Incoming

So many things are going on with friends at the moment, real grown-up life things, both good and bad. Weddings. Divorces. Babies. Terminal Cancer, new jobs, unemployment. So many of us seem to be barely holding body and soul together. All of these things have been clouding my ability to write. Not enough time in my own head of late.

Last night, I had a few hours alone as Mr. Spy was meeting friends for dinner. I had planned to write, but instead ended up perusing posts from earlier this year. I was struck by two things:

1) I have written about the weather A LOT. I would like to apologize here and now for my obsession with the weather. I can’t guarantee I’ll improve, but at least I’ll think twice about it.

and

2) I haven’t written anything I’m terribly proud of in a long time. That shouldn’t be a big deal. That’s not really what the blog is for. But I’ve done better than I’ve been doing lately.

• • • • •
And now, since several of you asked, the squirrel story.

After I graduated from college, I spent a summer playing violin for a summer stock company on Cape Cod before moving to Boston where I shared an apartment in Somerville with three other fellow graduates. Two of them were friends of mine from choir. The third was a friend of a friend whom nobody knew very well. The third had a really difficult year and, as a result, was very difficult to live with. But otherwise, we had a great time. My roommate S, who was and is a real singer, was getting her masters in voice. My roomate K, who wanted to become (and now is) a social worker, was working in a group home for teenaged girls and singing in a choir at Harvard, which I joined too. I was applying to grad schools and looking for work at the same time. After being stunned by rejection letters I hadn’t been expecting, thinking my degree in English and Music from a fancy college and the desire to work would be enough, I found plenty of interesting assignments temping. My favorite job was at the Alumnae Association for R@dcliffe College, where I had a gorgeous office with a bay window overlooking the R@dcliffe quad. I loved the job and I loved my commute, which a long walk down Mass Ave each day (I could have taken the T, but I loved to walk). I did a lot of secretarial work, but when they found out what I could do, they put me to work on the quarterly, where I got to interview famous alumnae and fellows, including Margaret Atwood. They extended my contract several times until I found a permanent job as a group sales rep for a theater company. The group sales part was lousy, but I loved my coworkers and I loved taking the T to the top of Boston Common every morning and walking across the park, past Carl Fischer and into the tiny theater district. They didn’t pay me much, but I picked up a little extra house managing in the theater at night, where I got free drinks after the nightly cabaret-style show. The only person who made work less than pleasant was our boss, J. J was a really nice person — I liked her a lot outside the office. But she was one of those people who got promoted into a job she didn’t like and didn’t know what to do about it. She was an incredible saleswoman, but she hated managing people and really had no idea how to do it. She was famous for her temper tantrums and her irrational behavior.

On my lunch hour, I’d often head back to the park. One particularly gorgeous early spring day, my coworker D and I decided to take our lunches to a bench on the common where we could watch the swan boats. We found an empty bench and settled in and enjoyed our food and the people watching and the sun and a good chat. We were just about to leave when I felt something hit me on the head hard and the next thing I knew, I was lying on the sidewalk with worried people looking down at me. Most of them hadn’t seen what happened, but D had — “That squirrel! He just, FELL ON YOUR HEAD!” I started laughing because this sounded crazy. D looked like she was concerned that I was crazy and then realized how bizarre it was and started laughing too. My head ached and when I held up my hand to the side of my head, there was blood on it from where the squirrel’s claws had raked my scalp.

We walked slowly back to the office. I was still seeing double. I bit the bullet and went into my boss’ office. “J, do you have a minute?”

She appraised me as if she was trying to predict what my problem was. Then she put on her concerned and helpful boss face “Sure. Sit down.”

“Thanks. Um, I think I might need to go home. I had a little accident at lunch.”

J looked even more concerned and helpful. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“I think so, but I got hit pretty hard on the head and I can’t see straight. I think I should see a doctor.”

“Oh my goodness. Of course! What happened? Did you get the license number?”

I looked blankly at her and then realized what she thought and started laughing again.

“Oh, no. It was nothing like that. I got hit in the head with a squirrel.”

Two red patches appeared on J’s cheeks. She thought I was playing a prank on her. I could feel her getting ready to scream at me when D walked in and saved the day. “No, she really did! I was there! This squirrel fell out of the tree and landed on her head and knocked her out.” And then she added, just in case that didn’t sound serious enough, “it was really scary.”

