A little over two weeks ago, summer told me it was just going downstairs for a quick pack of cigarettes, but it never came back. I feel pretty burned. No one is ready for colds and icy drafts and bundling up in sweaters and slippers even inside the apartment (as lovely as our apartment is, it does get chilly here in the winter. Need to better insulate those old wooden windows this winter round!) No one is ready for the endless leaden gray of a Berlin winter sky. If summer, alas, did have to end they could at least send us the beauty of fall: the golden light, the crimson falling leaves, the rich damp smell of moss. But, until now, we have only had a few meager glimpses. Berlin, curse you for torturing us this year completely with your weather mood swings (they say global warming, I say weather insanity....) And curse you ten times over for making me, a native Californian, talk constantly about the weather (something we never do as, of course, we take it for granted. Even when there's mudslides, we at least now they're fleeting come spring in February....) like some cantankerous old broad!