Grayness and Grow Lights

“October extinguished itself in a rush of howling winds and driving rain and November arrived, cold as frozen iron, with hard frosts every morning and icy drafts that bit at exposed hands and faces.”

― J.K. Rowling

Twenty-six degrees and flinty gray skies this morning. Winter is still weeks away, but it feels to this old Southerner like it's arrived here on Southside Hill.

That leaf pile to the left is gone as I type this, after a big city truck with a massive vacuum hose sucked the leaves into a trailer. With higher taxes come actual government services. The two Taylor County people on the hill would've just poured a drink tonight, doused the whole thing in gasoline and disposed of it with a match and a howl.

It's going to get colder, of course. Those snow flurries mid-morning yesterday were just an adumbration of what's to come, of silent white mornings blanketed in several inches of snow that won't melt for weeks.

But for now it's just chilly and gray, perfect fall weather, and P and I busy ourselves getting ready for the bleak season to come.

For Peg that meant spending the weekend, while I was off trying and losing a case, moving the plants inside and trying to figure out how to keep them alive until May. It's not so much the watering--that's the easy part. The greater challenge is keeping all these ferns and flowers and succulents healthy in the insipid light that's already settling over this place.

Polling her compadres in the operating room, P decided to install "grow light" bulbs in various light fixtures around the house as a means of keeping all this greenery happy.

This time last year when we'd take our walks, I always wondered why the interiors of many houses in the neighborhood glowed pinkish red at night, as if we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by a whole district of cathouses.

Now I know.

This one happens to be in our bar, and the warm red gives the room a '70s feel that fits the decor and the vibe. All we need is a little naugahyde and a cloud of cigarette smoke.

But it feels less appropriate here in the family room, which Peggy has also made into a bar so our home decor looks like a story one tells at a twelve-step meeting. "We had booze in every room," laments the old man to the room full of recovering alcoholics.

I'm not sure I'll be able to handle six month bathed in this pinkish glow. Plus, we're going to have to figure out how to keep the plants alive when we're back down south for long stretches, and the issue of watering becomes critical. I told P I'd shop around for a drip irrigation system and timer we could install down in the basement for these trips, along with a rack of glow lights we can suspend from the ceiling.

Or, we could just let the plants fade and die, which is usually what happens to anything I try to grow regardless of my efforts.

Trying to type this while Jo Jo settles into my lap, entranced by the letters appearing on the screen. Slane's back in the house, curled up at my hip and happily licking himself, after venturing out for a few minutes then demanding I let him back in because it's so, so cold out there. He ain't seen nothing yet. Dean's curled up in his favorite armchair, catching a nap so he's fresh and ready to go back to sleep this evening.

This time of year with its dim, ever shortening days and cold, still nights seems to trigger some primeval urge to rest, to hunker down. The cats all seem to feel it. I feel it as well, but life right now demands that I continue this daily grind of playing sixty chess games at the same time, always worried about looming deadlines and getting ready for the next foray into court. Right now I'm getting ready to save and post this meander, then dictate an answer in a construction contract dispute in federal court, then mediate another construction dispute that has no real chance of settling. At least it's Friday, and P will be home this afternoon to kick off a couple days of R&R for the two of us after a grueling few weeks.