Fall in the Valley of the Sun

Wow. October 1. While the rest of the world takes out winter gear, gives the lawn the last mow of the season, puts away its patio furniture, starts thinking about snow tires, and stocks up on hot cocoa, the Valley of the Sun enjoys sub-100-degree temperatures and pleasantly cool mornings and evenings.

We are now heading in for the long stretch of “Oh yeah, this is why I live here.” The season where The Weather Channel becomes a sitcom filled with giggles and gloating, and driving involves rolling down the windows and feeling the breeze.

This is also the Season Time Forgot. From now till April or May, the temperature will give no clues as to the passing of time–is it November? Don’t know. What’s the weather? Nice.

The flipside of this is that, at least for me, Christmas The Winter Holiday kicks down the front door armed with a big ham and presents to buy with hardly any warning … What do you mean it’s freaking December 20? It’s still the middle of Nove… oh shit. Every year I think the calendar will save me, but it never does.

Perhaps the Internet could save us? If some enterprising soul could rig a camera to take a nice desktop-sized picture every day and push it up to a server, so I could set my computers to download a fresh pic of the season changing every day, the sight of the trees dropping their leaves and the first snow landing on the ground could stir something deep inside into action.