The Heat Is On

Despite my intentions to wait until November, the cold snap necessitated turning on the furnace. It was down to freezing in many spots last night, but not quite that low here at The Hideaway. Nippy nonetheless. So I twisted the thermostat around and let all the summer dust blow out the vents and now it is warming up in here. Ordinarily I would reach for a flannel shirt or a sweatshirt, but all the winter clothes are packed away in a big plastic tub and not exactly easily available. The dogs are back sleeping on their fuzzy velour cedar beds which they avoided in the summer. And we are reminded that winter is not so far off.

Yesterday I made several trips to the mailbox, first wondering why the carrier was so late, then wondering why for the first time ever my box was empty. Somewhere around five o’clock when the news came on I realized it was Columbus Day, and a bank and mail holiday. “Fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” I don’t remember any more. Do you? I used to call it the Native American Day of Despair.

It was in 1992, 500 years later, when I went to the Columbus Day Concert in Mountain View to hear John Lee Hooker and Carlos Santana. A family moment etched in history was when I stood up suddenly and fell and rolled backwards down the hill at Shoreline and caused my daughter to pretend she did not know me. Ah…memories.