Fall, when schedules take over your life
Man of the House by Chris Erskine
It's time for back-to-school nights, soccer and helping the pumpkins along.
LIFE IS IFE IS a luggage carousel. Love is a modest black suitcase with no markings, 'round and 'round and 'round. . . .
The little guy and I are standing in LAX, having just returned from our mission of mercy to the heartland, where we saved Grandma's house by hacking back the rosebush that was threatening to swallow the garage.
Once upon a time, the Midwest was an agricultural hub with a can-do spirit. These days, it is wall-to-wall subdivisions with names like Foxglove Meadows or Whispering Willows. The cornfields are disappearing. And so are many of the willows. If they're whispering, it's to say to one another, "Watch out, here comes another idiot with a bulldozer."
Anyway, we flew to the rescue -- Alpha Dad and his sidekick, Bongo. Now, we're back home, just in time to slurp the last few spoonfuls of summer and to get the new uniforms out to Bongo's soccer team.
It's a busy time. Bongo's big brother is signed up at the local college, the little girl is prepping for her senior year of high school and Bongo himself is readying for his first day of kindergarten. The Olympics may be over, but the decathlon has only just begun.
"There's an e-mail for you, did you see?" asks Posh, whose whole life now is her cellphone or her computer.
"Yeah, I saw," I tell her.
I am in denial. Much as I like fall, I hate to see the lazy, undemanding days of summer come to a close. The other day, I took two naps, woke up, rolled over, and took two more naps, one after the other.
A great thing, a nap, and I'm sorry to see it go away. For once September begins, there will be no naps till Christmas day, when we collapse into each other's arms. Me and Mrs. Claus.
"What do we have Sunday?" Posh asks. "I know we have something Sunday."
And so it begins. She sent me the schedule for September, and there were five or six activities just in the first two weeks. There were a couple of back-to-school nights and a fish fry at someone's house. A fish fry? Where do we live, Gulf Shores?
"I love a good fish fry," I tell Posh.
"Have you ever been to a fish fry?"
Never. But I'm willing to learn.
The other day, we're headed to the beach for one last splash, one last walk on the sand before autumn consumes us. Posh announces she has to shave her legs first, which intrigues me, for I have never seen a woman shave her legs. It's the little intimacies like this -- putting on earrings or balancing a checkbook -- that really turn me on.
