Autumn at 11:03 tonight!!

Here's a seasonal disconnect. Summer ends before midnight and I'm showing you a picture of myself sitting in front of a snow bank through which a mountain stream has cut a channel -- this picture was taken in Valdez, Alaska within 24 hours of the Summer Solstice!! And, indeed, on midsummer's eve, when I'm told it didn't really get dark, it snowed on top of the local mountains. {I was snugly in bed with a blanket over my head blocking out the light.]
All this is to mark the season with a recognition of the wonder of weather -- wherever one happens to be. Here in New England we can look forward in autumn to a magnificence of gold and red, every bit as heart stoppingly lovely as the white and pink flowering trees of spring.
A few years ago a guy in the playwriting group I belonged to wrote a comdey about a couple cutting short their vacation in the Caribbean because of hurricane warnings. The husband explained, "Elaine doesn't like weather." To listen to casual conversation in NYC, one gets the impression most people don't like weather. But some of us love weather -- not just the people who say they could never retire to Florida because they would miss the seasons. I'm among those who like weather even when it's making me miserable for the time being. I don't like those humid summer days when I break into a sweat just brushing my teeth, and I don't like heavy rain the makes me walk around in wet shoes, or the cold winds that howl around corners literally giving me a headache from the cold against my forehead. But it's part of the territory.
Anyway, this is just a quick blog, because it's called Calender Pages, to acknowledge that the season is officially changing. And I will acknowledge that it is Rosh Hoshanah -- and that it seems appropriate for people to end a year with the end of a season -- as we officially do in January a bit after the start of winter. Never -- unless we become robotized and thus not really human -- will people stop noting the change of seasons, and enjoying -- and complaining about -- the weather. What would New Yorkers talk about without the weather? So often we want to say something to someone we know only casually from riding up the elevator or seeing in a store ... we can be a little friendly without being personal with a remark about the weather -- love it or hate it, we've got it and I say Hurray!