Farewell to Summer

Summer is over, and what a busy summer it was. In the 6 weeks D.D. was out of school, we visited with 2 sets of relatives and made 6 trips encompassing 12 towns. We’ve been to the pool a handful of times, including the time of composition, and I am now sporting a wicked farmer tan consisting of a white stripe across my wrist from my watch and brown stripes across my feet from my Mary Janes. Eat your heart out!

We heard on the radio that September 1 was meteorologically the first day of fall. We’re getting a last gasp of “high summer” weather—sunny and warm—but I can tell that the light is already different. In Texas, the light is basically the same all year round. It lasts a little longer and is more intense in summer, but the sun rises and sets in the same part of the sky. In another couple of weeks here in Germany, the sun will be rising noticeably later and farther south. It’s not as extreme as in Sweden (thank the 7 dwarfs!), but it is still disconcerting to a Texas girl.

I just heard from a friend at the pool that there are thunder storms in the forecast, then it is supposed to get cooler. D.D. had already been predicting cool weather: school’s starting, therefore it must cool down. Rats. The plus side is that I didn’t have to buy much in the way of summer clothes for D.D. this year because she still fit most of them from last year, although the shorts were bordering on indecently short, even though they fit in the waist. Since she’s only been out of jeans for about a week, she still has something to wear to school next week. Soon we’ll be into the season of layering for crisp fall mornings and warm fall afternoons. Step Dad was the first to notice that some of the trees were already changing color. Oh well, I like fall, I just would have liked a little more summer this year. Sigh.