Annual complaint

Every time I look to see where my huge number of readers come from, I find one visitor from Portugal. It's probably Madonna.

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It's 12:15 on Sunday, Labor Day weekend. This is my least favorite time of the year, because summer is almost over. The pumpkin spice trolling has already begun. But there's still a day and a half of pool time left. A day and a half of pool time, but also a day and a half before school starts. I just realized that I probably need to buy school lunch food, and school supplies. I assume that people have backpacks, or that they would have said something by now if they don't. I assume that their summer reading is done. When it comes to school preparation, I'm less hands-on than I used to be. It's only a year before at least one of them will have to take care of all of this on his own, so it's probably good for him to get some practice now.

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I don't want to think or write any more about this guy; and with this guy, I can't even begin. It's all too much and my mental and emotional resources are limited. Maybe later. For now, I will write about handbags.

I'm pretty relentlessly practical, in most matters. I have far too many handbags, because I love them, but even my too many handbags are very practical. They're almost all nylon of some sort, with lots of pockets and organizational features, and 2-inch-wide seatbelt webbing crossbody straps that never wear out and that allow me to carry everything that I or anyone near me could possibly ever need. That's the way I have always liked it. And then a few weeks ago, I felt like I wanted to stop carrying 40 pounds of stuff with me, everywhere I go. All of a sudden, I wanted to carry a bag that is small and elegant and stylish and expensive-looking and incapable of accommodating more than a wallet and keys and a phone and maybe a lipstick or something.  I don't want to be a pack mule. I don't want to wear a seatbelt unless I'm driving a car.

When I was in Montreal, I almost bought a little Coach bag that I saw someone carrying. I looked at it at the Hudson Bay store, and then visited it online a few times, but decided against it. Too busy a pattern. It wouldn't go with everything. I have to be at least somewhat practical. Then, when I returned to work, I admired a new coworker's Kate Spade bag. It wasn't exactly the right bag for me (I want small, but not too small) but it made me want to own a Kate Spade bag again.

Did you know that Costco carries Kate Spade bags? I didn't either, but I checked online, because I love Costco. I'd rather shop at Costco than Neiman Marcus. Again, I'm very practical. The selection was very small, which is a good thing in my case, because I'd rather not have too many options. Of the four or five Kate Spades that Costco was offering, one looked like just the thing, so I ordered it. It should arrive this week. I'll share a full report.

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It's Tuesday now. School is back in session, and the pool is closed, and the easy rhythm of August has to yield to conflicting schedules and overlapping activities and Halloween displays that will disappear weeks before Halloween to make way for Christmas decorations. Night will come a little earlier every day. And of course, the pool is closed, and that means that summer is officially over, meteorological calendar notwithstanding.

As much as I love to swim, I didn't really hang out at the pool very much this summer. I swam almost every day, but that's all I did--I would swim laps for 30 minutes or so, and then go home. Yesterday, I stayed at the pool all afternoon, and was in the water for over three hours, swimming and floating and talking to my friends and watching the neighborhood kids frantically wringing every drop of chlorine-soaked fun out of the last day of summer. As the darkness fell and the air grew a little cooler, I realized that I was too tired to continue, so I finally had to get out of the water. The last whistle blew  a few minutes later, and it was over again, just like that.

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Curse you, pumpkin spice. Curse you. This last weekend was nearly perfect, and I'll be sad for a few days now that it, and summer, are over. Maybe a new handbag will cheer me up.