Prayer at church Sunday: Oh, Lord, please restore my sense of humor. Too much concentration upon politics recently, like a steady diet of Romaine lettuce, has left me bitter and cynical. Time to switch gears.

Temperatures this past week have abruptly dipped into the low sixties in the evening and have hovered around seventy during the day. Compared to the unrelenting humidity and heat of these past three months it is as if we’ve been suddenly transported to a different hemisphere, house and all. School started again today, and I’m in the middle of the last-minute enrollment minuet. I didn’t get half the things done on my summer to-do list that I hoped to accomplish, and as usual I’m kicking myself for the ways I managed to waste time. Continued…