The End of Another Summer
Sep. 2nd, 2013 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisnewdayIn past years, I've usually managed to post something fittingly nostalgic about the end of summer. You know, the last trip to the beach, the marker buoys being dragged up onto the shore, the day-ending walk across the parking lot trailing beach sand and exhausted kids.
But this year wasn't really a beach year, the weather being some of the worst since the year that Mount St. Helens erupted, sending a pall of ash into the atmosphere that chilled the planet and somehow brought almost constant rains.
And then there was the fact that we either misplaced or never received our season pass from NY State Parks and Rec and, even though they knew we'd paid for it this year as we have for the past four or five, all they would do for us is offer a one-day pass. So the grandson and I, despite having virtually lived on the beach in past years, went only once. And not on their insulting, one-day pass, but thanks anyway.
And so, even as the local media yammer endlessly about the last days of the State Fair, the this, the that, the Labor Day traffic home, I feel my own focus turned, almost forcibly, ahead. And indeed the schedule ahead, especially for one who has allowed himself to lapse into a summer-long, sideways drift, seems brutal. Starting the day after tomorrow.
Of course, a lot of it revolves around the grandson, which I really don't mind. Still, it feels daunting and it's most definitely there, somehow breathing on the back of my neck even though it lies ahead.
For starters the CNY Family Sports Centre, where he plays soccer, has inexplicably sprung a last-minute "organizational" meeting for the Fall Fun League which promises to be, contrary to its stated purpose, absolute chaos.
I mean, c'mon, can't you just sit down with all those registration forms, which we've decimated half a rain forest to print out and send in, and, in a nice quiet place of your own choosing, make up the team rosters and schedules that you'll have to input and then email to me anyway?
And why, if you're still committed to having this meeting, does it have to be the night before school starts?
Fortunately, with respect to school, we're mostly OK for the short first week. The clothes, shoes, and school supplies have been bought and organized, although the obligatory and necessary end-of-summer haircut still needs to be gotten. Which, I'm fairly certain, our longtime friend Ahn, the Vietnamese barber, will kindly accomodate.
In any case, I now declare that the likewise obligatory and fittingly unsatisfactory end-of-season journal entry is hereby written...
LPK
LiveJournal
9.2.2013 (a)
But this year wasn't really a beach year, the weather being some of the worst since the year that Mount St. Helens erupted, sending a pall of ash into the atmosphere that chilled the planet and somehow brought almost constant rains.
And then there was the fact that we either misplaced or never received our season pass from NY State Parks and Rec and, even though they knew we'd paid for it this year as we have for the past four or five, all they would do for us is offer a one-day pass. So the grandson and I, despite having virtually lived on the beach in past years, went only once. And not on their insulting, one-day pass, but thanks anyway.
And so, even as the local media yammer endlessly about the last days of the State Fair, the this, the that, the Labor Day traffic home, I feel my own focus turned, almost forcibly, ahead. And indeed the schedule ahead, especially for one who has allowed himself to lapse into a summer-long, sideways drift, seems brutal. Starting the day after tomorrow.
Of course, a lot of it revolves around the grandson, which I really don't mind. Still, it feels daunting and it's most definitely there, somehow breathing on the back of my neck even though it lies ahead.
For starters the CNY Family Sports Centre, where he plays soccer, has inexplicably sprung a last-minute "organizational" meeting for the Fall Fun League which promises to be, contrary to its stated purpose, absolute chaos.
I mean, c'mon, can't you just sit down with all those registration forms, which we've decimated half a rain forest to print out and send in, and, in a nice quiet place of your own choosing, make up the team rosters and schedules that you'll have to input and then email to me anyway?
And why, if you're still committed to having this meeting, does it have to be the night before school starts?
Fortunately, with respect to school, we're mostly OK for the short first week. The clothes, shoes, and school supplies have been bought and organized, although the obligatory and necessary end-of-summer haircut still needs to be gotten. Which, I'm fairly certain, our longtime friend Ahn, the Vietnamese barber, will kindly accomodate.
In any case, I now declare that the likewise obligatory and fittingly unsatisfactory end-of-season journal entry is hereby written...
LPK
LiveJournal
9.2.2013 (a)
