And Lo, it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished

Thank you to Thoreau for the title...

I can't believe it has been a week since my last post, and a week since the Royal Fair. I feel as if time has slipped by me when I wasn't looking. I haven't done much of anything in the seven days since. Hemmed some towels. Went to work. Watched TV. How did the days get past me?

One of my bosses explained it to me this way: when you are six years old, summer seems endless because it's, like, 16% of your life. So in relation to how long you've lived, it's really quite a chunk of time. But when you're 50, summer is only 2% of your life, so in relation it feels like it zips by. Or something like that, anyway. I have never been good at math.

The concept rings true, however accurate it is. Summer has fled and here we are, digging out the boots I swear I just put away last week. Frost has killed the nasturtiums, I can smell someone's wood stove when I'm out walking the dogs, and we had our first dusting of snow the other day. Thoughts turn to hardy stews and egg nog. Mmm, egg nog. God's way of apologizing for winter. For that season where you struggle into five layers to walk to the bus stop, struggle out of them once you get into the overheated bus, struggle back into them when you reach the subway system and walk through those cold tile halls, struggle out of them once you reach the overheated train, struggle into them to walk from train to office, then struggle out of them again when you reach your airless cubicle... Just to repeat the process in reverse at the end of the day. I wish someone would invent an inflatable suit that you just dial up or down without having to put on or remove anything.

But before you know it, it will be spring again, the layers will be cast aside, and I'll be sketching garden plans and trying to find my secaturs and knee pads. And as I emerge back into sunlight, blinking dazedly and feeling like a displaced mushroom, I'll be wondering how I managed to reach this age already without knowing how to sharpen a lawnmower.

I saw an ad for a t-shirt today; it said "Irony: the opposite of wrinkly." I'm thinking I might buy one. Goodness knows I'm wrinkly already. I could use some irony in my life.