Another Pleasantly Disturbed Friday

I posted a Pleasantly Disturbed Friday post last week, and I was pleasantly disturbed enough that I was out of sync. It was supposed to have been today. So I was pleasantly disturbed enough, and I pleasantly disturbed my friend Duane Scott (host for PDF) enough, so I thought I would get back into sync. So here I am. But I'm not sure if I'm in sync or not. Or something. (Yes, even I can tell that I’m pleasantly disturbed.)

The Kindle is going to be my downfall. You can get a lot of books free, or really cheap (like 99 cents and $2.99, prices I haven’t seen attached to books for a very long time).

I’ve been reading Words Made Fresh: Essays on Literature and Culture by Larry Woiwode. This one is the physical book, not the Kindle version. He lives on a farm in North Dakota, is the state’s poet laureate, and he “writes good.”

One of the books sitting on my Kindle right now is Laura Barkat’s Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity and Writing. In addition to the Kindle version, it’s also available in paperback. Once I finish the Woiwode book, I’m jumping into this one.

Two books waiting to read (I’m reviewing both of them): Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies by Joshua Waldman (publishes Sept. 6) and God Breaketh Not All Men’s Hearts Alike: New & Later Collected Poems by Stanley Moss (publishes Oct. 4).

Our weather here in St. Louis set a record on Wednesday – 103 and continued dry. We broke 100 yesterday and still no sign of rain. The people who know about these things say the weather has been good for a bumper apple crop – but nothing else. Our yard looks rather deadish in places. We’re supposed to see some easing of temperatures by Sunday.

Our youngest has left the Midwest and moved from Kansas City to Florida. He thinks beaches, and his mother thinks hurricanes. I reminded her that I lived in Florida when I was younger. I get a stare. “Yes, when you were a year old.” My youngest didn’t know whether I was kidding or not when I told him we’d come and visit during the winter for two or three weeks. He still doesn’t know.

Speaking of family (I’m shameless about these transitions), we had a little visitor last night for a couple of hours. His dad was at a ball game and his mom had a dinner with people from work, so we had – Cameron! He’s approaching 18 months, and he moves at the speed of light. We had a delicious dinner of peach, sweet potatoes (from the jar), carrot wheels, cheerios, and Teddy Grahams, then we hit the Legos, blocks, various and sundry stuffed animals, a toy radio that plays “Picnic Time for Teddy Bears” (his father’s and uncle’s), and old remote controls for the television no longer in use. He aims them at the TV and presses a button. If nothing happens, he frowns – and may throw the remote in the direction of the television set. Just like his father does.

His grandmother took a  picture with her phone. That face has more than a little mischief in it.