And that is how I got a half day off on the nicest day of the year. I never called the doctor. I took the long way home past the sculptor’s house. When I got home, I poured some alcohol on my head, washed down a couple of aspirin with a glass of cheap wine, and waited until my roomates got home so I could tell them the whole story all over again.

Easy like a bird

This has been a somewhat peculiar weekend. It would have been a perfectly ordinary weekend if it were, say, October. But the cold weather (highs in the low-mid-60s both Saturday and Sunday and lows around 40 at night) have made it a little chronologically disorienting.

As is typical in the fall, much of our weekend was dictated by AJ’s assorted sporting events. Friday night he had football practice in a nearby town and, for the first time this year, I went to watch [Just to clarify: I don't go to all the practices -- there are so many and I am so not a sports fan -- but I watch all the games. I am not a total slacker parent.]. This league is so very different than the league he played in last year in our town. Our town is football crazy. It runs 7 tackle teams for 2nd and 3rd graders. They practice 3-4 times a week for 2 hours, with a game every Saturday. They travel. The high school coach comes out to scout them. It’s insane. The other town is the wealthiest one in our immediate area and one of the wealthiest Chicago suburbs. Although they are part of the same league as the one in our town, they only have 1 tackle team in AJ’s age group, or maybe two. The rest of the kids play flag. After attending a few games and practices, I am building up quite a stereotype of parents in this town. Let’s compare and contrast.

In our town, talk is of vacations tubing behind motorboats on the river down the road. In the other town, I overhear people comparing notes on vacations in the Hamptons and on Nantucket. In our town, dads wear flip flops and Nascar hats. In the other town, they are barefoot in Italian loafers and spin the keys to their expensive cars on their fingers while they walk up and down the sidelines talking on their iPhones. In our town, people drive enormous SUVs. In the other town, there are BMWs and Lexuses and Priuses. In our town, the dads bark at the kids who are misbehaving. In the other town the moms (are they all blonde?) plead with their children to behave and then sigh disconsolately when they don’t and turn to another parent as if to say, “But what can I do?” In our town, the boys practice on crowded fields in mosquito-ridden near-swampland. In the other town, they play under lights on brand new, state-of-the-art artificial turf.

Friday night, the other parents were getting to us and we took a drive to a nearby lake to watch ducks take off and land for a while. It was fun.

On Saturday morning, we headed to one of the fancy fields to watch AJ make the only touchdown for his team, which, alas, lost. It’s going to be a long season, I think. AJ is a little frustrated. While the football in our town was more intensity than he wanted, the kids also worked. The kids on his team this year don’t pay attention and the level of play is poor. I think he’s a little bored.

Saturday afternoon was largely spent arguing with AJ, who was in a fiercely argumentative state of mind. He has been very difficult to deal with in a teenagery kind of way for the last couple of months, but the start of school seems to have made it even worse. He is both desperate for more independence and entirely incapable of dealing with it when he gets it. We are trying hard to help give him the tools to be more independent and it seems to be working, at least somewhat, but he has good days and bad days and this weekend was of the latter type– thoroughly exhausting.

Today was much better. We went to watch his first fall baseball game and his first ever game where the kids pitched. AJ didn’t pitch today, but he did steal two bases on his second walk. There is a lot of walking and stealing in this league. It’s a whole new ball game and AJ is excited to be there.

In addition to sports, I did a lot of cooking this weekend, inspired by the fall weather and craving some of my favorite autumn dishes. Friday night I made pot roast, in an oniony winey broth that rivaled Julia Child’s French onion soup for flavor. Saturday night is our radio night. I cook dinner while listening to A Prairie Home Companion, we eat it listening to The Moth, and we wash up to American Routes. I made a vat of split pea soup and served it with a salad of mixed greens, carrots and tomatoes, all picked from my garden. Tonight I roasted a chicken seasoned with fresh lavender and thyme. I love cooking on the weekends almost as much as I hate cooking during the crush of the week.

Tomorrow is the first Monday morning of the school year. AJ is looking forward to it, although he’s a little nervous about the prospect of homework, which his teacher has said is coming this week. Tomorrow he is supposed to get his first spelling list of the year. He loves spelling, probably because he almost never makes a mistake. And we think, although we’re not sure, that the gifted pull-out program may start tomorrow. More on that at AJ’s Clubhouse. In any case, there’s a lot for him to look forward to, and for that I am very grateful.

karma

It is the fourth day of the deluge. I am curled up in a chair in my bedroom wearing corduroys and wool socks and a sweater. It is the 28th of August and it is 62 degrees. And raining, of course. Because that’s pretty much all it does around here anymore.

