I sit here late at night on a cold and rainy midnight, readjusting my fingers to the Macintosh’s keyboard. I am not yet ready to hunker down into the partial hibernation that one goes into in the winter time. I look for color when the outer world is drained of it. Today there are maples whose color is so full of flame that the sight of them startles you even when you are expecting to see them.

The boiler is clanking away down in the basement, and now the house feels like the inside of a great tea kettle just about to boil.

Satchel the Cat was visiting the vet’s today — his stomach has been bothering him a bit, Buck says, but he eats just fine when I feed him. I might think that he was going to miss summer as much as I do, but he never goes outside, so the notion of what season it is is moot for him.

And now, sleep.