It’s cold, my hands hurt. The fall colors are gorgeous and I wish I were a better photographer who could capture some of the magic.

I love October best of all, but it’s also sad, because one of my least favorite months, November, is howling like a wolf at the door.

In November, my skin dries out and is itchy and historically my deepest depressions/anxiety attacks have happened. It’s a nasty month, with all the leaves gone and everything brown and barren-looking, waiting for snow to cover it up.

But for now, I will enjoy the last of October. God it’s beautiful around Ann Arbor right now.

Meanwhile, « badly mismanaged Delta Air Lines reports that it is running out of cash »:

‘Delta Air Lines, which is struggling to avoid a bankruptcy filing, said yesterday that it expected to lose as much as $675 million for the third quarter and that it was using cash at a steep rate. The news from Delta, reported in a regulatory filing, renewed speculation that the airline could seek bankruptcy protection as soon as late October. If that happens, half the country’s old-line air carriers would be in bankruptcy proceedings.’

In other words, the executives at Delta, who have horribly mismanaged the airline for decades, are about to sneak into bankruptcy court and smash the unions.

Sad. So very sad.

I was feeling sorry for myself on the way home last night (the usual grad student complaints and kvetches, not worth going into detail about) until a trio of first-year biz school students got on the bus and started exchanging grim graveyard jokes with one another about how they were failing all of their classes but it really didn’t matter because you couldn’t flunk out of biz school without at least a warning first, right? I got off the bus and started my walk home, happy in the knowledge that I’m not failing in (or flailing in) a stats or accounting class.

Yesterday was the beginning of the term “study break” (what a joke) and also of (true) autumn: rain most of the day (not heavy, but not sporadic, either), windy conditions, and cold that that was deep enough to make me actually rue not having brought my gloves and a heavy jacket. I waited for the bus last night, and, predictably, the one that should have showed didn’t show until 20 minutes later and by that time I was across the street waiting for another bus that would show five minutes after that one. It was not a pleasant wait, despite whatever affection I may have for the presence of seasonal weather. I walked from Stadium and Packard home and was bone-cold by the time I made it through the door. On the plus side, traffic was relatively light, both pedestrian and vehicular. I actually made it across Stadium without having to wait for five minutes for all the cross-traffic to clear.

It’s currently 39 on its way down to 35 degrees overnight.

It’s the 16th of October.

I’d say I want to move back south to New Mexico, but I’m told Santa Fe got a huge snow dump the other day.

I’m not going to be warm again until May, am I?

Banned from the bike though I am, I did manage to sneak a ride tonight.

I had a meeting with a client on the UM campus. So I loaded the Bobcat into the Jeep and drove to a parking spot as close as I could get, then got out the bike and rode the six last blocks. I hate walking all that way; truth is, my feet are in almost as bad shape as my hands when it comes to walking long distances, especially if I’m in a hurry. Everything tenses up and starts hurting; they have since my San Francisco days.

The ride was very nice, even though dodging cars on East University was dicey. It was lovely to fly through the diag without trudging along.

I really miss my bike riding and hope the surgeon relents next week when I see him.