Tomorrow is the first day of the fall semester at my campus. Traffic will be horrifying. And my assistant director suggested in no uncertain terms that it was my turn to bring in “happy treats.” She’s right, it is my turn. And she’s also right that treats make the office crowd happy. I think I’ll get bagels. It seems healthier than most of the alternatives.

I’m just off the phone with one of the bath people. If I never hear another word about bathing, it will be too soon. Math either. The good news is that I have a new knife that clips to my bag. It’s long and tough looking. The bad news is that assault is still illegal. Assault thoughts aren’t. Being a twelve month administrator has its drawbacks at a nine month place. One of them is that you can’t take the summer off from math.

On the plus side, Alejandro Valverde is winning the Vuelta. Move on the next paragraph.

Hi! Glad you made it past that last bit…

I wish fall were more, well, autumnal in Southern California. It was over 100 today and hot and dry. When I was in college, fall in Washington always pleased me. It actually got crisp. Of course it also usually rained. But youth is best seen through the gauze of “aww.” I was just talking on Friday night about the wettest I’ve ever been after getting caught in a rain storm in D.C. in the fall. My car was so wet that for weeks, my shirt and pants would get wet from sitting in the seat. And woe unto the passenger, for he or she would be extra wet. And that was all from three people getting caught in the rain and then getting into the car.

New beginnings are nice, even if they seem inserted into my otherwise rolling existence. I decided to go to a lunch for new faculty. I’m not really new, but I am. Tomorrow is a Tuesday, but it’s also a beginning. And being a beginner means the promise of things to come. It also means you can screw up sometimes and attribute it to your beginner status. So, I think I’ll look forward.

Honey doesn’t like secrets. At all. She’s good about keeping them from me. In fact, it’s a little disturbing how good she is at lying. She never lies for bad reasons. It’s always because she’s gotten something fabulous for me for a gift giving occasion or some such. Still, she ought to be good at poker. She favors Uno Attack. Sometimes avocations don’t match skill sets or vice versa.

I, on the other hand, am a terrible liar. Last night I was “talking” with a semi-well-known blogger on gmail chat. We were discussing something I didn’t want Honey to know about. Not because we were discussing anything untoward, I just didn’t want her to know about it NOW.

“What are you talking about?”

Furtively glancing around, I couldn’t think of anything smooth to say. For those of you with young children in your life, I looked a little like Swiper. Not smooth, not clever.

“Um, it’s a secret.”

Well, that was enough. The rest of the night, Honey kept guessing what the secret was. She then launched a morning e-mail attack on me and the semi-well-known blogger which was later expanded to include the semi-well-known blogger’s partner.

She guessed everything from trip to a mall in Virginia to have pictures taken of us and them in Charlie’s Angels poses to some large-scale involvement in food canning.

Honey does not know the secret and I’m going to do my best to not let her in on it, at least until it’s time. And I’m trying not to channel Swiper. I’d like to be more like Emma Peel. She could keep a secret and look great doing it.

Share out in comments:

Are you more like Swiper or Emma Peel?

 Next entries »