I taught a class at the pool this morning in a light drizzle. Thanks to all the rain, the pool was the deepest I’ve ever seen it — I’d estimate that it’s about 7-8 inches deeper than it was on Monday. We had to move our shallow end exercises shallower than usual so that we weren’t underwater.

On the way out, I managed to slam the middle finger of my left hand in a 90-year old wrought iron gate. The pain was so excruciating that my whole hand curled up in a muscle spasm. Alas, this is the finger that types the most frequently used letter of the alphabet, so typing is slow. Well, slow for someone who usually types 110 wpm on a slow day. I’m thinking it’s some kind of payback for overusing that finger in moments of stress. I really hope I didn’t break anything. I broke this finger once before and it was no fun.

To add injury to injury, I managed to burn two of the other fingers on the same hand by picking up with my bare hands the lid that had, only moments before, been covering my pot roast for an hour in the oven at 350 degrees. Why did I do that? Because I am AN IDIOT, that’s why. So I’m soaking in ice water and am feeling rather stupid. But at least dinner is more or less cooked already, so I have SOMETHING going for me. And also, my house smells like red wine and thyme.

This is not the first time I have injured this particular finger. 15 years ago, I was working at my desk when Mrs. Stein decided to jump on my lap. I was wearing shorts at the time and Mrs. Stein is not a very good jumper, therefore there was a great deal of pain involved. I leaped out of my chair. This would ordinarily have been no problem and was, in fact, quite a reasonable reaction. The problem was that my floors had recently been refinished and I was wearing socks. So while the general trajectory was upward at the start, it did not remain that way. I slipped and fell hard. I could see myself about to land on Mrs. Stein and for some reason I felt sympathy for her, despite the fact that she had just maimed me. I stuck out my hand to keep myself from landing on her and landed on my middle finger. Then I went to a lecture.

I sat there in the lecture hall watching my finger get bigger and bigger. By the time class was over, it was several times its normal size. I went to the university clinic where x-rays were taken. Yup, broken. They put my finger in a splint — a big splint that held the finger straight up — and wrapped it with flesh colored tape. I think you get the picture. And for a month, that is what I wore, yea, even as I commuted to work and back daily on the Kennedy Expressway. I pissed off motorists from at least three states. I’m lucky I didn’t get shot at.

I’d wondered if that was some kind of karmic retribution too. This time, though, I can’t blame Mrs. Stein. I can’t blame anything but my own klutziness. But given the way things are going today, I’m a little afraid to go outside again. What other near tragedies will befall me? Will I get hit by a car on my way to pick AJ up from school? Trip over my shadow? Actually, that last one’s not possible today, given the extreme darkness. Maybe a squirrel could fall on my head? Because that one’s actually happened before. The damn thing gave me a concussion. But that’s another story.

Wait a minute Mr. Postman

Dear Pandora: I am loving my new Vampire Weekend channel: Postal Service, Spoon, Andrew Bird, The Shins, The Beatles. But can you please stop sending me The Strokes? Most insipid band ever.

Yours in harmony,

Harriet

Dear AJ,

I love that you enjoy reading the New York Times at breakfast like the rest of us, even if you bypass the business news on the way to sports and the weather. It is incredibly cute to see you reading something that is more than half your height. But do you think you could remember to eat breakfast while you are reading? Because you are too crabby when you don’t. Just saying.

Love,
Mom

Dear everyone who sent me email or twitters yesterday using the phrase “Dead Kennedys,”

I LOVE YOU!

Love,

Harriet

Dear AT&T,

You suck. Your DSL sucks. Your customer service sucks. And while your monopoly may eventually force me to pay for your fiber optic service, I will resent it every step of the way.

Disgruntledly yours,
Harriet

Featherweight

It’s the first full day of school and it’s seeming like an incredibly large amount of time to fill. How does 6.5 hours go so slowly in August but so fast in June?

AJ had a great first day, I think. His teacher had asked them each to bring a favorite book to class on the first day, but they didn’t all get to talk about it. AJ was looking forward to going back this morning to have his turn. He first chose Douglas Evans’ MVP, which, if the number of times we’ve had it out of the library (and from three different libraries at that) is any indication, is definitely his favorite book. But our most recent checkout had to be returned and the copy I ordered for his very own has not yet arrived. So instead, he brought in his second favorite, the first book in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, The Lightning Thief.

