Good morning! Wow, I hope it's as nice where you are as it is here in the Minneapple because it is STUNNING. Cool, crisp, sunshiney perfection. September's only flaw - and therefore, of course, its terrible sweetness - is that this intoxicating fragrance, color, and light are The End of fragrance, color, and light for the rest of the year and well into the next. Sigh. And yet, I belong here. The most intense sensual pleasure lies in the contrast between deprivation and fulfillment, and there is nothing if not that contrast here in Minnesota. Now there is the reason you give when someone asks how you can stand living here - the pleasure is sweeter for its impermanence. We Minnesotans savor. Yeah baby!

So, how will I savor? With walks like I took this morning, breathtaking, around sparkling Lake of the Isles. Or evenings like last night, a last-minute invite to "Bar Billadeau," aka Kim's house, for cozy chat and wine with my minxes, curled up in Kim's lovely living room, surrounded by candlelight and warmth (not as cozy as when they were snuggled up in my bed last fall, but cozy nonetheless!). Or dinner with the kids on the still-warm deck this evening... Ah, September.

(And as an aside, or not if you're looking for ways to exercise when September ends - and freezing rain begins - check out this article about Russian kettlebells in yesterday's Minneapolis StarTribune. Thanks, Donna, for pointing it out!)