I would like to toast anthocyanins.

My dearest readers

First of all the comma key on my laptop is missing so you are going to have to make do without commas in my writing. I apologize but then again I guess you now have the freedom to choose when you want to pause as you read my words. You've taken the power of setting my grammatical cadence into your own hands. I am an English major so it's really bothering me. Ah well. I digress.

Why do leaves change? This was a question that my dad asked me my sophomore year of college. Luckily for him (and me) I was in an Honors bio class with three of my best friends and a professor who had a voice strikingly similar to Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. Ya try to not pay attention in that biology class. It was the best. Not only did you listen to the friendliest voice for an hour but he'd bring cups of jello that had congealed and cups that hadn't to demonstrate how putting pineapple in jello doesn't always work because its acidity breaks down the gelatin. In that class I became passionate about DNA and the cute little enzymes that unzip the DNA and then copy it to make up the genes of an individual--a uniquely cool slash weird person who has blue eyes and a short temper and is a horrible runner but has an extremely good sense of smell. I learned how the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and how to remember that it is the powerhouse of the cell. I learned why cloning was so cool and so dangerous and what the true meaning of organic foods meant versus chemically engineered food. He would get so excited so then I would get excited and then we'd ask more questions and he'd eventually get so excited that he'd get sidetracked and tell stories that were completely off the subject but it was more endearing than ridiculous and it was learning at its best and it was beautiful. Are you wishing I had my comma key yet? I'm kind of enjoying this.

One day while sharing my adventures with Piglet to my dad he asked me "Kelsey why do the colors in leaves change? Find that out in your class. I've always wondered that." At that moment I was on a mission. See I'm positive that my dad knows everything. He is the wisest and most intelligent man I know so when he asked me to find something out for him I was freakin Sherlock Holmes (speaking of which I am so pumped to see that movie...mostly because of Jude Law but whatever I'm normal) and I was going to get him an answer. I'm pretty sure that Google would have hooked me up with some excellent info on the change in the autumn leaves but I didn't want to settle for that beensy amount of effort. I instead asked my professor after class. I could be mistaken because it was over a year ago but I'm pretty sure Piglet was quivering with excitement to share the answer. I was fascinated with the answer and have never forgotten it for some reason and I thought I'd share the revelation with my readers just because you're all awesome and this fun fact is a great way to strike up an interesting conversation with a stranger friend acquaintance significant other etc. instead of the old BYU get-to-know-you lines.

You see most people assume that the leaves change color because of the change in temperature. But what about when it's nice and warm outside during the day and the colors start popping up on Y mount? We've all noticed that before. Can't be the temperature. Could it be the weather? No way not in Utah. The weather here is psycho so the leaves can't depend on that to help them get pretty for autumn. No no it's the amount of sunlight it gets. Doesn't that make perfect sense? The days begin to get shorter as the earth's rotation shifts our section of the earth is tilted further from the sun and we get less sunlight in our 24-hour day. The green chlorophyll in the leaves (the only color in the leaf that is reflected into our eyes) isn't getting the yummy sunshine nutrition that it needs so it begins to break down. As the chlorophyll dies the other major pigments in the leaves--carotenoids and anthocyanins--finally have a chance to show their true colors (pun definitely intended). Their colors are finally able to be reflected into our eyes and we can actually see the colors that were before masked by the overbearing chlorophyll.

Um...if that whole process right there is not the prettiest gift a Father has given His child then I don't know what is.

I'll toast that.