Facing Fall

Today was a red-letter, no-holds-barred, drippy, dreary, Pacific Northwest-kinda rainy fall day.

And despite the chilly wet winds and rolling dark clouds, I cheerfully slipped into my socks and Birkenstocks, and took my darling Ranger for his walk.

^ Here in the PNW, Birkenstocks are an all-weather shoe, worn with socks (or in my case, cozy footies) when the mercury drops a bit. Don't judge. 

^ To suit his evolutionary purposes as a hunter, Ranger's fur is genetically engineered to repel rain. From an overhead angle, he looks damp but not drowned.

^ On closer inspection, one can make out his double-layered coat's clever ability to wick the water away through his long and sleek outer fur, which leaves the lighter colored downy undercoat dry and fluffy. And that's how my boy stays warm in a downpour like today's. 

Now normally, at this time of year, I am whining and fussing about the change of seasons, depressed about the deepening gloom and longing for an endless summer.

But this year, I am embracing fall in all its decaying glory. So weird. I hardly know myself.

If you push me for an explanation, I'd say that this year, for the first time in a long, long time, I got plenty of warm, sunny summer. 

• In mid-May, I hopped a plane to sunny Arizona and fetched my baby from college.
• Within a day of our return, I flew off to Asia and spent seven sweaty weeks in the tropics.
• I returned home by mid-July to soak up one of the sunniest Seattle summers on record. 
• Capping off the sunshine season, I made one more trip to Tucson last weekend to enjoy the desert heat and even spend a few hedonistic hours lounging by the pool.

So bring it on, autumn. My cup of summer has been filled to the brim and I'm ready to face whatever you've got.