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 be depressed, 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 bummed out.
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.”
“Three glasses,” I said with dignity. “And we have cocktails.”
We would love to have Emily join us, but before she got tenure, she usually had to go to some English Department thing so she could schmooze and politic. And now that she has it, she’s free to live the life of a madcap bachelorette and to try to meet somebody, so she can’t be sitting around with three tired out old married ladies on Friday night.
“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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