Fall is here... for the moment

A brisk wind blows through Los Angeles on a Sunday afternoon. The first weekend of October. The first one in LA that actually feels like fall. It's my favorite season, and one that Southern California doesn't feel with the full bloom and force as in other parts of the country. So it's a momentary pleasure, as next weekend may be 85 degrees, or the following one may forget autumn entirely and settle into the blandness of 65 degrees. Not that one should really complain, because three months later it will still be... 65 degrees, while it's 20 degrees where I come from.

Speaking of where I come from, I was able to breathe in the coming fall back in Wisconsin with L. Empty country roads and Door County farmhouses while on a gorgeous, picturesque tour of my home state. We ate pure Wisconsin cheese, savored the joys of Leinie's Red, and sat beside beautiful Lake Mendota, appreciating life back in Madison, the most perfect place in the world when the weather matches its charms.

All of it makes me so appreciative of this time of year, which creeps up so slowly and disappears so fast. Even back in Wisconsin, they're probably now having the most stunning weekends of the year, replete with the smell of fallen leaves on the lawn, but in a month the Midwest will be concerned with weather-stripping and ballooning heating bills. Here in Los Angeles, Halloween will pass, and we'll ponder the holidays, which will erupt without the benefit of the further changing of seasons. Yeah, we'll put on our thin, Fall coats, but it's really not the same.

I guess that neither way is ideal, but the connecting thread between the two is unavoidable change. These are brief, momentary periods that need to be savored and cherished, because tomorrow they will be gone. At least as far as the weather goes.

But for me, I'm going to appreciate every minute of it, from the pumpkins on the kitchen table, to the football season unfolding in 16 weeks, to what promises to be a comically fun time at Knotts Scary Farm tonight, to that stiff wind that somehow both chills and warms, to the lovely, wonderful woman that I get to spend my time with, who only gets more beautiful with each passing day. Yes, Fall is a time to be cherished.