Fall's almost here, but it never really left either

The summer’s gone, just as fast as you can say “jackrabbit”. All you hear now is back-to-school: sales, registration, preparation, lunches and backpacks. If you have kids, you know the drill.

It’s hard to believe the summer slipped away so easily. A lot of people are saying we really didn’t have a summer this year; yeah, it showed up on the calendar, but the weather never cooperated. Those lazy, hazy days never arrived.

Rain and overcast skies dominated and last Wednesday gave us a real taste of what’s pending in the not-too-distant future. It was overcast, cool and felt so like fall it stood as a grim reminder the best part of our warm season is pretty much gone.

Sure, we’ll have nice days as the summer winds down, but the meat is pretty much off the bone otherwise. Many around here predict an early fall and a long winter.

I’m trying not to overreact, but it’s tough. Especially when, in some ways, fall activities simply spilled over into summer and persisted like a cold that just wouldn’t go away.

Our daughter loves to dance and she has taken ballet for two years now. This fall, she will broaden her horizon and add jazz to the repertoire. That’s all good and I’m not complaining. It’s great exercise and she has so much affection for dance that it’ll be fun to see her grow this way personally and athletically. Bring it on!

However, she’s fond also of the show ‘So You Think You Can Dance’, which recently concluded its run in the U.S. and will ramp up soon with a Canadian version.

She couldn’t wait to see the program on weekends via reruns and took great delight in showcasing some of the various moves whenever the spirit so moved her: on sidewalks, in the mall, in the living room, at the dinner table.

Nearly every morning while it was on, she’d call me to her room at the usual waking time of about 6 a.m. I’d lumber in, thinking initially (and later hoping) that sleep was on the agenda, but fat chance of that.

Instead, she’d wait until I was supine and very nearly settled in and snoring before announcing it was time for another episode of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. At six bells, no less: not only was I a judge, I was show host Cat Deeley, introducing the latest act with the requisite panache.

Dance is a wonderful thing, but at this point in my life, sleep trumps it by a country mile. I need plenty of shuteye and it’s extremely difficult to adjudicate an impromptu dance routine when your eyes are rolling back into your head and you can’t keep your head off the pillow.

It made no difference to her, though. She’d finish and nudge me: “Well? What do you think? Do I get to move on to next week?”

It was a no-brainer, of course. She won the whole darn thing and I applauded all the way.

A lot of people say fall doesn’t really kick in until we get past Labour Day, but that’s a fiction in our household. In fact, the seasons blend at our kids’ beckoning and my wife and I are merely spectators to this incredible phenomenon.

Of course, we will engage in all the usual back-to-school rituals shortly, but it’s possible the summer whizzed by so quickly simply because some of the regular routines never stopped. One thing necessarily led to another and it was positive activity bred by a love of dance. In the end, I wouldn’t have it any other way.