Onward.

I woke up this morning and found a message Sharpied onto my palm: CONTINUE. DO NOT SUBMIT. There was no mystery: I knew where it came from (me) and what it meant (test directions), but considering that I turned older today, I feel determined to apply it to my life.

A pun a day keeps your friends away.

Scene: Eight at night. My apartment.

Phone: Ring!

Me: Bonjour!

Farm Boy: I think you mean bonsoir - or wait - bonne nuit!

Me: Actually, I think you say bonne nuit just when you're going to bed - now would be bon soir.

Farm Boy: Great. I just showed how stupid I am.

Me: No, no. You showed your knowledge of the language, just not the idiom.

Farm Boy: Well, now I feel like an idi-ot.

Me: Ha ha ha ha ha!

November again.

First snow today. Crossing the Mississippi before the storm, the banks rose up all gold and grey. Your Minnesota autumns are not so scarlet as ours in Michigan, but I do like how the tops of the birches and aspens glow in the fragment of sunlight coming over the tops of the clouds.