Never mind the equinox - August 31 always feels like the last day of summer. It's time for school to start, for foggy mornings and earlier darkness, and a rush of family birthdays and anniversaries.
In ordinary years, some of our best weather arrives in September. This year we have had almost nothing BUT good weather, since May. If next summer is anything like this one, people who sell air-conditioning equipment will make a fortune.
City of Seattle public libraries are closed from today until September 8, for budgetary reasons. No book drops, on-line catalog - or library fines for anything that was due this week.
Last Friday, in search of escapist reading (I'm interested mostly in escapist reading at the moment) I ventured into the central downtown library, our Rem Koolhaas-designed showplace. ("A waste of good steel," according to the metal workers in the family, but spectacular nonetheless.)
The library's huge interior spaces are soothing in a way I did not expect. Normal noise and hubbub from numbers of people engaged in customary library activities just rises up to the high cantilevered ceilings - and dissipates to whispers. There are thousands of books on shelves, and enough space for thousands more, a reassuring feeling.
A few months ago, I had planned to be on my way to Transylvania this week, but it's a trip that will have to wait. Fortunately, someone else from the partner church group is able to attend the international Unitarian-Universalist conference in Kolozsvàr this week, so we'll get a first-hand report when she returns.
We'll also get a report on life in the partner village, where the minister since 1997 is leaving, and we don't yet know when someone new will be appointed to the pulpit. At the end of the conference, a whole group of American attendees will journey to Torockószentgyörgy for a festive dinner in the new pension (one of the many changes to happen in the village since I first visited in 2001.)
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