Labor Day

Or the day before. I always find it odd that we celebrate the rise of organized labor in this country by having a collective lie-down — or maybe that’s not odd at all. In any event, we went into the weekend with no plans whatsoever and have so far lived up to that. Yesterday there was a bustle of cleaning, the culmination of a week-long effort to get Rebekah’s room organized. As the only member of this family with a significant closet and recessed shelves in her room, there’s really no excuse for the fact that most nights we can’t walk from the bed to the window without embedding some piece of Polly Pockets in our feet. So, random cleaning in the morning, and I took a great ride in the afternoon. It’s odd how my ride routes have changed — for the past two years, it was all about Schodack and Kinderhook, country roads, the smell of buffalo manure, amber waves of whatever it is they grow out there. Lovely, easy, smooth country rides. This year, for reasons unclear to me, I have preferred city rides, despite the red lights and cars and unclipping of shoes, and so I’ve been riding up to Troy and Cohoes and Waterford, looking out at the rivers. Quite nice. I still haven’t climbed the Helderberg escarpment — both times I’ve tried this summer I came up short because I wasn’t quite up to a five-mile climb. So I’d like to do that before the fall is out. (I have been cheating a little bit by driving over to Five Rivers, so I don’t have to go through some of the least bikeable neighborhoods in Albany — but with gas prices what they are, transporting my bike does seem like a waste.) In general, I’ve had a much less bike-obsessed summer than the last couple — I enjoy it just as much, but don’t feel the compulsion as strongly, which I think is a good thing.

So, what’s left for the summer? The girls are clamoring for a fair. I actually went out to the State Fair earlier this week, but don’t want to make the long drive again, so perhaps we’ll run down to Chatham for the Columbia County Fair. Although the State Fair is second to none for freak-watching (and you should have seen the crowd that was coming in for the Alice Cooper/Cheap Trick double-bill), all a fair really needs is some cows, pigs, chickens and a midway, right?