Rare Days

Today was one of those days that's becoming rarer and rarer. I woke up at the glorious hour of 5:30 (mostly because I was on fire from sleeping underneath my Kotatsu once again) and spent the early morning hours mostly catching up on Project Runway by falling back asleep to it. As the sun rolled out from behind the clouds I noticed something strange.

The sun had rolled out from behind the clouds.

By noon there was no mistaking it. The sun was out and it was making its presence known. I took one squinty eyed look out my window -- unshaved and hair a mess -- and decided I had no other option but to grab the nearest book, a towel, and make a mad dash to the nearest park before the sun decided to change its mind and go into hibernation again.

And so there I was, sitting next to the Miomote River in some grass facing into the sun, sometimes reading, sometimes just closing my eyes and being happy it was unusually bright out, and sometimes fighting off this weird crab spiders that had decided my towel was their towel, which it was most definitely not.

The trees are changing colors. Not in the "Yesterday I was green, over night I changed to yellow, and tomorrow I won't have any leaves left" California way that I'm used to, but in a very slow and steady progression. Some trees are the most such amazing mixture of reds, yellows, and greens all at once in a bright display of what I had always heard Autumn was supposed to be like.

I'm still waiting for the snow. Having acquired my snowboard -- well, allow me to rephrase -- having acquired the most beautiful freakin' snowboard in the world, I'm ready to throw on some snow pants, a hefty jacket, and start falling down some mountains. Because I can't snowboard. I think it'll be fun.

But the snow is coming. I can almost feel it. And I'm waiting in the most desperate anticipation of the first Friday where I can leave straight from work to get to the slopes so I can start becoming a snowboarding super star.

Update: Today I figured out how to turn a $120 round trip train ticket to one of the biggest ski resorts in Niigata into a $30 round trip ticket. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh. SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW!