What's in the Basket?

 I can't be sure if the flags were representative of the various nations that this years' crop of freshmen to Harvey Mudd College, or just a reflection of the international flavor of the student body in general. Either way it was a cool backdrop to the morning ride. Anyway, i sort of knew it was welcome weekend (i believe tomorrow is the "freshman run" or, maybe, since there will be more than one running it should be "freshmen run.") At the same time, i also sort of did not know it was welcome weekend and, as i took my usual winding way through the campuses i found myself dodging car doors as harried parents dropped off the young'uns outside their homes away from homes for the next few months, sliced through the line of folks waiting to get their In-and-Out lunches, managed to keep dry by avoiding the streams of water from multiple super-soakers, swerved around congregated cliques of student athletes, and others calling home to let mom know, "I made it, I'm here, and it is awesome!" 

Actually, almost none of that happened in quite that way. Sure, I did ride under the In-and-Out easy-ups, but there were no lines yet formed, parents were helping the kiddos haul their belongings to the new digs, others were being escorted around by student ambassadors, and there were clusters of students saying hello again to friends they perhaps had not seen since May. 

In many ways it makes more sense to mark the seasons according to the school year. It ought to be busier than usual for the next week or so and, like today, I might be inclined to find a round-about way back home, but then as always happens a normalcy will return, along with the weekend athletics, the music, the lectures, and all that accompanies a new school year in a college town like this. I'm ready.

In the basket today - some peaches and nectarines, cut flowers, some succulents to be potted up, and a birthday present - a rather small haul as such things go.