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Autumn Equinox

Today’s Google Doodle reminded me that today is the first official day of Fall.

It’s felt kind of Fall-ish for a couple of weeks now. The leaves are just starting to turn, and the weather is mostly temperate, with a few chilly days and a few warm days thrown in because it’s the Midwest.

First Day of Autumn

Fall is always a bittersweet time for me. The weather is beautiful, and so are the colors… but Winter is just around the corner.

I hate Winter.

Being outside when it’s so cold is physically painful — or, at the very least, uncomfortable. The daylight hours are so, so short. (I couldn’t deal with living in the upper latitudes, where winter daylight is only a few hours long, if that.) Driving becomes an exercise in Getting There Alive; turn lanes are treacherous, the highway is wet and slick, and drivers are either foolhardy or overcautious. The snow is pretty enough for Christmas and New Year’s, but then it sticks around until well after Valentine’s Day and turns into a gray, slushy eyesore.

I guess what I’m getting at is that maybe, just maybe, I could learn to really enjoy Autumn if I can live in the moment.

Autumn is beautiful. I have nothing against Autumn. I love Autumn.

But Winter, you bitch… you can suck it.

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Evening Ritual

It happens almost every night.

I put Connor to bed. As I’m closing his door, I look across the hall to our bedroom and see the time glowing in blue numerals from our alarm clocks.

Damn. I wanted to have him in bed a half hour ago. Time got away from us again. 

Oh, well. I head downstairs and load the rest of the dinner dishes into the dishwasher, just waiting to hear the sound of Connor’s door opening, followed by his little voice asking me to cover him up.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t happen tonight; it’s about 50/50 lately whether he’ll get up again after I tuck him in.

Still, though, I like to be within earshot until I’m sure he’s totally zonked out. So, after the kitchen is as cleaned up as I’m going to get it tonight, I head into the living room to fart around on my phone for a while. I listen to him kick the wall, sing to himself, and finally subside into silence.

Time to work on that to-do list, right?

Nope, says my brain.

So I try to find something else to occupy my remaining brain cells so I don’t go up to bed before 9:30 like some sort of lamer. One can only play around on one’s phone for so long, though, before one realizes that this is just dumb and just go up to bed already.

Of course, there’s that one last thing to do — put recyclables away, or pack my lunch, or gather up today’s stinky workout clothes — so I never get up to bed early, anyway.

Tomorrow’s another day. Rinse and repeat.