what we have here is a failure to communicate

For the past couple of years August=stress to the max. At the Pond House a typical August presented me with triple the workload, and the expectation that I could wake up every morning and look forward to being battered round the head with trial after tribulation. “The lemonade has run out!!!” “The tea isn’t hot enough!!!” “The cappuccino machine is spewing espresso beans everywhere!!!” “The ice machine is broken!!!” “There are 100+ people waiting for their drinks, not to mention the 200 people outside the restaurant waiting to get in!!!” In August, ye be warned for there lie monsters.

This year, at the beginning of this horrifying month, I was optimistic. A different job has different rhythms and I couldn’t imagine that August at Reel Pizza could equal an August at the Jordan Pond House. And, with the madness of Mamma Mia! behind us, I am correct. Of course, it is August in Bar Harbor, so there is a certain amount of people and problems to be expected. But overall, this month has been the most pleasant August I have experienced in several years.

Boat rides, music festivals, several small road trips, beach days, and between the rain (because we can’t have everything) plenty of fun in the sun.

And now it is September, my favorite month. Even though I have been out of school for some years, I always find myself starting to think scholastically in the final weeks of August. Because I don’t have to determine what I will study for science or which bit of math I need to do battle with anymore, I simply feel the need to read serious books and then write serious blog entries about them. Research something – a November road trip perhaps. Pick up a new skill. Watch every James Bond movie in chronological order. You know, things like that.

Ideally, we have two more good months of sunshine and I will be taking advantage of that, and will knock a few more trails off my map, and hopefully get out on my kayak a couple more times, and go on at least one more camping trip. But I won’t complain when the evening finds me curled in a chair with a book or a movie, a slice of hot apple pie beside me, or maybe a donut and cider.

I love the autumn as much as I love the summer. It always seems to me like a celebration – with all the trees putting on their brightest, prettiest party dresses. The air grows crisper, and the sky is at it’s bluest. The clouds get big and fluffy, and the sun sets over the mountains in a riot of color. There is nothing sad to me about autumn. It has always seemed triumphant – “Come on lads and ladies, let’s give it our last and our best shot. Wasn’t it a fine year? Let’s finish it with a shout! Hip hip hurrah, hip hip hurrah!!”

So, with eager excitement for the months to come, I bid farewell to the very pleasant August. 🙂