[Beets from the farm, with local butter, September 2008.]
So in early September I went to Maine. I took a 6 a.m. flight from San Francisco by way of New York, and landed up in Portland only a little off-schedule. It was warm enough — most welcome, after the omnipresent coastal fog of home [...]

Dearest Jessiac,
Today is your birthday and you are 30 years young (don’t worry, I’ll be joining you at this milestone in just 10 days)! I hope your day is full of good friends, a few things in the mail (if the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t let me down), and a renewed sense of optimism [...]

[On Seawall beach, Maine, September 2008.]
For all my ardently proclaimed love of fall, I must recant a little and admit I’m having a few pangs at the season’s shift. Mostly I think I’m not looking forward to the time change (running in the dark! less sun during the day!), the end of good tomatoes [...]

[From the farmers' market, September 2008.]
Fall is: 90-degree Saturdays in Sebastopol; Sunday afternoons in the backyard with lemonade and cookies, the perfect grilled cheese for lunch; a change in the air that foreshadows the cooler days to come, even though it’s still hot; cappellini and tomatoes for dinner, with a pick-me-up salad; roasted cauliflower; not [...]

[Simos and Lena's wedding cookies, September 2008.]
I’m home. That whooooooosh you might have heard was my sigh of relief at surviving hours on the runway at JFK (and at the Rochester International Airport, where I had the joy of boarding, then waiting, then deplaning, then waiting some more, and then finally reboarding whilst fretting [...]