Seasonal Shift

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Woo! We have hit critical autumnal light angle!

I don't know why, but somewhere in the last week of August the sun finally hits an angle in the sky that makes my brain hit the Autumn switch. And since I goddamn LOVE autumn, I am totally cool with this. It means I can kick back and watch my mood meter move steadily upward,* enjoy the first blush of fall colors, swear mightily at my own damn allergies (not everything about fall is great), wear fluffy socks, make mulled apple ginger ale, start enjoying soup and Deeper'n'Ever Pie again, wear colors that actually look good on me, and hope that this year everyone shuts the fuck up about Pumpkin Spice-flavored drinks, because that is not a thing to give a shit about.** (The thing to give a shit about is when people fuck up delicious pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips. That's just a CRIME.)

Anyway! Fall is back! I'm gonna go make me a Fall Colors Necklace to celebrate. I only have 125 or so of them at the moment. I need more!


*I have no idea why; this doesn't seem to be linked to anything but seasons. Some kind of reverse-SAD where my overall mood shoots up starting around this time each year.

**Especially if you smugly point out that "It has NO PUMPKINS IN IT!" like you're the grownup in a '90s commercial for Apple Jacks. Dude, I always thought it was called "Pumpkin Spice" because it had the same spices in it you use for pumpkin pie. I guess that was too confusing for you, though?

Comments

[beccastareyes]

I wouldn't think pumpkin and chocolate go together. But I tend to see pumpkin as a savory food, not a sweet one*.

I do have something SAD-like, but it is entirely light levels: I feel a lot better in Nebraska than in New York because while the day length and temperatures are the same, Nebraska winters are a lot sunnier.

* Granted, the only way I eat it is in soup. It makes lovely soup.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I LOVE pumpkin soup! There's a pumpkin-parmesan-sage recipe in one of Mom's books that is amazing.

I'm also a fan of roast pumpkin with butter and brown sugar. Not really savory, but I don't think of it as SWEET, either.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

I get the same thing but I always considered it an effect of the decently cool weather coming back instead of the heat sapping my will to live.

If they labeled it Pumpkin Pie SPICE it wouldn't make me foam at the mouth so much, but no, it's always, always, always PUMPKIN PIE and every time I fall for it and think maybe this time someone has captured the deliciousness of pie....oh crud, just cinnamon and ginger again....

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I thought it usually WAS labeled "Pumpkin Spice," but maybe I'm just not observant.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Or it might be regional idiocy.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

What's your stance on raisins in apple pies or tarts? Sin or sacrament?

Asking the important questions, here.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

I know you didn't ask me, but I am voting for Sin!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

... Never heard of such a thing. It sounds unnatural!

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Sounds good to me. Raisins and apples go together pretty well, and like a lot of the same spices.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

... I suppose this was a trick question. I might like raisins in apple pie if I liked raisins.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Truth be told, I'm not a huge fan of either. But I'm OK with both, and can't see any particular way they'd clash, unless someone doesn't really like one or the other.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

On a more objective note than "I don't like raisins," raisins add a slightly different flavor note to the pie, and they are also small nuggets of different texture - they are tougher to the tooth than cooked apple. So I suppose those qualities could be argued to be either a good thing or a bad things, depending on personal taste.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's definitely different. It's just that the differences are still well within the realm of subjective opinion. It's not like we're discussing whether we prefer our apple tarts with or without an hour-long lecture on tax law ;)

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I suppose you could discuss the effect of taxes and commercialization on the manufacture, sale and consumption of apple pies, but that's probably a fairly specialized area of interest.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

And even then, who wants to listen to that while they're actually eating their pie?

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

Well, I wouldn't mind hearing about it from someone who had a good grasp on what they were talking about, but probably not during the actual pie-eating portion of the program.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the thing. To be comparable to the raisins, it would have to be part of the same experience.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

We are just coming out of Winter here, and after the cold wet snowy winter we had (I moved at the start of this year to somewhere mountainous and colder) and I seriously considered breaking my lease a finding an apartment with much more natural light (in the same suburb). It isn't the cold that killed me (but bloody hell it was cold), but the lack of direct sunlight on my house!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Sunlight does change things for the better. Though I get nervous if it doesn't get cloudy every so often.

[daiq.livejournal.com]

Two days into spring, and it snowed at work over night, WHERE IS MY SUNLIGHT AND WARMTH!!!!

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I have a weird mix, because I have SAD, but I also really suffer from the heat, and so Autumn is my favorite season, because it gets cooler and I like the clouds and rain, but it hasn't yet gotten to the part where the extended lack of sunlight is screwing me up. I'm not sure if we've hit that angle here yet. We hadn't the last time I really saw the sun, but it was close, and we've had several blessedly grey and cool days, so I haven't really seen it in a while.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I like clouds and rain, too! I think we get a good mix here.

Do you use a sun lamp? I've considered one sometimes, just to see if it helps, but I have no idea if it'd work.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I had one for a while, and it seemed to help a little, but it was incompatible with my cat, so I gave it back to my mom before it got broken. I do use daylight-corrected bulbs in my lamps, and those seem to help, or at least, things got way worse after Eo broke one of them.

I also take a shitload of vitamin D, and now that I actually have anti-depressants, I'm going to talk to my doctor about bumping the dosage up during the winter, see if that's a thing.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

There we go! There was a bit of a cloudbreak this afternoon, and I got up early enough to see it, and the sunlight was totally down past the Autumn angle. Forget the calendar, it's now Autumn :D