A sense of melancholy arrives with August. Not because of the looming end of the growing season (since August is a month full of produce -- anticipated all year). Not because closing the pool is on the horizon. No, it's those back-to-school ads. From childhood I remember the annual August assault, although my feature that some say is a bug has kicked in* and I can't remember the specific retailers. (My heart is thumping with pride over the alliteration of that sentence.) I do remember the products in this instance -- school supplies and school clothes.

I haven't heard the ads for 2012 on the radio (I don't listen to the radio) or on television (I don't watch programs with commercials). This morning I received an email from a retailer I do remember (and often patronize)...amazon: "Back to school: Dorm and K-12 essentials."

The television and radio versions that I remember from childhood were a repetitious bombardment. Amazon emails don't annoy me in the same way, but the melancholy isn't caused by the tiresome nature of the ads anyway. No, it is the reminder of going back to school, the dread that evoked even for a good student.  Funny that I have chosen to live my adult life on the school schedule, with the workload of semester's end and depressing countdown to the first day of classes every academic year.

That surely seems lame when the charms of the schedule -- a winter break and a long, leisurely summer -- more than makes up for sleepless December and May and bittersweet August.

This morning's view from the kitchen window

*I can't perceive in any way -- hear, see or remember advertisemens unless they feature a cute animal and even then I don't usually remember the product or retailer afterwards.