Musings & Thoughts for Monday, August 28, 2023, or: Wrapping Up the Weekend Report, and Starting the New Workweek with Positivity

Late Morning/Midday, Monday, August 28, 2023, Lithia, Florida

“The awfulness of Monday mornings is the world’s greatest common denominator. To the millionaire and the coolie it is the same, because there can be nothing worse.” ― Kenneth Fearing, The Big Clock

Hi, everyone!

Well, here we are, greeting – in my case, anyway – another Monday, another start of a working week.

This is, of course, the Monday in August. It’s also the last Monday of meteorological summer (which has a different start/end date from traditional or “astronomical” summer); meteorological fall begins on September 1, which falls on this coming Friday. As such, it is unbearably hot outside, and also a bit emotionally tense thanks to the presence of Tropical Storm Idalia out in the Gulf of Mexico.

As I begin this, my 1,242^nd  post on A Certain Point of View, Too, the temperature outside is 88°F/31°C under partly sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the southeast at 5 MPH/8 KMH and humidity at 64%, the feels-like temperature is 99°F/37°C. The forecast for the Tampa Bay area calls for partly sunny skies and a high of 93°F/33°C, with a 24% chance of rain or thunderstorms.

We are also currently keeping a close eye on Tropical Storm Idalia, which formed yesterday and is still quite a ways from the west coast of Florida as of press time.

Here’s the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center in Miami:

032

WTNT25 KNHC 281456

TCMAT5

TROPICAL STORM IDALIA FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER   8

NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL       AL102023

1500 UTC MON AUG 28 2023

NOTICE… LAND-BASED TROPICAL CYCLONE WATCHES AND WARNINGS ARE NO

LONGER INCLUDED IN THE TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST/ADVISORY…(TCM).

CURRENT LAND-BASED COASTAL WATCHES AND WARNINGS CAN BE FOUND IN THE

MOST RECENTLY ISSUED TROPICAL CYCLONE PUBLIC ADVISORY…(TCP).

TROPICAL STORM CENTER LOCATED NEAR 20.8N  85.2W AT 28/1500Z

POSITION ACCURATE WITHIN  20 NM

Although the latest forecast track shows the storm hitting Florida’s Gulf Coast in the “Big Bend” area near Apalachicola Bay on Wednesday, the “Cone of Uncertainty” does not rule out a strike by then-Hurricane Idalia nearer to the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area. I certainly hope it sticks to its present path, though. It’s still too hot in this part of the subtropics, and I don’t want to be without electricity, air conditioning, or Internet service for any length of time!

 

Weekend Update, Part the Third

My Sunday was, to put it succinctly, unsurprisingly similar to the previous Sunday, the Sunday before that, and the Sunday before that. It was hot, a bit rainy late in the afternoon, and uneventful.

I didn’t do much gaming – unless you count playing a couple of games of Solitaire (Klondike and Spider) “gaming” – yesterday. I did think about playing Regiments for a while, but I decided to take a brief hiatus from that war game even though – in this Summer of ’23 – it is my favorite computer game, hands down. (I still must write a review of it, too. Maybe tomorrow – I have not reviewed anything in a while!)

I did some reading, but not in long spells of sitting on a comfy couch and reading more than one chapter in one session.

I also watched something out in the family room on the big TV there, but it wasn’t a feature film. I ended up choosing the first part of Hemingway, the Ken Burns documentary that aired on PBS a few seasons back. Had I started earlier last night, I might have watched the entire episode, but I got drowsy by the time the documentary got to Ernest Hemingway’s marriage to his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and their life in 1920s Paris.

Action This Day/On Writing & Storytelling

Well, it’s Monday, which means it’s a workday for me, which also means I’ll be working on Reunion: Coda’s manuscript after my mandatory rest break. I am running a bit behind schedule because not only did I wake up a bit later than usual, but I’m also a slow typist, so writing this blog post has affected my schedule just a tad. (Thank goodness I work from home and answer to no one but me, but I’m still a bit annoyed that I’m running behind my own set break and start-work times.)

I have, happily, resolved the question about what Scene Three in Chapter 11 is going to be about, but since I’m still a bit foggy-minded now, I don’t know if I’ll write it first as a screenplay scene on Movie Magic 6 and then do a “novelization,”  or write it straight into the Scratch Sheet for Reunion: Coda. Either way, I will do some writing, but I am still a bit sleepy. It’s as if I’d taken a sleep aid and I still were feeling the effects of it five or so hours after I woke up. I did not; I don’t have any pills or even Nyquil here, but I do remember how I used to feel when I’d have to take mild sedatives to be able to sleep when I was my mother’s primary caregiver.

In other writing-related news, I got word this morning that one of the friends I made when I participated in the Semester in Spain program in Sevilla back in 1988, Lisa Dolan, received her copy of Reunion: A Story earlier today. She sent me a message via Instagram with a picture of herself holding up the paperback edition of the novella and said she’s looking forward to reading it.

And speaking of Reunion, my buddy in New York City, actor-director Juan Carlos Hernandez, is working on a trailer for the novella, complete with visuals, music, and a voiceover narration. It’s not going to be a long teaser, but it should be good, based on how talented and hard-working my friend Juan is.

Anyway, that’s all the news I have to share right now, so I’ll close here. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny – and hopefully hurricane-free – side of things.