I had almost forgotten what the world sounded like without air conditioning.
On Saturday night we went outside on the deck and couldn’t bring ourselves to go back indoors. So out came Sierra with the blanket, the BINGO game and a few extra lights. Which was a relief since we’d been playing “pick the card” with Mireya, which is not nearly as challenging since it only involves picking from two cards – over and over and over.
So we settled in on our Bingo marathon. Bingo is always a
marathon at our house because we always have to play until everyone gets a chance to yell Bingo. Boy, are my kids in for a surprise when they go to their first game at the Bingo hall. I can just see Mireya stomping up to the ball machine operator, demanding he continue calling out numbers until she gets her Bingo.I feel for him already.
I am a big fan of Summer, but there’s nothing like that first break in the air when Autumn peeks around the corner and blows a cool breeze onto your neck. Sure, it’s just tease, a quick wave while Summer had her back turned. Then the heat is back, the plants wilt as Summer pulls out the blow dryer one for one last time.
There are a dozen little rituals of fall that our children bring alive.
There is the vain attempt to save brilliant red and golden leaves that turn brown in just a few days.
There’s the figuring out when is the absolute last day you can go outside in flip flops without your toes freezing.
There’s the extra fun waking up in the dark and then, eventually, eating dinner in the dark.
We also have to relearn how to deal with zippers on jackets and learn to accept that gloves, like socks, will only occasionally match.
And my favorite: diving into piles of leaves and forgetting, for once, that you’ve got a thing about bugs that hide in piles of leaves.
For once our cabinets will be filled with clean towels and the smell of chlorine will disappear from our house and hair. We’ll have soup again and no one will complain that the ice maker is broken again.
And everyone will get a turn to win at Bingo.
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