I have a cold. I caught it from Chi. Or maybe from sleeping under a bridge in 50 degree weather. You never can tell with these things.

Last night, Manfred brought Pho home and after a mini-spat decided what movie I wanted to watch. I think I was starting to approach meltdown or getting scary, so he picked About A Boy. I love that movie. Like High Fidelity, it is starting to date itself, but not nearly as much as it should for an 8 year old film. The soundtrack is so wonderful and perfect and it makes me think of fall.

I love fall. I love scarves and sweaters and crunchy leaves. I love the apple farm and the smell of bonfires. I love seasonal fall beers. Seriously, I’m going to buy cases of Leinenkugel Fireside Nut Brown this year. It may be one of my favorite beers ever.

I even love cold mornings. Provided I can stay in bed and snuggle. The first snow is even exciting. But only the first. After that I am done. Seriously. No big storms this year, ok? Yes I know that’s how Manfred and I came to be, but that was when he still really liked me and wanted to get in my pants and therefore would come pick me up so I didn’t kill myself in my little Toyota. Hello, run-on.

The weather has been cooler, the skies clearer and bluer. This is my favorite time of year. Warm enough during the day, but hoodie and bonfire weather at night. This is the only thing I will miss when I move down south. I can’t be that asshole who says the “change of the seasons” because we don’t get that here. It is either HOT or COLD. There are a total of about 4-5 weeks of the year that do not fall into either of the aforementioned categories. Those are my favorite.

Oh, I just thought about what the point of this post was and realized maybe I should explain why I was sleeping under a bridge. Riverfest. Every year, for the past 23 years, minus two, I have gone to watch fireworks on the Ohio river. It’s a pretty big deal around here. The last few years it has gotten out of hand. What you do, to get the full experience, is get up at the crack of dawn, stake your spot out, spend the day on the river waiting for fireworks.

Sounds insane, right? It is. 100%. But I grew up doing it and to me, it’s how you say goodbye to summer. The weather was rare this year. A perfect cool, breezy, sunny day. Usually it’s sweltering or pouring. They opened the wall early so I didn’t get a prime spot, but it wasn’t half bad. We were under the Southgate bridge, in the shade. We slept most of the early morning and as people arrived we started to have some fun.

I am kind of getting to the point where I think I may be done with Riverfest. It’s too much anymore. People are taking the fun out of it. When I was growing up, you could show up an hour before and still get a nice spot. This year it was 600,000 of my closest friends between the Ohio and Kentucky sides. People are rude and really, it’s just fireworks. While they are the most awesome fireworks you’ll ever see, is it worth a whole day just to see some fireworks? We’ll see how I answer that next September.

I don’t really have anything to say, but I’m fairly bored so I thought I’d come here. I just waxed poetic about fall for the last 30 minutes because I’m too much of a chicken shit to say what I really want to. Enjoy.