Ninety and then Sixty. . .(we're moving in the right direction)

The rain is dripping and plunking off the thick leaves of the Bird Tree (actually a young Black Walnut) outside the dining room window, and the smell of a chicken stewing fills the house. It's thirty degrees cooler today than it was on Saturday, when Martin, the girls and I swam through the soupy air down to the Monongahela River, where crowds of artists and families had gathered for the Arts Fest. Martin and I are in a band (Martin on guitar and vocals and me on vocals only plus the occasional egg shaker), "The Unreliable Sallys" and we had an hour long gig, which is much longer than usual. My eyelids were sweating and Amy, our lead singer and songwriter, was so warm she had to step away for breaks to mop her face. We sang some good Louisiana and Texas tunes, so the weather felt just right--bayou-like. The girls sat on a bench and behaved fairly well (Bea spent much of the gig on my hip) except when Elspeth shimmied down to sing in Martin's guitar mike and later hiked up her mother's dress to an unacceptable height. Some people dance and march around the stage; I chase children.

Oh, I love it when September feels like real Autumn. I feel like lighting candles, baking bread, stewing apples. I feel like rearranging furniture, packing the larder for winter, double checking the shelves for tea.