The Year Grows Old

I have entered my October personality phase.
There are lots of people who just love October, and I have, some years, too. This October I'm drifting into my alternate personality again. That old hibernation urge is becoming strong again. My synapses have slowed, my thoughts have turned inward, my confusion grows: How to survive until Light and Warmth return? The only reassurance I have that it will happen is that I have done it so many times.


MiMau and I have this in common: We associate eating and affection. 
In her case, she requires petting to eat. Inversely, the less petting I receive, the more I eat. 


The last three books I have read:
A Dog's Purpose
I read about it at The 7 MSN Ranch, got my hands on it as quickly as I could. It's a great dog story, with more dog's-point-of-view understanding and less sappy sentimentality than other books it brings to mind (The Art of Racing in the Rain, Marley & Me).
The Silent Miaow
Forty-five years ago my closest friend recommended it to me. A few weeks ago somebody was packing up her mother-in-law's belongings and asked me if I wanted some of the books. The Silent Miaow was in there and I grabbed it. (Note to L:  Thanks for the recommendation. If you have any other books you think I should read you'd better tell me now: I doubt I have another forty-five years to follow through.)
Messages
Lent to me by a friend who watches her DVD of Under the Tuscan Sun over and over again, and who rushed to buy Eat, Pray, Love. 
I got it in the first fifty pages. The rest of the book made me sad: How come I'm not finding dimes and pennies and how come my lights aren't flickering when I think of dead loved ones? Am/Was I less loved than the people whose stories fill the book?


As an antidote to Messages, yesterday I was able to retrieve my requested Packing for Mars from the library. Lots of information, lots of wit. The chapter on space-sickness, which I read last night, seemed a little more extensive and in-depth than previous chapters. Or maybe it just seemed that way because the author writes so descriptively . . . I began to feel a little green and had to take a break.


Things I used to do before I acquired two poodles:

• Knit
• Read more than two pages at a time
• Bake goodies
• Be able to follow recipes
• Had a maximum attention span > that of a gnat
• Walk in a straight line, farther than five feet, without stopping. I seem to recall being able to put away clean laundry without doing the hesitation step (to allow the pack to dis- and re-assemble) the whole way.
• Polish more than three fingernails without stopping 

Next Saturday I'll be sitting for another civil service exam. Same title as my current title, new candidate list needed. I'll be there with my No. 2 pencils and my silent handheld calculator and my picture ID. I expect the county needs the list to fill school secretary positions. Hm. Pine-oil-cleaner-and-chalk smell of school, piping child sounds, the constant need for carefully considered language... Not a perfect fit for me, but if it got me away from the political shenanigans in Small Pond, and through three more years to retirement age, I might could do it.


Oh. 
My. 
Husband was just outdoors and says there is ice where there was water yesterday. I believe this is the first frost. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay - When The Year Grows Old

I cannot but remember When the year grows old— October—November— How she disliked the cold! She used to watch the swallows Go down across the sky, And turn from the window With a little sharp sigh. And often when the brown leaves Were brittle on the ground, And the wind in the chimney Made a melancholy sound, She had a look about her That I wish I could forget— The look of a scared thing Sitting in a net! Oh, beautiful at nightfall The soft spitting snow! And beautiful the bare boughs Rubbing to and fro! But the roaring of the fire, And the warmth of fur, And the boiling of the kettle Were beautiful to her! I cannot but remember When the year grows old — October — November — How she disliked the cold!