The wind is howling outside the windows of my house tonight. It's a good, strong bluster, and the house shifts and creaks, settling it's bones for the winter. Muffled sound of a dog yipping a few blocks away, till someone lets it back inside. The comfortable warm hum of the furnace. Except for an unreasonably bad October, this is the first real Minnesota snow for the season. I'm secretly happy about it. It came down yesterday, just a few inches, covering the city in white, like a smooth cool sheet of paper, ready for a story. The wind swoops up and down through the houses in my neighborhood, gathers itself, and swoops again, blowing away the long autumn, tumultuous summer, unsettled spring; sweeping, sweeping clean.

Vegas Kitty is all stretched out and softly snoring on my pink flowered quilt, right where I would like to put my legs, but I don't want to disturb her slumber and cat dreams, and anyway, I find, I'm feeling pretty comfortable right where I am.