t's cool here on the back porch this morning. I'm wearing a hoodie, like most days, but this time it's for warmth as much as comfort. Sunflowers in the garden make me smile just looking at them. The fountain gurgles that calming sound of running water. Simply enchanting. Why did I take so long replacing the electric pump?
This is what the end of September feels like. Most people live for summer but I'm an autumn guy....
Confronting the Presidents just hit #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list. That marks my sixteenth time on the list and I think a dozen at the top.
Yet I am conflicted.
Four days on the North Shore is not enough.
I was just getting into vacation mode when it became time to fly home. Took the team to Hawaii for a meet. Callie came along. Race was Saturday afternoon (we did well). This means flying home Sunday, because there's practice Monday afternoon. But four days on the chill and rustic North Shore is better than none. My wife and I didn't do a whole lot other than hike jungle trails and lounge on the sand. But that's the point of a vacation, isn't it?
I'm a procrastinator who writes books with such total focus that the rest of my life goes on hold. It's like being a double procrastinator. So now that Taking Midway's first draft is with the publisher and I am paddling back to shore, there are a few odds and ends that need attending....
Up at 4:40 this morning. Cross country practice scheduled for 6 in Huntington Beach, a solid 30 minute drive, so I needed the early start. Sadie wanted to go out, so I let her into the backyard and looked up into the southern sky, searching for an old friend.
There he was. Orion and his belt is missing during summer but reappears in the early morning just in time for cross country season. I'll track its march across the sky into late-November and the end of the season, the warrior constellation a timeless reminder that this is autumn.
"Charge system fault." That's what I googled in the waiting room. The warning light had just come on in the Rover. Red and important.... Google told me precisely what would happen next. One by one, my car's electrical functions would shut down. Then it would stop completely. Just a matter of time. Get to a mechanic immediately.
We got a little sideways news from the cancer docs that day. The kind that reminds you that the things you thought were under control have other plans
My two weeks of solitude are over. Arrived back from Mammoth High Altitude Training Camp (I used to call it a "high altitude leadership seminar" for those kids looking for something high-falutin to put on their college resume) Saturday. Door to door from the condo to our front door in just under five hours.
