After a balmy, easygoing start, October has turned mean.  It is acting like November – late November.  The temperature is hovering around 30, there is freezing rain in the forecast, and I can’t find my parka.  Everyone at my office is walking around looking shocked. People who rarely talk to me are coming up to me, their faces friendly and indignant, and saying, “It’s incredible out there.  It’s stunning.” It is an arrangement between us – that we will forget our differences in our shared hurt over this big, simple thing, winter’s approach. And here comes the wet, stabbing wind.

So, for my pals, here are some flowers.  I took this picture last month in Seattle, in Pike Place Market, over where the flower sellers  are  always at work, their eyes remote as they create one dazzling arrangement after another.  The variations are never ending. The air is a botanic cloud.  Locals and tourists alike jostle forward to bathe their eyes in all of it. This bouquet is for you.