I always feel slightly melancholy near the end of August when the leaves are starting to smell like autumn and the night air becomes slightly chilly. New York is so much further south that I expected summer to last past Labor Day long weekend, which for the most part it has.
But even if the days are still warm now, there is that slight bite in the air that says 'summers over' friends. I think as Canadians we truly embrace summer as those two precious months free of snow and ice, and as soon as the fall air comes or the sun sets earlier, we feel a burden on our shoulders. We know what's coming. Six months of winter. Wether it's the horrifying, yet proudly surviavable, deep freeze temperatures of the rest of Canada or the constant grey and rain of Vancouver, we enter into it kicking and screaming.
This summer was a good one. I had not one, but two heatwaves. I got to jump in a lake almost every weekend. A big thing for me. And I drank my weight in iced coffees. Oh iced coffees, I think I shall miss you most of all.
As much as the darker evenings and colder air disheartens me and I must face that the blasting sun of summer is truly over, I have another stress that overhwhelms me most of all:
Layering.
Oh god. I am a horrible, terrible, frightful winter dresser. Sure, most people I talk to just LOVE turlenecks, scarves and sweaters. Phooey to you. I suck at layering. I feel it shouldn't be a hard concept. But I am a virgo. We like precision, crispness and above all, co-ordination. I am not very good at co-ordinating more than three things.
Spring, now there's a season. Simple dresses with cardigans. Cute little strappy wedges. I should be able to do that in reverse right? Nope. I get all flustered. This scarf with this sweater. Wait, what about this belt? AAAAAAAAAAAAH! I can't do it.
The hardest part of all is saying good bye to my flip flops. Tim Gunn hates them (and I love Tim Gunn) but I think he has them all wrong. They are just so magical and freeing, like walking in bare feet on the grass. Okay, not that awesome but they do rock. Just slip them on, and voila! You are flip flopping around town.
Now I have to think about tights, socks (ick), rain, cold toes . . . the list goes on. I have to wear pants again. The worst are the boots. Every year those tricky shoe people come out with walls of pretty boots. But it's like being a diabetic in a candy store for me. NONE OF THEM FIT MY FREAKING CALVES!!!!! It's not like I am an elephant for crying out loud. I simply have muscular calves. And for that I am relegated to the 'extended calve' section that only have two boots and they are both plain and ugly. I have the kind that stretch over but then I have muffin-tops on my calves and that's just plain wrong.
So yes, fall is now here. Summer is just a happy faded memory that we will revisit in another nine months (that's right, we could make a baby in the time it will take to be summer again). The evenings are darker, there are pumpkins on the stoops, the leaves are falling and the air is crisp.
And I am left wondering . . . can I wear socks with my flip flops?
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