Fall Pleasures

1. Opening the shades and curtains for the morning light and warmth.

2. Planting bulbs. Actually bending over to break through the cold hardpack with my bulb planter is a bit of a pain in the ass, but the girls do help a little. Nora can drop in a handful of fertilizer; Mia tries to guess which end of the anemone bulb should face the sky. Like so much in this season of descending darkness, the pleasure lies in the hopeful anticipation. We're composing a love letter to spring, who is far away, visiting another hemisphere.

3. New Project Runway!

4. The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown. Good reviews sent me to this book by the controversial former editor of The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Brown's research is impressive. She writes as a former friend of the princess, yet one who is neither star struck by her celebrity nor made bitter by the famous woman's all-too human qualities. Brown analyzes with great perception the Princess's cultivated and yet real vulnerability and the complicated relationship she had with the press that helped millions to identify with and love her, but also led to her tragic death.

"Diana's desire to rescue a marmoreal (Me: That's "marble-like." I had to look it up. What a great word.) royal trudge through some comatose British institution with a more spontaneous act of human flair is the thing that made her visitations such a triumph. Plus, her understanding of the emotional dimension of Charles's commitments often made more of a difference to how the Prince was received than any amount of briefing and planning. Diana instinctively seemed to know that the only power royalty has left is the power to disappoint, and she never did, either with her physical presence or in her responsiveness to human detail."

5. Making apple head dolls. We read Elisa Kleven's book about a girl who makes a new friend from an old apple. So we peeled and carved Granny Smiths and soaked them in lemon juice. Now, they sit in a warm oven, growing older and more wrinkly and smiley by the day.

6. Watching the changes in our neighbor's ginko tree. I've heard these trees drop their leaves all at once. Does "all at once" mean in one day? On the count of three? Hopefully, we'll be there for the party.