Summer Lovin', Had me a Blast...

I am fried from a week-long series of intense staff meetings (they could have been televised on ESPN2 they were so extreme!), but feel guilty for not posting anything the last five days or so. I have nothing witty in my brain tonight, so I'm going to share a paragraph from Annie Dillard that sums up my day.

Today it became pretty clear that Summer 2005 is singing its swan song. Kids started school today up here in this section of Pennsylvania, and when I went to Starbucks this evening, I was able to get a "Pumpkin Spice" frappuccino. Nothing says the death of summer like "Pumpkin Spice."

So before we lose the flip-flops for the timberlands, here's a gracious thought from Annie Dillard about the changing of the seasons. Well, OK, it really has nothing to do with the changing of the seasons. It has to do with Winter, which is creeping up on us more and more each day (kind of like the age of 30 for me!). But I liked its sentiment...that we really do live in an age of innocence. Despite what that kook Don Henley might say. Enjoy!

"I'm getting used to this planet and to this curious human culture which is as cheerfully enthusiastic as it is cheerfully cruel. I never cease to marvel at the newspapers. In my life I've seen one million pictures of a duck that has adopted a kitten, or a cat that has adopted a duckling, or a sow and a puppy, a mare and a muskrat. And for the one millionth time, I'm fascinated...I wish I had the wonderful pair before me, mooning about the yard. It's all beginning to smack of home. The winter pictures that come in over the wire from every spot on the continent are getting to be as familiar as my own hearth. I wait for the annual aerial photograph of an enterprising fellow who has stamped in the snow a giant Valentine for his girl. Here's the chickadee-trying-to-drink-from-a-frozen-birdbath picture, captioned, "Sorry, wait till Spring," and the shot of a utterly bundled child crying piteously on a sled at the top of the hill, labeled, "Needs a Push." How can an old world be so innocent?"

- Annie Dillard, "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"