Fall from summer

Once upon a time, September was my favorite month. I have found that people tend to love the time of year when they were born, and that's certainly true for me. September is my birth month; it's grape season; it marks the beginning of Halloween time; the leaves start changing.

And for a while, I hated August. I would think, "Soon it will be September, and everything will be better." But then it would be September, and it would still be 90 degrees out, and there wasn't much going on in the first part of the month. So I demoted September to my second-favorite month, in favor of November.

But now that I like summer more, September might once again be my favorite month. In fact, even though fall is my favorite season, summer is the only season I'm sad to see end. I'm delighted to have the cooler days, colorful leaves, and pumpkin spice everything; but I'm sad to see the kids back in school, the shaved ice shacks closing, and shorter days. (I don't get sad when the other seasons end, especially not when winter ends.)

September is great because it is summer and fall at the same time. No, really. Meteorological fall starts on September 1, but the first day of astronomical fall isn't until September 23 (this year), so there are three weeks where it literally is both seasons.

My last week of (meteorological) summer wasn't too eventful. I briefly attended a watch party for the BYU/U of U football game, but of course I don't care about sports in the least. I love football season but without the football.

On Friday, I was hosting the missionaries for dinner, so I grilled hot dogs and made some of my favorite unusual summertime dishes: tomato zucchini cobbler

 and grape bread.

I also received both a royalty check for my book and the title of my car, which I just paid off, so that was exciting.

Though I'm sad I'm getting older in this birth month, I'm eager for autumnal adventures.

I don't know why they bother continuing Family Circus these days, because it's never entertaining, and it's not even maintained by the original author. But once in a while it's decent.