Not Even April is a Cruel Month

"A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain."

--Robert Frost

I have not been in such a heavy rain for about two years. I live in Tucson, and this is October. There are almost more raindrops than I can count. My shirt is damp. Without exaggeration, I can say that I am cold, and I have found a vest to help me stay warm.

We have just had lunch with Becky and Stan, at Teresa's Mosaic Cafe--they having just recently returned from a summer stay near Seattle. Their return is a much more reliable sign of Autumn than is frost on the pumpkin: no pumpkin, no frost.

It is common, but it is odd, still, to look across town at Mt. Lemmon, and know that up there, in what seems to be the backyard of the houses on that side of town, sometimes it snows. The ski lift up there might indeed be more for show than for snow, but it is there; a kind of reminder that there are whole States and regions with impending winter. We have winter, too, probably, but it is kinder than summer, and sometimes it rains.

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