I love this exact time of year. The leaves are half-turned. The elections are over. My most favorite holiday is bearing down on us. Beanies are acceptable fashion. At the same time, it’s almost, but not quite, too cold to wear sandals. The Vitamin D deficiency* hasn’t kicked in yet. It’s a time for wistfulness and preparation against the coming dark. In another era, in Basque country, somebody way up my family tree would be preserving food for the winter. I myself am thinking of getting the new Animal Crossing expansion, which is sort of the same thing. And today we went to Central Park to look at the leaves.
It was a spectacular day, as you can see. Probably fifty-five degrees in the sun. I knew I had to go today because it’s going to start getting dark so early once we force it to in a few hours–and I am not a morning person.
When I got back, I had to do some work for the podcast version of an upcoming short story that I’m very excited to share with you all. The story has a number of words and phrases in Tlingit, a Native Alaskan/Canadian language, which unfortunately has few pronunciation resources and fewer than two hundred native speakers. So we puzzled over the international phonetic alphabet for an hour or two. It was kind of fun. (If you’d like to buy the print version, it’s available, but I’ll be doing a post on it in a couple of weeks too when it’s up for free.)
What sorts of things do you all usually get up to this time of year? When the leaves get that color, I know it’s time to think about making chili…
Open thread! And bonus Samwise:
*Yes yes, unknown causal link to mood disorders, but cheap to remedy regardless.
Edited to add: I forgot I was going to leave you all with a bonus J-Pop song, too.
Jerzy Russian
Kitty! Samwise is a king.
Major Major Major Major
lol adam
Jackie
@Major Major Major Major: The fall foliage is stunning!
Ken
Don’t forget the delightful autumn tradition of wandering around for the next day trying to find all the clocks that have not automatically fallen back.
zhena gogolia
Beautiful pics. We’ve had a stunning fall here in CT.
jonas
Will not let this thread be bigfooted! Dammit! I totally leaned into the ca. 40 degree fall weather, bluebird autumn sky, and last day of standard time by grilling an all locally-sourced, grass-fed steak, potatoes and veggies. Friggin’ amazing. And washed it down with…a *white* Malbec wine. If you’ve never had a white Malbec, I highly recommend it, even with red meat. Amazing. Anyway, cheers to afternoon light. Here’s to actually seeing dawn at 7am.
Major Major Major Major
@jonas: what’s “7am”?
MisterForkbeard
I really want to see Samwise running around in the park. But leash training your cat sounds like a recipe for disaster anywhere, let alone in NY.
Feathers
@Ken: I have solved this problem by basically not having any clocks. My phone and laptop update automatically. My stove never has the right time because of brief power interruptions happen often enough that I don’t bother resetting it. And Alexa always knows what time it is.
Madeleine
Central Park is looking gorgeous—thanks. Up here in the NW Bronx, not so much, though the Botanical Garden was fine last week.
Sandia Blanca
I have family members in Haines Alaska, where the public radio station once featured a short Tlingit language lesson every week, I think. They have archives on their site, which may give you some good information on pronunciation. https://khns.org/programming/tlingit-time-archive
TaMara (HFG)
Great photos. Can’t wait to hear more about the podcast, etc…
Major Major Major Major
@Sandia Blanca: I’ll forward that along, thanks. YouTube has some good stuff too but we couldn’t find all the words.
Benw
Lovely pics of Central Park and handsome Samwise.
Our two go-tos this month are NYC for the marathon (tomorrow! We’ll be at mile 8) let’s GO. And then up to VT for Thanksgiving with the fam.
Major Major Major Major
My husband just bought the animal crossing expansion just now… can’t wait!
debbie
Ah, you make me really miss the place! ?
CaseyL
Oh, Central Park looks gorgeous!
We had a few days in Seattle where the light, starting mid-afternoon, was golden. I’d love to know what causes that – I’d never seen it here before, and thought it was mostly a European phenomenon. I tried to get photos, and discovered my old Canon D10 captures the light more accurately than my spanking-new Samsung Galaxy. How about that?
Yesterday, we reverted back to normal weather. I went out to dinner with a friend through torrential rain and curbside ponds. My friend was convinced the rain was record-setting, but I remember many other mid-autumn monsoons here in the PNW. And it had mostly stopped by the time we headed home.
NotMax
Obligatory?
Alternatively, the funhouse mirror version.
eclare
Beautiful photos, beautiful cat.
Mj_Oregon
Beautiful kitty!! And I hope you enjoy the 2.0 ACNH and the expansion! I’ve been too intimidated to dive into that yet.
Oregon is wet. As it should be this time of year. We haven’t had a hard frost yet but hopefully soon. We ate the last of the homegrown tomatoes tonight so summer is officially over for us. Fall has always been my favorite season but Oregon’s fall display falls short of my Philly childhood days. Plus we don’t have cardinals although we do have over-wintering Anna’s hummingbirds that we feed all year round. It’s time to sit by the fire with a warm blanket and a freshly charged Switch in hand. Have fun!
prostratedragon
Autumn in New York
My favorite New York season.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Great minds… (see #18).
:)
sab
I often wonder if we put my Shadow and M4’s Samwise side by side if we could tell them apart. Samwise seems to have a much pleasanter personality. Angst is Shadow’s default mood. I guess you can’t always take the feral out of a once feral kitty.