Fall is my favorite season.
School starts, then Halloween arrives, then Thanksgiving, all leading up
to Christmas. And Cilla and I both have
birthdays in November. The only problem
with fall is that you know what’s coming next.
On Saturday, I got out everyone’s winter clothes and put the
summer ones in garbage bags until I could decide what to do with them. We had just had the first prediction of frost
and the college radio station was playing wistful Autumn songs. Ed says they're annoying and if he wanted to get bummed out, he'd watch TV ads for animal shelters . I tell him not to be such a curmudgeon; the point of the songs is to get pleasantly depressed.
On Monday, I had lunch with my friend Emily who teaches
English at the college. “I see it’s
turtle time,” she said. “You know, your
turtleneck.”
“Oh yeah, I got them out on Saturday.”
“How do you get anything done on Saturdays after your
debauches on Friday night?” Emily loves
to hear about our Girls’ Nights In. She
jokes (I think she’s joking.) that my stories are the only excitement she has
in her life. But since her specialty is early American literature, maybe she isn’t.
“I guess I have a high tolerance. They say that that’s a sign that you could be
an alcoholic, but nobody in my family ever had a drinking problem, so I’m
probably okay.”
Emily nearly choked on her pumpkin spice tea. “Bless your heart, Charlie. You think you’re
such a wildwoman, but I think your idea of heavy drinking is two glasses of
wine.”
“You know you’re always welcome, but we don’t want to cramp
your style.”
“Maybe I will come
after Thanksgiving. I’ll need something
after a weekend with the family.”
“Will you be able to hold out until Friday?”
“My mother is going to send me home with lots of food, so I
guess I’ll be all right.”
It made me sad that a holiday with your family could drive
you to drinking and eating, especially when you don’t have to cook.
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