Bo-Bo Knows Gratitude for Fall Heat Waves

It's 9 o'clock in the morning, and I don't want to be here today. Nope. No way. Because it's November 10 and 61 degrees outside, the third of three days I would have been happy to enjoy in early May. I want to leash Bo up and go for a long and —here's the key—coatless walk. There's not as much bright and shining sun as there was yesterday, but I'll smile as if there was.

Because when I got back from a fantabulous visit with friends in Los Angeles in July, I came home in a funk. Not because the trip was so good it made me want to live there, but because I knew that we Bostonians had five more weeks of summer left to enjoy before the fall heralded the beginning of the l-o-n-g winter season, while my California girls never, ever have to think about rationing their warmth.

As if on cue, November in Boston came on the back of a particularly ferocious cold front that had me digging through closets in search of hats and gloves for those early morning walks. But in my envy for constant sunshine, I forgot about the special brand of euphoria that comes with an unseasonable reprieve. The absolute high of hearing your ipod click to Katrina and the Waves when you are quite literally walking on sunshine yourself and by all rights shouldn't be. This is November, people. November!

So today I'm grateful for the warming trifecta. And to my friend who pointed out that it made her think about polar bears stranded on chunks of ice that had broken free, I say Bah Humbug! I hate the thought of a forlorn polar bear as much as the next person with an ounce of compassion, but there's nothing I can do to help him from Boston, so I choose to go out and enjoy Boston's impression of November in LA. God knows we'll all need the sunny memory when the mercury drops below zero in a few months...