I picked him up from school at noon and took him out to our traditional first day lunch, along with his friend O and O’s little brother and mom. At the restaurant, we ran into nearly all of the the teachers from their school (AJ’s 1st and 3rd grade teachers and O’s 3rd grade teacher were the sole exceptions that we could identify). AJ & O’s second grade teacher came over to our table to say hello to them, which made them feel about ten feet tall.

I had a less great day. I’m always a little overwhelmed by the return to school. The house is too quiet. I don’t know what to do with my hands. And even though there was a lot of work to do and plenty of time in which to fill it, I seem to have forgotten how to get organized over the summer. Or maybe I was just missing AJ. This morning I was determined to get some woodshedding done on my office, which I largely abandoned this summer. It’s a disaster area. But I couldn’t quite stand to be down there. It’s damp and unpleasant, with all the rain and humidity. And the mess was depressing me. So I’ve been wandering around the house with my laptop, like Goldilocks, trying out different chairs and rooms. Some are too soft or too uncomfortable. None seems to be inspiring the kind of writing I’d like to be doing today. But I will keep trying. And hopefully, as we all settle in to this new schedule, it will not be about the place of work, but about the work itself.

* * * * *
This week’s poetry stretch assignment was to write a back to school poem. I have to say I wasn’t feeling especially poetic about back to school this year. It was a very practical day in many respects. But I gave it a shot:

New books
Coat hooks
Pencils, sharp
Autoharp
Squeaky chairs
Many stairs
Milk box
Itchy socks
New dress
Recess
White shoes
Two by twos
Butterflies
Sleepy eyes
Book bag
Pledge to flag
Backpacks
Small snacks
Smell of ink
Classroom sink
Spelling list
Clenched in fist
Lunchroom fray
Plastic tray
Chef’s surprise
No more fries
Gym class
Balls to pass
Math team
Day dream
Chalk dust
Homework – must
Bell rings
Gather things
Home we wend
Summer’s end

Please click on the link above to see some of the other wonderful back to school poems!

In session

AJ could scarcely stand the wait for Back to School Night yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him quite as excited. All summer he’s been complaining about school, but it has always seemed more like it was something he felt he was supposed to do, not something he really meant. He was clearly very excited, but also seemed to want to look like he wasn’t too excited. But he didn’t do a very good job.

AJ and I walked up to school alone. Poor Mr. Spy was still too sick to venture out. We wandered the hall looking for his classroom, which turned out to be the very last one (“When I come in from recess, it will be the very first one!” AJ said with excitement. Clearly it is the very best possible location.). We stopped to read the sign and AJ exclaimed with pleasure, “Mrs. W’s our aid! Yay!” Mrs. W. was his classroom aid in first grade. She left last year when she finished her teaching degree, to take a classroom job at another elementary school in the district. But in our district’s current major budget crisis, I guess hers was one of the positions eliminated, and so she is back,. She is wonderful and he is lucky to have her. She really functions as a second teacher.

Then we walked in. Mrs. S. took one look at us and said, “You must be AJ!” which AJ thought was wonderful. She said she recognized me from my library job last year so she knew who we were, even though we had none of us ever been introduced. And in that moment, she won us both over completely.

AJ’s new classroom looks much more grownup. He goes in the big kids’ door now, plays on the big kids’ playground and is an entirely new wing of the school. There is much less clutter and much more order than in any of his previous classrooms. The classroom has walls covered in maps and charts of interesting things. AJ found the job chart on the back wall and saw that he was to be the week’s messenger. “That’s my favorite job!” AJ found his desk, right in between his good friend C and The Boy Across the Street. AJ put his gym clothes in his new gym bag, which unlike the bags for the younger grades, has the school logo on it. He hung it up in his new cubby with his name on it and checked to see who was next to him. He came back in the classroom and arranged his school supplies in his desk. He turned to look at the wall of bookshelves packed with neatly arranged books. He found a bunch that looked familiar. There were 30 books written by Mr. Spy. They are going to be using them in class this year. “You’ll have to tell Daddy about that,” I said to him, and he nodded and kept looking around while I signed up to volunteer for a couple of class parties and for field trips. They don’t use parent volunteers weekly in third grade, for which I am actually grateful, although I’ll miss it too. Then we said goodbye to Mrs. S. and headed for the cafeteria for a snack.

