So fine....

42 degrees this morning with a light wind from the north, and dry sapphire skies with just the occasional cloud catching the rays of the rising sun this morning to fluoresce almost exactly like gold pyrite flecks in a large piece of lapis lazuli.

The coffee came out perfect this morning (scientific method or not, the quality varies from pot to pot, dammit.), and I fried up slices of my leftover cornbread alongside some farm-fresh eggs brought from my in-laws' chickens in my giant iron skillet. Butter the fried corn bread and drizzle some blackstrap molasses over it on a plate with a couple of fried eggs next to it, with a tall glass of cold milk, and you are guaren-damned-teed to make your 5 year-old and 9 year-old girls scowl at their breakfasts and proclaim "I don't want that!"

Philistines. They have no. Idea. How good....

So after I threatened them with bodily injury, they each took bites of the corn bread and of the whites of the eggs (they also don't appreciate the glory that is cornbread sopped in egg yolk. Where did I fail them, so? How do I right this wrong? ), and downed their milks. So, you know-- it'd be a sin to waste their breakfasts....

Dropped them off at school with their full-sized pumpkins. Yes, my girls' schools actually recognize Halloween. They ain't skeered. As I pulled out from my elder daughter's school, someone actually stopped to let me into traffic.

I sipped my coffee laced with a half teaspoon of molasses as I idled on home, and thought: "I made it through. This is what I wait all year for."

Damn, but I love October in North Texas. This is the antithesis of May.