It was a few days ago – Jim had leftovers so I was on my own for dinner.\u00a0 I decided on a trip to the “slightly further away but also much nicer” Taco Bell and headed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I ordered my food and considered eating it there – I had brought a book with me – but decided that eating in that soul-less restaurant was less healthy for me than the food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(2 chicken enchilada burritos, nacho fries, and a medium pepsi)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got my food and figured it was just warm enough to eat in the park. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once at the park, I began to regret my decision.\u00a0 It was, as I found, not quite<\/em> warm enough.\u00a0 I found a picnic bench in the deserted park as far from shade as I could get and positioned myself in full view of the soon-to-be setting sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ate my burritos quickly as I read my book – playing that careful game with the wind and the napkins to prevent everything from blowing away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When I was done, I packed up my trash and headed to the trashcan and then back towards my car. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I walked down the sidewalk I realized that the wall next to me was warm. The bricks had soaked up all the heat from the sun and felt like a slowly cooling oven. I pressed my hand to the bricks and smiled – then leaned into the wall and pressed my cold head against the bricks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It felt like a warm and kind hug and I could have stayed there until the sun set. \u00a0 Instead, I pulled myself away and went home. It was just a moment…<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier today, I took the dogs outside at lunch time and stopped in the shadow of a tree.\u00a0 I considered going back inside to get a coat – it was that cold – but then I took another step into the sunlight.\u00a0 And for a moment, it was like summer again.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then a breeze came and cloud obscured the sunbeam.\u00a0 And soon it was time to go back inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tonight, Jim was driving as we ran errands and went to dinner. I was in the passenger seat with my eyes closed, lulled by the steady noise of the car and the warmth on my face. Just for a moment, it was peaceful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think that might be my favorite season.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Late fall, with an unexpected splash of summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a few days ago – Jim had leftovers so I was on my own for dinner.\u00a0 I decided on a trip to the “slightly further away but also much nicer” Taco Bell and headed out.\u00a0 I ordered my food and considered eating it there – I had brought a book with me – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3283,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3282\/revisions\/3283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n