My Fall Paranoia

Dear Diary,
Wow. It's been two months since I have posted anything.  It's not for lack of desire, but lack of creativity and time.

Now that fall is official, I look around at the beauty in it.  I am reluctant to let go of summer. 
Really I am still trying to find summer. 
So the fact that October is here is hard to swallow.  But God certainly made the transition to winter easy on the eyes in the form of morphing red, orange and yellow leaves.

Those beautiful leaves, in turn, fall and blow everywhere. 

And thus begins my seasonal paranoia:

The Is-It-A-Leaf-Or-Animal Syndrome.

When I drive I brake for animals when I can.  In the Midwest burbs, the squirrels are the number one jaywalkers and the number one critter dearly departed in the middle of the road. But there are others: possums, coons, daredevil birds, chipmunks and even mice.

Once dusk comes -- and it's coming earlier and earlier in the day now -- any leaf that blows across my driving path automatically becomes suspect. 

Is it a leaf, or a mouse? 
Leaf, or Chippy? 
Leaf, or frog?
Leaf, or ______ ?


I wish I had taken this photo but it is a wallpaper photo from
wallpapertvs.com

Paranoia.
My heart leaps when I see the brown blur skittering through the glow of my headlights. 
Go fella, go!  I can't slow down for you!
Was that leaf stem a tail, or was that tail a stem? 

So for the next two months, if you are behind someone tapping their brakes every time the breeze blows a leaf or two across the road, you are probably behind me.  Or someone like me.

Surely I'm not the only one with this problem?

Perhaps I should market a new bumper sticker: I Brake for Leaves

Maybe I'll just stick to daytime driving.
L J