Summer farewell

How do you bid farewell to summer when you know that the 90-degree temps will linger for another month?

The answer, it seems, is that you bid a formal adieu, but go back to business as usual, starting tomorrow. The public pools will remain open on weekends through the month, and our backyard pool will not close (we keep it open all year long - we can use the hot tub all through the winter). Wardrobes don't change - capri pants can be worn virtually all year long - and the AC won't go off til sometime in October.

So Labor Day is merely symbolic - even though everyone is back in school, back to the fall routine, the summer temps will remain.

We ventured over to Austin for Bat Fest 07. Austin is home to largest urban bat colony in North America; nearly 1.5 million bats take flight every evening from the Ann Richards Congress Street Bridge, and it is a sight to behold. The girls and I went last year, and the sight of all those bats taking flight at dusk is phenomenol. Bat Fest, however, turned out to be a bat dud - the bats, for whatever reason, were a no-show. The bats are there - living in good health beneath the bridge - but despite the pleas of the Bat Signal, which graced the side of a hotel near the bridge, the bats did not appear. Disappointing for us, but especially for Gary, who was not with us last time and was looking forward to the spectacle. Maybe next year ...

Today I got in a couple hours in the pool early, before we were hit by rain. Did some reading, some laundry, Some holiday, huh? But it feels like a holiday, with all the kids at home and no school, no work.

Tomorrow, it's back to business. School, work, the normal drill. But today, we're still pretending it's a holiday. We'll just celebrate again when, or if, summer ends for real.