All Caught Up

I'm having an all-caught-up evening.

My house is clean. I'm on the front porch in the 65 degree fall evening. Just finished entering my grades.

I have a full tank of gas and properly inflated tires and all the checks that were sitting around the house have been deposited. The overdue library book has been returned.

The garden is picked. A ton of green tomatoes still on the vines and it'll be several weeks before they're damaged. Let them be. They're fine.

Spent the weekend with different non-overlapping euler diagrams. Good times.

I ran my culminating 5K this morning at a cemetery. I can't quite touch the irony there, but I'm sure it's there. Running to save myself from getting there too soon? It was a beautiful morning; I ran with a friend who runs faster than I do and it was good. She slowed and I sped up and we ran together. She could still talk after the first mile; I couldn't, but I'm good at the minimal response. There were too many very large hills. It was hard at times. But I did it and now I have a time to beat. Because I'm going to do it again.

Early fall is my favorite time on my block. A few porch sitters, yes, but more of it has to do with the general sagging feeling that matches our houses under this streetlight better than hot summers or a dusting of snow. Or mud. Dry crisp evening and older brick houses with lights still on.

Bix took the girls to the zoo and Niles had a playdate. I cleaned a bit, graded a bit, played our old nintendo a bit. We had dinner at the pub we always go to, and London complained that they hadn't seen the polar bear exhibit yet. I pointed out that there is time. We could go in a few weekends. It's free and....we're here.

The cat bolted out the back door while we were weeding. She came back.

This week is a new wave. I start a class with about 2/3 of my faculty that will run long and frustrate me and everyone else but we need to take it because. And Friday I have intruder training, which I hear is quite intense and involves a SWAT team presenter. Lots of the conventional wisdom we've been believing for no good reason, I hear, is pretty much false. More on that, I'm sure, after I experience it. Brooklyn has tennis matches every day. And my parents go on a trip, leaving me without afternoon carpool.

It's good that I'm all caught up. Because I'm about to start swimming again.