AJ’s friend J’s mom is the chair of the PTO. She had emailed me in the afternoon saying she was desperate for more help manning the tables the PTO runs in the cafeteria to sell t-shirts and sign up volunteers and serve refreshments. I set myself up in the kitchen handing out brownies and muffins while AJ ran off with his friends. After my shift was done, I found him playing kickball on his new playground
AJ ran wild.

Found him after my shift outside playing kickball on his new playground with a pack of his friends. As I rounded him up to head home, he protested.

“Can I please go back inside and say goodbye to Mrs. S?”

“Sure. That’s a great idea,” I said, smothering a smile.

“Can you come with me?” he added a little nervously.

“Sure.”

Once back in the classroom, he froze for a moment with nerves. “He just wanted to tell you goodbye,” I explained to his teacher, who then started talking to him as the smile on his face grew bigger.

Back home, instead of reading the next installment in his beloved Harry Potter book, we did a dramatic reading of the curriculum and classroom rules. Because that is how we roll around here. It’s nerd city.

This morning we walked back up to school. This time AJ wore his red backpack. He tried to outwalk me, but I was having none of it.

“What was your favorite year of school?” he asked.

“When I was a kid, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“I think it was actually third grade. I loved my teacher that year. She was great. And she read us really good books out loud in class.”

“I think mine’s going to be third grade too.”

He found his line and stood behind his friends NS and C. NH was further up in line, his nose buried in a book. Then the bell rang and they began disappearing through the doors. And I learned something. Third graders don’t look back.

I walked home alone.

It’s just that time of year when we push ourselves ahead

It’s the last day of summer vacation, but the craziness of the schedule is making it feel more like the first day of school. I taught water aerobics this morning with a new tape full of French pop with Dar Williams’ “The End of the Summer” tacked on during final cooldown, and then sprinted home for the Fastest Shower in the West (TM) before tearing to the next town over for a goodbye brunch for my yoga teacher and dear friend D who is moving to New Mexico on Wednesday. I am starting to take it personally, all these people I know who are moving to New Mexico. It is starting to seem like some kind of sign. We sat out on the terrace under umbrellas and ate our eggs and pancakes and talked until noon. I am very sad to see D go. She is, I think, a real kindred spirit. She is also probably the best yoga teacher I’ve ever had, although for reasons that have only partly to do with yoga but more to do with her warmth and ability to inspire. She has had a difficult time of it the last few years. I have a feeling this change is just what she needs. And although I’m sad for me, I’m very happy for her.

After brunch, I battled a freight train to make it home in time. Unfortunately, the freight train won and I was late. But I managed to get AJ to a birthday party at his friend N’s house only ten minutes late. He was very excited about seeing N again. N is his friend from preschool whose father died of cancer a few years ago. He’s only a few months younger than AJ, but because of school cutoff dates, he’s a year behind him in school and goes to a different school, so we don’t see him nearly as often as we would like.

It is a spectacular day — 77, sunny and breezy — the kind of day you rarely get in August around here. It hardly seems right to be sitting indoors on a day like this. I think I may need to find somewhere else to be until I need to pick up AJ.

Tonight is Back to School Night. After dinner, AJ and I will walk up to school to meet his new teacher, visit his classroom, and drop off his school supplies. Tomorrow morning, it all begins. My baby’s in third grade.

Rocky Raccoon checked into his room

AJ’s first football game Saturday night did not start well, but they came back in the second half and ended up losing by one point and four inches. AJ played offense and tackled 7 guys (by which I mean he pulled their flags). We all have mixed feelings about the flag league. On the one hand, it’s nice that it’s so much less intense and less time-consuming than last year’s tackle league. On the other hand, its lack of intensity means the games aren’t quite as exciting to watch. But they are a lot shorter.

This morning, Mr. Spy woke up feeling ghastly, so I took AJ to his football pictures solo and watched him try for the punt, pass and kick contest (results as yet unannounced), bought him lunch, and dragged him to the store to find a present for a birthday party he has to go to tomorrow. It is officially the last day of summer vacation. A birthday party seems like a good way to end it.

Afterwards, I dropped AJ off at a friend’s house and came home to mow the lawn. Mowing the lawn at our house is a huge job. Not only do we have a pretty big lawn, but it’s on a steep hill with a marshy area at the bottom where the wheels tend to get stuck.. It’s a job that normally Mr. Spy does. He has more muscles than I do. I have, however, renewed appreciation for his work. I’m exhausted.

