Shedding

The sun went down on another summer today. It was right around 7:00pm, the sun vanishing over the mountain across the valley.

Just like that, Summer 2005 is over. Time to go shopping for clothes and get up too-early to wait for a bus to go a school that smells like floor wax and shellac and that stuff they put on the floor to soak up vomit.

Am I the only one who ever noticed that stuff seemed to be the same stuff that was in the pencil sharpener when it was full?

I haven't started school at this time of year in twenty-four years. More years than I ever did that ritual.

Aren't you bursting with butterflies
On the fourth of September
You've got to get on the bus
With your tartan dress
And your lunchbox.
The Innocence Mission, "Beginning The World," 1989

I brushed Fred tonight.

There's more to it than that... in my lame attempts to meet people, I have taken to making a weekly trip to the Petco in Ellicott City after work. The optimist in me says there'll be some smart, attractive woman my age stopping by to pick up catfud and maybe some treats, and we'll strike up a conversation about the merits of IAMS and why some cats don't seem to care about catnip.

Instead, I usually pick up something for my cats, play with the kittens up near the front of the store, and step around the teenagers who are restocking the dog food and arranging the fish supplies.

This most recent trip, I came away with two specialized brushes, one designed to brush cat guts and deal with the fine fur thereon, and the other designed to cut through mats in fur and pull them out gently. It's called a "dematting comb," sensibly enough, and in the right hands, it is a fearsome tool, indeed. Within ten minutes, my brushing of Fred with this miracle produced a pile of excess Fred fur larger than Fred himself. Fred wasn't sure what to make of it, but he is now several ounces lighter and I know I'm not even half done. Fred's been growing fur all summer and not really grooming himself. He's too low-key for that.

He's a Fred. Freds are like that.

I brush Fred and take his summer off and throw it into the trash bag in the hall.

I don't have much of a summer to shed.