Summer is Ending Soon

It's almost the end of summer.  Granted, it's still 95 degrees here but we are cooling down a lot at night sometimes into the 60s.  The Delta breezes are picking up, you can watch the leaves in the trees.  The walnuts in our trees have a bright green covering on them, and the squirrels are opening them every day checking to see if they're ready.  They're a little early, but I think they sense the change in season.  I'm looking forward to the fall.  Any change really.

I've been in our pool once all summer. The smoke from the Northern California fires was so thick during June and July that we never used the pool.  Then the kids came to visit mid-July and they started using it.  The day we found out about Andrew, I was pulling weeds in the backyard.  I was thinking about Andrew and a funny comment he had made about that weed patch.  I got up to answer the phone and left the container of weeds and my gloves next to it.  The container sat until yesterday when I was finally emotionally able to go out there and start cleaning up again.  It was hard to face that weed patch again.  But time moves on and it seemed time to pull weeds and tear down cobwebs.  In the yard and in my mind.  Baby steps they call it.

I've been seeing a lot of old friends lately.  I saw 4 of them at the state fair last weekend.  I was 19 when I met them, the same age as Andrew.  It was wonderful to see them and to feel the comfort of their friendship.  This weekend was time for my family - a brother and his wife, daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter.  Three generations.  The content and continuity of life ~ feeling the past with my brother and seeing the future with his granddaughter.  There is comfort in that too.

My sweet schnauzer Georgie is having some health problems.  Repeated episodes of vestibular dysfunction.  We went to the vet on Friday.  Her symptoms and their findings indicate a more central cause, possibly a brain lesion.  We go to the neurologist next.  She may not be able to tolerate the anesthesia she'll need for an MRI or for any resulting surgery.  It's so hard to know what to do sometimes.  I'm keeping her comfortable and spending as much time as possible with her.  Just being present, that's all we can do.

I so want to stop working, but I'm caught with that bureaucratic carrot pulling me toward retirement with an income.  I have 1 year left, actually about 11 months.  That's not long in the scheme of things but when so much is going on emotionally, it would be nice to be able to say OK I've had enough.  Sometimes life is a challenge!

In the words of Robert Frost ~ "I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on".