the onset of the rainy season on the fourth of july really brings a change in the mountains, because, with the rain, it seems significantly cooler and we really notice the shorter days. fall! i couldn't imagine fall back where i grew up, at the end of july, when things were so unbearably hot and sweaty, and you knew the "dog days" of august were still in the future. now, it's all pushed forward. the cool days of fall are already here.

in addition the hurricanes have started battering texas and hawaii, and that too is an august thing. so is the beginning of school. but it all seems like a different order this year. the fourth, the rain, worrying about school, cooler nights.

when they said they wouldn't start school until after labor day, i was relieved. i am just recently retired and school is the last thing i want to worry about. but it's a national thing, trying to figure out how these schools are going to manage these kids when everyone has to keep their distance, wear masks, etc. i could almost not bear to think about it. but in the end, i have three more to get through school. if school will not work, i have three more to do ourselves somehow. it's their main job, when they're kids - get through school. do your work. learn what you need to learn. the first thing to learn is, everything we taught you is obsolete.

talked to an old friend who i grew up with, who got the covid. isolated as we are, we don't meet many people who got the covid, but there she was, on our family zoom, telling us what it was like. lack of taste, high fever, knockdown disease, all that. she looked like she'd been through it though we told her she looked good. i felt like this thing has made us all old. we are either rough old survivors, trying to maintain what we have of our health, or we're just out there partying and waiting for it to catch up to us and get us as it inevitably will. i go up into the center of the village where many of the bars and wine stores have set up outdoor seating, and i watch people - they aren't about to wear masks, and if they are truly five feet, they can't socialize. so there's plenty of socializing going on, and that's ok because it probably keeps the human race going in one way or the other. but it's also a big spreader. our time will come soon enough.

my friend was in a sushi bar in sarasota florida. it was their local place to eat and they went there a lot. the place was not crowded when they went in and they got their food and sat down to eat. they took off their masks while they ate but not before. but a crowd came in, and they were not wearing masks, not social distancing, and hanging around the food buffet. the manager tried to get them to spread out but to no avail. they did as they wished. she had a bad feeling about it. she was right. a week or so later, she lost her sense of smell.

it occurred to me how exhausting it is to guide teens through the lockdown stage which ruins their social life and their ability to truly launch. finally i wrote about it but that doesn't make it better, slow it down, or even necessarily give me better perspective. perspective? we're like frogs in a pot of boiling water. perspective is not going to be easy to grow into.

one kid just wants to be in town every minute. this is good in a sense because for once he's figured out that happiness is not just another game or wwe subscription. he still likes those things but craves to be out, downtown, anyway. this of course, teenagers wandering around, is known to lead to trouble. so we are wary. but for the moment we are letting him do it. it's a nervous balance, and he has to be able to be comfortable down there. what can i say? i'm an enabler. i'm letting him do it. life is going on. it's hard for a kid, growing up in covid.