Rites of Fall

Oh sure, you think you know what fall, or the more formal autumn, is about. Leaves turning pretty shades of orange and red and yellow and brown. Baseball's Fall Classic, aka the World Series. Football. Hockey. (oops, forgot about that lockout) . Halloween and Thanksgiving and lots of pumpkins. And while you'd be right, that's not the entire story.

The approach of fall means fall cleaning. You've heard of spring cleaning, but for more years than I can count, I've been engaging in fall cleaning. Twice a year (and some years 3 or 4 times, when I do it at the start of summer and even winter, too), I go through my closets. I try on all the shoes for the upcoming season and all the pants, jeans, and skirts I expect/hope to wear and weed out what no longer fits. I go through my dresser and try on tops and sweaters. When I see what survives to be hung back up or stuffed in a drawer once more, I make my shopping list of what's needed. Today is the day for that.

And then comes the exciting shoulder bag switcheroo. Being incredibly forgetful and lazy, I've built redundancy into my life. Every one of my shoulder bags has a comb, mirror, tissues, nail file, notepad, and pens. I have one bag I use from late spring through the summer, and another for fall through early spring. Today was the day I switched the singular items from spring/summer bag to fall/winter bag. These items include: cell phone, flashlight (never know when there will be another blackoout), Metro card for the subway, book for subway reading, calendar, and staff photo ID card (a hideous thing -- Were they trying to take the all-time worst picture of me? -- which is too big to go in my wallet). I am now officially ready for fall.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some more shoes to try on.