Falling for It

It's well and truly autumn here. As I look out my window right now, just before heading home, I see leaves whipping off the branches and bundled-up students hustling past. This morning, the grounds crews put all the pieces of the skating rinks out on the Bald Spot, in expectation of colder temperatures. Biking home yesterday, I noticed for the first time that all my sightlines are better than they were this summer: the corn's been harvested, so I can see around the bend near our place, and the bare trees let me see all the way out to the wind turbine, east of campus. Empty branches mean leaf-filled gutters though; riding through leaves is noisy and fun but slow. But not as slow as the stiff headwind. How is it that I have a headwind in both the morning and the afternoon, even though I go in opposite directions? That seems like enough of a cosmic wrong that the universe ought to give me a newer, lighter bike.  And if not the universe, how about my wife? C'mon, it's a fraction of the cost of even a cheap used car!