Guest Post from Erika: Autumn Trumps Summer

It used to be that autumn was my least favorite season, mostly because it meant the end of warm summer weather and going back to school. I've realized recently that for several years now I've been looking forward to autumn more than I've been looking forward to summer.

There are two main reasons why summer has fallen out of favor with me. One, I live in San Francisco where summer is cold and miserable and fall is warm and beautiful (the temperature has been in the 70s all week). Two, I don't get to take the whole summer off from work like I used to take off from school.

Fall, on the other hand, seems to have more and more going for it every year, especially living in the Bay Area. Fleet Week is in October. It's this weekend, actually, and the Blue Angels have been buzzing our house for the past two afternoons as they practice. They got close enough on Thursday that Martin could actually smell the jet fuel. Thrilling for us, a little frightening I think for my mother in law, whose native country has been invaded by foreign armies twice in her lifetime.

Apple Hill is in full swing this time of year, and I have many sweet memories of trekking up there to collect apples and my once-yearly dose of apple pie. Burning Man's Decompression party is traditionally held in October, and we always enjoy re-living our Burning Man experience there, and seeing playa friends who didn't make it in August. Halloween is even starting to hold a little more appeal for me, now that I have a Baby to dress up as something cute and/or humiliating (yes, Dad, I still remember the Chicken costume from when I was five). I do always look forward to one aspect of Halloween -- carving jack o lanterns and toasting the pumpkin seeds. And then there is the Dia de los Muertos parade a few days after Halloween, which passes just blocks from our house. I have always felt more at home with this family-centered ritual of honoring and feasting with dead ancestors than with the negative energy and scariness of Halloween.

All in all, I have so much to look forward to in the fall these days, it might just be my new favorite season. Until egg nog lattes come back in December.