Holy crap it’s fall! I mean, I knew it was coming (as it does every year) but man, it always catches me off guard.
One minute you’re lazily sunning yourself at the beach enjoying the hot weather while tanning your acreage, and the next minute dry leaves festooned with Asian ladybugs are bombarding you from every direction.
Meanwhile the pumpkin spice zombies are preparing their bronze and copper autumn wardrobes without every wondering or caring that there’s NO SUCH THING AS PUMPKIN SPICE.
Whew. Ok, calm down Peter. Relax. Who cares if people get joy out of such things. Remember those who rule the pumpkin spice rule the café universe.
I like fall. I really do. I just like summer better. I think what I’m not fond of when it comes to fall (and winter) is reduced light, colder temperatures, and naked trees shamefully parading their branches around like the arboreal floozies we always knew they were. I like waking up to fully clothed trees and it being sunny.
(SIDENOTE: The author is not exactly sure where the word “floozies” came from and feels it wrongly makes him out to be a prude from 1899 concerned for the moral fibre of nature. Rest assured, nothing could be further from the truth.)
I like being out at 10 p.m. and saying to someone (for the thousandth time) that “I think I could still find my golf ball in this light if I had to.”
Suddenly we’re racing to the end of Daylight Savings Time like a car without brakes toward a brick wall, and all you can do is close your eyes.
The advent of fall means busy. It’s like the entire population sat down for a minute in front of the television and then suddenly jumped up an hour later exclaiming, “OH NO! I FORGOT ABOUT THE SOUP ON THE STOVE!”
Summer has a way of causing us to slow down and relax for a bit. Then fall comes and smacks you in the face with a thousand new emails, Microsoft Teams invites, and meetings. Parents are suddenly having to juggle work with gymnastics, soccer, music lessons, and hockey. Even the social calendar heats up with fall suppers, concerts, Taylor Swift release parties, community events, and more.
There really needs to be a small three-week sub-season between Summer and Fall (Small? Fummer?) that lets us ease into these things. There would be rules: “You cannot send more than five emails per day; you cannot arrange more than one meeting every two days; you only go to work four days a week in … Autmmer? Sumtem?
Oh, and another rule: if you own a store, you are not allowed to put up Christmas items until after November 11th.
Yep, every year around this time I suffer from seasonal whiplash as myself and everyone around me endlessly repeats:
“Summer felt like it went by in the blink of an eye!”
“I know!”
“I KNOW!”
“I KNOOOOOWWWWW!”
“RIIIIGHHT?!?!”
Ugh.
But here we are, again, so we may as well make the best of it.
If you are fortunate, you might be able to find the 10-minute window when the leaves switch from green to gold in the Pembina Valley and go for a drive or hike (with 700 other people) along the gravel roads seeking pictures.
Don’t despair however: summer, (all five seconds of it) will return in six thousand five hundred and fifty-two hours. But who’s counting?
