How Did I NOT See This Coming?

Fool me once, shame on you, Mother Nature.  Fool me about about one hundred thousand times?  Go ahead and make me wear the "I'm Stupid" t-shirt.

I look right at home in it.

But yesterday morning was summer.  I swear.  It was hot.  The lake was blue, if forebodingly choppy. The Tomato's top was still down.  I know.  I promised a photo of the Flying Vegetable (That's-Really-A-Fruit-But-Doesn't-Seem-At-All-Like-One.)  I will, but my heart's not in it just now.

So, okay. Who changed the season?  Give me back the remote control!

How did it get to be September?  Already?  Why don't I just make a recording of me saying this, and we can play it every year around Labor Day?  Then I can sleep in.  Go hunting for my sweater.  Take the day off from whining.

Thanks for letting me express my regret for not having spent more time -- any time? -- in the hammock.  Or on picnics.  Or windsurfing.  (Kidding about that.  Never gonna happen.)

It's merely that I feel so ... unwarned.

The summer lake shimmers iridescent, busy with boats and screaming young ladies in inner tubes being dragged about, screaming, by boats.  The autumn lake -- at least on mornings like this -- is the color of hot chocolate.  I refer to this as Hot Chocolate Lake.  Which doesn't warm or comfort me at all.

The gulls who I believe spend the summer in the McDonald's parking lot up on Lakeshore, hoping for a Big Mac, super-sized with Fries & a Shake, are back in droves.  When I got up this morning and looked into the sky (still searching for some fragment of summer, just then) there were squadrons of them.  Sailing over in what passes for gull formation.  Looking down.  Mocking me with their swift flight and disorganized brains.

And in the kitchen?  Oh look.  Overnight there was a visit from the Elves of Autumn and they left us a pot of russet mums and a bowl of red Mackintoshes.  Oh. That was me.  I must have subconsciously known what was coming. Thank goodness.  At least my subconscious wasn't in LaLa Land.  No that's not right.  My subconscious is LaLa Land.

Whatever.

But I'm adapting now.  I like to rush quickly through the five stages.  I'm mostly out of denial.  I think I'll just linger in depression for a minute or two and then move on.

Because, truth to tell, I can get used to the idea of autumn.  It takes a minute or two, that's all.

Here's the final stanza of one of my favorite poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay.  (I like her, people, and I think she is a good poet. And if I'm the only former English Major who does?  I don't care. )  I hear this poem in my head on days like this and it's one of the things that make me happy.

Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely,   

Gone again on every side,

Lost again like a shining fish from the hand   

Into the shadowy tide.

Quick!  Write down five things that make you happy today.  Feel free to do that in the comment box. 

I'll go first.