The prevailing winds and the aerodynamics of my porch conspire to ensure that there is always this neat little pile of leaves on my door mat in front of my east-facing door when I look for the mail of a morning.
The oak trees with which the city is salted provide most of our fall color. Most of them are a dull bronze gold that is really kind of ho-hum. But the two across the street and the one next door are more colorful.
This morning 
the rising sun played light and shadow across the one next door. It was windy, and I stood watching through the storm door glass as the colors shifted in the wind and sunlight.
In among the piles of brown, russet, and yellow leaves in my flower bed and on the porch are these lovely oxblood red ones.
I am a cusp child, born when Taurus is becoming Gemini, with Mars and Venus in Taurus, and Mercury in Gemini. In my salad days, I was all Gemini blues, that being my favorite color still. Now in the early autumn of my life, I find I am shifting toward the Taurean earth tones, the russets, the oxblood reds and old golds, but also the deep forest greens. Back when I was young and blond, the deep shades overpowered me and I stuck to the midrange tones toward the lighter side of the palette. Now that my hair is almost completely white, I can wear the deep, dark hues with impunity, the royal purples, plums, turquoises, sapphires, deep reds, rich forest greens, deep rose pink, but cool shades. Nothing with “orange” orange or lemon yellow overtones, however. My palette definitely leans toward the cool blues and greens.
I am contemplating a random act of kindness and senseless beauty. It will involve twisted cables. I hit up my yarn stash and found navy blue yarn and a ball of Wedgewood blue. They were all fine weight yarn, so I combined four strands together, three navy blues and the Wedgewood blue into one strand. They were already in balls, so I went to get this big bowl that normally sits on my dining room table. It’s imported from Tunisia and I’ve had it quite a while. I put the four balls of yarn into it to wind into a single ball. Worked quite nicely. The bowl usually has a cylindrical vase of Chinese blue and white sitting in it, holding three red silk peonies and three golden yellow silk dahlias, 6 being the number of the Northwest.
We’re having a cold snap with night-time lows in the high 20’s F (-2 to -3’s C) and highs in the 50’s F (13-14 C). It’s supposed to be rainy over the weekend. With the humidity around 40%, there’s a lot of static electricity. Rice Krispies weater. Every time I walk across a room, it’s snap! crackle! pop! The fat(cat)boy has been having periodic fits of sneezing where he’ll sneeze three or four times in a row. Me, too. A low pressure front has just gone through. I don’t have to look at a barometer to know the barometric pressure is rising. I’ve got one built into my face. If I build up a charge of static electricity while I’m wearing my earbuds, I get this little dolphin squeal noise in the earbuds when it discharges. If my hair was shorter, I’d look like a dandelion clock when I brush my hair. It’s funny the first couple of times to see it standing out all over, but it gets old quickly when little hairs cling to your face and tickle.
I need to finish that owl hat so as to free up that US10(6.0 mm) 16-inch circular needle for that thing I’m plotting. I’m going to try to do that this afternoon. Tonight is knitting group, and on the way there, I’ve got to stop by the health food store for more NAC, and I’ve got to stop by Michael’s for another skein of that Lion Brand Yarn to finish that hat. Busy. . . Busy. . . .
The Owl Underground Archive II 
