All My Bags Are Packed, I'm Ready to Go

pinterestMirriam had the audacity to say that August is "the last month of summer," whereupon I began a prompt panic session.  My year is twisted and grotesque: I barely recognize it.  Summer in my area has been remarkably (and I mean remarkably) rainy, so that, other than the mugginess and heat, it has felt a lot like spring.  I am going to miss autumn entirely: heading to Glasgow in September, when their cold weather begins, and with the blighting weather coming in off the sea (apparently, if you want kind weather, you go to Edinburgh), my year has effectively cut autumn out wholesale.  And I love autumn, so I rather resent that.

i'm standin' here outside your doori hate to wake you up to say good-bye
July was swallowed up in Actually Finishing Something.  It went by alarmingly fast.  Now August is upon us and I no longer have that buffering month between me and Scotland.  Of course, I'm massively excited to be going, and the closer I get the more the excitement is outweighing the terror.  We've got our tickets to leave on the 3rd of September and a flat lined up in Glasgow.  I've got my scarf and my sweaters, my boots and my Oxfords.  I'm trying to figure out how to get my favourite umbrella over there.

This is the last month of summer and the last month I'll have here in the States until the middling of December.  I'll be home in time for Christmas.  Mirriam asked what August held for us, and I found myself asking my own self much the same thing.

// clean out my car
// do a massive cleaning of the house (currently in progress)
// get vaccinations to appease the authorities in Britain
// determine how I'm going to amuse myself during the 7-hour lay-over in Newark, NJ
// wrap my niece's present, which will be delivered by proxy in October
// NOT read all the Georgette Heyer books I bought
// continue my diligent work on Gingerune
// do a test-run of packing to make sure I can take everything I want to take
// write a letter to Anna at her new address under her new name (all grown up and savin' China!)
// clean out the fridge so we don't have a biohazard on our hands a month into our absence
// get half-way through Practical Religion, at least
// try not to throw Philip Morville out a window
// find a way to package sunlight so I can take it with me
// finishing reading Plenilune to my husband
// get a whole new website for myself from Bree Holloway Designs!

These are the last days.  I'll be cleaning out my house and putting my soul in readiness.  
"Always you are so glib.""The glibness," he added introspectively, "is a soldier's kind of courage."