Thank you to CatDancing @ flickr.com for sharing this photo. Some rights reserved.

Opening the door and walking out to the cold October morning, I found myself surrounded by a blanket of fog. The wind whipped me from one direction, and then from the other. “There’s a word for this,” I thought, “what is it?”

Blustery! Yeah, that’s it! It was a crisp, foggy, blustery morning; and it was everything I hoped it would be!

I love autumn. The fall foliage —everyone loves this, of course— in its vibrant yellows, oranges & reds that line the streets & riverbeds. Every year the trees surprise me with their beauty.  I stare at them try to memorize their colors so that I can hold onto it throughout the year, but I always forget and am surprised by it all over again the next time fall comes around.

Thank you to v.max1978 @ flickr.com for sharing this photo. Some rights reserved.

But there’s even more to it than the colors of the trees. The cold of the air, the smell of smoke from a nearby fireplace, the crunch of the leaves as I walk down the sidewalk, & the sky: grey with a thick layer of clouds, like a soft quilt covering the land (I’ll be sick of the constant grey sky of Oregon come May, but for now it’s perfect); autumn is a salve to my mossy soul.

And, of course, the fog.  The thick, moist mist surrounding all the eye can see—which, granted, isn’t much—hangs around many October mornings. It burns off after a few hours, but returns in the afternoon, filling in riverbeds & shallow hollows of the land before rising to fill in the valley. October is a month of magic, the month of All Hallows Eve & of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Gazing into the foggy copses, it’s easy to imagine the Headless Horseman chasing Ichabod Crane through the forest. Fall is the season in which my imagination comes to life and I’m capable of believing in things that I’ve usually dismissed since turning ten years of age.

In addition, it’s a relief, this early in the season, to finally be done with summer.  Oregonians, at least those residing in the Willamette Valley (the area including Portland, Salem, & Eugene—the main cities of the state), are notorious for constantly complaining about the weather. We grow sick of the rain, but then, almost immediately upon its dissipation, complain about the heat of summer. You can’t blame us really, we’re not equipped to handle weather over 80°F, with 8 or 9 months of the year devoted to temperatures averaging 50-60°F, the heat takes us by surprise. And, in our moist land, it tends to be a humid heat… nothing compared to Florida, but uncomfortable to be sure.

Thank you to small @ Flickr.com for sharing this photo. Some rights reserved.

Nevertheless, no one likes a whiner, and in a constant effort to break away form the Oregonian stereotype, I try to be happy with the weather, no matter hot or damp it gets. But I can’t deny that the end of one season & the beginning of the next is usually a relief for me. Yet, the end of summer is often more of a relief to me than the other seasons. Not only does it afford a welcome change in the weather & the beautiful fall foliage, but it also signifies the end of the barbecue season.

Don’t get me wrong, barbecue is delicious. But for some of us—that is to say: me—it’s primarily a dose of salt in the wound. You see, I might be the only American male incapable of barbecuing.

Seriously.

Not even hot dogs.

I’ve asked for advice. I’ve researched online. I’ve tried various techniques. I’ve waited for the coals to cool down and I’ve kept them hot. I’ve layered the coals so that there are 3 levels of heat under the grill. Nothing I do works. Every chicken breast I cook turns into a bloody core surrounded by a brittle black exoskeleton. And shish kabobs? Those ice cube sized delicacies impaled on long bamboo skewers? My last attempt was burned at the stake. I ended up posting the morbid little totems in the ground around my patio as a dire warning to other heretical dices of meats, fruits and vegetables that might chance by.

Ummm... yeah... I totally pirated this one.

It’s a horrible source of shame for me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad in and of itself, but tally it up alongside to my inability to impersonate either Jack Nicholson or Clint Eastwood & a complete lack of interest in American professional football, and people begin to question my masculinity.

But fortunately, once summer is over, there is no call in Oregon for me to prepare anything other than a comforting Swanson’s® pot pie. My lacking skill in outdoor cuisine flies safely under the radar.

Now, if only I could get them to change the football season to summer…