the edge of winter

aargh...the scent is in the air. It is there, on the horizon - advancing, inevitably, like the slow lurch of the dying.

After 5 years of wintering up in the Sierras, with frozen water bottles and iced snot-cicles, I'm ready for a softy low-lander season of rarified heaters and nary a flake of whiteness to be seen.

But, these last few mornings, getting out the door to ride to work, I've had to throw on the thickies - gloves, warmers, jacketa...

Do I cling to summer's fading youth,
or, do I fear the coming softness - not of a living winter, but my own glacial decline.