This Post Was Inevitable ~ P90X Blog 6

The entrance to Piers Park, where the only fault I can find is the black
sign on the far right of the gate pictured above.

We love having guests, and living in Boston hasn't exactly slowed the flow of tourists through our guest bedroom. Since moving here near the end of June, at least 10 people have spent the night either in our guest bed or on our couch.

I don't know that I've seen this strawberry
color before.

Guest No. 11, SIL, was supposed to arrive this morning. But SIL is a mother of an infant, and the infant got very sick last night, and SIL had to cancel. That's really too bad because she's good company and SIL could use a break from being a mom for a couple of nights.

SIL, a Minnesotan, asked me just a couple of days ago if leaf-peeping season was over in Boston yet. Maybe it's my Minnesota upbringing that made my eyes bulge a little when I responded: No! It's pretty much peak season in our neighborhood. And the leaves in Boston Common and on the Charles River are just starting to go.

This is mind-boggling stuff. According to a report from my mother, a renowned ecological fan, the leaves in Minnesota went brown near the end of September and basically plopped onto the ground in a collective, "We're done here" moment. It snowed in Minnesota yesterday, as well as a few weeks ago.

My brother put it well a number of years ago when he said, "The weather in Minnesota prepares you to live anywhere, because it couldn't possibly be any colder in the winter AND any more humid and bug-filled in the summer." That's a simplification, but the lad's not wrong.

I set out with Daisy Duke on a walk yesterday afternoon, a lovely 60-degree, bluebird-sky day. Daisy wasn't terribly interested in the leaves so much as she was smelling the trunks of the trees for signs of dog urine, squirrels and assorted woodland creatures. Me? I took pictures.

This tree had reds, yellows, greens and
oranges.

Thank God that happened. Hurricane Sandy is coming, which means one good puff of wind on Monday or Tuesday will knock all our remaining leaves down. But more important, thank God for SIL's sake. It's not nearly the same as leaf-peeping. BIL, her spouse, isn't wild about leaf colors. Which is fine. The world is basically split into two groups: people who like fall colors and those who do not care one iota about them.

And so, for SIL, these are the five pictures taken Wednesday on a terrible, terrible camera phone. Maybe we should get a Kickstarter fund to buy a new camera so you can get the full effect of pictures. Then this blog would look more like a travel brochure. Come to think of it, we're pretty well set for visitors, so maybe we'll stick with the old cell phone.

Me, getting arty.

Today's weather is decidedly less glorious. This was taken
outside the MIT campus, looking at the state capitol.