End of summer

I know that scientifically the last day of summer is September 21st, but everyone knows that it really ends on Labor Day weekend. Today is the last day of August and tomorrow is Labor Day, and when this weekend ends, summer ends.

Of course, we'll still have lots of warm days. Every day this coming week it's supposed to be in the low 80s. Between 80 and 83, but no hotter, and in the low to mid 50s at night. In other words, perfect weather. The kind you dream about all year, but only get little bits of here and there (if you live most places, that is). Everything is still madly green, with only the tiniest indications that the season might be changing. A few yellow leaves here and there. Nothing much. But the hummingbirds are going. We had a lot of rain this past week, multiple heavy thunderstorms, and I think a lot of little birds just decided it was time to leave. Usually they're here for another week or two, so I'll keep my feeders up and keep watching for them, but hummer season is almost over.

To make me feel better, the magpies have come down from the mountains and are back in the neighborhood. Squawk, squawk, squawk. So happy to hear them. I need to put out the suet I bought them last spring and then forgot about.

This has been quite a week. I think what's really been blowing my mind is Teen A's conversion into Mr. High School. Last year, when he was at TEC halftime, he hardly seemed aware of his regular school. It was just a place he had to go for a few hours every morning, sit through boring math and language arts and history, and then he could zip off to TEC where his real life was taking place.

This year, after dropping TEC, he has fully embraced the life of a high school senior. While Teen B has always done this, he doesn't have a group of friends to hang out with. Teen A suddenly has a whole crowd of friends, and with them he is doing everything that high school seniors traditionally do. On Thursday, he left right before dinner and came back a few hours later with his face painted. He'd been to the football game! That's the first high school game either kid has ever attended. Then he went to bed, because he was getting up at 4 am to go to "Senior Sunrise" (in which the seniors hang out on the football field and watch the sun come up, and then eat snacks). Why 4 am, when the sun was going to rise at 6:30? Oh, he had to pick people up and "do something." I set my alarm and got him up. Then I reset it for 5 am, to get Teen B up, but he decided to skip the "Sunrise" and sleep in until 7:30. No buddies to meet up with, so it's not as much fun. 

Teen A came home that day with the Prius decorated in classic high school texts, such as "Honk for the Senior!" Teen B later rubbed off everything except the word "Senior." Sigh. Interactions between the two of them are getting worse and worse and I don't know what to do about it.

But Teen B can surprise me too. I think it was Friday he said to me, "Can I drop Astronomy and take Culinary 2 instead?" He's taking Culinary 1 this semester. Astronomy is a 1-semester class that he's signed up to take next semester. My first reaction was "No!" because I think of him as a science guy, so of course he should take science. But then I thought, what the heck? If he's enjoying Culinary 1, let him take Culinary 2. So I said sure, if you want to. We'll see what he ends up doing. The key (for me) is to stay flexible, follow their lead instead of dictating their choices.

This weekend, the "fun" is continuing. Saturday morning Teen A got up at 2 am (I set my alarm, but he actually got himself up) in order to meet his buddies to climb Longs Peak (the closest 14er to us). We had gone shopping the night before to buy energy bars and other such supplies, and he'd actually gone to bed very early (he was tired from the previous day's activities). I had read that it typically takes 13 hours to do Longs Peak, but he was home again by 12:30. Considering that we're about an hour from the trailhead, plus he had to pick up and drop off friends, maybe he started the hike around 3:30 and finished around 11? So, only 7 and a half hours on the trail? Something like that. I asked him if they made it to the summit and he said no, but almost. I don't know what that means (I've never had the slightest desire to attempt Longs Peak). 

Today, because classic teenagers never rest, he and his buddies are off on a camping trip! Thursday night (after the football game), he came in our bedroom and said, out of nowhere, "Where's a place to camp that's free?" Huh? After extended arguments between me and Rocket Boy about whether Forest Service campgrounds are free (they're not), and whether it's OK to just pitch a tent any old place (it's not), Rocket Boy suggested the cabin. And so, that's where the kids are off to today. I stayed out of the preparations, but Rocket Boy got very involved, digging out piles of our old camping gear and offering endless pieces of advice. I can foresee SO many problems with this expedition -- but guess what? There's no cell phone service anywhere near the cabin, so Teen A and his friends will just have to cope by themselves.

I'm imagining the boys' (I assume they're all boys, but I don't know that) reactions when they see the inside of the cabin (because despite their plan to camp out, I'm betting they're going to go inside to at least look around -- Teen A brought the key with him). Rocket Boy's old toys are still spread out on the floor: the castle, the auto body shop and parking garage. My dollhouse stuff is on shelves on one wall. And then there's Clifford's collection of antlers, high up over the door. It's a pretty crazy place.

I feel so relaxed, having Teen A gone for at least a day. No chance of any sibling knock-down drag-out fights while he's gone. The house is peaceful. I'm going to try to get Teen B to do some homework with me, and maybe we'll do something fun, like go to a movie. Or maybe we won't. Whatever we do, it will be fine. I expect to sleep well tonight.

