Gone so soon?

Normally, this time of year, I'm praying for a blast of cool or even a few spitting dribbles of rain to take the edge off the summer inferno. I'm used to picnic weather 9 months out of the year. I'm not used to celebrating the bright warm days as something rare and wonderful. And now, when everybody is musing on the death of summer, I'm mourning it instead of dancing around its grave as usual. And this is only temperate DC! Imagine if I had made it to Moscow this year after all!

As all the store windows replace the strappy sandals and the micro-minis with smart jackets and argyle patterns, I tally up the days spent by pools or on beaches, performing some mental arithmetic to decide if the fleeting summer was enjoyed enough. Two beach trips. Good. Only two pool trips. tsk tsk. I never made it to the river, though the best time for Shenandoah camping is still to come. Indulging my simplest and most immediate forms of pleasure, I spent more time on sidewalk cafes than God intended, and I plan to stay out there through the fall, until they truck me inside, butt firmly planted in chair.

I've almost reached my one-year anniversary in this town, and I'm glad that when the first familiar season rolls 'round again, I won't be in the precise spot I was a year ago. I'm thankful that the inauspicious omen that greeted my arrival here (my flight landed on the first day of the D.C.-area sniper shootings) did not produce an entirely disastrous year. Or death.