it's early morning and still dark and i can see all my neighbor's xmas lights. there's a strong social stigma applied to those who do not decorate their homes. small groups of people walk around chanting 'shame, shame' and pointing with their decorative candy canes and winter hats. i almost bought my daughter a knit winter hat shaped like an owl. i have seen several actual owls while running at dusk. these actual owls were killing actual rodents. there's also a new kill author with a small piece of VOLTRON about killing many things, none of them owls. my daughter has no owls but she has feet and she can put them in her mouth. she can't talk but she can laugh, and sometimes roll around. she has no plans (that i know of) to kill her feet. the thing about winter is that now i have a lot of leaves.