Greetings, my fellow port swillers!

Ol’ Robbo is thumb-posting from the back porch of Port Swiller Manor this evening, the better to enjoy the lovely thunderstorm that just rolled through (well, is still rolling, in fact), after several infuriating days of near misses. It’s about damn time we got even a spot of temporary relief from the wretched Dog Days pattern we’ve been in over the past couple weeks. The only thing that keeps Ol’ Robbo going at this time of year is the knowledge that we can expect the first legitimate pre-fall cool front some time in the first or second week of September. Otherwise, I’d have no real choice but to grab a machete and run amok.

(* Name the singer. This should be a gimme.)

Anyhoo, as regular friends of the decanter know, this weekend is the big college drop off for the Eldest Gel, an event I am finding myself approaching with an admixture of relief, apprehension, disbelief, and denial.

Part of the disbelief is over the speed with which her high school years seem to have flown by after what was an agonizingly long younger period. How does one account for that? It can’t just be the kid’s personality or one ‘s relationship with them, since I’m getting the same feeling with the Middle Gel, who will be a HS junior, as well as the Youngest, who will be a freshman, and they are all wildly different from each other. The phenomenon is much more tectonic than that.

Perhaps I’m just really finally beginning to feel my own advancing age.

Whatever. Fortunately (or not), we seem to have got caught up in the last-second “What do I pack and what have we forgotten and What the Hell is going on?” Boogaloo for me to spend TOO much time over early middle aged navel-gazing. Next few days should prove veeeery interesting! More as events unfold.