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Now the pace of the year shifts into a new gear -- school is underway and the fall soccer season has started. My youngest had her first club soccer games today in a tournament sponsored by Stanford, in the heat down the peninsula in Los Altos, a wealthy enclave in Silicon Valley.

The team has never played together as a unit -- she and a number of others are newcomers to this level of soccer and to the team, so that half of the players were out there for their first time.

They looked tentative as a group, unsure of their positions or how aggressively to play. They lost both games.

But she seemed happy enough (though tired) afterward as we stopped for a Jamba Juice and then, back home, Chinese food for dinner, which she devoured ravenously.

Other parents commented on how tall she's become over the summer, as she hugged friends who until recently were closer to her in height. The growth spurt continues, it seems, and given her appetite, it probably will for a while longer.

Her brothers are at the Shoreline Amphitheater for the "Rock the Bells" concert this weekend. I dropped them and some friends off at the venue, where they joined other groups of young men and women streaming into the show.

The boys have been excited about going to this together for months. It's nice to see brothers enjoying music together, when in other ways, their tastes diverge so widely.

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The domesticity of this post, focused on parenting and schools and sports and shows reveals what should be obvious -- I don't have an active adult life of my own right now. Outside of work and parenting,there's little action.

Over the past two years, much of the socializing I was trying to do has evaporated, one way or another.

I read a lot. I watch a lot of TV. I cook almost all of my own meals. I clean the place, wash the dishes, do the laundry, and now feed the cat.

But rarely does anyone visit here, and rarely do I go out anywhere.

Part of it is financial pressure...I'm loathe to spend any money I don't have to except on my kids.

Part of it may be age, and a notable lack of energy.

Part of it may be that I've always needed help to organize a social life -- my partners have generally better much better at that than I am.

So this is the way it is, for now, not the way I would have it be, but the way it is.

Very, very quiet, which at least seems to suit the cat, who remains firmly in the closet to date.

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