*** 

In my August reading post, published a couple of days ago, I said I was sure I wasn't going to read any more books this month. Well, I was wrong. I went to the main library yesterday to get my first few books for September, and (as usual) saw something else on a shelf that looked good, so I got it too and read it immediately. The book was It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs by Mary Louise Kelly, who is a journalist for NPR, and it's supposedly about her elder son's last year of high school, kind of a memoir about the last stages of motherhood. The book looked great and I zoomed through it. And it was awful! So disappointing. I looked for other reviews of the book, to find out whether others had the same reaction, and many did. Most people's issue with it was her incredible "privilege" or "white privilege," as some people called it, which she seems to have almost no awareness of. For example, her sons attend a private school in Washington, DC. She never names it, but she does say it's one of three schools on Cathedral Close, so I looked that up and discovered their school is St. Alban's. Which costs $58,000 a year for high school. She does say that her husband makes more than she does, and I looked him up, and he's a high-powered lawyer, so he probably makes several hundred thousand dollars a year, and she makes whatever she makes, and they live in a big house close to the British consulate and the South African consulate, and and and. 

Even when she goes shopping, she mentions that the "eager shop assistant" comes to her dressing room and offers to bring her "some gorgeous new dresses" to try on. Do you know how long it's been since I've tried on clothes in a store where the employees actually check on you and offer to help? I'm not sure, but I'm going to say it's been 30 years. When I was in my early 30s I used to shop at Leaf & Petal, in Palo Alto, when I was home, and I think the employees did come to the dressing room and offer to bring alternative outfits. OK, so I have experienced that. But not for a LONG time.

We won't even discuss her beach house on Nantucket. Of course, Rocket Boy and I own a cabin in the mountains. But we didn't buy it! It's ours by accident! And there's no way I could hole up there to work on a book, because I can't breathe up there, I don't know how to turn on the water, there's no heat source except for a wood stove that would suffocate me... (hmm, the lady doth protest too much methinks?)

And then there's the fact that supposedly this is a book about devoting herself to her elder son, since it's his senior year, but all the interesting parts of the book are about her career and we hardly hear anything about her son.  

But what actually bothered me the most about the book was that it seemed deceitful. Near the end she reveals that her husband requested that they separate (they divorced later that year, after the book was finished). She says

Things have been difficult for a long time, and we both bear blame for this...

But where was that "difficulty" in the rest of the book? Early on, when she talks to him about deciding to write this book, she says, "Nick eyes me coolly." But that's the only bit of conflict I noticed. And yet, at the same time, I kept thinking (before getting to the separation part), where's her husband in all this? At one point she writes about a big storm and how she woke up at 3 am and went to find her younger son trying to take care of their dog, who is scared by the thunder. And later she goes back to "my own bed." And I kept thinking, where is your husband? Was he on a business trip? If so, why not say that? Do they sleep in separate bedrooms? If so, why not mention that? If something like this happened in my house, both Rocket Boy and I would have been awakened by the storm, and we both would have gone to help the kid, or if only one of us went, the other would have told the other all about it afterwards. But Mary Louise Kelly seems to be operating entirely on her own. And that seemed weird. 

This is not a book about my marriage. That's a story for a different day, a different book entirely.

But the thing is, a book about her kids growing up and leaving home IS a book about her marriage. It's a book about a family, and she completely omits the part about how the couple who run the family are falling apart. It might have made the book sadder, but it would have been honest. I think if she couldn't have written that part, she shouldn't have written the whole book. Which might have been the best idea.

*** 

OK, enough of that. Time to face the week ahead. It's a short week, because the kids get both Monday and Tuesday off. Teen A will stagger in at some point tomorrow (we hope) and I know he wants to do homework on Tuesday. I'm also taking the Baby Kitty in that day to have his nails trimmed.

Wednesday the kids go back to school (for a little while -- Teen A has only one class that day and Teen B has only two), and Sillers has a vet appointment. And then Thursday and Friday and the week will end.

Saturday is the famous Martin Acres Pancake Breakfast ($10 for a single, often underdone, pancake, and maybe a glass of orange juice if they haven't run out yet -- it's a fundraiser, lol). We never miss that. 

And that's what's scheduled. But in addition, since it will be September, I have all sorts of plans. I want to start working on my novel again every weekday. I want to do some pruning, since it's compost pickup week, and I haven't pruned anything since... June?... May? I want to start cleaning for the book group, who are coming here on the 10th (the following week, but it's going to take a long time to get the living room clean). Of course, unfortunately, I still feel like crap. It was another week of yuck. Still Covid? Just a reaction to the drug? I simply do not know. I see my doctor in a few weeks, but unfortunately the appointment was put off until, I think, the 18th. Maybe I'll feel better by then. Maybe not. 

Anyway, I think I'll try to do all this stuff in September, but I'll also try to cut myself a little slack. It's good to be ambitious and make plans, but when you're an old lady, like me, you have to be kind to yourself too. We'll see how it goes.