Fall

Fall I miss fall…real fall…the one that gets us ready for a real winter with ice and snow. I need to be clear here…I do not miss the ice and snow except for, maybe, two days a year. But oh how I miss the beautiful fall colors on the very large trees that populate the forests of the east coast! I also miss the crispness in the air and the lovely smell of wood-burning fires. Pumpkins and Halloween are so much better when it’s cold! I feel energized in the fall! The kids, when I had kids at home, went back to school, thank God! And I could start and maybe finish a lot of projects that had been cooking in my mind over the summer. I always lose weight in the fall. I like soup and fall is the perfect time for soup, a filling, nutritious, warm and yummy treat! Hot apple cider is much better when it is 40 or 50 degrees outside and you are cuddled up by the fire! The cider mills in New York, both on Long Island and in the Adirondacks, always had an abundance of delicious fresh cider, cider donuts and crisp apples! YUM!!! Pumpkins last longer in the cooler temperature! I like seeing the red noses on the bundled up Trick or Treaters on Halloween. I also think it is not so interesting for them to ‘trick’ when it’s 40 degrees out! The one time my kids got in trouble at Halloween was due to extraordinarily warm weather. Every year after that, parents prayed for cold or rain on Halloween. When I lived in Wenham, Massachusetts, we always went to the Halloween party at the Community Center with our best friends Peter & Sheila Rix and their 3 kids. There was a costume parade, always a trauma, because I was not a costume maker and was a great disappointment to my kids because of it! Then back to the Rixes and we’d all T or T the circle where we lived. Peter had lived there all his life so he knew everyone and told wonderful stories of Halloweens past while we watched the little monsters collect hoards of candy! The final house was always this big old house whose elderly owners had been serving ice cream cones to the great joy of Wenham trick or treaters since Peter was a child! One year my son in desperation to come up with a costume said he wanted to be an apple tree. I said ok, what did that look like to him. He said he wanted to use one of the moving boxes for paintings that we had in the garage and would I paint an apple tree on both sides of it. I heaved a sigh of relief. I could do that. He looked adorable and certainly no one else had anything like it. All went well until, on the small stoop of the fifth house, he turned around after he got his candy and knocked Philip Rix right off the stoop. Oops! Yesterday I went to my first Halloween event with my 9 month old granddaughter,Abby, her mother and my daughter. It was in Glendale and it was hot. Abby was supposed to be a bumblebee but her costume was quilted against the cold; it just didn't work for a hot afternoon in sunny southern California. The rest of the party was great. It is a new generation and I have become crone, who watches over the little ones, with love and joy.... and appreciation for still being invited!