Musings & Thoughts for Thursday, July 14, 2022, or: Watching Out for Amazon Packages on a Hot July Afternoon

Hi there, Dear Reader. It is midday in Lithia, Florida, on Thursday, July 14, 2022 (Bastille Day in France and its Overseas Departments). It is a steamy summer day in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, the temperature is 86°F (30°C) under mostly cloudy skies. With humidity at 75% and the wind blowing from the north-northeast at 3 MPH (5 KM/H), the heat index is 95°F (35°C). Today’s forecast calls for thunderstorms to move through the area. The high will be 93°F (34°C). Tonight, scattered rain showers will be around throughout the evening. The low will be 74°F (23°C).

Yesterday the forecast was, as they say in Great Britain, “bang on.” It was hot, and we did have thunderstorm activity, although the storms did not start till late midafternoon. I turned off my computer and sat on the family room couch, comforting our adorable – but elderly – miniature schnauzer Sandy. If there’s one living being in this house who hates thunderstorms more than I do, it’s Sandy. She had anxiety attacks when the boomers are too close for comfort, and often I am the only one who is available to keep her company when this happens.

Happily, I happen to be a “dog person,” so I don’t mind keeping Sandy company in times of inclement weather.

Speaking of dogs….

This morning I received an email from Amazon informing me that my copy of Thomas Wikman’s The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle: Stories and Tips from Thirteen Years with a Leonberger shipped from Haslet, Texas at 9:27 AM local time. As I said in Musings & Thoughts for Tuesday, July 12, 2022, or: Memories, Congressional Hearings, and a Book Recommendation, Thomas is one of my long-time friends from Epinions, a now-closed review-writing site for which I wrote from December 2003 to February 2014. We’ve never met – I’ve only met two of my Epinions buddies in real life – but I knew about Thomas and his Leonburger Bronco through social media way before he started his own WordPress blog, Leonberger Life.

I bought the book for three reasons:

• I’m familiar with his writing and I knew The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle would be a well-written book. Would it be as good as one of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small books? Perhaps, perhaps not, but I have read Thomas’ writing for years, and it is descriptive, easy to get into, and pleasant to read
• I didn’t know Bronco personally – Thomas lives in Texas, a state I’ve never been to – but I felt that I did thanks to Thomas’ Facebook posts. The various anecdotes about Bronco that I read made me a fan of the big pooch; he was definitely a gentle giant
• Thomas was one of the handful of friends who bought my self-published book, Reunion: A Story four summers ago. He even wrote a review on Amazon when he finished reading it. Given that he was kind enough to buy my book in 2018, I could not, in good conscience, sit idly by and not buy his book, knowing how much time and effort he put into The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle: Stories and Tips from Thirteen Years with a Leonberger

Anyhow, I bought the print edition even though I could be reading The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle on my Kindle for PC or my Fire tablet right now. I prefer print editions to ebooks, although at some point I will need to transition to digital since I’m not exactly in my own house and my room is not the biggest here. My copy arrives, according to Amazon, tomorrow, so stay tuned to this space for updates and a book review.

I also have a book arriving today – it is marked “Out for Delivery” as I write this – from Amazon. It’s a new Star Wars novel, Mike Chen’s Brotherhood. Set immediately after the events of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, this is a Prequel Era story that focuses on the early days of Anakin Skywalker as a Jedi Knight and his first missions with his former Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi. I read part of the preview on the book’s Amazon page, and it looks pretty good.

Aside from that, I don’t have anything to report. It’s getting hotter outside – my Weather app says it’s mostly sunny outside and the temperature increased a bit to 90°F (32°C) since I started writing this post.  I should go take a shower and change into clean clothes before the storms brew up, then see what I can grab for lunch.

On that note, Dear Reader, I will sign off for the day. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.