Distraction

Wiki knowledge is dangerous and viral, in case you didn't know. One link leads to another, and soon you're reading an in-depth explanation of the word "portmanteau," having no recollection whatsoever of the concept in your reading that drove you to Wikipedia in the first place.

Oh, ADD, you simple product of the digital age, you know no boundaries; your indiscriminate attack on students everywhere is worthy of great fear and admiration.

Now, where was I...?

Migration

I couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from. Through my open office window I heard a racket of what could have been dogs barking, coyotes howling, tires squealing or a playground full of children shouting. It was loud enough to be distracting, and with the sun shining and the day absolutely perfect outside, I didn't hesitate to follow my curiosity out the door. I followed my ears down to the river and as I got closer, realized that an entire flock of Canadian Geese had made a pit stop in the middle of the Connecticut, just down the steep hill from my office.

I stood on the bank and watched them and listened to their caucauphony. The sun glinted off the water as it lapped lazily at the muddy shore. Overgrown summer river weeds swayed and bent toward the water. The geese shouted back and forth and I wondered, are they talking? Arguing? Making flight plans? Warning of danger? Can they even hear each other at all? The noise ebbed and flowed and for spans of more than thirty seconds, not one of them made a single noise. They just floated en masse with the river's current and blinked absently into the afternoon. Soon though, one would squawk and another would answer and soon the whole bunch would be singing.

I wondered where they were heading, whether winter was drawing them south. I wondered if this temporary heat wave confused them, whether their biological processes swam in confusion or spun in barometric dismay. I wondered when they'd be back and if, when they returned, I'd be here to hear them again.

Autumn Palette

I got the better part of my work done by mid-afternoon today and so indulged my recent daydreams of chili and corn bread. I made a big pot of Red, Black, Green and Gold Chili for dinner from my favorite recipe in Moosewood Cooks At Home. Black beans, golden corn kernels, green pepper from our garden, kidney beans, tomatoes and a mix of the right spices make this the best chili known to man. Warm corn muffins are just a bonus. Apricot wheat beer to top it off is like a joke to make babies giggle with glee. We are those babies.
We may be busy, and autumn may have barely just begun, but we're eating like it's cold outside and loving every minute of it. Happy Equinox.

Sunny, High of 65

I blinked, and it's autumn. (In reality, I blinked and then my life was swallowed whole by this new insane and wacky schedule in which I balance school and homework and working 8-5 and eating proper meals and sleeping and finding time to hug Ed and keeping my head on straight, and somewhere in there, the season changed. But I digress.) As August turned to September and the daily high temperatures began dipping below 80, I groaned and professed that I wasn't ready, that summer could not end. It was a great summer with perfect weather and so much fun stuff happening, and I just didn't want to let it go.

But then, I remembered soup. And sweaters. And apple picking, afghans, jet black night skies. Tea and hot cocoa and foggy mornings along the stretch of river between here and everywhere. Sleeping through cool nights and feeling hibernation coming on. Halloween, apple cider, fall foliage, warm socks. There is nothing that is not delicious about this new season, and now, I am ready.

Go On Get

Excuse me, sore throat that crept in when I woke up this morning? Hi. It's me, your host body. You are not welcome here. Please to go the hell away.

Many thanks!
Elli

Bill Nye Style

School is, in turns, awesome and overwhelming, terrific, terrifying, interesting, exciting and crazy. I like it. This is definitely the program for me, even if I never thought I'd be studying isotopes and radioactive decay ever again. The point is not that these things interest me to any great degree. The point is that to be an effective educator, and to really get at what drives me to do what I do, I need to have at least some grounding in these elementary concepts. Folks, watch out. Liberal arts girl is becoming a scientist.

First Aid

I just ripped my finger open on an ill-placed staple and went to the office first aid kit looking for a band-aid or some antiseptic. Neither of the two was inside. Instead, I found an industrial-sized bottle of eye wash and an "abdominal pad," a thick piece of gauze the size of my head for stopping up major puncture or gunshot wounds to the stomach. Glad to see we've got the basics covered.

Bountiful Harvest

The farmer's markets are exploding with harvest right now, and so is our kitchen. This is maybe the best part of summer, and something I am definitely going to miss as winter returns.

Inundated

We'd spent the last ten hours with our noses to the grindstone on this, the first weekend of real academia for both of us since undergrad. My neck and shoulders were in knots from hunching over what seemed endless reams of photocopied handouts. We'd broken for dinner and an hour in front of the television to decompress. Some SNL special was on. They broke for commercials and one featured two cartoon bears, one blue and one red, running down the beach.

I snickered, "Is this a political ad?"

The colors seemed smackingly obvious and so very out of context. The bears continued down the beach and headed straight for two outhouses next to one another.

"I think this is a toilet paper ad," said Ed.

I guffawed. "Both parties, headed straight for the pooper!"

The ad cut away to two Charmin toilet paper packages, one blue, one red, with bears on the front.

In curvy package promotion letters, the red package read Strongest.

And the blue one? Softest.

September One

September the first and it positively feels, looks, smells like autumn. The sky is bluer, the tree leaves greener and everything sharper, as if someone turned the lens just a quarter inch and now everything is in focus. It's in the light, a brighter white somehow compared to the hazy yellow summer sun. It's in the wind, too. There's a chill that wasn't there last week or even yesterday. It's still warm, hot even, in the midday sun, but the shade is cold and my short sleeves weren't enough as we traipsed through the farmer's market this morning and wandered down alleyways to sporting goods stores and to the bank. I forgot my ID and debit card at home after a night on the town without a pocket to stow them in. I couldn't cash my check because they didn't believe it was me. I was frustrated at the thought of running the same errand twice, needing to go back to the bank again, this time with the appropriate documentation. There's not enough time in one day or one weekend, one autumn, one lifetime, to be wasting any of it going to the bank, twice.