The towel with the big E on it

Today's post about races and elephants is at Toxophily.

It's been a beautiful weekend of carousels and smiles. I could be wrong, but I think the upcoming week will be less jam-packed than last. Next weekend we'll have movies to see. The following weekend it's my birthday (send yarn and gift certificates) and our anniversary. I'm relaxed and ready to enjoy myself. Hope your fall is emerging just as gracefully.

Late September

The skies have finally cleared after nearly two straight weeks of rain. Although the temperatures are reaching eighty degrees, a vigorous breeze keeps the air dry and refreshing.

Out at the fairgrounds, shaved ice seems like the best of all possible treats -- watermelon flavor for her, cherry for him. Tasting the cherry syrup, the parents are startled by its intensity. Memory has watered down the mouth-filling flavor, but it all comes back in a rush.

Because of the wet weather, leaves have started falling early, even though the chlorophyll has yet to leach out of them. But the ginko on the corner and that one maple a couple of blocks away have begun to turn yellow, emerging from the larger trees around them like the one party-goer who came in fancy dress.

The football team is having its first home game, and the parked cars are inching down the street towards our driveway. Kids in purple jerseys race around their yards, throwing and catching with their dads or brothers while their mothers gather supplies for the walk to the stadium. Soon the crowd's roar will be washing over our house and fading away again, a faint but powerful tide.

It will be another month before the weather is reliably cool and the trees put on their full show. But there's no doubt that the season has officially arrived.

Fall photo session

It's a measure of how excited I was all day about our evening out (dinner and Australia!) that I completely forgot I had a blog entry to write until 11 pm. So here's a very brief fall photo essay.



The best thing about the tailgate party outside the stadium on game days is the opportunity to run on the practice gridiron.




We went on a walk on Thanksgiving morning to pick colorful leaves for our centerpiece.




The kids get on each other's nerves like siblings do, but they demand to be in each other's company nonetheless.




And the results of our morning's labor.

It smells like autumn

Note: Last night's post has just gone up, backdated, because the internet went down here at Chez Bowman-Murray just after I got home from yesterday's evening screening.

After Tropical Storm Ike blew through Arkansas Saturday night, scouring the atmosphere and leaving the state littered with fallen trees, fall seemed to arrive almost instantaneously. Morning temperatures dropped into the fifties, meaning that Cady Gray and I need sweaters when we stroll around the corner to school. The scent of smoke was in the air, although goodness knows who was burning what. Suddenly it's time to switch dresser drawers and find the kids' long pants, woefully small and inadequate for the new season.

Fall has always been my father's favorite season, and because I take after him in almost all things, I tend to take special notice of its glories. Here in Arkansas fall comes in time for Halloween, littering the ground with dry leaves, and winter's chill is short. The sky turns a brilliant deep blue, the color of a Caribbean bay. From the football stadium a block away, we can hear the roar of the crowd and the celebratory boom of the cannon marking a score for the home team.

The arrival of fall means that everyone feels more in the mood for school, no longer resentful because it's still summer outside. It's a philosophical feeling, a sense that a remote table tucked away in the corner of the library stacks is just the right place to be. Coffee drinks, sweaters, lingering in the dorm lobby on the way out to class ... fall on a college campus.

And if it's fall now and the semester has begun in earnest, that means holidays are not too far away. Next summer seems just a hop, skip, and jump through the class schedule.

A small but perfect window

My dad has long said that his favorite season is fall, and although my preferences vary according to the phase of the moon and what I had for dinner the night before, I agree with him more often than not. Today was what people mean when they say they love fall: a high of about 67 degrees, brilliant sunshine tempered by a freshening cool breeze, and the yellow-orange of the occasional maple in th mass of still-green oaks standing out like a shocking non-conformist.

While Noel tried to get interviews transcribed for one of his Hollywood Reporter stories, I took the kids to the playground, where (as usual in the spring, summer, and fall months) a birthday party was underway. Here's what I learned about kids today from listening to the chatter coming from them and their parents:

• Their names are "Madison, come ON!" and "Sierra! Sierra NICOLE!"
• The hot ditty of the moment is an irreverent send-up of R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" in the spirit of "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells." As rendered by an eight-year-old over and over on the swings: "I believe I can flyyyyy! I got shot by the FBIiiiiiiy!"
• If circumstantial evidence can be believed, at least one ten-year-old girl in Conway is smoking without apparent parental disapproval. (I base this conclusion on said girl's pile of possessions left on the ground as she swung, and collected by her after she finished and headed back to the party where her folks were waiting: a tumbler of tea, a lighter, and a pack of Marlboros.)

Next week I get on a flight bound for Denver (direct, mercifully) for two days and three nights at the National Collegiate Honors Council meeting. The forecast is for cold weather, with snow flurries possible. I hope that there will still be some autumn left when I get home.