I had to make a trip to my local Apple store yesterday, with both kids in tow. They had the day off from school (teacher workday) and Scott took them to an admissions fair in the morning. When I was done with my classes for the day, I rearranged my office hours and met up with him in the parking lot outside his building.

Just like the old days. I like it when that happens; when I find myself slipping back into a routine that had once been so ingrained in me, and so familiar. We don't often have a reason to swap the kid-baton in a parking lot these days, but when we do it still evokes preschool and sippy cups and listening to The Philadelphia Chickens on CD on the way home.

I took the kids to the Apple store with me on our way home. My iPod won't let me play or sync my music library anymore, and I can't figure out why.  I tried to get it fixed on Friday, but despite the fact that I had made an appointment, the store was so crowded, and the genius Apple people so busy, that I had to leave before my appointment, just so I could make it to T.'s carpool line in time.

I told the kids about the set-back on Friday, over dinner. There is little L. likes to talk about more than Apple, and Steve Jobs, and quality control problems. But that night he was distracted, so he listened for a bit and then headed off to the office for his computer time. But yesterday, his belly full of his favorite pizza, he was happy to talk on and on about Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs, apparently, didn't wear deodorant.

He yelled a lot at people.

His biological parents made his adoptive parents sign a document promising they would send him to college.

He dropped out of college, but stayed on campus to take the classes he really wanted to take.

I had some bank problems recently. I have a "writing name" as T. calls it and, after months and months of depositing writing-gig-related checks under that name, my bank decided they they weren't sure who I was exactly, and they sent my checks back. In order to sort the mess out, I had to go into the bank and meet with an actual bank manager person. I get intimidated ahead of time, when I have to meet with people like that. I don't know why, but I always assume they'll be rude to me, or chew me out, or make me feel like an idiot. As it turned out, the bank manager guy was probably a good twenty years younger than I am. He was fresh out of college, and had moved from Ohio to North Carolina for his first ever job. He was also very, very nice. I explained the name mix-up problem and, instead of criticizing me, he was impressed. The other tellers were impressed too.

"I've never met anyone with a writing name," one of them gushed.

We sorted it all out and I left, feeling a renewed faith in bank people. The next time I received a check written out to writing name me, Scott suggested I walk it in, and deposit it in person--just to be safe.

I was in a hurry that afternoon, so I grouched a little. What? Walk it in? That will take forever! I've become addicted to convenience--to pulling up to the drive-through ATM and not having to actually interact with anyone. I stick the check in the envelope. I feed it into the slot, and it's done.

But I walked it in. I took the kids with me, too. There was no one else in the bank at all and the air seemed energized suddenly, when the kids and I walked in. The tellers smiled. The teller who helped me with my deposit that day looked at my check and smiled some more. It's so nice to put a face to the name! she said. I process people's checks all day through the ATM and I never know who they are.

I typed up a whole post yesterday during my morning office hour, then got up abruptly to help a student, returned to my desk and found the page completely cleared. Blank. I couldn't bring the text back with the magical CPR keystrokes that usually work, and so I sat for a few minutes with that numb-but-angry-smoke-is-coming-out-of-my-ears feeling you get when you've lost the entirety of something you just finished working on and your heart is raging against the injustice of it all.

I ran to the video store on Saturday afternoon, on my way home from some last-minute Easter errands. As an aside, the marketing world really punishes those parents (like me) who wait until the day before Easter to buy baskets--I couldn't believe how empty the shelves at our local mega store were, and a few of us parents--the procrastinators, or the too-busy, or those of us who had kids home for Spring Break all last week and, therefore, couldn't go shopping alone at all, wandered in dismay among the empty shelves.

I had great plans for something else to write about for today, but then I spent one hour and 45 minutes at the DMV yesterday, waiting to get my license renewed.

I was going to sit down and try and write a Bag of Tricks post with advice about how to get off-schedule, going-to-bed-late, hyped-up-on-cookies and sweets children back to a routine come Monday, the day when most kids will be heading back to school, and parents back to work. Then I realized that I didn't have much advice to offer--my bag is decidedly empty. We woke up at 9:30 on Saturday (don't hate us--remember, L. didn't start sleeping through the night until he was EIGHT) and one of my first thoughts was how on earth were we going to get up at 6:30 on Monday morning.

Did you have spectacular fall weather like we had this weekend? I spent most of it outdoors, making up for all the sick, couch-ridden days from the weekend before. We raked, finally put away the Halloween decorations (it’s so much easier and exciting to put them up, isn’t it, then to take them down?), and T. and I spent some quality time in the hammock, watching the leaves spiral down from the blue, blue sky. I felt some of my old energy coming back—not all of it yet, but enough to make me feel like myself again, and not some recovering invalid.

L.'s fall break is winding down. On Monday he heads back to school, and we take our deep breaths and cross our fingers, and hope for the best.

I was looking back over my posts recently and I noticed that there's often a pattern to them: a nostalgic, slightly angst-ridden, weightier post, followed by a let-me-roll-my-sleeves-up and bake or cook or produce something tangible and practical to offset life's fragile moments post.

Everywhere you go these days, there are headlines and stories and anecdotes about "living simply"--the fallout from the tanking economy. In our local newspaper the other day, there was a story about how families are foregoing beach vacations and exotic trips, and shying away from buying large and expensive items, because of job layoffs, downsizing, salary cuts, and, it seems, a growing consciousness of the importance of living more simply.