Day: Monday, December 4, 2006. Conditions: Partly to mostly cloudy, snow flurries, trace accumulation. Comment: Almost.

Day: Tuesday, December 5, 2006. Conditions: Mostly cloudy to overcast, light to moderate snow showers, accumulation up to three inches. Comment: There we are.

Are the sunsets these days attendant or tangential to warmth ahead of a plunge into wintry weather?

If the latter, I still vouch for their beauty.

I can't say I have seen many icy eastern skies at daybreak, but then I scraped the year's first earnest frost off of my car windows this morning.

The sun hasn't been seen since it peeked through this interstice yesterday morning.

Yesterday the weatherman told us that snow would follow rain on Friday. By day's end that forecast had been corrected, frozen precipitation stayed by wind and temperature until Sunday. This morning, snow is back on the calendar — early Saturday morning, assures the weatherman. I will try not to hold him to his word.

On the first syllable of the word "camera" was where my father stopped. Thursday evening dinner with my mother and father had ended and I was leaving for home, and when I opened the front door and turned back to say goodbye to my parents the conversation was arrested by the unnatural half-sentence. I met my father's expression, seconds passing in slow motion as I contemplated what could be seen over my shoulder and through the storm door's glass panel.

Snow.

The east side of Cleveland had a forecast for an inch or two, but cold winds sweeping across a warm Lake Erie must have shifted a bit towards the south and west.

I saw this, the western sky aflame, from a facing office window — and ran down four flights of stairs to catch it.

Mac's mane is conspicuous, now.

Lutescent intrusions on Mitsubishi's coat have subsided.

Fortunately for the sakes of endearment, photography and the specialty cat food industry, my kittens have several more formative months.

Is there any condition for a lustrous sunrise almost every morning? Just one, and that is the retention of a sense of wonder.

But for a total of three or four minutes, tiny snowflakes fell on the west side of Cleveland.

This just days after an examination of the electrostatically diffusive properties of feline fur took place.