dog days

It's not actually the dog days, but I was considering the phrase a few weeks ago, and I think the photo above is late August: a coffee table pulled outside, a cribbage board, a clear drink in a short glass. The sun sets a little earlier each night. But it's not time to go back to school--yet. One more week, it will be.

I've been in the mitten for a year now. Where does the time go.

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Today we cleaned the house, hung the laundry out back on our new clothesline, made potato salad and chocolate-chip cookies with sea salt. Now to finish off a disc of The West Wing, season three.

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Things around here have been creaking to life. Four classes around the corner--two (revised) syllabi and course calendars in the works. I spent the last week in my office, hanging a new-old map of Michigan and playing the how was your summer? game at the annual meeting. I even brewed a strong cup of coffee, bought myself a McMuffin, and slit open three thick white envelopes to read seven sets of evaluations. It's taken me a while to get the courage worked up. But they were good. Better than good. I am funny, I make class fun, we have fun, I talk like a real person. Sometimes I give pointless homework. And always, always, even though class can be fun, there is (surprise!) too much writing.

This might be the first semester I actually remember to unlock the course Web sites more than an hour before the class meets. And I had to remember to block off a class in mid-November because I'll be out in Minnesota as part of a reading series. Holy cats.

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The foot is healing nicely, and last Thursday they cut off the old cast and built me a new one, purple this time. They were out of white. I'm thinking of using Wite-Out pens to write snippets from favorite poems on this one. Maybe some We are amazed how hurt we are./We would give anything for what we have.

The doctor also sent me home with a fancy cast protector, and I can put a little bit of weight on the foot, so showers are back on the menu. The protector, a sort of cast condom, gets pulled over the cast and keeps the water out, and then after the shower you towel it off and carefully remove it and then put it on the shelf for the next time. Ahhhhhh. Just like a real condom.

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Seven days left of summer. Time to start thinking about first-day outfits, bag lunches, parking permits. Now there is someone else here to coordinate schedules with. I will have a driving buddy. Maybe even someone to help me carry my books from one building to another while I'm crutching around the first three weeks back. That will be nice.