Celebrating Transition

It's Labor Day weekend-- the "official" start to fall.  Or at least the official day when you are no longer suppose to wear white as part of your fall wardrobe.  For some fall begins with the beginning of school.  Others are more literal and the first day of fall is the equinox, September 23.  For us this weekend was a celebration of a wonderful summer and a little bit of a kickoff for fall.

Thursday evening Arthur was helping me unload groceries and probably had another moment when he

thought his wife had lost it as he put away a jar of artichoke hearts.  I'm sure that many things I do puzzles a logical guy like Arthur but he rarely asks questions but continues on with the task--putting away the groceries.  I have never purchased artichoke hearts before and frankly wasn't even sure where to look for them in the store.  However I found a recipe for spinach artichoke pizza and thought I would give it a whirl.  I have fallen off the band wagon with our tradition of Friday night pizza and we have switched more to Waffle Wednesdays.  However pizza is just too wonderful not to eat once a week.  My hang up has really been remembering to make the dough for the crust the night before.  (To all those grammarians out there-- sorry for the dangling preposition but a blog is suppose to reflect your style and personality in writing and it is not my style as well as more effort to change the sentence to ...the evening prior to making pizza.)  I also baked the pizza in our large cast iron skillet for the first time.  It was delicious and since I only used half the jar of artichokes we will be repeating this recipe again soon.

Saturday I bounced up and down beside Arthur to wake him up at about 6:45am.  It was time to go outside and play, after all I am part border collie and need to be exercised daily.  We wanted to get an early start for our bike ride to beat the heat and wind if possible.  We rode about 10 miles into a south wind.  No matter the wind speed it always feels like a strong wind while biking.  Arthur can power through the wind since his legs are the size of tree trunks. I on the other hand might have been faster running my bike up the hills.  My bike was in the lowest gear possible and my legs were chugging and churning.  Finally we turned the corner out of the wind. It was another great late summer morning.  There was the orchestra with the crickets and cicadas and the ditches were full of sunflowers.  On our way back we had 10 miles with the wind at our backs and the road was smooth after being freshly repaved.  We just flew through this section and one of the great thrills in life is to effortlessly fly up

and down hills on a bike.  We did get stopped by a train carrying bases of wind turbine towers.  Once again, these look massive up close and especially in great quantities-- the train was carrying about one hundred.  As we were returning we saw a different train-- the local steam engine that runs on weekends taking people on excursions to a nearby town.  This Saturday they were using the steam engine-- the only functioning steam engine in Kansas instead of the regular diesel engine.  On these tracks we saw future technology in the form of wind turbines as well as a glance at yesteryear with the steam engine.  (This is actually one of the only weekends we have been in town all summer and it is fun to hear the old train whistle before the trains head out on the weekends.)   After our ride I was tuckered out and decided to curl up for a nap-- just like a good border collie.

Labor Day weekend also marks the start of a very important time of year around our home-- football season.  We headed off to the K-State game on Saturday afternoon.  We were tailgating with our church before hand.   We had the normal burgers and hot dogs fare which was great but there was homemade ice cream to top it all off which really hit the spot on a hot and humid afternoon. We enjoyed catching up with friends and hearing the tales of what coming to a K-State football game used to be like back in the day.  Luckily, Arthur and I we have lived almost solely in the Bill Snyder era-- except, sadly, for the years we were actually in college during the Ron Prince stint.  The first game of the season is always exciting but this year they had recently updated the north end zone and the Vanier complex.  In college I worked with the football team for a semester so I spent a lot of afternoons in the old Vanier.  Even seven or eight years ago it seemed very nice compared to the other facilities I worked in one campus but the new facility seems out of this world.  The other excitement was introducing Bill Snyder as a inductee to the College Football Hall of Fame.  Only 4 coaches have been inducted while they are still coaching.  The stadium was ecstatic for Coach Snyder about this.  And then the game began.  With a 100 yard kick off return for a touchdown.  Not a bad way to start the season.  Overall the game was pretty good-- there were ups and downs such as the starting quarterback suffering a season-ending injury on the first offensive play of the game.  Of course the replacement quarterback, Joe Hubener has never started a game as a quarter back at any level (he was a wide receiver in high school)-- this will probably change this upcoming week. Arthur's take on the game: As always it is difficult to evaluate a team based on their performance against an FCS school.  There are a lot of things to be hopeful about and we now that Coach Snyder will always put the team in the best position to win.  So besides football the band was great with some neat marching formations at half time and there was a post game fireworks show which was delightful-- I love fireworks.

All summer we have wanted to go back to the drive-in movies since it was so much fun last year.  This weekend there was a triple feature and we didn't think we could pass that up.  The drive-in is in Kanopolis, a small town of about 500.  I think the number of people in the town doubles when a movie is showing.  It was a beautiful night with a gorgeous sunset.  Kids were running and playing, adults sitting and chatting waiting for it to get dark enough to start the movie.  One couple came in a red convertible-- the perfect drive in movie car.  The first film was Shaun the Sheep.   The interesting thing about this movie is there was no dialogue.  The movie was a lot of fun and the creative animation completely made up for any lack of words.  It is a story about a sheep who is tired of the grind of farm living and just wants a day off.  He steps up some plans that go hay-wire and the farmer ends up in The Big City with memory loss.  The sheep soon realize that they can't make it without the farmer so they head to The Big City to find him and bring him home.  Pixar's Inside Out was the next movie and we had been waiting all summer to watch it.   The basic story line is about the emotions-- Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness-- that live in an 11 year old's brain.  It was insightful, funny, and very well written.  I would venture to say it is one of the best movies I have seen in a while.  This movie spurred an hour long conversation with Arthur and I on the way home and it would be a great way to open up conversations with kids about feelings.  It was also kind of Psych 101 too.  We didn't stay for the 3rd movie since it was already 1am by the time we got home.  We both thought this was one of the best date nights we have had recently.  We also decided there needs to be a sequel to Inside Out about the emotions of a college student because when Love is added to the mix with Joy, Sadness, etc it becomes a whole different story.  Omnia Vincit Amor.