The Beginning ot the End (of the year)

And so it is the day of falling back. We set our clocks back and for today, just for today, and only during the day part, we have this gift of an hour. Time seems to move luxuriously slowly. Come evening, seven short hours and change from now, the deeply Faustian nature of the bargain becomes clear as the sun goes down earlier and the truth kicks in -- far from a slowing, what we've had is an acceleration of the day.

The year also speeds up from here. This year doubly so for us, because we have Mary Lee's memorial service this Friday, then Northeast time with clients for me, followed by the things we know so well: the holidays. Blink and it will be 2023.

In the very short term, my calendar got scrambled overnight. We have all these leaves up on the roof that need to be gotten down, a somewhat dread task for us, especially for Mary, who has the unenviable chore of trying to catch most of them on a tarp on the ground as I push them off the roof. For me it's not really so bad, so long as they are dry, as they were yesterday and were supposed to be today.

Now, instead of the leaves, I need to take care of some indoor chores: Graham's financial aid applications (we won't get anything, but since I counsel clients on this process and I tell them all to do it I need to do it myself so I'll remember what's what) and also the Obamacare application (again, our subsidy may disappear altogether this year, but I have to go through the process to get the coverage. I think...). In any case, it's not such a great day to be outside anyway since the temp is going up to 80. 

If I can knock all this out today, it will be a win.

We are, however, expecting a bit of a bonus for the day: Graham will be coming home around lunch to borrow a car so he can take his girlfriend out for her birthday. They are headed over to Duke Gardens. I remember sitting in the surf when I was about 18, working on my tan, reading Crime and  Punishment while totally eyeing the hot girls walking by in bikinis and fantasizing about... while wondering if I was in fact prematurely showing signs of being an old person. The Duke Gardens thing makes me think about him being teenage gramps.