First Day of School

An early Fall view of our lane

As I write this, Kitten #2 is enjoying the last 27 minutes of Summer, blissfully asleep until rudely awakened by the march of time.  Kitten #1 starts classes today too, and I imagine she is also still asleep.  Kitten of All Kittens--She Who Loves Summer Like No Other--also is abed.  I am up to greet the day early, as is my custom, but as I sat here I realized that I was the only person in my family excited about the first day of school.  I've always been that way, mostly because I always liked school.  My girls like school just fine, but if given the choice between going and spending their time doing Summer things, I know what would win out.

The Kitten is another story altogether.  She takes Summer Worship to a whole new level, luxuriating in the soupy heat of it and the slow pace.  She gets genuinely down every year around the 10th of August after realizing the season is almost gone and the lists constructed in May have not been substantially completed.  I've begun to hear the resident geese making a bit of noise lately, and it puts me in an Autumn state of mind thinking about their Northern cousins who will winter over here and offer themselves up for my dining pleasure.  While it is going to be 94 degrees here today, I still am thinking Fall, and the dying embers of Summer have no impact on me whatsoever.

Soon, very soon, we'll have the first chilly night.  The leaves on the trees in the lane will begin to turn.  The annual "shouldn't we close the pool for the season" conversation will occur.  The sound of geese in the cove and overhead will become constant. I'll renew my hunting licenses and make a reservation with Mudge to sit freezing in a tree all day and listen to my friends shoot deer.

No, the first day of school never made me down.  Because it is the real first day of Fall, the best season of all.