I Love Autumn!

I’ve already said I hate summer so many times I’m sure I’m on Satan’s shortlist of souls he’d like to meet and greet — permanently. Hating summer is like seeing an ugly baby and then actually saying it: everybody kinda agrees with you, but nobody’s on your side. However, as the man said, “If you’re going to Hell anyway, you might as well just keep driving.” So summer might not actually suck — all the time — but here are 5 reasons why I prefer autumn.

Autumn is active — When summer is over, you can actually do things again — like walking down the street or standing waiting for a bus — without feeling like a tributary of the Amazon is flowing down the back of your shirt and into your underwear.

Autumn is cozy — There is nothing better than a fuzzy sweater on a chilly evening. And is there anybody in this world who doesn’t like fat, warm socks? These are two of life’s priceless little pleasures that release tons of endorphins. Unfortunately, they’re not available to us when the temperature is 36 degrees in the shade — and there ain’t no shade. It is my considered opinion that the lack of fuzzy sweaters and fat socks is why people in desert countries are so grouchy all the time.

Autumn moves — Summer doesn’t move. It just lies on you like a Hot Fudge Quilt. Autumn, on the other hand, lives on the breeze. You can taste it in the early morning, fresh as that first cup of coffee. It plays in the trees like Peter Pan having a giggle. It swirls and twirls tiny tornados of leaves at your feet, teases your hair like a casual lover and sends you to bed with an extra blanket tucked up to your chin.

Autumn is made of soup — There is only so much cremated cow a man can stand. Autumn is the time for great cauldrons of things that sound and bubble and fill up the house with steam and smell and plenty; served in great bowls with bread or in a thick mug, balanced just right between you and your book.

And finally:

Autumn is serious — When the temperature starts to drop in the Northern Hemisphere, we all have this weird cultural memory that “Winter is Coming” and it’s going to try to kill us. We don’t lay in stocks of food and firewood anymore, but we do subconsciously put away the toys of summer and assemble our tools. That’s why God made “Back to School” sales.

It’s Spring – 2021

Thank God it’s spring! It was a little late this year but finally I think we’ve got the real meal deal. Mother Nature is changing her clothes, and Father Time is watching. We mere mortals are only a small part of what they both have in mind, but, like every year since this planet was a baby, it’s going to be spectacular. As of today, the birds and the bees are back, and they’re feeling frisky.

Unfortunately, spring doesn’t carry the kind of punch it used to. These days, it’s mostly living on its rep. We all know it’s spring, but in a world of central heating, air conditioning, mega-malls and concrete canyon streets, how many of us really care? In the 21^st century, we generally ignore the world around us until Mother Nature gets pissed off and starts slapping the crap out of everything in her path – then we pay attention. Primitive humans weren’t this arrogant; that’s why they treated spring with some respect.

Back in the day, winter in the northern hemisphere was nothing to be trifled with. Our species never physically adapted to the cold the way some of the other animals on this planet did. However, despite our natural tendency to freeze to death, we insisted on living in climates that were inhospitable for four (or more) months of the year. The only recourse for this stupidity was to outsmart Mother Nature, using the tools at hand – fire and the skins of more practical animals. Plus, our instincts told us to hide in caves when a hostile world starting howling for our bones. This strategy worked and we survived long enough to understand that — even though Mother Nature spent a good amount of time trying to kill us — eventually she would relent and treat us like her special children again. And this was cause for celebration.

As we evolved beyond beetle-brow tough to early-human clever, we must have realized that these constantly changing seasons were not random. They had a pattern. When winter was over, the leaves came out. From there, only a Neanderthal wouldn’t put two and two together and realize, once the leaves started to fall, winter was coming back. (That’s why there are no more Neanderthals, BTW. Just sayin’.) With that in mind, it wasn’t a Cro-Magnon leap of intelligence to figure out that, with a little planning, we could gather food and firewood during the good weather, store them away, and a smart cave family could sit out the winter in relative comfort. Thus, instead of hanging out in the cave, shivering and getting skinny all winter, we had some leisure time to put that big brain or ours to work. We watched the sun, we watched the moon, we noticed when the ice started to melt, when the birds came back and when the bear two caves over woke up grumpy, hungry and looking for a fight. This was all important stuff, because the more we knew about the seasons, the more likely it was that we’d be around to see a few of them.

Unfortunately, climatology hadn’t been invented yet, and so humans simply filed all these various discoveries under “Mother Nature: Whims and Idiosyncrasies.” But Mother Nature was real. She made the flowers bloom, the warm breezes blow, and warmed up the sun. So, when winter was over, it made sense for primitive humans to take a minute, be polite and say thanks.

These days, we don’t much care for Mother Nature. After all, for the last two hundred years or so, we’ve been fighting with her for supremacy on this planet. There are some who say we’re winning and some who say we’ve already lost. Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t seem to give a damn, either way. Our egos are so secure we no longer thank her — or anybody else — for our existence. However, on a morning like this one, in the first sunlight of what’s going to be a perfectly gorgeous day, I tend to get a little caveman-humble. I hear the birds putting on the brag, see an ambitious green sprig forcing its way through the sidewalk and maybe — just maybe — sniff a sweet change in the air. And it all tells me something special is happening again this year — and it’s going to fantastic.

Thanks, Mother Nature!

Written some years ago and reproduced every time I’m overwhelmed by the magic of the season.

Now, A Word About Snow

Meanwhile in Vancouver, Canada, a couple of days ago, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter got together in a romantic embrace and — Bullshit! Last Thursday night, Mother Nature and Old Man Winter had spectacular, incredible sex — and they went at it all weekend like a couple of perverted porn stars. The result was (and still is) a snow storm of biblical proportions. The roads are icy, the sidewalks are impassable, buses are as rare as unicorns and you need to produce holy relics to get a taxi. In short, my town has turned into an illustration from the Book of Revelation.

FYI — There is a universal myth that my country, Canada, is a gigantic vertical refrigerator sprinkled with igloos and Inuit, while the rest of us cling to the 49th parallel as if the USA were a bowl of hot soup. The fact is, 99.99% of that myth is true, except for my town, Vancouver (Vangroovy, as it is affectionately called) where the local word for “bad weather” is — well — we don’t actually have one. Normally, we have the kind of weather California used to brag about — before the droughts, fires and pestilence. Our golf courses are open year round, it’s not recommended but you can wear shorts all winter and — on most days — play tennis in them. Trapped between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, Vancouver has weather so different from the rest of Canada that the children here think Disney’s Frozen is a horror movie.

And that’s the problem. We are not prepared for this white crap. We have no idea what it is. On Thursday evening, the snow was beautiful, drifting in the dark, covering everything in a crystal blanket that sparkled in the quiet light. But by Friday morning, it was showing its teeth — growling and snarling at anybody who ventured out — driving them into the ditch and shoving them off the sidewalk. Then on Saturday and Sunday, things just got nasty. It was as if Jack Frost was channeling Jack the Ripper and they were both trying to decide where to stick the icicle in next. Vancouver’s snow removal crew (three guys with two shovels) finally gave up and hid out in a bar, and the only thing left for the good citizens of Vangroovy to do was lock the doors and pray.

Now it’s Tuesday with no relief in sight. So would everybody who reads this please pray for rain in Vancouver — so we can get back to normal and the rest of Canada can start hating us again? Thank you!

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