I’d trade it all for some decorative gourds

It’s fall now, so all I can think of is fall, fall, fall, fall, FALL! Apples ‘n’ pumpkins ‘n’ sudden sunsets ‘n’ two-month-long Halloween cooking contests on the Food Network ‘n’ wearing earth tones that make me look like ass!

 

Autumn is just a string of one amazing day after another with no downside and today is the best day of all. It’s the day when our pool is officially CLOSED! Yes, summer’s reign of terror is over and now I can fully enjoy having a little less daylight every day as I drive home from work!

 

I mean, I guess we had fun all summer splashing around in our pool. I would be in and out all day on Saturdays and Sundays, and after dinner on weeknights, floating with Steve in the deep end and listening to music, and it was fine. I would jump into the salt water after working up a sweat mowing the lawn on a 95º day, and I suppose the relief was adequate. Sometimes we would jump in real quick before a storm came, and we’d watch the dark clouds gather in the west and we’d stay in as long as we could, and then watch the lightning by the side of the pool until rain forced us inside, and that was OK, I guess.

 

Our son’s birthday is in July and we always have a BBQ and party, so we spend a glittering Sunday splashing around with him and our nephews and nieces. And that’s fine as far as it goes.

 

But now, relief! I can turn off the filter, close the windows and throw on a brown sweater! The pool men will come to lower the water level, add a bunch of chemicals and throw a tarp over the pool. Instead of a view of that garish, horribly undulating blue, I’ll be able to spend months looking out the window at a black tarp, as all around the pool my flowers die! Ahh, autumn!

 

You know, floating in the deep end of the pool as the midsummer sun filters through the constantly shifting cumulonimbus clouds above me, with only the sounds of the birds and a distant lawnmower to disturb me, brings me a feeling of peace and contentment that is a true blessing in my life. But I’d trade it all for some decorative gourds.