Not Quite Ready

In my nearly 30 years of teaching it had been my usual experience that a school year slugged along at a gastropod's pace until Halloween, and after that the speed increased exponentially with each passing week until the end was rushing at me seemingly too fast for me to get done all the things I'd hoped to accomplish. This year, however, has been clipping by at a fast pace from the first day running. I have to hope that somebody won't hit the brakes along the way, particularly in the spring when the days off are sparse.

Except for when there are sound reasons to take the car I've been keeping my pledge to myself to take the scooter to and from work every day. It's getting very brisk in the mornings, but so far the three mile run from the house to the school has been bearable without the visor as long as I keep my ears covered. Another ten degrees and I'll need the helmet with the visor, but still I'll hope to keep running the bike till the slippery stuff comes and sticks around.

I suppose now that mid autumn is here I'm ready for it. I don't like the early dark at all, but I manage to get by one day at a time with that feeling that nearly compels me to stay in the house after the sun sets. I'm still using the grill to get supper ready as often as the choice of meat warrants its use, but it does take something out of the experience when the sun is already down and I'm not sitting beside the grill with a beer while poking at the meat with a long fork or tongs, but rather running back into the house to get warm for a few minutes before seeing if it needs to be turned.

The Halloween Jack o' Lantern is still around for Thanksgiving, but it would seem that some of the little woodland creatures have been enjoying him in bits and pieces. God bless him, though, he's smiling through it all even when I'm grumping around in the house at 5:30 lamenting the cold and dark.

Fall has its occasional perks, I suppose, like this shot of a lone leaf impaled on the rake. I think it's a pretty good photo, suitable for hanging in some professional office where some decorator's pretentiousness leads one to believe that doctors, lawyers, financial advisors, and the like have decently cultured tastes. Not that they don't, necessarily, but do they really buy their own prints for their office walls? What can I say? I'm always the skeptic. I digress, but if you spend any time here other than in this visit, I know you're neither surprised nor disappointed.

And the "not quite ready" part? Christmas!

Oh! I love Christmas, to be certain, but in its own time and not just at the end of the whole Hallowthanksgivingmas season that the retailers have created. I think I could be happy enough with a well placed and properly timed sprig of pine, with a pine cone or two remaining upon it, a red and a green glass ornament, and a big, red bow. A neatly wrapped present or three, a seasonally scented candle*, a few carols on the "Victrola" (iPod docked to the stereo), and I'll be like Tiny Tim chanting, "God bless us, everyone!" all around the town with enough joy in my heart to make the new and improved Ebeneezer Scrooge appear to be still the piker he had been and the Grinch his nasty old self.

Welcome Christmas! Za ho ra moo...

In another month!

* ( I believe whoever invented those "fresh linen" scented candles should be strapped to the exhaust hose of my next door neighbor's clothes dryer for a few good cycles.)