Tag Archives: september

quiet end of summer days

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Maybe with the gradual approach of cooler weather and shorter days, I’ll be a more regular correspondent here.

In the meantime, I am keeping busy but not too busy and enjoying a lot of quiet time to mentally recover from a busy year. And establishing a new normal.

The weather is still warm but turning rainy and the evenings are wonderfully cool. Occasionally scented with woodsmoke. Autumn is stalking the fields.

We have several things on the calendar, including a trip to Charleston and a couple of live events (Marc Maron, Gorillaz). This weekend, on a beautiful rainy night in Detroit, we had a fantastic meal at Mad Nice and then walked with our umbrellas to Orchestra Hall for the Miles Davis and John Coltrane at 100 concert.

I’ve been to Ohio to visit Brandon in his new little apartment and we went to an amazing county fair that inspired so much nostalgia for both of us. We both grew up in the rural Midwest, he was in 4H and while I wasn’t, I still have great memories of county fairs.

His living situation is a little unique (this is consistent for him). I won’t go into details but he lives in a very historic neighborhood and has a ground floor apartment in a small house set behind the row of massive Victorian mansions that are now…funeral homes. He shares parking with a hearse. I was a little distressed at how sparse it was when I first arrived.

We had great fun thrifting to decorate his small living quarters and found some treasures. We also got him a small loveseat and ottoman and a rug, and I got him a plant, and once he has his books and art in, it has the potential to be a charming jewel box of a place.

My daughter is adjusting to her first month at college and I am so proud of her. We talk a lot and every time my phone lights up with a call from her, walking between classes, my heart lights up too. I have also loved curating little care packages for her, remembering from my own fraught transition away from home how much it can mean to get mail.

As for me, I am enjoying the few nights a week on my own. I cook if I want and don’t if I don’t want. I read books on the couch with the cats and drink lots of tea and go to bed early or late. And just when I start to feel a little isolated, Brandon is home for the weekend again.

dress shopping, post-Covid, and a warm fall.

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I am happy to report that at long last, I feel mostly recovered from my dust-up with Covid. I’m trying to get rid of the lingering fatigue and miasma in my lungs and head but have my smell and taste back, am back to running (slow, snotty, and wheezy), and I am feeling about a thousand percent better. It was no joke, though, and took me down for longer than any illness I’ve had in the last few years, so again, I highly recommend boosting and taking it seriously.

Otherwise, we’ve been chugging along with marching band season, which hasn’t been as all-consuming this year due to fewer home games. Between that and Covid, I’ve only been to one tailgate and I”ll miss the first marching competition next Saturday because we have tickets to ‘Funny Girl’ at the Fisher Theater in Detroit (purchased before the competition schedule was released). The kiddo has a date to Homecoming in early October (!!) so we had to go dress shopping. The last one she tried on was the winner and is quite an elegant little number, black lace over a nude silk sheath, with little off-the-shoulder straps. She’s going to look like a million bucks, very Old Hollywood, but as a mom it is still gobsmacking to see how SMALL all the dresses are. I told a friend on Facebook that I think they could make 3 of today’s dresses out of 1 of ours from the 1980’s / early 90’s.

We booked our Spring Break – yes, it seems early but after forcing the kid to go to Colonial Williamsburg last year, I’d promised her a trip somewhere warm for next spring. We are going to the Bahamas! For 5 nights and 4 days which already stresses me out a little bit (thinking about being away from home that long) but which I’m sure will be an amazing trip.

The weather in Michigan has been very warm and summery, sunny days with highs in the upper 70’s and cool nights, lather rinse repeat. It shows no signs of cooling off anytime in the next 10 days which is nice, but I really am craving some crisp weather, frost on the pumpkins, and some storms to usher in the cozy season. There’s nothing worse than traipsing around a cider mill or pumpkin patch when it’s 80 degrees and you are sweating and there are bees in your cider.