I can always rely on my cats.

When they groom themselves and they wipe a paw behind their ears ... it’s gonna rain. When the wiping involves a triple action, it’s gonna come down in buckets.

On the other hand, if they claw at the furniture or carpets, wind is expected. And believe me, it never fails.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

I'm leaving

Fall has arrived. Yes, I know, officially fall arrived on September 21^st but on that day, and the days that followed, Toronto enjoyed a bright sun in a blue sky and a temperature warm enough to be outside in shirt sleeves.

Today all that has changed. The sun is nowhere to be seen, the sky is a mass of grey clouds, and it’s cold. To make matters worse, it’s raining, and rain always makes a day seem even colder.

Ordinarily, I love a rainy day, the harder it rains the better I feel. I get really creative or I curl up on the sofa with a good book, with tea and chocolates within reach.

When I have to go out I don’t like a rainy day quite as much. I have to put on a jacket and instead of sunglasses take an umbrella along. Not that an umbrella guarantees me staying dry, I’ve had more than one umbrella ruined when the wind blew it inside out.

Some might say that fall is beautiful, and I agree. The Don Valley in Toronto displays a magnificent array of colors, but for how long. Soon those yellow, orange and red leaves fall off the trees and then they lay on the ground, rotting away. Except for chrysanthemums flowers are dying and nature loses all its color.

And from here on it’s only going to get worse. If meteorologists are to be believed, we’re having a tough winter ahead of us. We’ve had a wonderful long hot summer, so they are predicting an awful long and cold winter. Ugh, I can just imagine, temperatures way below zero, snow up to our ears, black ice … well, it is Canada.

If Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, to me this is the most miserable time of the year. Fall has only just started and I’ve already had enough of it.

In winter, with packs of snow, nature at least gets transformed into a magical landscape and there’s some fun to be had. Skiing, ice skating, throwing snowballs at each other, but what’s to be done in the fall … throwing wet leaves at each other?

Maybe I should do like the Canadian geese, head south and wait for winter to pass. I can’t fly, but I can walk.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

How do you feel about fall?

I select a turtleneck instead of a shirt, pull on a jacket and wrap a scarf around my neck.  Outside it’s chilly.  Not really cold, but there is a definite nip in the air.  The wind makes me turn up the collar of my jacket. 

When I look up I see a gray sky packed with low hanging, fast moving clouds.  I feel like turning around, going back inside and crawling into bed.  I feel like joining the bears and the squirrels that hibernate until March or even April. 

As I leave the subway station and climb the stairs to street level, I zipper my jacket and walk face down, looking at the pavement.   Instead of a flimsy skirt, I now wear slacks.  Sandals have been replaced with shoes.  Soon shoes will have to make way for warmer boots.

On my way to work, I see plenty of people who are dressed like me.  They wear sweaters, jackets and scarves.  They no longer sashay, but stride with a sense of purpose and urgency.  They no longer look around, checking if they are seen.  Now they, too, walk with bended heads.

Looking up now, I don’t like what I see.  Some trees are still green, but they are thinning.  Others are turning yellow.  Were they yellow yesterday, or has this happened overnight?  Leaves in various shades of gold and brown rush along the pavement and swirl around my feet.  When I step on them they make a crunchy sound and turn to bits.

The lilies in the flowerbeds are hanging their heads.  They look sad, like they know their days are numbered.  The geraniums are still there, but they don’t look as radiant anymore as they once did.  They have not seen the sun in a few days and they seem to suffer from a lack of warmth.

I suffer from lack of warmth too.  It is bad enough that the fall has arrived; but, that Torontonians have not had a proper summer makes it all the worse.  We had a few warm days, but those days felt more like spring than summer. 

Where are the days when it was already warm early in the morning and one could just feel that it was going to be scorching hot later on?  Where are the days that people were sitting in the shade, huffing and puffing, fanning themselves against the heat?  There has been no heat this summer.

Although I am not a big fan of the scorching heat, and I moan and grown at the sun like everybody else when it is really hot, the notion of heat when one is desperate with ice cold hands and feet is a nice prospect.  It’s something to get one through the moment, through the day and through the long winter.  But somehow we have been cheated.  Summer has passed us by. 

As I stand in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, I look out the window.  It has suddenly gone very dark, it is raining and drops of water are steadily trailing down the glass.  It is like Mother Nature is crying.  Down below the red and white lights of traffic contrast against the wet, black street.  The reflected colors remind me of a lit-up Christmas tree.

During lunchtime, I go outside to clear my head.  There is some blue in the sky now, but still far too many gray clouds.  A few intrepid souls are braving it and are going for a walk.  I have no such intentions.  I would rather stay inside and go in search of a hot bowl of soup.

The park, usually packed with lunchtime office workers and tourists, is now almost empty.  There is nobody strolling along the gravel paths; nobody squatting on the grass; nobody sitting under a tree on a shaded bench.  Now there are only pigeons and seagulls pecking at whatever they can find.   A few people are standing around in a watery sun, bundled up with coats and scarves.

Just before I go back inside I look up and see a flock of Canadian geese.  Are they heading south already?   I wish I could grow wings and join them.

www.connymanero.weebly.com