Wind Advisory.

The front came through overnight — one one-hundreth of an inch of rain — but left us with what we've got today, a fierce wind out of the north and west at 15-20 mph, with gusts, they say, to 40. Layman's terms? If you spent all weekend piling your leaves at the edge of your yard, as everybody all up and down the dogwalk did, then by now it doesn't matter. Everything's right back where it used to be.

Dogwalk out: Brownie so asleep in her yard, lying in the chill and the sun next to the big oak tree, that for a minute I thought she might be dead. That's Brownie of Brownie & The Colonel fame, a kind of sitcomesque mismatched pair of dogs, a brown mutt (Brownie) and a purebred blue Sheltie that live around the corner behind one of those invisible fences I cannot for any reason bring myself to trust. The Colonel's this little fierce high-pitched matted-down thing. Brownie likes to sleep. Up on a decorative bench, or in the carport, or today, smack out in the middle of the sun, middle of the yard, death-still and barely breathing and, one imagines, as happy as she could ever be.

Dogwalk back: One of the three wise men blown over in somebody's yard, the other two and Mary and Joseph upright and on their tinted plastic knees, waiting for the Big J. I guess the wise man just couldn't take it any more, thought he'd be better off face-down in the grass. Maybe he was just then getting hold of the notion that myrrh is maybe not the best gift to bring to a shower.

Dog with her face into the wind, a nice high trot, bellying through what was left of any pile of leaves she could find, mouth open, tasting the air. Squinting. Dogs love the wind advisory.