Early Afternoon, Sunday, August 20, 2023, Lithia, Florida
Hi, everyone. Well, it’s another hot and muggy day in the Tampa Bay area. As I begin writing this, the temperature is 89°F/32°C under mostly sunny conditions. With humidity at a sticky 63% and a somewhat brisker than usual easterly breeze – a land breeze in this part of Florida – blowing at 11 MPH/17 KMH, it’s “cooler” than usual but the feels-like is still 95°F/36°C. Today’s forecast calls for scattered rain showers and a high of 89°F/32°C.
Trouble in the Tropics!
Until recently, the Atlantic hurricane season was relatively quiet. Now, though, the National Hurricane Center in Miami is tracking five systems – one named storm, Emily, Tropical Depression (TD) Six, and three strong waves that have the potential to become depressions and/or named storms.
Edited to Add: Tropical Depression is now Tropical Storm Franklin.
Now, I’ve lived in Florida for over 50 years – nearly 54 years in all – most of them either in South Florida or here in the TBA. So, I am no stranger to either tropical storms or hurricanes, and in most cases where such storms have struck either Miami-Dade or Hillsborough Counties, the consequences of such storms have been unsettling but not life-changing in a major way. (The worst storm, damage-wise, was Hurricane Wilma in 2005. That sucker blew away a huge chunk of our townhouse’s roof and did some interior damage to the attic and second-floor bedrooms due to flooding.)
When it comes to “surviving” storms in the Atlantic Hurricane Season, I’ve been lucky. I’ve experienced sheer terror on at least three occasions – Andrew, the “mild” incarnation of Katrina, and Wilma – but have never been physically hurt. And I’ve been extremely fortunate to not have seen broken windows or fallen trees in any of the properties I’ve lived in, either back “home” in Miami or here on the Gulf Coast. (I did lose some of my most valuable Star Wars collectibles, including the Imperial Shuttle from Kenner’s Return of the Jedi line, which was one of the last items I bought before I started college back in 1985, but that’s another story.)
Still, the decades-long trend of increasing temperatures in the summer and the related rise in the number of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic have made me weary of life in the Sunshine State. I’m not as young as I once was, and as I’ve aged, I’ve become less heat tolerant than I was as recently as the late 2000s and early 2010s. That’s why I don’t go out for walks in the summer even though I need to get some exercise, sunshine, and fresh air. And that’s why I sometimes wish I didn’t live in Florida.
So, yeah…all that tropical activity out at sea is making me a bit nervous, you know?
Weekend Update, Part the Second
As expected, my Saturday afternoon and evening were, shall we say, uneventful and a bit relaxing. To my credit (and sorrow), I did not work on Reunion: Coda at all yesterday.
A small part of me – the one that is still upset over a thoughtless remark about my not being a “real writer” – wanted to at least add a few hundred words to Chapter 11’s second scene to make up for “stormy Friday” and to at least keep alive hope of finishing the first draft by mid-September.
Most of me, however, understands that I am a human being, not a machine, and an aging one at that. Even veteran bestselling authors don’t write 24/7 – I know Stephen King certainly does not – and have active “real lives” that aren’t exclusively spent writing. Their routines vary, of course, but I don’t believe that many successful authors spend as much time as I do at their desks, typing away for hours on end.
Yesterday, for instance, my eyes were so strained that when I wrote Musings & Thoughts for Saturday, August 19, 2023, or: Weekend Update, Part the First, I had to magnify the text size from 100% to 175% just to see what I was typing. And since I woke up at my usual “between 7 and 8 AM” rise and shine hour, I wasn’t exactly as well-rested as I should be on a weekend.
So, I spent much of my post-blogging afternoon not working on my novel. I listened to music, watched Episode 6 of Ken Burn and Lynn Novick’s The Vietnam War, gamed, and ordered food from Pizza Hut. (I would have preferred to make scrambled eggs and toast, but I am not comfortable with gas stoves, so I got enough food for last night and tonight from “the Hut.”)
I went to bed way after midnight…I don’t know when I fell asleep, but it must have been well past one in the morning. My internal body clock doesn’t permit me to sleep past a certain time in the morning, so I was up this morning and making coffee before 8 AM.
I was surprised to see that Spring in the Village of Crickets was uploaded to YouTube last night; I knew its release was imminent (I mean, I am the associate producer and I exchange emails with Juan almost daily so…), but I didn’t expect the short film to be “up” so soon. So…that was a nice thing to see when I went to YouTube to see what music videos I wanted to listen to as I wrote my blog post of the day.
Well, it’s almost 2 PM as I write these lines (I’m not the world’s fastest typist), so I should close this one and post it on A Certain Point of View, Too. So, until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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