Autumn equinox has passed and the night lingers in my mornings. I am loath to disrupt the coziness of my little hobbit-house with bright electric lights; even PippinTook stays out of the blinds as our day begins. Orion has returned to usher us on our morning walks and this week I can barely see Pippin so that would mean it is Very Dark.
Pippin used to be an intermittent walking companion but since Tigger Linus moved to the city he has been glued to Gandalf and me and we all trundle out into the inky dawn. Gandalf now wears a dangly collar light; I was going to get plain white but multi-colored was on sale so we went big; the result is a kind of breakdancing disco firefly at the end of the leash. I would love to get a light for Pippin, too, but I am pretty sure he would not appreciate the visual and there would be bloodshed trying to get it onto him so he gets to go commando.
One morning last week I reluctantly emerged from my softly lit lodging for the walk before work and by the time we returned I noticed my gait was off. Having lived for years in worst-case-scenario I was pretty sure I was having a stroke and would be found in the street when it finally became light enough to see….nah…..it was just that my shoes were wearing out weirdly. I got the boys settled for the day, jumped in the car and drove to work. It wasn’t until I noticed the same odd step on my way in from the parking lot that I looked down:
*sigh*
Maybe I am the one who needs the dangly light!
