Man, am I tired. It has been a long, long day.
Well, maybe it’s not that long of a day. In the grand scheme of things. Today hasn’t been any longer than any other day. Time just doesn’t work that way. But, it has been cold and rainy. Today was the kind of day built for laying on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. The kind of day where the only thing that matters is watching as much Netflix as possible and eating your body weight in chili.
Well, the chilies on the stove and I could lay down if wanted to, but there are still too many things to do. For example, I need to write this blog post.
Even if I don’t want to. I made a promise. So, despite the perfectly chilly weather calling to me with its siren song of long naps and wasted days, I’m here doing what I promised.
Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love autumn. The only problem is Montana doesn’t have enough autumn today will probably be it — tomorrow if I’m lucky. Then it will be winter already. The leaves will never turn orange. You will be doing long nights around a campfire as a chill sets in. There’ll be a few days of rain and then the temperature will drop below human safe levels and I’ll shrink away for another eight months.
Clears the subarctic freeze that is winter in Montana gets a bad rap. What Montanans think of as snow is actually something akin to Styrofoam pellets, and even when it’s 35 below, it feels more comfortable than Missouri’s 16° with a wind chill of -185,000.
The lake is also beautiful when covered in ice. The state smells cleaner. The smoke thins out enough you can see across the street.
No, I don’t hate Montana winter.
I just miss Missouri fall.
I miss the change from summer to winter taking longer than a couple of hours. I miss the trees and all the color. There are more than just green and brown. Did you know trees can be flaming orange, brick red, and dark purple all at the same time? If you’re from Missouri, you do. If you’re from Montana, you probably don’t know what leaves are.
For some, fall means things like pumpkins and candy.
I love Halloween. It’s probably my favorite holiday, but I also enjoy the time leading up to it. Oh, and I absolutely hate pumpkin spice anything and believe Starbucks is a portal to hell entirely based on the fact that they made it popular.
Seriously, pumpkin is almost as bad as coconut. And, we all know coconut is actually a lie perpetrated by the agricultural industry to convince people it’s okay to eat toenail clippings.
Now that I’ve officially offended two-thirds of humanity with my hatred of both pumpkin spice (that doesn’t actually taste anything like pumpkin you sick freaks!) and coconut (the cruelest joke ever played) it might be time for me to eat my body weight in chili, curl up on the couch with a blanket, and lose myself in Netflix.