This Is Ridiculous--The Weather Report

So, a little over a week ago, Mr. Sweetie and I were cruising down the Mississippi in the fabulous Lady Cliff. And you could see autumn was stretching its muscles to really hit town. The trees along the banks of the river had started changing color slightly. The colors etched the evening shadows--above the shde from the opposite shore, the trees were starting to edge yellow, copper, red--not the true flaming colors of fall, but their harbingers. Below the shade line, the trees stayed resolutely green.

The promise of autumn was not filled the following week--we had rain, rain, and more rain. As though all the rain we didn't get during the summer was now being dumped at once. Then--

It was summer again.

Not Indian summer (do we still call it that?), not the gold-tinged last warmth of the departing season. No. We got full bore sticky, buggy, humid and hot summer. In Minnesota. In October.

We are not used to this. We are used to winter dropping in early, unannounced, not even calling ahead to say "I'm in the driveway! Can I come in?" Heavy wet snow, falling from the sky already slush, piling on garden plants and bowing trees--that's the kind of weather we expect from October.

Minnesota is not a place where we wear shorts and flip flops in October. But it was 86 degrees! It was too hot for October. And the humidity! What was up with that? We turned on the window air conditioners again for the last couple of nights just to be able to sleep.

This morning, Mr. Sweetie came up and turned off the a/c. "It's 55 degrees--you might not need this now."