"You're so cold, but you feel alive"

I am so lucky to work for a college that actually consults the weather to decide whether to close. Have you heard about the winter storm across the Midwest? Yeah. My alma mater still didn't close today. Bastards. But my current campus did, so I got to have a warm, stay-inside day, except to go out to take pictures, after which I went inside all shivery to get some hot coffee.

Here's what I found.

The leaf fell away, leaving this behind, like a butterfly abandoning its chrysalis.

Pretty good coating of ice all over everything. Pretty good fence, too; we rarely talk to, much less see, the neighbors.

The tree branch was ready for its close-up.

How quickly things change, within the span of a few weeks, even. The fallen leaves I so loved crunching through have given way to a thin sheet of ice over the grass. How do I know this? Well, it certainly wasn't by stomping through the grass and taking childlike pleasure in the satisfying crackles beneath my sneakered feet as I wrought havoc on the lawn's ice blanket, godzilla-style. Nope. Not at all. And for the record, I would never stomp in a puddle or kick up a pile of leaves. I'm too dignified.

* Subject line courtesy of this song, "Cold" by Breaking Benjamin, or as my friend and I call them, Baking Brenjamin.