September 1st

Yes, Fall is in the air! The temperature only went up to 99 today. Last night, it dropped all the way to 85. If it keeps this up, my students will be wearing their knit caps soon. BWAAA HAAA HAAA.

No, seriously, there is a little bit of difference now that it is September. It is obvious that the daylight goes away sooner. In early August, CoolGuy and I would sit out by the pool at twilight and watch the bats swoop around, snatching bugs out of the air. We'd watch the colors of the sky change from orange to purple to blue as the darkness crept across from east to west. It would be almost 9:00 P.M. But, it's dark at 8:00 now.

I don't complain about the summer heat here. It's a dry heat, after all. Ten years on the East Coast will teach you to appreciate the desert. One of our new teachers this year is from Maine, however. She is dying. We try to encourage her by pointing out that she'll never have to scrape ice from her car windows. But, she really will need to buy a pair of sunglasses if she is going to live here. We go upstairs to pick up our students after recess at mid-day, and she is blinded. I would be too, without my shades. I tell her my favorite line in the Nevada state song is, "...out where the sun always shines!" She's going to get some RayBans with her next paycheck.

It's easy to get warped here. When it does finally sink down into the 60's at night, and only gets up to 75 during the day, our students will actually start wearing jackets. For real. It feels chilly to them when they're walking to school. When we first moved back to Cali from western Idaho, we left behind below-freezing weather for the balmy ocean air. Except that, in early March 1990, it snowed on the beach at Malibu. So, for Ventura County, it was really, really chilly. But, if you just arrived from Mountain Home, Idaho, it felt like SUMMER! So, our children were the only ones who went to school without a sweater, jacket or any outer wear. We got acclimated soon enough, and went on to wearing our hoodies in January, just like the rest of the SoCal residents.

It's all what you get accustomed to. The desert is just fine for me, now. When it's too hot outside, I stay inside. Or I get into the pool. I just appreciate the lack of ice and snow enough to not mind the 105 degrees, day after day. But, that's over now. Autumn has arrived.