This morning I wrote checks for some bills, so I incorporated a trip to the post office into my daily two-mile walk. The temperature had just breached the 50-degree mark, and the sun was shining when I took off at about 11 AM. A sweatshirt would have been enough, but a passing breeze recommended some light fleece as well -- maybe only the second time this fall I've had to wear a coat or jacket. By the end of the walk 28 minutes later, I was too warm but I should be grateful to be able to say that here in November.

We live near the university in an older neighborhood, where a few graceful old limestone or clapboard Victorians are interspersed with small, clapboard bungalows with well-tended (though dormant now) cottage gardens in the small front yards and blooming kids at work and play in the large backyards. Occasionally, I passed a house rented to students. The gardening tastes of students differ from those of their neighbors. Instead of dormant hydrangea and mums and coneflowers, in the yards of students the walker will find plastic cups still in bloom in their brilliant blues and reds after the previous night's keg party. And they don't mind if you pick them.

Once in a while as I neared the post office, I came across the dog-under-the-front-porch kind of dwelling. At these homes, I was struck downwind on the sidewalk by the fact that the visitor to these few houses would have to find a path not only past Cerberus, but also past the fragrance of Cerberus's shit. At one of these latter dwellings, I noticed a dead 'possum on the verge, the strip between the sidewalk and the curb. Maybe the critter died from disease, but animals usually choose more private and protected places to die than this 'possum had found, so that seemed unlikely. I am more inclined to believe that the Rotweiler-in-residence had tangled with the critter and the owner had kicked the 'possum half-heartedly to the curb, beyond the reach of the 120-lb pup's chain.

Have I just prattled on for ten minutes about a dead 'possum? So what? It's my journal, and I can prattle about anything I want to.

But I probably could stand to get out more.

Owen, the child who fears no height (O, to be twelve and immortal), climbed the now leafless burr oak in the front yard and hung the basketball-sized silver globes as well as a string or three of white lights up in its higher reaches. Joshua and his friend James handled most of the lighting on the second storey. At the bottom of the filial food chain, Taylor was assigned ground-level gopher chores.