Friday the 3rd would be a hot one, and my first official Friday holiday before Labor Day in years as my employer had been celebrating the state joining the fold the preceding Monday during that time. My birthday at this time of year may have given me my taste in certain beverages: bitter but with enough celebration to be appetizing.

One thing that has remained, now the back to school feeling has receded into a mood not of nostalgia but of an appetite for description of events as grist for my journalizing, is that people are often not around. Such was the case; I hadn't finished the combination for my bike lock when a regular came out of the fitness place and announced the fitness class I take was canceled, no teacher. Well, at least I was on the bike and the front tire was soft. Not the same as riding faster or longer or up a hill, though.

On my way back I started my next project. There would be people at work but with the kibosh on most overtime now I was---on holiday. When I supervised a year-round school even my most troublesome never missed the chance to overlay the Admissions work day with eight hours overtime. My supreme colleague had suggested if I wanted I could bring in something and in early afternoon we could do lunch there. She'd mentioned macaroni salad so I picked up that and cole slaw. Later in my vehicle and civvies mode I redeemed a fish and chips coupon, doubled back, and it was a fine occasion since we used the classroom and not her office.

I rounded up plates and utensils for a lazy Susan setup, maybe lazy but sans Suzy, and laid them out in a flash. "You're good at that!" she chuckled. "I get practice every weekend," said I, referring to part of my parental regimen. It elicited a laugh out of Dad the next day, and the onetime keeper of countless old jokes seems to have a lot less of them this last decade.

Later that evening I was in a part of my area I don't visit as much and dropped in on a park where, at the pool the final non-school Friday of summer, the youth aquatics programs would have a picnic and one could see spectacles such as the attempted drowning of certain coaches and life guards.

But alas, this location had succumbed to the general not so celebratory State malaise that had rendered a few hours overtime to tidy up a no-no, as had some others. Here elementary schools had another week off but most of the once teeming and now sparsely populated through the summer concrete ponds were already drained. Obviously there was no party. There was a commercial awhile ago depicting sad and happy faces on vehicles and appliances. But on this still hot evening the pool area gave off a gray acephalous stare, sunk into a gloom not suggestive of summer heat, while in the modestly lit foreground there were a pair of families in the sand box and some folks on the ball field.

After some shopping I don't have in my area I was seeking the freeway home and passed the outward corner of a very large high school in my employer's system. Various advertising banners (dis?)graced the link fence at the corner and one of them was for---a psychic. And a nice clean banner it was. As clear as the thermal mauve and orange glow over the good life hillside homes nearby but not so clear was a roiling future seeping in to push out the 2010 Season Of Less Mind.