Fall is back and life is cool again

By Nathaniel Woodward

Fall is finally starting to happen up here in the Pacific Northwest and it could not have come soon enough.
For some reason well beyond my understanding a good amount of folks up here don’t believe in or understand the God-given principle of air-conditioning, which makes the townhouse we rent slightly… uninhabitable for the majority of the summer. This worked out well this year as we spent a big chunk of the hotter months either away or outside, but as August came around and summer began to wind down necessity demanded that we spring for one of those little window-mounted AC units, which as fate normally dictates didn’t fit in the kid’s window where it was to be installed.
Yet, thanks to a youth spent watching Macgyver re-runs I somehow made it adhere to the weird Soviet-Era measurements of their window frame. Now the kids enjoy cool afternoons and comfortable nights.
Notice I said the kids, my wife and I still had to slog through the output of that nuclear bomb fueled ball of flame and despair which our planet orbits for the rest of the summer but at least the little ones didn’t have to wake up in reservoirs of their own sweat.
However, and I’m happy to report, the rains have returned to Oregon and the leaves are beginning to turn and fall to the delight of both Oregonians and the seasonal yuppies who visit from California to come see them.
Frankly though, who am I to judge?
In the dictionary next to the word “Yuppy” there is a picture of me in crocs and jean shorts nursing a bad sunburn and giving the obligatory thumbs up summer-dad gesture.
As I sit writing this I’m looking out of the third-floor window of my university’s law library into a canopy of green, yellow, orange, and red as the rain falls gently against the windows and I feel like there is very little I have to complain about at this exact moment.
Sure there is plenty of nonsense and outright corruption going on nationally, especially in Washington, D.C. but here in my secluded corner while I study an incredibly boring book on medical malpractice law I can’t help but feel a good deal of contentment and happiness, which is a pretty big deal for a grouchy curmudgeon like me.
My oldest is back in school and doing well, my youngest is having his run of the house during the day and finding endless enjoyment attacking his sister as she comes home.
I’m only a few very short months away from the midpoint in my legal studies on my way to taking the bar exam.
So all-in-all things are going great, which doesn’t mean I’m not going to immediately find something to complain and write about, hey, I’m still me after all.