While I was mowing back by the waterfall, Mr. Spy stopped me and told me to watch out. I turned around and saw a small raccoon dragging himself up from the stream. He was exerting a great deal of effort. His back legs didn’t seem to be working properly and he was covered in buzzing flies. Never have I seen a creature that was so clearly dying. He dragged himself a couple of feet and then put his head down. Then he turned to look at me and I at him. His eyes were glazed, but he looked as if he were in great pain. I wish I could have done something to help him, or at least to put him out of his misery, but I knew I shouldn’t get too close. It is the only time I have wished I had a gun. He continued dragging himself around the waterfall and then back down into the jewelweed by the stream, stopping every foot or two to rest before continuing on his difficult journey. It was tragic to watch.

I’m now passed out and full of Thai food and wishing I had a beer.

How was your weekend?

Saturday

Fall fell last night and caught us unprepared. Mr. Spy went to AJ’s football practice and came home shivering with wet feet. This morning, when I got around to checking the thermometer around 8, it was 52. And it’s stayed cool all day. This was perfect, because today, we needed to think fall. First, we had to double check AJ’s school supplies, a project that included sharpening 48 pencils and labeling lots of very small things. Unfortunately, in the process, we discovered that several items had been added to the list since we printed it out to go shopping. This means yet another trip to the store. And there’s still the letters to iron on his gym shirt. Why can’t I use a Sharpie?

Back to school always makes me a little grumpy. The thing that makes me most grumpy of all is the prospect of packing lunches. That is definitely my least favorite job, mainly because AJ doesn’t like to eat. He regularly comes home with all or almost all of his lunch intact.

Second, we had to clean out AJ’s room to make room for the homework and new books that are sure to be coming. This task required AJ’s presence. He sat in state on his beanbag chair and approved or vetoed the things I held up for removal with his own complicated system of code, which he explained to me in detail before hand. The Secret Service would be lucky to get this kid as an employee.

Third, tonight AJ is playing his first football game of the season. You may have noted an absence of football talk around here as compared to last year. This is because AJ decided he didn’t want to play tackle again this year. Instead, we found a flag league in a nearby town. Flag requires 2 practices and 1 game a week as compared to 4 practices+game per week of last year. It’s also a lot less hectic and practices are shorter and at a more reasonable time of day (at least for now, while it’s still light in the early evening). This has meant a lot less all-absorbing chaos around here.

Tonight’s game is in the football stadium of the high school in that town. It’s one of the swanker high school facilities around here and the field has been recently redone. It looks more like a real field than anything he’s played on to date. I’m sure he’ll be excited when he sees it.

However, the weather, which is perfect for football, has me stymied as to wardrobe. Is it really possible to wear a wool sweater in August? Because I’m thinking I might need one after the sun goes down. Hmm.

The weather has also inspired renewed effort on the garden. I’ve made a list of seeds I need to track down to fill my fall garden with beets and cabbage and spinach and chard. I harvested enough beans this morning for tonight’s dinner. And I poached a pile of overripe apricots in the rose rioja I opened last night that turned out to be too sweet. It turned out to be perfect for apricots, with a stick of cinnamon and some sugar. I pulled the apricots out partway through, cooked the syrup down until it thickened, then added the apricots back while it cooled. The result is a lovely winy, jammy sauce that will make a great base for a drink (perhaps mixed with prosecco?) or over ice cream. The added bonus of cooking such a thing, of course, is that you can drink wine while you’re making it. You’re taste testing, after all. And the house smells like the end of the summer.

And now it’s time to pull on my wool socks and my jacket and go root for the home team.

It is 5 a.m. and you are listening to Los Angeles

The hawks are looping over the house this afternoon, crying to each other, which always reminds me of the opening of Northern Exposure and requires a quick check to see if I’ve migrated to Alaska without my knowledge.

It is cool and breezy here today. It feels like fall. And while my garden harvest has just barely begun, the acorns are hammering down on the driveway like hailstones, and the burning bush and vibernum are tinged with scarlet. I feel like I’ve missed summer this year, probably because the weather has been, for the most part, distinctly unsummerlike. But also because we didn’t managed to do some of our favorite summer things – a concert in Grant Park, a day at the lake, a camping trip.

AJ and Ben Franklin Boy are downstairs playing a baseball game on the Wii. It is freakishly quiet and I should probably check on them to make sure no one has died of a head injury, but I am definitely in the “let sleeping dogs lie” camp today.

A quiet house is good for working.