September

Lo though I have pink doughnut frosting all over my favorite shirt thanks to "I am Max and I have to get out of the shopping cart now" man (who followed the "I am Max and I need to have a doughnut to be bribed to stay in the cart" man), and lo though I only have 1 more hour of this free time, and lo though Erik is at work, I am feeling that today, anything is possible. Part of this has to do with good news but part of it just has to do with a sunny September day. It feels Oktoberfesty. It feels like you can sit in direct sunlight and not broil. It feels like. Max is asleep right now. This is huge because we just made Max give up the bottle. I don't know why we did this. To challenge his already-fragile sleeping patterns? No. Because his doctor said it would get harder the longer we waited. And it's already hard. The first night, no sleep between 12 and 3 (his regular waking up times for a bottle). Last night, a little better, but I fear only because he slept so little the night before and took no nap. But he's actually been quite pleasant about the whole tortuous event. He's a pretty classy baby who can sign for milk but can say the word cookie.

Zoe and I went on our longest backwoods bike ride yet. There are so many trails behind our house but I forget that mountain biking is pretty hard. You have to look ahead, look down, and try never to left-hand brake. That's a lot for a little kid who just learned how to ride a bike. Now she's at a playdate with our awesome, carefree neighbors who don't feel it takes 3-4 weeks to set up a playdate.

Erik is almost done painting. Almost. 4 more weeks. I'm not sure people understand the method behind Erik's painting process. I'm not sure I do. It involves a lot of caulk, a lot of sanding, mudding and cutting in. It takes forever. But it looks awesome when it's done. He's also putting down new base molding. Pine. Polyeurethaned at my request. I really can't give him a hard time about the construction zone in the dining room.

My house is kind of clean. The laundry's kind of done. I could grade but I think I'll go write a response poem and then maybe work on an essay that some magazine might take some day. Or maybe I'll write that review. Or maybe I'll write a blog post that reads like a list but is meant to have the point that today is he kind of day that everything is right--the sun, the vultures, the dog sleeping on the porch, the glass of ice water with lemon, the quiet mountain town (that is not quiet all summer long), the big mountain in front of me that maybe we'll hike up tomorrow, and the mountain behind that that might have a couple of boletes hiding in its crevices, the caw of the raven, the promise of Chinese chicken noodle soup for dinner, because it's September and even though I can sit in the sun right now, tonight it will be cold enough for soup.