Heat.

It's Sunday morning. I slept in till a quarter to seven, fed the doggies, made coffee, and Ethan still isn't up, so it's quiet. I have come to appreciate, no more than that, hold very dear, like an old piece of jewelry, times such as these.
It's getting cold, most of the pretty yellow and orange and red leaves are all on the ground now. The cold air makes me want more coffee than ever and the sound of the heater coming on reminds me of growing up on Stardust St; when I smell that warm, heater air coming up through the vents (what is that smell? like fire, sort of?) it is very comforting to me in my grown up life, here in my own home. When I was a little girl, we used to keep the house pretty darn freezing. I wore pass-me-down nightgowns that I'm sure started out very soft, but by the time they got to me had taken so many turns in the washer they felt more like felt pajamas than anything else. There were elastic in the wrists that would leave red indentations in my skin. My socks would usually have a hole here and there. I'd wake up in that huge, cold house and the second I'd hear that loud heater warming up, I'd get to a heating vent as soon as I could, sit down, tuck my nightgown around me so no air could escape, and within seconds my nightgown would blow up around me like a balloon.