Tuesday Notes

A few assorted tidbits for Tuesday.

Here’s the thing about Indian Summer: you never fully appreciate it. Sure, you can talk in wonder about it being in the mid–80s in the back-half of October. You can take a long lunch, leave work early, or just take the day off to get outside. But as good as these days feel, we are also craving those cool, autumn breezes. It looks like the weather here is going to shift dramatically in the next 36 hours. I’ll miss these warm, muggy, breezy days.

Sunday afternoon was kind of crappy around here. It rained pretty hard for about 90 minutes, which just happened to coincide with the time of L’s soccer game. I think the kids mostly enjoyed running around in the rain and mud. I was a little surprised there wasn’t more sliding around. L played probably her best game of the season, scoring two goals, and just missing three other chances. I think it helped being little, as the bigger kids were having more trouble cutting on the wet grass. Four times she brought the ball up the sideline, cut hard back into the penalty box, and then fired away. One went in. Another hit the post, the goalie, and then bounced away. And two others the goalie knocked away.

We took advantage of yesterday’s delightful weather by heading down to the lake after we dropped the girls off at school in the morning. S and I did some yard work, met with some contractors to talk about some winter projects, and then pulled the boat out of the water for the year. Our contractors showed up a little late, and our conversation took the better part of an hour, so I missed the chance to haul ass one, last time. I did get to take a quick spin as S was getting the trailer into the water at the marina. I think the boat knew this was her last chance to show off, because she jumped up and went fast quickly. Or maybe it was just having one person inside and not towing anything behind that made her go so fast. Regardless, I enjoyed the five minutes of racing around the dam-end of the lake while waiting for the trailer to be ready.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather that the Royals were playing in this year’s MLB playoffs. But I have really enjoyed this year’s games so far. I think it helps having no strong feelings about any series, other than wanting Toronto to lose.[1] It’s way less stressful to watch the games that have been close deep into the contest when I can be reading an article on Instapaper, or scrolling through Twitter as I watch. And I’m free to go to bed at 11:15 even if the game isn’t over yet.

That said, I’ve missed a couple excellent finishes by calling it a night before the final out has been recorded.