The End and the Beginning

Summer is over. It hits me hard every year. Temperatures are still pretty warm, but the rain is relentless and the gray is oppressive. Only four days and I can barely remember riding home at night in a t-shirt just last week.

I spent the weekend getting ready for school and 'winterizing' the house. Saturday, I pulled one of my surprise house projects--we've had a piece of wood sitting in the garage for almost a year that was supposed to turn into a shelf at some point. With more bikes arriving daily, it was getting kind of urgent to clear up some more floor space in the garage.

I calculated the amount of time and swearing it would take to do the job ourselves, and then I called my friend Geahk, who is an artist and a carpenter and can build anything. He was happy to come over and do in a few hours, what would have taken us all weekend:

After Jess came home and I collected my girlfriend points, we spent some time picking the last of the tomatoes and bringing the grill and deck furniture into the garage for the winter, putting away the fans and sticking the sandals in the upstairs closet to make room for the winter boots close to the door. Depressing, but it is nice not to have to squeeze past the air conditioner to get into bed.

Sunday I got up early and spent the first half of the day taking back control of my office from the random scattered paper monster. Then I went out into the steady rain for four hours and ran a bunch of errands, starting with a trip to a Walgreens in Vancouver for more Sudafed. I got to try out my new rain legs, which worked pretty well. They seem perfect for a warm rain where you don't want to get soaked, but rain pants would be too sweaty. The only downside, is that if I actually care about keeping whatever pants I'm wearing looking nice, then I'll still need the full coverage of rain pants.

The rest of the evening was spent making dinner and lunch, packing up and getting ready for the first day of the end of my free time. School, here I come!