I did my bit for international harmony today. I helped a German fellow arrange a city tour of San Francisco and Alcatraz for which my company will not collect commission and which I put together on my own time after we were officially closed. He was in town for a week, obviously hadn't been here before, didn't really know anyone, and wanted to see the local sights. I did it in honor of the very nice French travel agent who helped me find the Sevres Ceramics Museum in 1989. Besides, I'm always nice to obviously hapless foreigners.
My eleemosynary mood moved me to go to Sears after work and purchase a baby gift for someone whom I've never met, then buy a set of towels for my feckless friend Eightball (who invited me to stay at his house next month but then remembered he hadn't got enough washclothes). There was a white sale on, so I picked up an irresistably cute set of flannel sheets with little snowmen on them for John who prefers to sleep au naturel all year but gets kind of cold that way in the winter. Personally, I have the greatest dislike for being even slightly chilly when I'm trying to fall asleep, and am prone to keeping the comforter on far into the spring, reluctantly giving up my thermal pajamas only when I find myself waking up sweating in the middle of the night. June, say. Flannel sheets are wonderfully comfortable for the transistion from cool autumnal evenings to three dog nights.
I saw Orion last night, another indisputable sign of the season. When I lived in Nashville I became very attached to that constellation. For as long as he roamed the sky with his hunting belt and his dog I knew the weather would be mild, cool, or cold, and I would feel human. When he slipped below the horizon for the last time in the spring I would try to prepare myself for six months of resentful coping with hot, sticky, revoltingly humid weather and my subsequent foul mood. Now, of course, I don't have to worry about that seasonal dread, but I was instantly thrilled to see those stars anyway. Winter's coming! Soon, soon, the stars sing to me, fast away the old year passes. Time to carve a jack-o-lantern, gather up bright leaves, bake acorn squash, make pumpkin pies. Soon the harvest will be gone, stored up against the long, dark days.
I do miss the two snows a year we got in Nashville. That helped abate my anti-Southern-weather sentiments, believe me. Any place that gets snow can't be all bad. I haven't lived where it snows much since I left home. Back then, I spent my junior high and high school winter weekends being bussed up to the mountains for ski school from November through March. Even on Mercer Island, in the middle of Lake Washington, we got some snowfall in January and February. Down here, though, it absolutely, positively never happens. It's the only thing about living in the Bay Area that I genuinely regret. All those years of skiing have left me with a yen for the hush of a mountain winter. If I close my eyes, I can almost smell the sharp, crisp scent of a new snow in a mountain pine forest, and see the deep blue shadows cast by the undulating blanket of white. I love to snowshoe or ski off by myself and just soak in the beautiful contrast of dark green pine needles and moisture-blackened trunks with the pristine white layers, my face growing cold as the dancing snowflakes whirl around and land with a faint pshh.
Then, of course, I love to go back to my warm cabin, climb into my pjs, and snuggle under a down comforter on flannel sheets. That's the very best way to enjoy cold weather if you ask me. It's the contrast that's so satisfying.
