Leaves

October has always been my favorite month. Kicking through huge, red and orange maple leaves as I ran around the schoolyard with the other kids in the afternoon, I breathed in that dusty, musky scent. I fell in love with the sound, smell and sight of them from that moment forward.

That same autumn, I took some of the leaves home and sat at the dining room table with old newspapers and a bottle of metallic gold model enamel. Carefully, I would dip my brush in and lay the tip gently on the ribs of it's fragile back. After the ribs were done, I gently traced the outside edges and then left them to dry. My grandmother used them to decorate the house that year.

When we moved to Utah in 1972, I remember the first autumn leaves that I saw come at the mid-point of August. One morning I looked up at Wasatch Mountain from our old house on 5th West in Provo, now long gone. On the top of the mountain was a patch of brilliant, scarlet blazing out as if it had been recently painted there. I asked our neighbor about it. He said it was the scrub oak turning color. Having been a San Francisco kid, I had never experienced the change of seasons, and had never seen the colors that accompanied it. Within two weeks the entire mountain range had turned red as if it were bleeding. Then the aspens joined in, patchworking the range with brilliant hues of orange and yellows mellowing into soft golds and russets.

The accompanying smells of the over ripe unpicked and fallen apples on the ground in the neighbors orchard, blended with the crisping leaves of the cottonwoods and dead tall grass. In the late afternoon heat, the fragrence was hypnotic. The neighbor next door had neglected his apple orchard for quite awhile. The trees got watered, but that was about it. I would slowly walk down the long drive, passing the rose garden and the pumpkins and squash on my way to the old out buildings. There I would cross through the sagging, wooden gate to the irrigation ditch. It was little more than a lazy running creek. I'd hop the ditch and sit under the low hanging, untended apple tree closest to me, finding an apple or two that hadn't gotten wormy and I'd munch. Even warm, they were juicy and sweet. It was cool in this spot due to so much branch overhang. The grass was tall, dusty, yellow and soft. It was easy to bend over and make a comfy hide-y hole to sit and think, read, and write. A couple of times, I dozed off and found myself in the dark, awakened by the chill of the evening coming on. Finding my way home in the dark was a little tricky at that point, but I only got wet a couple of times. After that I learned to take a flashlight with me, just in case.

In college, we were still in Provo, but I was living in a different part of town. Every morning on my way to class, I would pass by the old BYU Academy Building on University Avenue. There the large Horse Chestnuts would be dropping their leaves and fruits. The trees fascinated me as did the spicky husks of the nuts. I would collect pockets of them and put them on the window sill of my room with other little stones and bits of bric-a-brac I had discovered on previous walks. The trees added to the in general spookiness of the old Academy building. It had fallen into a state of disrepair at that time and was no longer being used. I have since learned that the building has been restored, but sadly all of the beautiful horse chestnuts and other trees that had graced it's grounds have been removed. Such a pity.

Whether it is raining and I'm mashing the leaves under my feet on my way to somewhere, or crunching them in heated afternoon of Indian Summer, I still love the autumn leaves.

Office Warning!!! Blood Red Nail Polish, Caffiene, Chocolate and Aspirin

Yep!

Those four things were all I needed today (and yesterday) to get by.

I wore black. It's a daily staple for me. The only fashion addition to my black hair, black jeans and black sweatshirt was blood red, frosted nail polish on my fingernails.

Something has happened to me on some level that has attracted me to the color red. I'm not sure why there has been a sudden change in my liking of the color. I absolutely loathed up until the past year. Red has also been a hellish color on my eyes during migraines....especially red stop lights. The old stoplights, before they changed to led's, were real killers during a migraine. The light would stab through my eyes straight to the brain like a hot poker.

I was 7 years old and having my first migraine while in the back seat of my father's 1957 Chevy Bel Aire. My father, grandmother and I were driving back from San Jose up the El Camino Real to our house in South San Francisco. The intense feeling like my head would explode and my eyeballs fall out on skewers was even more excruciating everytime my father pulled up on a red stoplight. It literally made me nauseous. I've hated the color red ever since.

Rummaging through the bathroom drawers, I found a bottle of OPI Rock-a-pulco Red polish. I decided that I had to paint my toenails....next my fingernails. It was an impulse...boarding on a sudden obsession.

Normally, I dislike red polish a lot. I purchased this bottle for a job a couple years back and for some reason kept it around. I don't wear polish. I am not a fruffy sort of girl, never have been. At 51, I doubt I will be. Staring at the jewel tone bottle, I was almost hypnotized by it. Somehow, there was a certain "just-killed-an-antelope-with-my-bare-hands" appeal to it.

Then an epiphany!

Red...It 's a warning...."Stay away! Brightly colored animals are usually poisionous! She's in "raw meat mode"....LOOK OUT!" I was sending a message. ..Period!

No, Literally...Period! Danger, Will Robinson!

Oh, yeah...I don't need the full moon to go full on howling and get furry.

My husband is well trained. He knows that when I say "raw meat mode," steak miraculously appears from the store. Barbequed, preferably (if that's what you want to call it). Some people have debated that it's even really cooked at all. Ok, I'll be honest. Take the cow, run it past me and I'll carve a hunk out of it as it goes by. I like it seared on both sides just long enough to kill the cooties and that's it. Throw it on the plate bleeding and we'll call it good.

Yesterday afternoon, the migraine tried to emerge. Caffiene...a warm Coke and 2 Excedrin did the job. The migraine abated a little, back to it's little cave. A hot cup of coffee (TRUE Nectar of the gods! despite what the alkies will tell you.) and two sinus tabs kicked it the rest of the way. It's the only way I survive the hormone headaches during the periods my doctor is suprised I'm still having. Believe me, Doc, if it were in my power to shut'er down...don't ya think I would have?! Trust me...this is no joy ride for me or anyone around me during these episodes

Chocolate...even the crappiest type right about now could be the invisability cloke that hides you from the by the big, bad she-wolf. Held out or just thrown on my desk from a distance like a hunk of meat at the zoo, chocolate could be the destraction to momentarily occupy me enough not to completely notice the other crap you could possibly be pulling around my desk that would normally get you killed very quickly.

In this office golf game, you're getting a momentary gimme.

Grab the ball, people, and fucking run!