Well, the jig is up. The summer jig, that is. It’s in the 50s as  I write these words on the deck, swaddled in my warm winter robe, the fuzzy white one. No slippers, only my outside crocs. I could use a pair of fuzzy socks, too.

Copper, however, is in his element, prancing in the bars of sunlight that stripe the back yard at this time of day and year.

He responds just to the weather at hand, which, if it were the prelude to a hot summer day, would be just fine, no problem. But I know what he doesn’t: that this is just the beginning of the chill, that there will be rain and snow and early darkness.

Sometimes I long for an animal brain.