waning crescent

As I sat here reflecting on how I tend to feel this time of year, I noticed on my moon phases gadget that we are at the waning crescent phase, only 12 percent full. That seems about right for Labor Day weekend in terms of waning sunshine and warmth. There will be more nice days, but it is a bitter sweet time. Summer is receding, and quite quickly from the high 80 and low 90 degree temps of all last week to the quickly turned cool and windy day yesterday.

I was born on the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, and according to my mother, it was a windy and cooler day after a stretch of very hot days -- just like this year. It is kind of special when my birthday falls on a Saturday, as it did this year, because as a true Saturday's child, I work for a living, and I feel that it is an extra gift to have a day off to celebrate. I love the autumn, but I do mourn - just a little - the beautiful summers we have where I live.

My boys treated me well. We started out the weekend Friday evening going to a Binghamton Mets game at my favorite little AA

baseball stadium. We met one of my college friends and her family, and enjoyed a double-header and some good ball park food. To my great embarrassment, my funny husband put my name in for the

light board, so the red neon words "Happy Birthday Nan P---------" flashed across the right field sign board about 1000 times. Every time we saw "Happy 14th Birthday, Andrew Weil," we knew it would follow and it provided for some continual laughter throughout the games. I don't know too many people in Binghamton any more (thank goodness), but we did get a text on the way home from some friends who were at the game, and saw the message, 1000 times.

Yesterday, I received a gift from Tom and Matt I had been wishing for, and I think I will really enjoy this tech toy. I am now the proud owner of a nook (sorry, Jeff, I still love paper books, but this does have some great advantages as another reading mode). This is the Barnes and Noble version of Amazon's Kindle, and the one advantage it has over the Kindle is that in addition to being able to download books from the proprietary site (in this case B&N), a nook also allows for downloads from local libraries, so I will be able to do some free book loans in as quick as a few moments visiting my local library online. I played around with it a little yesterday. It is very light weight, about the same size as, but thinner than, a paper back, and it has some page-swipe technology on the touch-screen pad at the bottom of each "page." It has web browser and some other neat features. I have some learning to do.

Last night we three went to my old favorite restaurant, The Moosewood, in Ithaca, followed by a great ice cream cone at Purity Ice Cream. All in all it was a perfectly enjoyable day. I saw my parents earlier in the week, who came to pick up Matt on Monday, and brought me some nice gifts then, so I have been quite spoiled, all in all. It was nice hearing from family and friends, and at the end of the evening last night, I was happy to let another birthday pass into the night.

Today I have a little cooking to do. Our neighbors who live around the block had the surprise of having their first baby arrive about six weeks early, and baby got home from NICU last week. Darci and I are pitching in together to bring them over a nice and complete meal. I need to get myself in gear to go shopping and get that food going.

Later today or tomorrow, we want to plan one last "summer" outing, before onward we go into the school year.