Do you smell it? That's the smell of backpacks and pencil sharpeners, of new clothes and fresh haircuts. It is the bitter-sweet decay of fun as frivolous party dude Summer gives way to conscientious goody-two-shoes Autumn. I heard someone watching a professional football game yesterday. Nothing announces the end of summer like the muffled tones of John Madden thrumming through the wall.
Summer is fading. People are vacationing with the frenzied intensity of those who know that the park is about to close, that this ride will probably be the last...until next year.
I am not immune to the change, either. I begin to catch myself composing lesson plans and mapping out learning units and holiday programs in the quiet hours of the afternoon. I am even a little ashamed to admit that even though this has been quite possibly the best summer yet, I find myself eager to start another school year.
(I interrupt my reverie to inform you that my young cousinling Greta is currently trying to eat the couch. I wouldn't worry too much. She doesn't have any teeth yet. I may have mentioned her before. She is also affected by the coming school season, having recently sloughed off the summer laziness of sitting, blob-like, and eating her toes, in favor of a concentrated effort towards independant ambulation. She's not yet up to crawling, mind you, but she rolls with a grace and efficiency marvelous to behold--one leg flung into the air, like a lone synchronized swimmer in the olympic pool of carpet that is her living room floor. I would not be surprised if she skipped crawling altogether and went straight from rolling to walking. She has that sort of intelligent mischievousness about her. She also has an extremely arresting face...the sort of face that makes one impatient for the amorphous gurglings she currently emits to form themselves into words. A small part of me worries that she may skip words altogether and go straight to telepathy. I wonder that people have the nerve to produce more babies, when perfection has so obviously already been achieved. We pardon their ignorance, and smile with beneficence upon those whose progeny merely crawl and stare.)
There! my interruption has become more interesting than my reverie. Where was I?
Oh yes. School's starting...
Too late. Things are happening which are more interesting to me than writing about school.
Did I say I was looking forward to school? Blech.
Summer isn't over yet!
