A year in the life

In what may be the surest sign that summer is finally over, winter squash have started arriving at the farmers market. Early morning vegetable shoppers, pushing their children along in oversized strollers, eye the small. jaundiced acorn squash with a suspicious sort of distrust, as if these sad misshapen gourds are unwelcome interlopers at a summer party.

I myself am avoiding the fall produce in my own very charming version of total denial. If it were the end of summer (which it isn't), this will have been the end of my first full year here (which, I mean, it can't be, can it?). My bags are full of all the pea shoots and zucchinis I can find, and I'm freezing tomato sauce tonight in the hopes that the winter might not seem so bad.

I'm still waiting for the moment when everything doesn't feel so new anymore. It seems as though, after a year, I should be more settled here. My apartment should have been fully furnished by now -- I shouldn't still be sleeping on the same ratty old mattress I schlepped across the country into my new empty home. I should have visited more of the cities around here, and I should know the freeways better than I do.

Here is what I have learned after a year in the midwest, out here on the tundra.

1. Everybody is friendlier after a beer or two.

2. Cheese curds are actually supposed to squeak like that.

3. Football is very very important.

I'll get it one of these days, y'all. I'll get it.