If it weren't "One damned thing after another" it would

be everything all at once. A'propos of bupkis, of course, it just occurred to me this morning. It actually re-occurred to me this morning. A while back my wife - in the throes of the sort of concatenation of events that's typical for lots of folks our age & socio-economic bracket - uttered the classic "One damned thing after another" remark, purely as a conversational deadair filler, and the response above just sorta popped out of my mouth. It made her laugh, which was a plenty gratifying result. Of course it's the converse, or contrapuntally moebius or whatever the logico-rhetorical descriptor would be, of the old "Time is just nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."

Summer is almost over, at least notionally if not calendrically. I always point out to the captive audience of family that - technically - Summer lasts well into the school year by which we all seem to be bound when it comes to seasonal milestones, but in general, no one is having any of it. Summer is over on Labor Day. And it didn't really start 'til the Fourth of July, in spite of the fact that Commercial Summer runs from Memorial Day to Columbus Day (at least in New England. I realize Columbus Day - historically 12 October - is not universally observed).

More important than Summer being almost over is the fact that Foliage Season (or "Leaf Peepin' as we like to call it) is about to begin. This was brought home to me just yesterday when I noticed that the big shade tree out in the garden is beginning to shed its trashy little dull yellow leaves. We have no attractive trees on our property, that I know of. There may be one or two out in the Wayback, but mostly those are poplars and pines. I don't go out there unless I have to, there's too bloody much poison whatzit. So the poplars will dump their gnarly, leathery leaves all over the place, and the scrub maples will turn sickly yellow, while down on Main Street, toward the center of town, the stately oaks and maples that have lined the right-of-way for about 150 years will turn glorious gold & crimson, and burn themselves out in October, which will warn us that dismal November follows to be endured until at least we get a little pretty snow to distract us for a while. And as soon as the year is over we'll be sick of that and wish for spring.

One damned thing after another...