For Margaret, on the occasion of it being fall and all

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Oh, Margaret. Dear Margaret. How I'm thinking of you and the horrible poisons they're pushing through your veins in order to stem an even bigger, horribler affliction. How little you ask for when you hint, very heavily, in your comments that only my blog postings can keep you in good health. What power I have. How important I am.

Thus, for you, this rambling posting, even when there isn't much to tell. Except this: it's fall. It's FALL! My very favorite season. And not the fall it has been, with grey skies and rain for days and weeks and weeks. No, this has been the sunny fall I love, the kind where you slush around in piles of leaves on Sunday walks, everything tinged yellow and orange and red.

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The kind where Orangey and I head out for what we know will be one of our last rides of the season. But we try not to talk about it, Orangey and I, pretending instead that there are endless days like this ahead of us. That we will always be able to comment at the spooky pumpkin on this doorstep or the peach-colored Maple leaves on that street. Sure, you could call it denial but Orangey and I, we're calling it "living in the moment."

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Sometimes on walks or ride, there are strange things to see. A lonely, beat up recliner at a street corner, in full chillaxin' position, like maybe someone's invisible Grandpa's trying to get some shut eye. Or a poster of beer bottles in a scratched acrylic frame with a sign saying "Free." (And still, no takers? NO TAKERS?) Or this, a box of books, textbooks and novels in Spanish, curious enough to make me think that this might be here for a reason, just for me to find, so that I will finally, finally have the incentive to improve my Spanish.

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And then I decided: nah.

Oh! What about this table? This crazy wooden table that sits at the front edge of someone's yard, under a tree, with this little locked box on top and nearly DRIVES ME TO DISTRACTION wondering what on earth is in there...

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Then, coming home, in my very own yard, this beautiful leaf. Which I felt a little sorry for, what with it lying there all by itself, separated from all the other leaves. Only, really, you can only feel so sorry for something so good looking. Just ask Jan Brady.

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So how about that? In a week when there hasn't been too terribly much else to tell, I hope that counts for something, Margaret. Just until I can think up something else.