Watch out. It's Autumn.

Fall has fell.

I love the sharp definition of things this time of year, especially the colors.   Grassier greens, wine reds, sunshine yellows, robin egg blues--everything crisp as the fall air.  Yesterday was one of those days.  My afternoon bicycle ride meandered along the Potomac River on the northern Virginia side.  At one point just past the Navy Marine Memorial headed north, the trail opens up with a view of the Washington Monument across the river.  In the slanted afternoon sunshine it stood out against a cloudless blue sky, underscored by motley rows of trees along the DC side of the Potomac.  Awesome.

This time of year speaks to me.  Maybe it's because I was an autumn baby.  Born on a chill November day.   Actually I have no idea what the weather was like the day I was born.  Cloudy with a chance of diapers?  Chances are pretty good, though, that it was either something like yesterday--postcard weather, ordered by the Chamber of Commerce.  Or something like today--overcast, a hint of gloomier weather to come.  When I look out the windows, I see the kind of November day I remember as a lad, walking home from school, delivering newspapers, shooting hoops in the driveway before dinner until my ears and nose and fingers were numb with damp cold.

Here's the deal, though.  Autumn can't be trusted.  You never know what you've got or you're going to get.  Right now, the wind is picking up outside, I can almost feel the tip of the tongue of cold Canadian air about to lick my complacent  seasonal behind.  I see the pansies on our deck hanging on for dear life in their potting soil.  The sky is gray.  With the windows closed it looks like . . . winter.   But when I open the patio door to check on the remaining hardy plants, it's still warm enough for shirtsleeves if not short pants.  Fooled ya, says Autumn.

So I know after more than 60 changes of the seasons to give Fall the gimlet eye.  And to double-check whatever autumn mood I'm immersed in.  A bit melancholy this time of year?  Lack of sunshine getting me down?  Hang on, bucko.  You will be out golfing in your shorts by the weekend.  Upbeat, focused as a squirrel gathering nuts for winter, as industrious as the ant in the fable?  Tomorrow morning, grasshopper, you'll be shoveling snow and wishing you had raked the leaves, changed the furnace filter, winterized the cars, and put up the storm windows instead of spending all that free time industriously playing internet solitaire and watching YouTube videos of idiot hold-up attempts.

What's clear and crisp and briskly invigorating one moment is blurred by sleet and cold the next.  This is only a test, say the weather gods.  You will be returned shortly to your regular programming.