Shades of winter

Today, as the dogs and I made our way back to my college on the hill, our little car was pelted several times with the first snow showers of the year, that strange mix of rain and snow that is neither and it's both.

I'm good about soldiering on and facing whatever comes, not wanting to waste time with melancholia or wishful thinking. But there's something about those first few flurries and snow showers on a gray November day that basically sets the tone for the next four long months of winter.

And there's something about winter that invites my Caribbean soul to yearn.

Still, snow showers isn't snow. And 30-degree weather, which has set the old heaters in this small apartment to groaning, like old men being woken up from slumber, isn't minus-15 or minus-20.

So I'm not complaining (really, I'm not).

Today, and appropriately so for November, we had our first shades of winter. But, heck, there's still plenty of colored leaves on the trees (more still on the trees than on the ground). Not for long, though.

Thus, I say Fall ain't over until Winter's fat lady sings and all the leaves fall off the trees in one fell swoop.