According to the folks, the leaves are changing color in Clear Creek. Here, everything is still green; the only difference between now and the usual Texas summer is about 15 degrees, while they only difference between now and this past summer is ... nothing.

The thunderstorm today gives me hope, though, that maybe when I wake up I'm going to need a heavy sweater to walk to Mass. Bringing in a cold front is the least it can do for me, since it got my music books all wet. Imagine: you're sitting outside the Capp Bar reading Herodotus (in English) and drinking your latte (with skim milk and honey, to make up for all the High Fructose Corn Syrup in the sundae you just had) and you hear a rolling crash of thunder. You think to yourself, "I should put my piano books back in my apartment now, so when the thunderstorm hits I don't have to walk back in the rain later and get them all wet." Reasonable, no? Apparently, I don't yet know Texas. Halfway through the three minute walk back, the rain hits with all its force, and a minute and a half later I'm about as dry as I would have been if I had jumped in the swimming pool outside my apartment. I get in the door, mop myself off a bit, and would you believe it, the rain stops. Just like that. I love you too, Texas.

And now for a list of things I'm not going to miss about Dallas after December:
airplane noise.
car noise.
the greenish light from the pool that shines in my bedroom window and keeps me awake at night.

Also a list of things I miss about Clear Creek right now:
monks with military haircuts
gigantical squashes for sale after Sunday Mass
ditto with the gigantical cheeses
the crunching sound car tires make on dirt roads
the way you can tell how long it's been since it's rained by how much dust is on the leaves on the sides of the roads
the sound of the rain on leaves and dirt (and no asphalt anywhere!)