Recently my brother and I were having one of our marathon phone conversations, during which we spend two-plus hours discussing anything and everything, mocking mutual acquaintances, plotting world domination, and debating important, hard-hitting issues like orange: good or bad?  That particular debate, which went on longer than you’d care to know, started when Dan mentioned that he hates the color orange, and I took extreme umbrage.  “It’s an angry color,” he insisted.  “Orange and red make people angry.  It’s scientific fact.”  Be that as it may, I was equally insistent – I love the color orange.  Why?, Dan wondered.  It’s simple, really – orange is the color of so many things that make me happy.

Like street lamps.  And sunsets.

Especially beach sunsets.

And flickering firelight.  I’ll take a candle or a cozy blaze in the fireplace, but the best is a campfire.  Ideally a campfire in my best friend’s backyard, while boats drift silently by on the canal just a few feet away from where we sit roasting vegan marshmallows, making s’mores, sipping summer shandy and laughing.  Bonus points if a solar-powered “fairy in a jar” is glowing nearby.

And flowers.  Mums, nasturtiums, gerbera daisies – I love ’em.  Give me orange flowers any day.  Nothing brightens up a kitchen so well.  Especially two-for-one farmers’ market bouquets.

And fall foliage.  Hills ablaze – just how I like them.  (This was about a week past peak, but you’d never know, would you?)

On the trees or on the ground.  There’s nothing like an orange leaf.

And there are the lovely orange globe pumpkins, ready for picking just before Hallowe’en.

Tigger not included.  (Tigger’s orange, too!)

I didn’t even mention to Dan the deep orange brocade shawl his wife gave me for Christmas the year before last.  But that’s another orange thing I love.  (Clearly, the lovely Danielle can appreciate the beauties of the color orange, even if my brother can’t!)

Do you love an unfairly maligned color?