Go Fish

I suppose with the arrival of September it means we're rapidly descending into the fall season. I have to remind myself that for most people fall arrives this month, because here in southern California this is one of the hottest months of the year. Even so, it's easy to tell when school starts up again by the increased traffic of big yellow buses on the road and "back-to-school" sales in stores. With the end of summer I find myself sympathizing with Tom Hanks' character in You've Got Mail, who muses that the fall season makes him want to buy school supplies and send bouquets of sharpened pencils. I don't know how I feel about bouquets of sharpened pencils, but I understand the compulsion to buy school supplies. For me the feeling probably comes from so many years of starting classes at summer's end. Later this week I plan to indulge this urge by shopping for a new planner and notebooks I need. Some women have a weakness for shoes, I have a weakness for school and office supplies.

Maybe I'll have a chance for a shopping trip this weekend when Eric goes fishing with his dad. Of course, when I say "fishing" I mean fishing in the ocean. For me "fishing" means fresh water fishing. I have a healthy sense of self-preservation and therefore avoid fishing for anything so large it might confuse me with bait should I fall in the water. Although I have reservations about ocean fishing, Eric's fine with it, so if he wants to wrestle those suckers into the boat, best of luck! Naturally he packed tonight at the last minute. Like most men, his packing is pretty basic, but I think I managed to remind him to include most items he will or might need--like sunscreen, jacket, hat, headache medicine, etc. Hopefully all major needs or concerns are covered. Otherwise, I'm happy to be getting a few evenings with the place to myself. I'm sure I'll miss him at some point in the next few days, but I'm willing to experiment and find out how long it takes. While I'm waiting, I think I'll channel surf just for the heck of it, watch chick flicks, put almost no effort into dinner, keep the AC at a level that won't freeze anything sticking out of the covers at night, and revel in the lack of socks and various other male intimates strewn across the floor. It really is kind of a short trip...

By the time he returns we'll have only a week or so before our trip on the Grand Canyon Railway. We make it a goal to take a trip somewhere each year, and this year it's Arizona. Eric's ideas are usually wonderfully grand, like a week in Paris or Ireland. A trip like that is a wonderful thought, but not always realistic or practical considering the current plummeting value of the dollar. So, this year we've opted for a domestic location. As far as I'm concerned, as long as it's someplace I've never been, it's a great choice.

[Just as a sidenote, the L.A. Times theater critic published a story this week on Agamemnon, the play I wrote about in my last post.]