Ah!  Fall is in the air, finally!  It was down to almost 45 degrees last night on the south shore heralding fall as training camp is just getting under way for the entire NHL.  This morning, I saw a true sign of fall while I was pouring over the grocery store circulars the way others pour over the financial pages.  Hey, considering how my money is spent, the PathMark circular IS my financial section.

 

Four circulars and all of them had that one thing that confirms it is INDEED Fall.  Nabisco MALLOMARS   Not only will we have Hockey to talk about again, but that wondrous old concoction of graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate that for me defines the sublime time between September and November every year since I was kid.  The beauty of turning leaves, a new school year, crisp weather, warm sweaters and early sunsets.  This time is known as the calm before the horror known as “The Holidays.”  I shudder to think…

 

I’m loving life every year from September 5^th to October 18^th.  Five weeks of renewed hope and happiness knowing a new season is starting AND my daughter is back in school.  October 18^th is my boss’s birthday, and I’ve known her for 25 years.  Every year I look at her birthday as the jump off point of  “The countdown to the hell that is Christmas.”  Every year we laugh about it, and every year I go through the same trauma.

 

But for a few weeks I can sit on the back deck with a cup of something warm and three Mallomars and just relax. Sometimes I will read something about the NHL’s new season and listen to the Big Angry Man tell me “It’s still baseball season!  Don’t start!”  But not for me…Baseball playoffs may be in full swing, but my heart and mind are elsewhere.   I circle the date of the home opener and start planning for it.  I write every ticket date on the calendar and start working my social plans around them.

 

So tomorrow it will start. I’ll find the supermarket with the cheapest price and buy myself three boxes of Mallomars.  I’m the only one in the house that eats them, but I still hide them from the rest of the family, just as I did when I was 9, hiding them from my brother.  Inevitably, around February I’ll find a few hidden in the canister marked SALT on the kitchen counter.  Just like a well preserved Twinkie, there’s never anything wrong with it.  The marshmallow doesn’t shrivel, the chocolate doesn’t turn white with age and the cookie is still moist.  What the hell do they put in these things anyway?  I don’t want to know.

 

What I do want to know is when my morning paper will have the word “HOCKEY” in its’ daily TV calendar.  I want to know when I can sit and read about what happened with the team the day before without having to fire up the computer and checking TSN.ca.  I enjoy Hockey with my morning breakfast on the back deck in the cool air for the 20 minutes a day I get for alone-time.

 

So this season, when I sit down at sunrise, or at the end of a long day, with my three Mallomars and steaming, hot cup of ‘whatever’ while my husband is still in baseball mode, I’ll instead look on my laptop to NYITV for coverage of everything Islanders.  While he is thinking about going to another World Series game with his brother, I will be thinking and plotting about going to the home opener with the rest of NYIC.

 

Yep.  It's so close I can taste it.  Think I’d get sick on 18 month old Mallomars? Hmmmm.  Maybe I won’t chance it.  Tomorrow I’ll just buy a few boxes and eat one in the car.  No one will ever know.