Northern California looks so cute when it tries to impress you with its seasons.  The leaves turn yellow and red haphazardly, like a kid scrawling inside a coloring book.  Then the whole area lurches into winter. Or it pretends to.  All that really happens is the air feels a little colder than usual.  It rains sometimes, but mostly the sun weakly dabs at the rooftops and tries to melt the morning frost.

California has no idea what real seasons are, and it will never know because it’s separated from them by thousands of miles. It has no idea that elsewhere in the country, the leaves turn so bright and vivid that they look as though they’re on fire.  It doesn’t know that if you stand in a certain place at just the right time, the air smells of apple cinnamon.  It doesn’t know that when the storms start to hit, the days become as hard and cold as a runway model’s face.

You are nice to California.  After all, you love California; it’s possible that you may never leave it again.  With that kind of commitment in the offing, the last thing you want to do is hurt California’s feelings.  So you smile indulgently as it parades its badly colored trees in front of you and occasionally showers you with rain.  Just because California does this one thing poorly doesn’t mean that it should be berated for its failures. California is a genius when it comes to spring, and second-run movie theaters, and couples key parties.  Let it get this nonsense out of its system, as it apparently needs to do once a year.  It’s all right if your face starts to hurt from all of the fake smiling. Once the air warms up and the fog lifts, your praise will once again be genuine.