It’s that time of the year when we’re in weather flux. We’re having pleasant days and cold nights. That means we’re also in clothing flux, too.

I start the morning in a sweater, turtleneck and light jacket and by noon I have to shed a few garments. By late afternoon I have to layer up again. That’s a bit of a pain.

I was going to start packing away my summer clothing, but I know that as soon as I do that we’ll get hit with an Indian Summer and all I’ll have to wear will be bulky sweaters. Then I’ll sweat like a pig, catch a chill as the temperature drops and catch a cold that will stay with me until next May. That I don’t need.

In spite of beautiful fall foliage I am not a big fan of October. It is such a teaser of a month. It threatens us with winter-like chills and then treats us with summer-like warmth. It’s our last hurrah of pleasant temperatures and our first taste of what’s to come as winter inches our way.

My house is in a state of flux, too. The air conditioners have been put away for the season, but I’m not quite ready to deal with the storm windows. One night last week when the air conditioner was still in the bedroom window, there was so much cold air coming in around it that I put extra blankets on the bed and my husband and I were still cold. The next night the temperature didn’t drop much at all from the warm day we had and we actually had to turn the air on for a little while.

The last few days I had to put the heat on in the morning and therein lies my dislike of October. It is the first month since spring that I am forced to enrich the oil companies. Every time I hear the furnace kick on I can visualize the dollar signs going up the chimney and this is only the beginning.

That forces me to turn my thoughts to winterizing this big old drafty house and when I look at the price of oil I’m tempted to wrap the entire building in heavy plastic.

I can almost hear the big oil executives counting their annual multi-million dollar bonuses every time my furnace rumbles to life. When the oilman filled my tank the other day I couldn’t help but think about the $13 billion profit made by one of the big oil companies in one quarter last year.

We’ve all heard the excuses for the high prices; the cost of crude, the speculators and the damage to rigs from various hurricanes . . . yada, yada, yada, the list goes on.

That doesn’t exactly have me shedding a tear for Exxon-Mobil when it posts the highest profits in a quarter of any company in the history of the world. And then the next quarter they top the previous quarter’s profits. My word! I would love to increase my profit each quarter, but since I have to pay such ridiculous fuel bills I don’t even have a profit.

But, I digress. I was talking about the October flux regarding the weather, my wardrobe and my house. Another month and we’ll be into consistent cold with the heat running all the time and I’ll be living in fleece and bulky sweaters.

I guess when I consider what awaits I shouldn’t complain quite as much about October. Besides, the way I see it, I have about as much chance of getting October to turn up its temperatures as I do getting the big oil companies to turn down their huge profits.