No, NOT me! I'm just deceptive.

What I'd like to talk about right now, though, is the weather.

It's (almost) September...and it's HOT. In fact, currently my thermometer reads 101.

Though other parts of the country (and globe) may not necessarily be this warm during the seventh month of the Roman calendar (hence, September), many states and countries are overflowing right now with children who are dying in the fall clothing they just had to wear for the first day of school.

People are turning off their air conditioning, then realizing they it may be, well, just a touch too early for that. Others are hurrying to winterize things around the house, sweating bullets in the sweltering heat while putting the storm door back up and laying in blankets and water in the basement and car trunk "just in case".

They're smart. The warmth of September truly is deceptive. In no time at all, you will wake to that first crisp morning. Your bare feet will touch the wood floor and you'll jerk them back because it feels cold and you'll be momentarily surprised. One day, driving home from work or picking the kids up from school, you'll smell something burning and realize a neighbor has just been the first of the season to light his fireplace.

But ahhhh, these last hot, hot days. The end of summer...the blinking of the sun's eyes that lets through sudden, shocking bolts of brilliance, interspersed with a soft, quiet, gradual...but very, very there...and slightly delicious darkness.

I will be putting out my first fall decorations on Tuesday, Sept. 22--the first day of fall this year. True, in Southern California we don't get nearly as brilliant an autumn (nor as chilly a one) as we did back east. But it's there. The temperature change is felt. The trees that are deciduous, though there really aren't so very many, do change.

And the smells come, and so does the feeling. That happy-heart feeling when the scent of spices and pumpkin and dried decorations pulled out of storage--and apples, mmm, crisp apples--fill the air. The lightness of the air as the temperature at last releases its hold. The surprising--and a little intimidating--autumn Santa Ana winds that blow my Halloween decorations everywhere, and the fallen leaves from my two silver maple trees, and my unbound hair.

Come on, autumn. Though you carry that soft, secret undercurrent of tragedy--for the living will soon curl up, the days will get shorter, the coolness and sometimes freezing coldness is soon to begin--you also carry almost too much haunting beauty and brilliance for the mind, eyes and heart to handle.

We're all ready for you, autumn. Come on out and play.