For the first time this autumn, I wore my gloves when taking Pete for his morning bike ride.
Technically, they're ski gloves. They're thick, and the fingers have a little curve, which I assume are for curving around those sticks that skiers use. Instead, I'm using them to curve around bicycle handles. From now on, I'm going to call them my "bicycle gloves."
I didn't wear any ear covering, or neck scarf, so my ears numbed a little with a tinge of cold. If I was just standing around in the sharp, autumn chill, my ears wouldn't feel the cold. But riding the bicycle, getting a good breeze going, makes a difference. Pete likes to run all out, a greyhound after an imaginary fake rabbit. It's all I can do to peddle fast enough to keep up.
The leaves are crisp and yellow in bunches on the elm trees, golden all over on the maples. Near parked cars on the streets, leaves the color of paper bags are gathering. Halloween will soon be here and we all know what that means. Raking. Snow. Breath like smoke escaping the lungs and scraping ice off the windshield. But we won't think about those things now. Now, we will just enjoy today, when my ears haven't yet broken off from freezing.
It's a long winter ahead of us. No one has ever said, "It's a short winter ahead of us." Even in Florida, when winter is a welcomed season, no one says that. Winters are always cold and feel like dark, strangling, biting, relentless, unforgiving punishment not fit for man or beast and what did we do? We watched the sun retreat to the south like she just gave up on us. Too demanding, that's what we are. We want perfect weather every day, all day.
So, that's what we're in for, with nothing to do but take it. I'll have to find my ear warmers and neck scarf. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger they say but if that were true, I'd be Atlas right now, and I'd shrug, too.
Some days, I won't be able to take Pete for a bike ride. The snow and ice will cover the streets, a big chilly, white feather blanket. We'll be holed up here in the compound, burning money to keep from having any heat sucked out of us, chewing whale blubber to keep the calories coming in, and refraining from shaving our legs. More hair, more heat.
Maybe I should get some skis. I could have Pete pull me on the skis. I could get little booties for Pete, and perhaps a designer jacket, made of fine Alpaca hair. I could crouch down, knees bent, leaning forward, cutting down wind resistance. We could get some good speed going on, just like when we go bike riding. I could use my bicycle gloves, and call them, "ski gloves." I think it's all going to work out, this long, cold winter thing.
